Chapter 2

Carl came up to me one night while I was working the bar at the club, asking if we could talk privately. It was slow, so I took him in back to the break room, wondering what was going on. He’d worked at the club for the past month and seemed nice enough, if a bit shy for someone who had to interact with the customers.

Carl paced back and forth for a couple of minutes, as if trying to come up with the words for what he wanted to tell me. Then he blurted out, “I’m gay, too, though no one knows it. I want to come out and be your boyfriend.”

“Carl,” I replied, “I already have a boyfriend. You know that. You’ve seen us together.”

Carl stood toe to toe with me, then. “He’s not good for you. He’s a punk and I’m going to make certain people know that, starting with that guy…The one you hang out with who owns the realty company. You two act like you’re the best of friends. How do you think he’d feel if he knew what your boyfriend is into?”

“Mick’s not intoanything,” I told him.

He laughed. “Yeah? Well, I’m going to make sure your friend thinks he is, and makes you break up with him. Then it’ll be you and me, all the way.”

The timid mouse had suddenly turned into a…A rabid rat, to stick with the analogy I’ve been using. The problem was, I didn’t believe he’d have the guts to carry through with his threat—until it was too late.

* * * *

From the courthouse, I went home to pick up what I needed.

Let me say up front, I’m not inherently a violent man. Yes, I helped Mick—and he was. Violent, that is. But as I’ve said, I’ve never killed before. Tonight that would change.

Carl was responsible for the death of the man I loved—and the incarceration of the only man other than Mick that I could truly call a friend. I grieved for Mick, but I can’t, I won’t, hold Jason responsible for what happened. He was only doing what he thought was best for me. The lies Carl told him drove him to that.

If Carl had known the real truth about Mick, he might have rethought saying anything to Jason. But he didn’t. So, out of a whole cloth, he made up a story about Mick’s being drug dealer who had gotten me involved with what he was doing.

That’s what Jason thought he was saving me from, despite my telling him it wasn’t the truth. He saw what Carl wanted him to—that our trips out of town were runs to buy drugs. There was no way I could convince him otherwise—and God knows I tried. If I’d told him the truth? Mick would still be dead, and perhaps I would be as well. I did do one thing to ease Jason’s mind—after he’d killed Mick. I promised him I’d get out of the drug trade. It was easy enough to do, since I hadn’t been in it to begin with.

I went to the club first. Only for a quick minute to make certain Carl was at work. I didn’t want to deal with all the people who had watched the news and knew Jason had been found guilty of Mick’s murder. Some of them would tell me justice had been dealt out and I should be happy about that. Others, who only knew me as a bartender there, would probably try to spend the evening rehashing the details of the trial with me. After all, it was big news in a small city. I’m sure Carl was savoring it all, waiting for me to finally accept that he was the man for me, now that everything was over. God only knows he’d hinted at it often enough, in the weeks between Mick’s death and Jason going to trial

As soon as I saw Carl—and before he could see me—I left.

My next stop was his place. I knew where he lived because he’d invited me to a party there, back when he first started working at the club. I parked two blocks from his apartment building, then waited on the steps leading up to the front door.

It was soon after one when he drove up the driveway to the lot in back of the building. I followed on foot, arriving as he got out of his car.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, infusing those five words with need and pain.

He barely managed to repress a leer, replying, “Sure. Let’s go up to my place.”

“I’d rather…I’m too stressed. Do you mind if we walk?” I nodded toward the street.