“I’ll talk to him,” Kai said. “It’s going to make it worse if I act like I’m afraid of him. Like I’m afraid to face him.”
Now that he had calmed down, Kai was in a more forgiving frame of mind. In fact, he seemed almost melancholy as they lay on their sides, facing each other, talking quietly in the wide bed. If the talk had not been about Mickey Torres, it would have been a lovely thing to lie together in the darkness and simply talk and touch each other. Ryo could not remember ever sharing this kind of quiet intimacy with another man.
“What is it you think you could say that would get through to him?”
“I don’t know. Something. Let him know that it’s not…” Kai’s voice drifted away.
Ryo reached out, brushing the shimmer of hair back from the pale oval of Kai’s face. Kai’s hair crackled with static electricity, clung to Ryo’s fingers. “What?” Ryo asked.
After a second or two, Kai said, “It’s being treated like a nothing, like you don’t exist, that kills you.”
The quiet revelation closed Ryo’s throat. It took him a moment to be able to say, “He’s not like you, Kai-chan.”
“He’s like me in that. Everyone is like me in that.”
Yeah. Maybe. But you didn’t patch the cracks in the Mickey Torres of the world by applying a little sympathetic validation. It was a nice thought, but what Mickey wanted was… Ryo thought of Saturday night when he’d sat in his own car staring up at Kai’s dark windows. The last thing he wanted was to feel sorry—or akin—to Torres, but he couldn’t easily forget the hell of being on the outside. Fearing that he would always be on the outside.
The difference was, he would have taken no for an answer. Torres wouldn’t.
Ryo leaned forward and kissed Kai’s forehead. “Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’m going to my captain. I’m going to tell him everything.”
“You can’t. Sex with a suspect? You know you can’t.”
“You’re not a suspect. You’re a witness.”
“Sex with a witness is just as bad. You’ll lose your job.”
“It’s not just as bad.” But yeah, he probably would lose his job. Best case scenario was, he was going to get a reprimand and demotion. It didn’t matter. Well, yeah, it did matter. He loved his job, loved being a cop, was proud as hell of making detective. And he was a good detective. But tonight everything had changed. Now his first concern was Kai. And he couldn’t protect Kai if he didn’t come clean. It wasn’t so complicated.
“If anyone goes to your captain, it’ll have to be me,” Kai said. “I’ll tell him I need a restraining order or whatever it is. If I’m a witness, he’ll have to see that I get protection.”
“You’re a witness for the defense,” Ryo said, amused despite himself. “Anyway, you’re not in any better position. You can’t have any scandal or disgrace without jeopardizing your inheritance, right? Think about the kind of publicity that move would bring down on you.”
Actually, from that perspective, Kai had shown real courage in coming forward the first time to give Torres an alibi. Until now, Ryo hadn’t appreciated what Kai had been willing to risk. No wonder he had been scared and angry and reluctant talking to Ryo that first day.
Kai was quiet. “Okay,” he said at last. “So we’re back to Plan A. I talk to Mickey.”
Ryo sighed. “And tell him what? That you’d still like to be friends?”
“We weren’t friends,” Kai said, reflectively. “I did like him, though.” He made a sound of amusement at some memory. “He’s smart and he can be funny.”
“I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
“Maybe not, but he’s not a waste of space, which is what you think. He can draw. He designed his own body art. Did you know that? He got most of his ink when he was thirteen. His English class read The Illustrated Man, and he was inspired by the cover illustration.”
Ryo restrained himself from saying something unkind.
“I can let him know that it wasn’t just…”
Ryo wished he could see in the dark. “Wasn’t just what?”
“You know what I’m saying. If things had been different, I could have cared for him. He isn’t like you think he is.”
Yeah. Right. Was there any statement more useless than if things had been different? Wasn’t that pretty much true of everything? But Ryo restrained himself. Kai was not nearly as hard or cynical as he had first believed. He thought of the badly bitten fingernails and the insomnia, and he said only “Blood Red Butterfly.”
Kai raised his head. “Huh?”
“Blood Red Butterfly. Your story. Two men who can’t be together and can’t be apart. They hate each other and love each other and end up killing each other.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Kai made a faint sound, not quite a laugh. “That’s not what I meant, though.”
“Did you notice Torres got a red butterfly tattoo on his hand?”
Kai was perfectly still. Ryo could practically see the thought balloon over his head. At last he lowered his head to the pillow again and said, “I was seventeen when I wrote the first story.”
It was kind of a relief to hear it. Ryo said, “You mean you don’t want to be with a dude who would commit murder for you?”
