BEAU WOKE with a start at some point in the middle of the night. “Dante,” he said, shaking his shoulders. “There’s someone in the house.”
“It’s probably Roberts,” Dante said groggily.
“No. Those aren’t his footsteps on the stairs.” He shook Dante’s shoulder once more and reached over him to his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling someone. Getting some help now,” Beau said, becoming frantic. Whoever was outside was trying to move quietly, sneaking closer to their door. Beau grabbed the phone, pressed 911, and waited for an answer. He jumped out of bed and tried to get Dante to do the same.
Finally his call was answered. “What’s your emergency?”
“Yes. There’s someone in the house. I’m Beau Clarity, and I’m at the Bartholomews’.” He grabbed Dante by the hand to get him out of bed, intending to lock them in the bathroom while they waited for the police, but the bedroom door burst open.
Dante ripped the duvet off the bed and tossed it at Beau as he turned to the intruder. “What the hell are you doing here?” Dante stood unabashedly naked to face Harper Bledsoe as Beau wrapped himself in the bedding, phone dropped and forgotten, and tried to race to the bathroom.
“Stop!”
Beau turned in time to see the gun pointed right at him. Even wrapped in the blankets, he was suddenly as cold as ice.
“You think you can replace my sister?” Harper’s eyes were wild and his hand shook. Beau wasn’t sure if it was fear or rage. Either was as dangerous as hell.
“I’m not, honestly.” Beau tried to make himself appear smaller and willed his legs to stay under him.
“What is this rubbish?” Dante demanded. “Put that thing down before you hurt someone. What’s gotten into you?” He stood rigid and tall, like a warrior of old.
“Rubbish! That’s how you treated Allison. Like rubbish. She needed help, and you didn’t do anything for her.” Harper stepped forward, shifting the gun toward Dante. Beau didn’t move an inch. He didn’t want Harper to get more agitated.
“Dante. Please, sit down and let’s talk.” Beau was trying to be reasonable, hoping to defuse the situation and delay long enough for help to arrive. Thankfully, Dante took a step back, leaving his hands where they could be seen, and he carefully sat on the edge of the bed.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Harper pushed the gun forward, toward Dante. “Tell them to stay away.” He glared at Dante, who was clearly the source of his rage.
“Roberts, Beau and I are fine. Please go back downstairs.” He kept his voice remarkably steady and strong. “Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.” The steps hesitated, then retreated. “You have to know the police are on their way and the others in the house are going for help.”
“I don’t care.” Harper blinked a few times, his pupils huge. Beau wanted to see him more closely, wondering what he’d taken. “I’ve wanted to get even with you since you got off for Allison’s death. You killed her. Doesn’t matter if you pushed her over the railing or not. You still killed her.”
“What did I do?” Dante asked rather quietly. “Whatever it was, you have to know that I cared for Allison. She was my best friend for years. You know that.” The pleading in Dante’s voice was so unlike him. Beau wanted to comfort him but didn’t dare. He tried to put more distance between him and Harper, but he was nearly at the wall. He probably could have made it to the bathroom, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave Dante alone.
“She needed help, but you didn’t get her any.” Harper turned to Beau. “Neither did you—when she came to your Center, you didn’t help.” He waved the gun, and Beau caught Dante’s gaze. He had no idea what Harper was referring to. “That Center. You all claim to help people, but you didn’t help Allison. You’re all the same—completely useless.” The menace in his eyes, which had diminished slightly, returned full force.
Beau hoped to hell help arrived soon, because from the darkness in his eyes and the set of his jaw, Harper seemed to have determined that he’d had enough. Time was running out for the two of them. He turned to Dante, taking in the way he sat—tall and naked, but strong and almost majestic in the face of his end. Dante tilted his head just slightly, enough that Beau could see his eyes and knew Dante saw him. Their connection warmed him. Dammit, he didn’t want to die. He wanted to spend years with Dante, grow old with him, and maybe they could have had children. So many possibilities flashed through his mind, but that’s all they would be.
“I love you,” Beau mouthed, and Dante blinked, his lips curling slightly at the edges where he could see them. What else did a person say at a time like this?
Suddenly the door opened. “Put the gun down!” A police officer stood partially in the doorway behind Harper in what looked like a state police uniform. “Right now!” The snap and power in his voice were awe-inspiring, and Beau jumped slightly. As a second officer joined him, this one wearing the blue of the local police, the state police officer stepped forward. “Harper, put the gun down.”
“He killed her! He needs to pay!”
“We’ll talk about it once you put the gun down.”
