Trent’s description of the trail as steep and rough was rather an understatement, and as they made their way deeper into the park, Christophe wished his boots had sturdier soles. Although he had vast experience navigating forest tracks, that experience was with four feet, not two.
The ground was muddy in spots from recent rain, but the going wasn’t impossible. Since the evening was fair, they passed other hikers occasionally, some of whom gave them odd looks, although they seemed more focused on Christophe’s inappropriate hiking clothing than on the fact that he and Trent were holding hands, despite the narrow path.
Trent slowed down when they came to a small clearing where their trail intersected with another one—the left-hand fork heading up into the hills, the right-hand one following the creek. At the back of the clearing, abutting the hillside, stood a derelict two-story stone building, roofless, mossy, and defaced with graffiti on most of its intact walls.
Trent clutched Christophe’s hand more tightly. “Funny. The first time I saw this place, I said I’d expected it to be bigger. Since then, though, it’s gotten so enormous in my memory that it’s a shock at how small it really is.”
“What is this place?”
“Its nickname, at least in paranormal circles, is the Witch’s Castle.”
Christophe raised his eyebrows. “A witch lived here?”
“Nah. The WPA built it sometime in the thirties. I think it was a rest station or a john or something. But this area, a lot of Forest Park for that matter, was originally the homestead of Danford Balch, the first man legally hanged in Oregon.”
“You are a student of local history, then?”
“No. I’m the moron who got so carried away by a ghost story that he— Well, never mind.” Trent squared his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get closer.”
Trent stayed glued to Christophe’s side. When they were halfway across the clearing, a head with flyaway blond hair popped up over the wall on the upper level.
Trent backpedaled. “Jesus fuck.”
“Easy, cher. It is only a little girl.”
“Welcome to the Stone House,” the child piped. “Welcome to the Stone House.”
“Annie, sit down and drink your juice,” a woman’s exasperated voice rose from behind the wall.
Trent returned to Christophe’s side. “Guess it’s not responsible parenting to tell your kid you’re having a picnic at the Witch’s Castle. Not unless you’re into tough love and aversion therapy.”
“I imagine it would depend on the child. For some, particularly teenaged boys, I suspect the notion would be an incentive rather than a deterrent.”
Trent barked a laugh. “You got that right. Jesus, do you ever. Come on.” He led Christophe into a shallow alcove on the first floor, under where the hidden family continued their meal. He glanced at Christophe’s trousers and grimaced. “Shit. If you sit down, you’ll ruin your pants. Here.” He stripped off his sweatshirt and spread it on the ground. “Sit on this.”
“You don’t need to do that. You’ll get cold.”
“No, I won’t. I’m planning to wear you.”
Christophe raised an eyebrow. “We’re hardly alone.”
As he’d hoped, Trent grinned. “Mind out of the gutter, Clavret. Sit. I’m using you as a backrest.”
Christophe sat on the sweatshirt, the cold cement of the floor seeping through to chill his arse. Trent sat in front of him, between his legs. Christophe settled him against his chest. “Are you comfortable, cher?”
“Yeah. I—I’m actually okay at the moment.”
“Excellent.”
Trent’s hand closed on Christophe’s knee. “Not quite, but—” He swallowed audibly. “Okay. Here goes. Seven years ago last October, Logan and I sneaked into the park after hours.”
“Was this one of those so-famous fraternity pranks?”
“You mean hazing? Nah. Neither of us were in a frat anyway. I’d just lost the lead in a play, and Logan was trying to cheer me up. Back then, I was totally into legend tripping.”
“Legend tripping?” Christophe shifted uneasily against the rough stones. “What is that?”
“You visit the site of some urban legend or paranormal event, and try to re-create it. It’s about the adventure, the thrill and chills. Cemeteries were very big with my legend-tripping group.”
“Indeed.”
“Yeah. Nuts, right? Anyway, Logan knew about this ghost war, a feud between Balch’s family and the Stumps, the family of his son-in-law, the guy he murdered in front of practically the whole town.”