Kai said quietly, seriously, “I think I’d rather be with a dude who would risk his job to keep me from being murdered.”
“Smart choice.” His spirits lifted when Kai wound his arms around him and nestled his head against Ryo’s heart.
“Hai.”
Ryo laughed. He could feel Kai’s face crease in a faint answering smile.
For a time they lay in silence, breathing in peaceful unison. Ryo’s head was throbbing. Too much vodka and too much worry. He dreaded the thought of tomorrow, and at the same time, the sun couldn’t rise fast enough.
Kai’s breaths grew deep and slow. Was he sleeping? Now there was timing for you. Then Kai sighed.
“Want a backrub?” Ryo asked.
“Hm?”
“It’ll relax me, too.”
“I could give you a backrub.” Kai sounded sleepy.
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. I have many bedroom skills.” Kai still sounded more sleepy than seductive.
“You don’t have to convince me. Actually, do you have something for a headache?”
“Bathroom cupboard. Top shelf. There’s water here.” Kai rolled over and sat up. Ryo heard the plash of water pouring into a glass.
Ryo padded into the master bath, blinking as he switched on the lights and opened the cabinet. Aspirin and Tylenol both on the top shelf, as described. He dry swallowed two aspirin, absently scanning the other shelves. There was a small pharmacy here. The usual cold and flu remedies along with prescriptions for anxiety, indigestion, heartburn, acid reflux, and insomnia.
Okay. Well, at least he knew what he was getting into.
He closed the cabinet. His fingers froze on the light switch. He opened the cabinet again and picked out the vial of Restoril.
“Couldn’t find it?” Kai’s voice asked behind him.
Ryo turned holding the vial. “Sleeping pills?”
“What about them?”
“Did you take them the night Torres killed that old woman?”
Kai frowned. “Of course not. If you’ll notice, I don’t take them. Which is why we’re standing here having this conversation.”
“But you had them here.” Ryo examined the label for the date of the prescription. “This bottle was here that night?”
Kai’s face tightened into older, harder lines. “You can’t stop snooping, can you? You pretend it’s me you want. You don’t want me. You just want answers.” He grabbed the vial from Ryo and threw the pills in the cupboard. The mirrored image of their angry faces swung past as he slammed the door shut.
Ryo ignored Kai’s display of temper. “Tell me the truth. Did you take sleeping pills that night?”
“Yeah. Of course. I palmed a mouthful. I thought Mickey might like to fuck a corpse. What the hell are you talking about? Of course I didn’t take sleeping pills that night!”
Even as the words left Kai’s mouth, his expression altered. It was infinitesimal, but Ryo caught it.
He grabbed Kai’s shoulders. “But you slept?”
Kai’s mouth opened but he didn’t answer. His eyes were dark and guarded.
“You slept, didn’t you?”
“I-I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“He drugged you!”
Kai shook him off. “You’re crazy, Ryo.”
But Ryo was sure, now. He said calmly, with conviction, “You know he did. If you didn’t take them yourself, he slipped them to you.”
“No. He didn’t!” Kai looked frightened. And no wonder. “How could he, without me knowing? I’m telling you, I don’t even remember if I slept or not. You’re running away with this insane, ridiculous theory.”
“How can you not remember?”
Kai stared at him shaking his head in disbelief. “I do sleep sometimes, you know. I was nearly asleep five minutes ago—until you started asking if I wanted a backrub.”
“Think back to that night. Did he give you something to drink?”
“He didn’t give me anything.” Kai fell silent, thinking. He shook his head. “Yes, we probably drank. But if there were drinks, I fixed them.”
Ryo was thinking, too. “How hard would it be for him to use the john and grab a handful of your pills? Hell, he could have brought sleeping pills with him.”
“I think I would have noticed him pouring a handful of pills into my glass!”
“Maybe he—”
“Do I have to spell it out? We didn’t sit around sipping cocktails and making small talk.”
Ryo ignored that. “You keep a carafe of water beside your bed. He could have dumped the pills into that.”
“And then what? He poured the carafe down my throat when I wasn’t paying attention?”
“You drink a lot of water. You’ve poured yourself water twice tonight. He could have noticed that the first night he was here. And when he saw the drugstore in your bathroom—”
“You’re. Out. Of. Your. Mind.”
Ryo shook his head. “The only person you’re fooling is yourself.”
“You know what, Ryo?” Kai pointed toward the front room. “Just go. I’ve had enough of you for one night. Get the hell out of my home.”
