It still wasn’t enough. Just a futile attempt to pound the dream out of his skull, to burn away the gnawing pull toward a man who hadn’t called, hadn’t come.
When he finally let the bag swing on its chain, vision swimming in the heat of exertion, he caught a flicker of movement at the edge of his sight. Across the room, a guy was watching him. Tall, built like a swimmer, jaw dusted with stubble, his muscle tank clinging damp to his chest. Their gazes met, and the man’s mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile. Ash felt the answering tug at his lips before he could stop it.
(11:29 a.m.)
When the door to the steam room sighed open, Ash didn’t need to look. He knew who it was. The change in pressure told himfirst, the faint draft of cooler air slipping in before the heat reclaimed it, sealing the space in its damp, fragrant hush.
He sat leaning against the cedar wall, eyes closed, towel loose around his hips, the warmth a heavy, wet blanket clinging to his body. Across the room, wood creaked under a new weight. He squinted just enough to see the man from before settle in—chest gleaming, towel slung low so that every shift of muscle drew the fabric apart.
They were alone.
The man spread his knees, easy, unhurried, the fold of terrycloth slipping wider, the reveal subtle but deliberate. Steam swirled between them in languid currents, beading along the man’s chest before sliding lower. A hand drifted under the towel, slow enough to be unmistakable. His gaze never wavered from Ash’s.
Ash smirked, lids heavy, reading the signs as plainly as streetlit neon. He knew the look. The quiet dare. The unspoken promise of heat made physical.
Another time, he’d have pounced; no names, no questions, just skin, sweat, and the raw collision of bodies until the air ran thin. The guy across from him was all invitation: heat and muscle and the promise of an easy, anonymous release. But the impulse didn’t come. Desire, once a sharp, insistent pull, sounded strangely muffled, a voice calling from far away. He sat there, waiting for the spark, and found only an echo.
He didn’t understand it. Was it the ghost of a touch still stamped into his muscles, the memory of a grip that had left him claimed, unwilling to be filled by anyone else? Was it devotion born of nothing spoken? The thought annoyed him, sitting like grit between his teeth. He didn’t owe anyone this pause, this restraint. And yet he rose and left without a word, steam curling from his flesh as if reluctant to let him go.
The shower after was quick and scalding, more penance than cleansing. The walk home was even quicker, the cold of the morning biting hard, eating away the last of the warmth. Yet the sensation remained, rooted under his ribs, a quiet, persistent ache he could neither shake nor satiate, no matter how fast he walked.
Chapter Thirty-Two
(3:05 p.m.)
The apartment smelled of stale air, damp and heavy, a residue of absence that clung to every surface. Rick stood in the middle of the living room, his gloved hands flexing at his sides, eyes scanning the space for anything that might speak to him. The blinds were half-drawn, their warped plastic teeth leaking thin blades of afternoon light across the carpet. Dust hung in those beams, suspended like motes of accusation.
The crime-scene techs had already done their sweep that morning—bags tagged, photos snapped, evidence boxed and logged. What was left for him was the feel of the place, that ambient hum only a cop’s nerves could pick up on after years in homicide. James Cole’s life still clung here in the mess of books and ashtrays, in the sweater draped over the arm of a chair, in the scent of cheap cologne faint in the air, mixing with the metallic tang of rusty radiator pipes. On a low shelf sat a framed photo of James and a red-haired girl, frozen mid-laughter—the same one Ash showed him on his phone. Rick took it in without touching it, a hollow ache forming somewhere behind his ribs.
Frank’s voice rose and fell beyond the wall, a muffled sermon steady and unhurried, as he questioned the neighbors. Out in the hall, one of the uniforms leaned against the doorframe, jotting notes in a little green pad, the tip of his pen clicking in some slow, private rhythm.
Rick moved across the living room, then the kitchen, his shoes whispering over the floorboards. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. James Cole hadn’t met his end here. The sink was dry; a sponge lay shriveled beside a bottle of dollar-store dishsoap. On the counter, a matchbook stamped with aBlack Angellogo lay near the sink. Some local coffee joint, overpriced and overhyped, if he had to guess.
Ash would probably know the place.
Rick grimaced, wanting to slap himself. Once again, Ash was in his head. Not a stray thought; more like a scent you couldn’t shake. The taste of his mouth, that voice—half smoke, half sin—played in Rick’s mind when he should’ve been focused on the dead. He could smell the ghost of him on his skin… or was a trace of him reallyhere, a memory layered over this place like an afterimage?
The bedroom was small, sunken in shadow. A rumpled bed with the sheets half off, a pair of jeans crumpled on the floor, a dirty mug forgotten on the desk in the corner. Shelves sagged under paperbacks, plants, and unfinished paintings—the small, quiet mess of a man who hadn’t expected to disappear. Rick reached for the nightstand drawer, checking what the techs had logged and left behind. Beneath a jumble of papers and cables sat the passport. He slipped it into an evidence bag with practiced care. He wanted it in his hands, not buried in a box.
He should call him. Christ, he wanted to. But Frank’s words from yesterday were still rattling around in his skull:You’re compromised, Slade.Maybe he was. Maybe that was exactly the problem. And yet, Ash had given him this lead. That counted for something. Didn’t it?
Rick pushed the thought away, as he’d done all morning. Distance was better. Keep your head clear. Keep your badge clean.
Too late, buddy boy, and you know it. You don’t taste an ass like that and simply walk away.
Footsteps came from the hallway. A moment later, Frank came in, tugging at his tie like it was choking him, eyes flat in that way he got when the interviews had been useless.
“Neighbors didn’t see a damn thing,” he said. “Except one old lady on the ground floor. She said she saw—and I quote—a ravishing young man in black skulking around three days ago.” His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Sound like anyone we know?”
Rick didn’t take the bait. “Ash is the one who gave us this address, remember? And if he hadn’t ID’d the vic, we still wouldn’t have a lead. Besides, James Cole was dead long before that.”
“Still,” Frank said, words edged with that quiet suspicion he’d been nursing since Silver Cove. “Your judgment’s not exactly textbook right now.”
Rick met his gaze, let the silence stretch until it snapped. “You done?”
Frank shrugged, palms up in mock surrender.
They left the apartment together, the hallway dim and heavy with the smell of boiled cabbage from someone’s lunch. Outside, the afternoon sky had gone a duller shade of overcast, bruised gray along the horizon. Rick felt the shift in the air, that low electric charge that always came before rain.