“Jesu.”
“No shit. But as it happens, this legend was true. We saw the ghost war.” Trent began to tremble, and Christophe wrapped his arms around him. “In fact, I joined it.”
“You what?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what Logan said. He tried to stop me, but I was so into it, you know?”
“Trent—”
“How many days are there in seven years?”
“I did not realize our hike came with a mathematics test.”
“That’s how many times I’ve been hanged. How many times I’ve died. I took Danford Balch’s place in the ghost war, and I was stuck there for seven fucking years. I’d still be there if Logan and the Haunted to the Max people hadn’t sprung me from the Phantom Zone.”
“Are you saying—”
Trent twisted in his arms, his glare accusatory. “You promised you’d believe me.”
“Easy, cher.” Christophe kissed his forehead. “I am only trying to understand. So when you say you are either nineteen or twenty-six—”
“It’s because I’ve been hanging out in limbo for seven years. How do you count that time? I don’t look any different, but sometimes I feel older than dirt. And twice as lonely.”
“Who else knows of this?”
“Logan, of course. Riley too. I guess he’s the one who figured out how to spring me, but they had help from others, including the ex-ghost of Danford Balch, although apparently he was a tough sell. Have you really never watched the show?”
“No. Perhaps I should. I seem to be woefully uninformed.”
“Hell, I wish I was. I checked into a private psych-treatment center to try and deal with it, you know? But it’s not like I could tell them the truth. They’d have locked me up faster than you could say schizophrenic, and I’d have spent the rest of my days in a rubber room or drugged to the gills.” He leaned his head on Christophe’s shoulder. “And sometimes, that sounds like a fucking awesome idea.”
“Wouldn’t anyone who watched the episode know the story?”
“Mostly, but they kept my name out of it. My father insisted.” Trent sighed. “Remember I told you my father wasn’t cool with me coming out? Well when I disappeared, he had a PR field day. He got to play the bereaved father, offered a reward, the whole nine. Parading his fake grief on the news for as long as he could milk it.”
“Shite.”
“Then I showed up again. He can hardly disown me after making such a huge stink about wanting his dear son back. He’s fucked himself good, and now he’s doing his level best to fuck me too.”
“How so?”
“When they declared me dead, the trust fund my grandfather set up for me reverted to my father. It should have come to me when I turned twenty-five, but I was busy getting hanged on my birthday, so that didn’t happen.”
“Trent—”
“Now he’s trying to prove I engineered my own disappearance to extort money from him, because of teenage rebellion or some shit.”
“Surely you have legal recourse—”
“The lawyer’s my father’s golf buddy. You tell me how this is gonna shake down.”
Christophe’s arms tightened, holding Trent closer. “You don’t need to face them alone. I have access to a stable of excellent lawyers. We’ll take your father to court—”
“Well, well, well.” A shadow fell across their feet. “Mr. Pielmeyer and Mr. Con— Oh.”
An extremely large African American man, dappled sunlight gleaming on the smooth skin of his head, blinked at them, his bewildered expression completely at odds with his aggressive stance.
Whoever he was, he’d given Christophe the gift of Trent’s surname—Pielmeyer—so Christophe was inclined to feel charitable toward him.
It seemed Trent, however, was not. He scrambled to his feet. “Bishop. Shit, dude, are you stalking me?”
Bishop recovered his composure quickly, tucking his hands in his pants pockets in a way that would have made Christophe’s tailor clutch his hair in outrage. “If I were, it wouldn’t be difficult. You’re not great at covering your tracks.” He leaned against the wall. “But in this case, no. It’s a public park, and as it happens, I come here often.”
Trent’s scowl deepened, but to prevent the conversation from devolving into something less civil, Christophe rose. He tucked one hand under Trent’s elbow and offered the other to Bishop.
“Christophe Clavret, of Clavret et Cie. You are?”
Trent jerked his elbow out of Christophe’s grasp. “He’s the detective who’s been on my ass since October.” He snatched his sweatshirt off the ground and pulled it over his head. “Funny that he never seems to have anything better to do than follow me around.”