“Sure, I’ll go,” Ryo said. “But before you start feeling too sorry for Torres, keep in mind he was willing to risk giving you an overdose just so he could go bash an old lady’s brains in.”
“Get OUT of here!” Kai yelled.
“Don’t worry, I’m going.” Ryo brushed past Kai and went into the bedroom. He found his jeans on the floor beside the bed, retrieved his gun from the bedside table, jamming it in his waistband. He went into the brightly lit living room and found his socks and boots.
Kai, dressed in sweatpants, came out of the bedroom. He folded his arms across his chest, watching silently.
“I’m still going to my captain first thing tomorrow,” Ryo told him. “So don’t do anything stupid.”
“You mean as stupid as letting you in here so you could search through my things?”
Ryo stared right back at him until Kai looked away.
As victories went, it was pretty hollow. Ryo was still getting tossed out on his ear, and all the hopeful promise and quiet intimacy of the previous hours felt like a dream. How was it possible to feel so much disappointment over something that had never really been much more than a wish?
“This isn’t about me breaking your trust. We both know what this is really about,” Ryo burst out. “This is you scared to death at the idea of the morning after. Anything is easier than that. Hell, suicide is easier than having an actual relationship with a guy who might get to know you without your fake blue eyes.”
Kai’s eyes were dark with fury. He strode down the hall and punched the security code into the pad before yanking the door open. “Don’t worry about losing your job, Ryo. You can always become a mental health expert. You’re such a natural.”
Ryo made sure he had his keys and took a final glance around the room to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind. He stepped outside. “Sayonara, sweetheart,” Ryo told Kai. “Don’t forget to lock the door behind me.”
It was pretty good as exit lines went, but the end result was he was still standing on the wrong side of a slammed door.
The deadbolt slid home with a smooth finality.
Ryo sighed and started down the walkway. The wind whistled a hollow, empty tune down the open corridor. He stopped, bracing himself with one hand on the low wall and pulling his boot on with the other. The windblown palm trees made a flapping sound, like broken birds. All around, the lights of West Hollywood glowed and glittered, like an overturned treasure chest.
Well, he wasn’t going to sleep tonight anyway. He might as well go get a drink somewhere. A raging hangover might help dull the pain of tomorrow. He’d meant what he said. Regardless of how things had ended with Kai, Ryo was going to Captain Louden first thing. Kai was too stubborn or too scared to see his danger, and if protecting him required the sacrifice of Ryo’s career, well, it wasn’t like Ryo hadn’t understood the risk of getting involved with the Ice Princess.
He pulled on his second boot, glancing down as motion in the driveway below caught his eye. A silver monster truck, headlights dimmed, glided to a stop in the fire lane. The doors flew open and three males in black jackets and ski masks piled out of the truck cab.
What the hell?
Ryo leaned over the wall, trying to get a clear view. As the figures vanished around the corner of the building, the cadaverous lights of the parking structure picked out the gleam of the assault rifles they carried.
Ryo’s heart went into overdrive. He raced back down the walkway, hammering his fist on Kai’s door. “Kai! Open the door. Open the door. Kai, open the door. Now. Kai! Open the—”
The door swung open. “Okay,” Kai said. “Maybe I did overreact a little.”
Ryo pushed him inside, slamming the door and sliding the lock. “Help me shove this cabinet in front of the door.” Ryo was already at the other end of the giant lacquered cinnabar cabinet, giving it a test push. It didn’t budge. “Come on. Move.”
“What? What’s go—” Kai broke off at the unmistakable and ear-shattering drawn out cra-a-a-a-a-a-k of AK-47s from below.
“They’re coming for you,” Ryo told him. “That’s the security doors going down.”
Color drained from Kai’s face, his eyes going wide with terror. He leaped to help Ryo drag and push the huge cabinet across the slick floor. Ryo swore and sweated and strained. The thing weighed a ton. Maybe literally. It felt like trying to shift a house. Thirty seconds felt like an eternity, but at last they got the cabinet positioned in front of the door.
“It won’t hold,” Kai told him breathlessly.
From below the floorboards came more bursts of gunfire and crashing sounds.
“It’ll slow them down.” Ryo fumbled for his phone. His hands were shaking as he hit speed dial, calling Dispatch. Had he made a terrible mistake in choosing to stay with Kai? Kai was the target, but it was Ryo’s job to protect everyone in this building. What if some innocent citizen got in the way? Shouldn’t he be out there seeing that didn’t happen?
“Dispatch,” came a laconic voice on the other end of the phone.