The gun wavered, and slowly Harper lowered the pistol. The state police officer took it from him, and Harper was immediately taken into custody. As soon as he was out of the room, Dante sank down on the bedding like the fight had gone out of him.
Beau raced over to sit next to him, sharing the duvet to cover Dante up. “It’s all right.” Beau looked at the officer still in the doorway. “Can we get dressed?”
“Of course.” The officer backed away, and within a few minutes, Roberts hurried into the room.
“We’re all right.”
“I called the police.” Roberts fussed, keeping his gaze away to provide them privacy.
“Good. Thank you.” Dante leaned close, dragging Beau into a hug. “This is just another consequence of my bad decisions.”
Beau huffed slowly and returned Dante’s hug. Then he looked at Roberts. “Please make some coffee. Dante and I need to get dressed. Let the officers know that we’ll be down in a few minutes and that Dante and I want to speak with Harper before they take him away.” If possible, it was time that the last of what had happened to Allison reached the light of day. Beau had an idea what had been going on, but it was only a theory. Maybe Harper was in the mood for some explanations and closure just as much as Dante was.
“I’ll tell them,” Roberts said and left the room.
Dante stood, the bedding falling away, and he got dressed, lifting his legs as though they were made of lead. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“You aren’t going to.” Beau got the bag he used when he came to Dante’s from the corner and dressed as quickly as he could.
“What does that mean?”
“That I am going to talk to him. I have some questions that I’d like to try to get some answers to, and you’re the object of his hatred, though I suspect he has just as much guilt as you do. I suspect it was easier for him to turn the guilt into anger at you than to deal with it himself.” Beau pulled on his shirt and then took Dante’s hand. “I want you to wait outside the room. Other than knowing I’m your boyfriend, he doesn’t have any other connection to me.” Beau sat and waited for Dante, who seemed to fumble with the buttons of his shirt. Beau stood again and gently brushed Dante’s hands to the side to take care of the buttons for him. “You were amazing when he burst in here. No fear and a tower of strength.” He finished with the buttons and wiped imaginary lint off Dante’s shoulders.
“I was scared half to death, and I knew I had to keep his attention on me. That way if anything happened, you’d have a better chance of surviving.” He pulled Beau into a tight hug. “All I kept thinking the entire time was that I was going to lose you. I just found you not too long ago….”
“All I wanted was to give help some time to get here.”
Dante nodded. “Why didn’t he just shoot us and get it over with? He was out of his mind on something.”
“Probably. His eyes were huge. But I think while his rage took over with whatever he was using, deep down he’s not a killer, and that’s what held him back. He was obviously angry, but you kept him talking, and mentioning his sister was genius. It reminded him of someone he cared for.” Beau held Dante in return.
Dante touched his cheek. “I love you, Beau. I know this is probably a weird time to say it, but I do. I love you with everything I have, and if I’d had to, I would have given myself for you.”
“I know that.” Beau touched his lips to Dante’s. “I love you too.” He pulled away. “We need to get downstairs, because they aren’t going to wait very long.” Beau wanted answers and he wasn’t sure how to get them, but he had to try. He would have held Dante like this forever if he could. They’d both had a scare, and Beau figured he’d fall apart once they were alone again, but right now he had something to do.
“Let’s go downstairs so you can play Perry Mason.”
Beau sighed and turned away to leave the room. They descended the stairs together, and Beau went into the living room, where the officers were waiting. Harper Bledsoe sat on the sofa, his hands zip-tied.
“Officer Howard,” Beau said, recognizing him as the officer from upstairs. In the heat of the moment, he hadn’t recognized him. Now that he could breathe, he easily did.
“This is very unusual, and we have advised him of his rights. So he may not talk to you at all.” Officer Howard turned to Harper and then back to Beau.
“I don’t want to ask him about tonight.” Beau slowly stepped into the room and lowered himself into a chair across the way. He kept a good distance but wasn’t going to be intimidated. “Upstairs, you said that we were all the same. That people at the Center didn’t help your sister.”
“You’re all the same. You don’t care.” Harper pursed his lips.
“I’ve only been here six months and I never knew Allison, but everyone tells me how wonderful she was. So I have to wonder, what did she need help with?” Beau leaned forward.
Harper shook his head.
“I would have helped her if she had come to me.” His gaze on Harper, Beau’s eyes softened and then hardened once more, biting his lower lip. “I promise you, I have never turned anyone away. What sort of help did your sister need?”
Harper didn’t say anything, and Beau began to feel that he was on a fool’s errand. Whatever had happened and was the source of this anger, frustration, and guilt would stay locked away forever. Between Dante and Harper, those secrets were going to drive him to distraction.
