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Rick was on the phone with his girlfriend when Dante went past his room on the way to the bathroom, and was still on the phone when he finished. Whatever problems the couple had had before he’d been injured seemed to have been easily worked out in the time since. Dante had meant what he’d told the girl – relationships were worth fighting for. Unfortunately, the secrets and danger involved in being his partner tended to put a strain on his partners’ relationships. He prayed that Rick and Gracie’s could survive the pressure.
While Rick showered, Dante made them breakfast. Rick’s recovery had been cut short by Dante’s inability to handle his own problems. The least he could do was make sure that Rick was cared for as much as possible. He set a plate of fried eggs, sausage, and toast alongside Rick’s pain medication. Taking his partner out today was unavoidable. Perhaps managing the circumstances wasn’t.
Rick rolled his eyes at the bottle of pills, but didn’t comment as he ate his breakfast, took his pills, and pocketed the bottle for later.
“So how do we find Lynch?” Rick asked as they left the house.
“Funny thing, I have never actually wanted to find him before. Usually he finds me on his own.” Dante smoothed his suit, a powder blue double breasted jacket with white embroidery on the cuffs and lapels. “But Charles sent me his address and the paperwork to file a restraining order.”
“You know he’s been in your house, right?” Rick pulled up the copy he’d made and turned the screen to Dante.
“Mince.” Dante paled and snatched the phone from Rick’s hand. “Perhaps it is best if you manage this interview. I will be busy filling out the paperwork and trying not to murder him.”
“Yeah, maybe don’t say that too loudly. The last thing we need is another kangaroo court tribunal.” Rick took his phone back and Dante watched as he emailed a copy of that video and the one of Wes Azusa's murder to Director Leon.
Furious that such a video even existed, Dante wasn’t able to keep the venom from his voice as he replied, “If any mythics cared about Lynch, he would not be harassing me.” He shrugged in disgust. “No, only humans would care about him, and you are easier to handle.”
“You don’t think he’s behind the murders?” Rick rounded his Jeep and motioned for Dante to get in the passenger side.
"If it was solely an attack on you, perhaps. He's jealous that I didn't pick him to be my partner, but not a serial killer." Dante nudged an empty coffee cup aside with his foot, climbed in the car, and buckled up.
"Even if he decided to target any human partner of a mythic to get revenge for you rejecting him?” Rick’s voice was quiet, but hard, and he rubbed his wounded side with his free hand.
“This is not my fault.” Dante kept his voice level even as the Mythic Council’s accusations echoed in his head. He blamed himself, even knowing it was ridiculous to do so, and it made him even more defensive than it should have.
“I’m not saying it is,” Rick hastily amended. “Those idiots at the Guild House don’t know what they're talking about. Making Lynch your partner would be incredibly stupid, and probably deadly, but he clearly doesn’t think that. Could he retaliate by killing people who he thought got what he was denied?”
Dante considered for a moment. “Lynch is obnoxious, and might have accidentally incited one of his followers to violence, but I don’t believe he has the courage to kill on his own, or the money to pay people to do it for him.”
“You’re probably right, but it sure would have made our lives easier.” Rick turned to follow the phone’s GPS instructions. “Have you ever been to his house before?”
“I try very hard to forget he exists.” Dante scoffed. “But yes, once. He made a false report just to get me at his house. He tried to hit on Karyn – the ‘tiny girl’ Chick mentioned – and she kicked him in the teeth. Charles forwarded all his calls to DC Metro after that.”
“So punching Lynch is a fantasy all your partners share, huh?” Rick pulled the Jeep up to a run-down bungalow on a street that hadn’t seen better days in several decades. “How obnoxious does he have to be before I get a turn?”
“As much as I appreciate you punching Wharton earlier, let us try to limit aggression today to actual physical threats.” Dante laughed. “I am sorry your sick leave was cut short, but I must confess I’m not sorry to have you by my side again.”
They climbed the crumbling steps to the porch. Dante straightened his suit coat and preened his hair in the grimy reflection of the window beside the door, then knocked gingerly on the peeling wood of the screen door.
No answer. He opened the screen door and tried again on the front door while Rick rounded the house looking to see if there was any sign he was there.
A couple minutes later, the door unlocked, and a sullen-looking Lynch cracked open the door. Rick stood behind him with his arms crossed.
“Dante. I didn’t expect you.”
“We all know that’s not true. I haven't done anything in eight years that you haven’t known about.” Dante pulled his PNI badge from the inside pocket of his coat. “You probably already know why we’re here.”
“I didn’t attack your partner. I have an alibi.” Lynch didn’t look really happy to admit that.
“Let me guess. You were filming Dante at the time.” Rick grunted.
Lynch nodded miserably. “I have it all on my phone. From the moment he gets the call, to him finding your body in that garage.” He cued up a video on his phone and turned the screen to face Dante. “I was really excited to share it with my fans... until I realized I might be a suspect.”
Seeing his own reaction to Rick’s call was surreal, but he had absolutely no interest in reliving the moment he found his partner’s bleeding body. Dante turned the phone away and pushed it back toward Lynch. “We’re going to need an alibi for all the murders Rick and I have investigated since he came to PNI and access to your financials to make sure you didn’t pay someone to do it for you.”