“Officer Needs Help.” With his free hand, Ryo pushed Kai toward the bedroom, still talking to dispatch, giving their address, his badge number, the number of shooters, the make of their vehicle, Torres’ name, giving everything he could think of to facilitate rescue or—if they didn’t make it out of this alive, which sickeningly felt like a real possibility—apprehension.
Kai stumbled into the bedroom and Ryo slammed the door behind them. It took Kai two tries to lock the door while Ryo plastered his back to the low bureau, scooting it noisily across the room. Kai joined him and together they shifted the bureau the last few feet in front of the locked door.
Kai’s teeth were chattering. “Th-this isn’t going to stop th-them. None of th-this will help.” He hugged himself, as though physically restraining himself from coming apart. Ryo sympathized with the feeling. He was trained to respond to mortal threat and even he was afraid. Afraid that nothing he did would be enough and that in a matter of minutes he would see Kai die.
“We just have to slow them down enough.” Ryo dropped his phone in his pocket. Help was coming. Maybe it would arrive in time.
Kai wiped at his eyes and nodded. Ryo put his arms around him. He didn’t try to reassure Kai. They listened tautly to the fast approaching pop and crack of automatic gunfire.
Kai’s arms were locked around Ryo’s waist. His face pressed against Ryo’s. His breath was moist; his damp lashes flickered in butterfly kisses against Ryo’s eyes.
“Sorry,” he said unsteadily. “Sorry for this. Sorry for all of it.”
Ryo shook his head. From down the hall came the splintering sound of the front door being shot to pieces. “Let’s go out on the balcony.”
Kai drew a breath, stepped away from him. They walked out onto the narrow balcony. Lights were blazing on all around them. Buildings coming to life. Windows and doors opening—the wrong response to gunfire, people—tenants calling out to each other.
Ryo stared down at the courtyard below. The pool was a glowing aqua square framed by lazily-swaying palm trees. Four stories down. They had a much better chance of hitting the surrounding pavement than the pool itself.
He raised his head at a faint keening sound carried on the breeze. Sirens. They sounded a million miles away.
The balcony—in fact, the whole complex—bounced. That would be the lacquer cabinet blocking the front door tipping over.
“We could climb,” Kai said suddenly, grabbing Ryo’s arm. “We could climb onto the roof.”
Ryo leaned back, staring upward. About ten feet above them, the tile roof jutted out like a black wing. “Yes! Great. Go for it.”
Kai hopped onto the ledge of the stucco balcony, slowly straightening to his full height. He was a couple of inches too short to reach the overhang.
“Stand on my shoulders.” Ryo’s eyes jerked back toward the bedroom at the deep sporadic bursts of cra-a-a-a-a-a-k, cra-a-a-a-a-a-k. Bullets tore through the door and wooden chest and opposite wall. “Steady.” He reached up a hand and Kai took it, stepping onto his shoulders. He was light, but not that light. Ryo managed to stay upright and solid. He gripped Kai’s wrists tightly.
Kai let go of Ryo’s hands, his weight shifted and then swung off Ryo’s shoulders. He clambered onto the roof and then leaned over the edge. His hair tumbled around his bloodless face. With his enormous eyes and wild hair he reminded Ryo of pictures of dying or crazed samurais he’d seen all those years ago in hoshu ko.
“Hurry,” Kai told him. “Now you, Ryo. You’re taller. You can make it standing on the ledge.”
“Go,” Ryo told him. “I’m right behind you.” He scrambled onto the narrow ledge of the balcony as the bedroom door gave with a crash, followed by the second crash of the bureau sliding across the room.
Ryo jumped. He was taller then Kai, but still not quite tall enough. His fingers brushed rough tile and he had a sickening moment when he realized there was nothing to grip, he was sliding back down. Kai’s hand clamped down on his forearm with an unexpectedly powerful grip. Kai’s other hand locked on Ryo’s collar. Ryo dangled, kicking his legs in open space, and then Kai hauled him up, hanging on until Ryo managed to throw a leg over the parapet and wriggle over onto the roof. Kai dragged him farther back from the edge.
“Run,” Ryo gasped as their pursuers spilled onto the balcony below.
Kai was on his feet and bounding away like a gazelle, gravel dusting up from beneath his bare feet. Ryo was right on his heels, but as they passed one of the large air compressors, he dropped down behind it and pulled his weapon. His heart was pounding so hard he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands steady enough to hit anything. He had never shot anyone. In fact, he’d only pulled his weapon a handful of times in his entire time on the force.
The first masked shooter swung over the edge of the rooftop. Ryo fired. The man shouted and fell back.