“I only wanted to help.” Beau stood and went to leave the room.
“Allison had surgery about four years before she died. She’d always had back problems. But they got worse, so she had surgery.”
Beau slowly turned around at Harper’s words. “Was it a success?”
“Yes. They corrected the vertebrae that were misaligned and pinching the nerve. But she was in a lot of pain.”
Beau nodded but didn’t move any closer. He didn’t want to do anything to stop Harper from talking.
“They gave her pain medication, and after months, she was still in pain and taking the pills.”
Beau nodded gently. “Did she become dependent?”
“Yes.” Harper hung his head. “I tried to help her but didn’t know what to do. She swore me to secrecy. I tried, I really did. I remember staying up with her on more than one occasion so she could try not to take the pills. I did try to help.”
“I’m sure you did. But that kind of addiction takes a lot of help and is very hard to beat. I want you to know that.” Beau swallowed hard, knowing Dante was listening even if he wasn’t in the room.
“She didn’t want anyone to know. Our parents wouldn’t have been understanding. I know our mother would have taken the addiction as a personality failure of some sort. So we kept it to ourselves.”
Beau understood. Addicts often were desperate to keep their addiction a secret from everyone in their lives. “Allison also had depression and—”
“Yes. She drank as well. I know that. I kept hoping she didn’t take the pain pills with alcohol.” The lines on Harper’s face grew more pronounced. “I sent her to the Community Center because you keep things confidential. That’s what I saw on your website. She went a few times and then said they weren’t helping her.” Tears ran down his face. The aggression and adrenaline from earlier were gone, having drained away, and now Harper was the picture of regret and loss.
“Was that before she married Dante?”
“No. It was after. She didn’t want him to know either, but how could he not? They were married. They lived together. How could he not know that his wife was addicted to painkillers?”
“Did your parents ever find out?” Beau asked, and Harper shook his head. “Allison was obviously very good at keeping her secret.” Beau almost stepped forward. He wanted to help. It was in his makeup to try to help people like Harper. “Dante knew Allison suffered from depression and he got her help. She was seeing a doctor for it.” He wasn’t going to go into anything more. “Thank you, Harper.” Beau turned to Officer Howard. “I know what he did and that you need to follow the law, but please make sure he gets the help he needs. There have been too many lives ripped apart by what happened, and that needs to stop here.”
“I’ll do my best,” Officer Howard promised.
“Thank you,” Beau said quietly, watching as they got Harper to his feet and escorted him out of the room.
“We are going to need to talk to the two of you.”
Beau nodded and left the room to join Dante, then led his shocked, wide-eyed lover away from the activity. Dante and Harper didn’t need to see each other again.
“How did you know?” Dante asked. “You obviously led him to that admission.”
They stepped into Dante’s office, and Beau closed the door. “I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know for sure.” He swallowed hard and wanted to go to Dante, but he could feel him closing himself off. Dante sat in one of the chairs, looking at the floor.
“I didn’t know. I thought she just suffered from depression, and I tried to get her help.” He raised his gaze as Beau sat in the chair next to him, taking his hand. “But what I want to know is how you seemed to have it figured out and I never saw it. You didn’t even know her.”
Beau sighed. “When I first met you, I saw something familiar in you. Because I work with the families of substance abuse, I saw a lot of what I see in them in you. It’s part of what told me that there was more to you than just your reputation. I could see the real man under the façade and pain.” He felt his cheeks heat but pushed onward. “Anyway, after you told me about Allison, I went into her room.”
A knock on the door interrupted him, and Beau groaned. He had been hoping to get all of this out into the open.
“Yes?”
Roberts poked his head inside. “The police are waiting for you.”
Beau nodded and stood. “I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as we’re done.”
They left the room, Beau holding Dante’s hand, and joined the police in the living room. With Harper gone, they answered all of the officers’ questions as best as they could. There were some they could only speculate on, but they gave the police as much as they knew.
By the time they were done and the police had left the house, they were exhausted. Beau had trouble keeping his eyes open and sat on the sofa, holding Dante’s arm, leaning on his shoulder.
“I almost lost you,” Dante said in an ominous whisper. “I never want to go through that again.”
“Me neither. No more lunatics through the front door.” Beau blinked and closed his eyes once again. Part of him was afraid to sleep for fear of being attacked again, though the rest of him was too exhausted to stay awake.
“How did you know about Allison? I know it’s late, but….”