“No need to exaggerate, Mr. Pielmeyer. This is only the second time I’ve spoken to you since you left Oregon.”
“Yeah? Well, I still think you have way too much time on your hands.”
Bishop’s gaze slid off to the left, toward the creek. “No more than anyone.”
Christophe glanced between Bishop and Trent. “Were you expecting to find someone else here, Detective?”
“As a matter of fact . . .” Bishop returned his attention to them. “Whenever there’s a break in Mr. Pielmeyer’s behavior patterns, Mr. Conner is usually involved.”
“Indeed?”
“Case in point—last night. He left the airport and went straight to Stumptown Spirits.”
“I didn’t. Not straight there. I— You— Shit,” Trent muttered.
“But instead of Conner, you got extremely friendly with someone else. Someone nobody would have thought to look at.” Bishop ran a hand across his head. “Christ on a soda cracker, Trent. Please tell me this wasn’t just some con. That you didn’t spend all that time kicking around Europe with another goddamned overprivileged adolescent.”
Trent’s mouth fell open. “What?” he croaked. Where the hell had that come from?
Christophe stepped up to the plate, though. Despite Bishop topping him by a good foot, he managed to look down his nose at him, with the perfect this insect is so beneath me attitude that Trent had worked like hell to perfect for a role once. He’d never succeeded to his own satisfaction, because he couldn’t help making it ironic. But Christophe’s was awesome. Trent wanted to kiss him. Later. Lots of that later.
“Are you referring to me? Mr. Pielmeyer and I didn’t meet until last night.”
“Easy to say.”
“Jesus, Bishop. You act like I’m a personal insult to you. What the fuck, dude?”
“‘The fuck’ is that people don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.” Bishop took a step forward, fists clenched at his sides. “They leave tracks. Traces. But you left nothing.”
Trent eased closer to Christophe, away from Bishop’s intent gaze. “Told you. Nothing to leave.”
“Seven years! Seven years without anything but Logan Conner’s annual pilgrimage and suddenly he’s on deck when you come stumbling back into the same place where you disappeared. There’s a connection. There has to be.” Bishop’s voice dropped to a desperate whisper on his last words.
Trent frowned. Desperate? Not a word he’d ever thought he’d apply to Bishop. Whatever. He didn’t want the apparent desperation taken out on him, or Logan, or Christophe. Bishop needed to get over it. Trent opened his mouth to say so, but Christophe squeezed his elbow meaningfully.
“I believe we must take our leave. If Detective . . . Bishop, is it? If the detective wishes to interrogate you formally, he may make an appointment. Good day.”
Christophe almost dragged him back up the path while Trent glared over his shoulder. Bishop stared after them, his eyes narrowed, until the little blond girl popped up again.
“Welcome to the Stone House!”
Bishop whirled and crouched. When the girl waved at him, he stood up and ran his hand over his head, as if to say I meant to do that, then stalked off down the opposite trail. Trent snorted a laugh. Guess the guy wasn’t so put-together after all.
Maybe he should send the dear detective a thank-you note. He’d helped Trent dampen the emotions he’d associated with the Witch’s Castle for more than seven years—tempering his old terror and despair with a huge dose of annoyance and a pinch of absurdity.
“That asshole. Between him and my father, they’re trying to turn me into the criminal, not the victim. And he had the fucking nerve to accuse you.” He kicked a rock into the creek. “Know what the pisser is? I told Bishop the whole story when he ambushed me at the airport yesterday, but he thought I was only being a smart-ass.”
He glanced at Christophe. Shit. His mouth was pressed into a line, and his eyebrows were lowered so far Trent was surprised he could see where he was going. “Christophe? You believe me? Right?”
Christophe glanced up at him, his expression lightening in surprise. “Naturally.”
Trent stopped in the middle of the path. “Why?”
Christophe pulled him aside, out of the way of a couple of hikers. “Because, cher, you told me it was the truth. And I have seen far more implausible things in my life than this.”