Ryo closed his eyes. He had shot someone. Maybe killed him. Numbly he listened to the sirens floating in the distance. Ryo opened his eyes. Bullets stitched through the air compressor and he flattened himself to the ground. He threw a quick look back at Kai. He could just make out the pale outline of him crouched at the far edge of the rooftop.
“Can you make it across to the next building?” Ryo called hoarsely. At least if Kai survived there would be some point to this, some good out of it.
Kai looked, judged the width, gave Ryo a thumbs up. Ryo gave him thumbs up in return and risked a look around the air compressor which was making mortally wounded noises.
It took a few vital seconds to pinpoint one shadowy figure climbing over the parapet. Movement to his right sent Ryo’s heart rocketing into warp speed. The remaining gunman was already on the roof and nearly on top of him. Ryo fired off a round and the gunman dived behind the concealment of a water tank closet.
Fuck. That had been too fucking close. Ryo sucked in a shaky breath.
Ryo risked another glance back and saw that Kai had successfully made the jump to the next rooftop. He expelled a breath. Thank God. At least Kai was safe. All he had to do was keep his head down and keep moving. Please keep your head down. Please keep moving. Please be safe.
Now all Ryo had to do was manage to stay alive for the next…how long? How long ‘til help reached him?
Another stream of bullets ploughed through the shattered air compressor. Ryo tried his best to become as one with the roof. He swore quietly, fervently. What the hell was the matter with these suicidal freaks that they didn’t give up and try to get away? They couldn’t miss that the police sirens were right beneath them now. They couldn’t miss the red and blue strobe lights cutting swaths through the nighttime.
Ryo breathed quietly, keeping his eyes on the water tank closet where he knew the other gunman was still hiding.
The night smelled of gun powder and burnt oil. Above the crackle of police radios, the buzz of voices, came a pulsing thrum of sound. Ryo raised his eyes. Across a stretch of starry sky he could see fast approaching lights and hear the droning beat of helicopter blades.
“You hear that?” he called out. “It’s over.”
The response was another fusillade of bullets.
It was over. But was it over if the bad guys didn’t know it was over?
The first gunman must have reloaded because he was advancing, firing steadily, bullets chewing stucco and tile and everything else in its way. Ryo looked desperately for new cover. He couldn’t get a clean shot off under that steady bombardment.
He inched to the other side of the compressor and risked a blind shot. He missed but the gunman ducked down behind another compressor.
Footsteps pounded past Ryo. He fired, thought he hit his target, but the shadow ran on. Ryo fired again, missed, and then was under fire himself from the first gunman.
The second shooter was going for the next rooftop and Kai. Ryo ignored the man advancing once more on him and fired again at the second shooter, but he sailed across the divide and landed on the rooftop where Kai was hiding.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Where are you, you sons of bitches?” Ryo cried out. He meant his fellow cops. He was talking to Mayer and Hernandez and Louden and every other cop he knew. He couldn’t do this by himself. He had nine rounds left.
The advancing gunman laughed.
The laughter cut through Ryo’s rising panic. He ducked back, took a couple of deep breaths and then threw himself forward, rolling to his side and firing off three quick rounds. One shot went wide but the other two hit the gunman dead center, plowing into his torso. He cried out, firing his AK-47 straight into the sky, and then fell backwards and lay twitching.
Ryo flipped over and jumped to his feet, running for the edge of the roof. To his horror he saw Kai and the second gunman caught in the spotlight of the hovering police chopper as they struggled on the brink of the apartment roof opposite. Why the gunman hadn’t simply shot Kai was a mystery. It seemed unlikely Kai could have managed to get the drop on his pursuer. But he was still standing, still struggling.
Ryo brought his weapon up, training it on the entwined figures, but he didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting Kai.
His heart stopped as the grappling figures stumbled and fell. They continued to fight, rolling closer to the edge, seeming unaware of their danger. And then one man went over. Ryo’s eyes closed instinctively, but not knowing was worse than knowing. He opened his eyes. Kai’s red hair blew wildly around him as he stretched out on the roof, offering his hand to the man who dangled from the edge.
Kai’s mouth was moving, but Ryo couldn’t hear the words over the whirring beat of the helicopter blades, he could only see the urgency in Kai’s face.
The man reached up, but instead of taking Kai’s hand, he caught a strand of his hair, winding it in his fist. Ryo leveled his weapon, sure the masked figure would drag Kai over the edge with him. But the man only held on for an instant before his fingers loosened, and he let go, let go of Kai, let go of the roof, let go entirely, falling into the darkness.