BY THE time he got out of the hospital, dusk had set in, but Roan was relieved because that meant Dyl most likely wouldn’t see any injuries on him until tomorrow. Assuming he kept them, that he didn’t trigger another partial change and heal up the skin faster than surgical glue ever could. But was he in any shape for that? His heart was still beating too fast, and even Luke commented on it, suggesting maybe he wanted to stay at the ER and rest a bit (because hospitals were so restful) or take a beta blocker, but he turned down both offers, blaming it on all the caffeine he’d had today. Luke was too busy not to believe it, which was a relief.
He was too tired to even partially change, though. As soon as Roan got home, he flopped on the couch, too tired to go up the stairs, and he just stared up at the ceiling and found himself trying to regulate his breathing. Dylan had left the living room light on, so he wasn’t completely in the dark, but listening to the thud of his heart was starting to annoy him, so he reached for the remote on the coffee table and turned on the set to fill the house with noise. How sad was it he could identify Aqua Teen Hunger Force by dialogue alone? Poor Dyl, having to put up with his awful TV choices. And Dylan pretty much had to, as he very rarely watched television before Roan invaded his life. Yes, he was one of those people.
Meatwad’s strange voice gave everything an air of absurdity, so he sat up and reached for his laptop. Roan had scanned the flimsy case file into his computer because it was easier than dealing with pieces of paper that he could easily lose. Checking Harvey’s alibi wasn’t hard as it was fairly solid. At the time, he was working for a construction crew, and his boss, Mark Hurley, confirmed that Harvey was at work all day. The only point he could truly investigate was Mark.
Five months after Melinda’s disappearance, Mark moved to Virginia and then down to Florida, where he was currently finishing up a stint for cocaine possession, assault, and driving under the influence. Which didn’t say anything, really, except Mark lost control of his life at some point, and who didn’t? Still, it made Roan wonder. If Mark had been into drugs back when he was in Yakima, he might have been unreliable as a witness, possibly compromised if Harvey knew of his drug habit. Could he be a suspect? Unlikely, as Roan had no connection between Mark and Melinda, besides Harvey.
Okay, so assuming Harvey’s alibi was a lie, he would have had time to leave the construction site (only five miles from his home that day), kill Melinda, and hide the body. Except… would he really have had time to clean up the kitchen and stage the scene before Jessica came home?
It hit him like a brick. What if Melinda wasn’t killed in the kitchen? Classic misdirection. Forensics would be all over that kitchen, but if she was killed in the bedroom, say, or a hallway, they wouldn’t be as thorough, not unless something really jumped out at them. That would mean Harvey would have to be pretty cold-blooded, which he really didn’t seem to be, or extremely crafty, which, again, he didn’t seem to be. But this was years ago—he could have changed since then. It’d have to be a drastic change, but that wasn’t impossible.
Did he like this idea, though? Harvey killed her? You’d think if there was some kind of sinister vibe, Jessica would have picked up on it. Parents thought they hid things from kids, but they rarely did. Kids knew when their parents fought, no matter how they tried to hide it, and if it was truly ugly, that was doubly so. Still, there was always good old denial, ready to come in and kick the shit out of any suspicious feelings.
Often when a spouse was killed or missing, the mate was the prime suspect for a very good reason—familiarity breeding contempt and all that. The cops would have looked hard at Harvey, so how could he have slipped the net? Unless the cops weren’t the best, unless the entire department was distracted looking for a violent rapist, and this fit the bill well enough that they just assumed she was another victim. A number of things would have had to have collided for this to happen, and they most likely did.
Now the problem was proving it. If he did do it, could Roan confront him and get him to confess, after all this time? To what end? Yes, the man was dying, but did he want to spend his last days dying in a prison hospital, his daughter thinking of him as a monster? Probably not. He had a great impetus to keep his mouth shut and stick to the innocent act that had paid off so well. But why? Until he could get an answer to that question, he’d have no way to piece together Melinda’s death.
Roan felt somewhat sick to his stomach, but after a moment realized it was simply because he was starving. Two partial changes had left his metabolism jittering along like a hummingbird’s, and he felt like a hollow chocolate Easter bunny.
He staggered into the kitchen, all but shoving a croissant into his mouth as he nuked a frozen dinner, and ate an apple to the core while waiting for it to get done, riding out a wave of dizziness. He was both shocked and amazed at how he tore through food like an animal. He finished off all five of the leftover croissants, inhaled the dinner so fast he actually had no earthly idea what he had ingested (according to the box, tikka masala), ate pizza cold from the fridge, gulped three Frappuchinos straight, emptied a box of cookies in his mouth, cleaned out all the Chinese food containers, and finally retired to the couch with a spoon and a quart of peppermint ice cream. He still wasn’t full, but he’d stopped shaking and feeling sick. Goddamn it, no more traumatic changes in a row. His body couldn’t take it. Also, if Rosenberg found out about this, she’d beat him with a shoe.
Which reminded him, he should really call back and reschedule an appointment with her. He’d have to make her promise in advance that, no matter what, she wasn’t going to hospitalize him, because otherwise he wouldn’t do it.
Dylan called him on his break. He just wanted to check in and make sure he was okay, and Roan assured him he was, while wondering if he could hide the fresh scars on his arms before Dyl got home. After he hung up, he realized he was leading a double life, but in a strange way.
Dylan knew about it on one level, but didn’t want to know any details. Dylan was part of his cover existence, the life he wanted, his attempt at normalcy. He was sweet and kind, a better person than Roan was. Then Roan had this other life, his “Batman” existence, where he did questionable things, and he shared this existence with another vigilante, Holden, who wasn’t better than him, but dwelled in the same kind of questionable moral gray area. He’d never wanted a second life, but he had one anyway. He tried to remember when the split took place, but he couldn’t.