“You can watch any of the videos I have, but you’ll need a warrant for the financials.” Lynch let a grey-faced Rick finish the video Dante had pushed away, then tapped to another one. “I know my rights.”
Rick pushed the phone away as well. He cleared his throat twice before he could speak again. “We’ll have you come down to the office to turn in the videos and make a statement. We saw the one you posted attempting to inflame humans against mythics.”
“Hey, I wasn’t inflaming anyone. It was all for the views. That video alone got the attention of a big sponsor.”
“We’re going to need the name of the sponsor, as well as anyone who reacted to your recent videos with threats of violence.” Dante wondered how long the list was going to be. The internet seemed to bring out the lunatics more than any other invention in his considerable lifetime.
“I made a list to – ah – deflect suspicion when you guys came calling on me.” He nodded toward the interior of the house. “Come on in and I’ll get it.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Rick said, from his place already inside the house. “I’ll go with him to get it and bring it out.”
Lynch smirked at Rick. “Jealous, Agent McCoy?”
Rick laughed aloud. “Not of you. Not in a million lifetimes.”
“I am not leaving you alone with my partner, no matter your alibi.” Dante pushed the door open and gestured for Lynch to lead the way.
“I caught him heading out the back and brought him back through.” Rick fell into step beside Dante, but never took his eyes off Lynch as he crossed into the kitchen and started sorting through a disorganized mass of papers on the table. “Also, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Dante caught his breath and froze as they entered the living room. The house was filthy, yes, with dust, dirty laundry, and half-filled paper plates crawling with bugs scattered throughout the room, but that wasn’t what caught Dante’s eye. Every inch of bare wall space was covered with photos of him – some at the office, some through the windows of his own home, some at crime scenes, none with his permission. Cheap shelves attached to the walls were filled with small acrylic cases holding various items, labeled with embossed label tape. A badge from his FBI days sat on one shelf, far older than the period Lynch had been stalking him. Another acrylic box contained a plaster cast of the sole of Dante's Oxfords labeled “From the scene of the Mud Man Murders.” He gave a high-pitched cry at the sight of a display labeled "Dante's glove" containing an ash stained kid glove.
"How much time will I get for punching him in the face?" Rick asked as he read a news article featuring a redacted version of Wes's death. "I'm trying to decide if it's worth it."
"Not nearly as long as I would for burning this abominable place to the ground." Dante gritted his teeth as he brushed aside mouse droppings to open the case and retrieve his glove. He remembered losing it, four years ago when he’d dropped it wrestling a naiad that had tried to take Wes to her lair. He’d barely survived that one, and the glove had been forgotten until after he and Wes were safe and the naiad returned to the nymph queen for judgment. “He’s not worth it. He’s a coward and an annoyance, but not worth jail time.”
“A decade of harassment, theft, and privacy invasion is definitely worth it.” Rick grumbled as Lynch came back from the kitchen clutching a stack of papers.
“Here’s the screen shots of all the suspicious responses I got. I don’t know who any of these people are, just their screen names.” Lynch stuffed the papers into Rick’s hands and glared at the glove Dante held.
“Say anything about the glove and I will take my chances with the DA,” Rick snarled.
Lynch snapped his mouth shut and nodded.
“We have people at PNI that can trace the screen names.” Dante scanned the room for anything else of his he might want back. Satisfied there was nothing in this room, and having no desire to check out any of the other rooms, he turned to go. “I recommend you go straight to the office and give your statement, or else I’ll send a team from DC Metro to collect you and anything they feel is relevant to the case.”
Lynch nodded emphatically with a pale face.
“And I’ll arrest you myself if I see you hanging around any of our cases again.” Rick gestured to the wall. “You have a problem. Get counseling.”
Back at the car, Dante gingerly placed the soiled glove on the dashboard and brushed the filth from Lynch’s house from his clothes and gloves.
“Ha, for once I feel the same way.” Rick reached for a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting in the dash tray and used it generously. “At least we got what we came for.” He shuffled through the crumpled and food stained papers. “His sponsor was a guy named Chad Faircloth. The rest of these are just names like ‘mythic mesmer’ and ‘phoenix phantasies.’ One of them, ‘dante_dies_at_dawn,’ gets pretty vocal.”
Dante curled his lip in disgust. Were there more people out there obsessed with his life? Of course there were, or Lynch wouldn’t have a following. “I don’t want to know. Let’s get this to the office and get real names and addresses we can follow up on. Meanwhile, I’m going to shower and burn my clothes.”
“Dry cleaning is cheaper.” Rick laughed as he threw the car into gear. “I’m beginning to wonder how you’re not buying knockoffs from shady websites at the rate you go through clothes.”
At Dante’s indignant look, Rick amended quickly, “I’m teasing – sort of. Burning your clothes on purpose is a bit bombastic, and wasteful.”
“I suppose. I won’t really burn them.” Dante picked a stray mouse turd off his cuff and gagged. “As much as I may want to.”