Beau forced his eyes open and slowly got to his feet, figuring he could show him. “Come with me.” He led Dante up the stairs, then past Dante’s bedroom to the one next door. He opened the door and they stepped into the dusty, disused room that had been Allison’s. Beau went to the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet. He handed Dante one of the bottles inside. “OxyContin. Look at the pharmacy and the doctor.” Beau left the bathroom and went to the bedside table, where he pulled open the drawer. He took out another bottle and brought it to Dante. “There’s more, from a different pharmacy and doctor. They were filled three days apart.” Beau waited for the realization to kick in for Dante.
“My God. How did I not know?” Dante held the bottles.
Beau understood. “Addicts are often very good at keeping their secrets, and she was probably convinced that she needed the medication. I’m willing to bet that there were other doctors and pharmacies. These are the only ones I found.” Beau took the pill bottles from Dante.
“Allison was an addict?” Dante asked in what Beau thought might have been a sort of daze.
“Yes.” Beau set the bottles aside and took Dante’s hands. “I need you to understand that there were a lot of things going on with her and Allison took her own life. I know you’ve felt guilty for a long time, but you have nothing to be guilty about. Allison had depression, and my guess is that she self-medicated with alcohol and pain pills. It’s surprisingly common.” He tugged Dante closer, engulfing him in the tightest hug he could.
“What does this all mean?” Dante asked.
Beau released him and guided Dante out of Allison’s room, then closed the door. “First thing, it means that you have Roberts open that room and clean it out. Second, you stop feeling guilty about everything that happened. You didn’t kill Allison, and regardless of what you thought all those years, you weren’t responsible for her death. She was and no one else.”
He got Dante into his bedroom and tugged off his clothes. It was the middle of the night and finally the house was quiet once again. Beau climbed into bed next to Dante, tugging him close and doing his best to try to soothe him. God, he hoped they could sleep, but he wasn’t counting on it. He hadn’t expected things with Dante to be quite this exciting. Hopefully the danger was over and the two of them could settle down a little.
BEAU WOKE the following morning to quiet, thank God. No phones waking him and no one bursting into their room brandishing a gun. Dante was awake, sitting up in the bed, covers pooled around his narrow waist. “What’s going on?” Beau rubbed his eyes. “How long have you been awake?”
“Hours.” Dante lay back against the headboard. “It’s hard for me to believe that I blamed myself for everything for all this time and….”
Beau rolled over. “Did it ever occur to you that you kept secrets and took a lot of this on because you didn’t want to hurt Allison’s family? You did your best to preserve her memory for the people who loved her. That says a lot about the kind of man you are.” He shifted closer. “But it’s time you rejoined the rest of the world and stopped beating yourself up over something you didn’t do. You weren’t the cause of Allison’s death. You tried to help her. If she had told you everything, you might have been able to get her the help she needed.” Beau gently reached for Dante’s cheek. He loved the scratchiness of his beard in the morning.
“Of course I would have.” Dante leaned forward, pulling his knees up close. “She was my best friend, and I didn’t know she was an addict. I had no idea.” He leaned his head forward and grew quiet. Beau waited, and after a minute, Dante loosened up. Tears streaked his cheeks, and Dante pulled Beau to him, finally letting go of the years of pent-up emotion. Beau would never tell anyone that Dante cried on his shoulder. That was between the two of them, the ultimate show of trust. Beau held Dante’s head, allowing him to let it out.
“I love you,” Beau whispered, and Dante raised his face, his eyes puffy, his lips searching for Beau’s.
“I love you too, and I don’t want to be alone anymore.” Dante’s words came out hoarse. “This place is huge, and I… I want you here with me. I know it might seem like it’s too soon, but…. You already spend your time here, and when you don’t, I look forward to when you do….”
Beau held Dante as tightly as he could, pressing him back on the bedding, excitement coursing through him. “Of course.” He missed Dante just as much when they were apart. “But just so we’re clear, I don’t want my own room.” He smiled and ran his hands over the drying tracks on Dante’s cheeks.
Dante smiled, a warmer and more genuine smile than Beau had ever seen from him before. “The Beast is dead,” Dante whispered softly, almost to himself, and it touched Beau’s heart to hear it. He’d known all along that Dante wasn’t a beast and that the one person, more than anyone else, who needed to realize it was Dante himself.
“Well.” Beau met Dante’s gaze. “Maybe the Beast could stick around, but confine himself to the bedroom?” He wagged his eyebrows, and Dante laughed, unselfconsciously, before rolling Beau on the blankets and pressing him into the mattress.
“I think I can do that,” Dante growled, and Beau let go, putting himself in the hands of the once Beast of St. Giles and knowing there was no one else he’d rather be with.
And he wouldn’t change a thing.