Roan wondered why he was thinking of this now but blamed it on the sugar rush as he finished off the ice cream. Between painkillers and so much food hitting his system at once, it was a miracle he wasn’t standing naked on his roof, swinging a floor lamp around like a baton, shouting, “I am the lizard king!” Come to think of it, that sounded like fun.
The next phone call was from Holden, who admitted he’d thought about giving him a lift home, but by the time he wandered back to the exam room, Roan was gone. Fair enough, as Roan split the second Luke was done with him. (In fact, he was anticipating an angry call from Dee any second now.) They’d missed each other in passing as Roan stopped by Scott’s room to say hi to him, and he looked fucking miserable. Roan had wished he had some pain pills to pass to the guy, but for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have any in his pockets. Oh well, it was probably better for him.
Holden reluctantly offered to help him with the case if he needed back up in Yakima, which reminded Roan of something. “Get your investigator’s license now. I’ll get you a job with Dennis or Phil. You pick.”
There was a long pause before Holden said, “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Yes, I am. You don’t need to be a hooker anymore, Holden. I mean, you can be in your spare time if you really can’t give it up, but that’s your choice. You can get out.”
“What makes you think I want out?”
“You told me yourself hookers are washed up by thirty-five. You can get out ahead of the curve.” Holden wasn’t like normal people. Normal people were freaked out by Roan’s life, or, like Dyl, viewed it from a slight angle so they didn’t get scared away. Holden seemed to thrive in the utter weirdness of it all, and in the process had become an extremely good investigator. He’d be an asset for any investigative team because he wasn’t afraid of much. He could be more than a hooker and more than a vigilante… if he wanted to be. And there was the whole problem with Holden: he was so knee-jerk contrary, he might fight it all the way. Roan figured that was some kind of personal karma for all of his own contrariness over the years.
Holden sighed, almost chuckling. “There’s no way I’d make as much in a week as a detective that I make in three days right now.”
“You’re right. But you’ll make more than you made as a street whore. It’s a medium point. You telling me you’re so used to your fancy lifestyle you couldn’t do it?” This was dirty pool on his part. Holden didn’t have a “fancy lifestyle.” He had a roof over his head and food in the fridge, which was more than he’d had for several years of his life.
Holden knew this ploy, which was why he took a moment to take a sip of whatever he was drinking before bothering to respond. “Why, Roan? Why this concern about me?”
He could have lied, but with Holden it often seemed pointless. “Because I can’t have much longer to go, and I’d like to think there was someone who could take over my business once I’m gone, someone who might actually have a stab at becoming what I wanted to be but never could.”
“And what’s that?”
“Normal.”
That did make him laugh. “What, are you shitting me? You’re the one with the husband and the house and the yard. All you need is the dog and the two point five kids.”
“No, I don’t, because I’m still a human-virus hybrid, and nothing I do will ever change that. One day I could become the lion and never come back. I’m a pretender, Holden. I pretend I’m human, and most people are content to let me because they can’t quite wrap their heads around the fact that something so inhuman could exist in their neat little world. It’s a group delusion, and yet no one’s more delusional than I am. I should have the angry mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks on my tail, but only crazy people and extremists—the same thing—allow themselves to think such a thing as me is possible.” Personal epiphanies were horrible things sometimes. His few friends in the cop shop were trying to cover his existence for the same reason that Rosenberg wasn’t publishing any of her findings on him: to protect him from the world and to protect the world from him. The fallout for him on a personal level would be bad, sure—he could end up dying in some scientific equivalent of Gitmo—but there were worse things he hadn’t really considered until now. The fact that he did exist, could exist, would make people realize he wasn’t the only one, simply the first. And what of the infected, then? Those “special camps” talked about in the early days would probably come true. If things were bad for them now, they would be worse, probably worse than he could imagine. As far as humanity was concerned, it was the top of the food chain. A rival wouldn’t be welcomed. How did it work out between the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals again?
Holden was silent for so long Roan thought maybe he lost the connection. Then, finally, he let out a slightly breathless gasp. “Where did this come from?”
“I’ve had too much time to think. I shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”
“No shit!” There was a minor clunk in the background, a glass being put down hard on a table, and Holden sounded slightly winded, as if this conversation had already taken too much out of him. “I’m not you, Roan. I can’t be.”
“I know that, and I’m not asking you to be. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. But you can do a lot better, and you know it as well as I do. I’m giving you an out, Holden. Take it while you can.” And with that, he hung up, leaving Holden to think about it. He’d almost mentioned Holden’s relationship with Scott, but pulled back at the last second because Holden probably thought he didn’t really have a relationship with Scott. But why did he show up as his real self at the hospital? There was more going on than he’d ever admit, possibly more than he was even consciously aware of. Not that a relationship with a closeted guy was a good thing—it was always more trouble than it was worth—but Scott was a strangely decent guy, and maybe Holden could eventually convince him to come out of the closet.
He finished off the ice cream and felt the sugar crash coming down, right now a slight weariness that would soon become an overwhelming sinking feeling. He forced himself to get up, threw the container away, and then began the slow climb up the stairs. Roan wasn’t sure if he had the strength or interest to take a shower and wash off the antiseptic stink of the hospital before Dylan got home. Not that it mattered; he’d have to tell him anyway.
Perhaps things would seem better tomorrow. Or at least he’d like to think so.