Trent’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit? The import/export business must be a lot weirder than I thought.”
Christophe laughed and drew Trent in for a kiss. “You would be surprised, I assure you.”
When he reluctantly broke the kiss, Trent could still see a corner of the Witch’s Castle over Christophe’s shoulder. He swallowed. Now or never. “I—I want to try something.”
Christophe smiled, baring those sexy canines. “Perhaps we should wait until we get back to the car.”
Trent rolled his eyes. “I’m not that much of a show-off.” At least not anymore. “No. This is something . . . Well, stay here, okay?”
Christophe’s face grew serious. “Of course.”
Trent inhaled and took a step away, letting go of Christophe’s hand. A tiny frisson crept across the back of his neck. Freaky, but bearable. He retreated another couple of yards, Christophe watching him with a quizzical lift of his brows. The prickles traveled farther down his spine, and his breathing sped up a bit. Still not too bad.
“Let’s try something different.” Trent moved toward Christophe. With every step, his nerves eased further. When he got within touching distance, Christophe reached out and stroked his cheek.
Ah. There. It all goes away. But what exactly was “all”? He had no illusion that he was cured, but—
He edged past Christophe toward the Witch’s Castle until he could see the whole front wall. It wasn’t like breasting the ocean anymore, the way it had been earlier, even with Christophe’s hand in his. Trent prodded that place in his mind, the one that usually sent him into a spiral of panic, and the spot wasn’t as tender, the response not as severe. He kept imagining Bishop’s face when the little blond girl popped up and piped, “Welcome to the Stone House!”
It’s not a witch’s castle. It’s just a stone house. Nothing spooky about that, right?
He had no desire to sit around picnicking at the damn place, but he could stand there and not want to leap into the creek.
When he turned his back on the clearing, though, the same feeling of lurking danger returned. Heart pounding, he speed-walked back to Christophe and took his hand. Immediately, Trent’s pulse slowed. Safe.
Christophe smiled. “Conducting experiments?”
“You could say that.” Trent glanced overhead, where the trees’ mossy branches were laced together like bony fingers. “One more, okay?”
“I am at your disposal.”
Witch’s Castle was out of sight behind them now. “When I tell you, could you walk up the path, around that bend, so I can’t see you?”
Christophe squeezed his hand. “Give the word.”
“Now.”
With every step that Christophe trod up the path, Trent’s anxiety crept farther up his back. When he disappeared around a bend, Trent’s stomach clenched and he fought the urge to hunker down and cover his head.
It’s the goddamned trees. It’s not the Witch’s Castle at all, not anymore.
He hurried up the path until he caught up with Christophe. Once he’d taken his hand—touch—he could breathe again. I wonder if I’d have the same reaction with anybody? Maybe it was being alone in the forest that sparked his panic attacks. Maybe anyone would do—Christophe just happened to be the one available. He’d save that experiment for another day, say in another fifty years or so.
“You must think I’m totally lame.”
“On the contrary, after what you’ve been through, I think you’re incredibly brave. You have a great deal of fortitude and loyalty too, denying Logan’s involvement.”
“It wasn’t his fault. He tried to stop me. He saved me.”
“Indeed. You know how to repay a debt.” Christophe pulled Trent off the path into a cluster of tree stumps, his eyes seeming to glow like amber lights. “But I must say, cher, the way you defended me to your detective—”
“He’s not my detective.”
“Yet he appears quite fixated. I found your defense quite . . . arousing.”
Trent grinned. “Yeah?”
“Assuredly. Also, his interest in you was quite annoying. I find I want no one paying you such attentions. I want that to be my purview only.”
God, someone who wants me for a change. “Tell me more.”
“Come back to my flat with me. I think it’s time for me to make love to you as you deserve.”
Trent shivered. Not dread. Anticipation. The good kind of shiver. “I am so down with that.” He tugged Christophe up the path. “Let’s get the hell away from these fucking trees.”