Chapter 2

“What can I do for you?”

“I’ve bought a condo in Aspen Reach. The woman who used to own it liked pink, and—”

“Jesus! Don’t tell me you bought Delilah Carson’s place.” I’d heard through the grapevine it was on the market. I could have talked to the other rent boys and come up with a down payment for it, because Delilah had been well-liked by all of us, but her next of kin were real sleazes. They’d descended like vultures, turned their noses up at her possessions, and put the condo up for sale for three quarters of a million dollars.

But a condo where a vicious murder had been committed? No one seemed to want it, and they’d had to keep dropping the price. I hoped Vince hadn’t been taken to the cleaners.

“You’re familiar with it?” Vince asked.

“Are you kidding? I was there!” I felt bad when I thought about how Delilah’s life had been snuffed out. She’d deserved better than that.

“You were there, babe?” Wills had been lounging against the wall, looking amused, but at that, he straightened, his expression abruptly unamused.

“Well, we’d tricked with her once or twice, and she called to ask if we’d mind working a threesome with her.” I wasn’t thrilled about what I’d done to support myself, but that was part of me. I would never deny it.

“When was this?” His voice was as cold as the look on his face.

“Oh, around the beginning of the year. Maybe a little earlier. So?”

Wills spat a curse under his breath. He rarely swore.

I felt my gut clench.

I’d known it was going to happen sooner or later. I’d known it. Living with him was everything I’d always dreamed having a lover—a partner—would be. The sex was great, but it was the little things he did for me…making repairs around the house, bringing home takeout when he knew I didn’t feel like cooking, going grocery shopping with me when I did, rubbing my feet when I complained they hurt…

Having someone this special wasn’t supposed to happen to someone like me, though, someone who, while it turned out I wasn’t a murderer, had spent almost half my life peddling my ass. So I’d kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It seemed the other shoe had just dropped.

“Oh, what? You’re worried I may have been fucked?” I wanted to strike back at him for making me believe he didn’t care about what I had done. “That was my job, smart guy! But just to set your mind at ease, I wasn’t fucked. That time.” I emphasized the fact that other times I had been fucked, and Wills turned pale. That’s right, bleed a little, asshole. The way I was bleeding. “I was in her crawl space, and I filmed it. Spike got to fuck this gorgeous babe’s ass while she deep throated Pretty Boy, and the two of them kissed while the john jerked off. Hot stuff, I wanna tell you. I made them a copy. They took it with them, but if you want me to look for the original…You could take it with you on one of your troubleshooting trips out of town and jerk off yourself.”

“Don’t bother.” Just two words, but it was like having a bucket of ice water tossed in my face. “Mr. Vincent.” He nodded to his boss, then went back into the apartment. I could tell from the way he was walking that he was more than pissed.

Well, what the fuck did he have to be pissed about? And what right did he have to be…to be…

“Y’see, Vince?” My throat felt clogged with tears. “I knew he was living in a dream world. It’s dawning on him what I did, and he can’t deal with it.”

“You think so?”

“What else am I to think?” I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry.

“Bascopolis, her murder was all over the front page of every newspaper in town around the beginning of the year.” Vincent sounded impatient. “You think maybe he was worried you could have been in her condo at the same time she was killed? That maybe it could have been your body found there as well?”

“Yeah, but—”

“You said you were up in the crawl space? How come?”

“He was a new client. Delilah said she was a little unsure of him. After he left, she laughed and said she felt really silly about at how nervous the set up beforehand had made her, but I could see she was still nervous. I asked her if she wanted me to make copies of the tape. She said yes, and Spike begged me to make one for him and Pretty Boy too.” I tore at a cuticle. “She was dead before I had the chance to give her the original and the other copies.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Funny thing. I happened to see a picture of him in the Post a couple of weeks later.” If I thought about something else, talked about something else, maybe my heart would stop feeling as if it was cracking into bits.

“Who, the john?”