Truth & Tenderness (22 page)

“Tell me what’s going on,” Griffin whispered.

Jim hugged him tight enough for his breath to catch, but nothing filled Griffin with fear like Jim’s next words.

“Tripp knows I’m the person who gave the information to the police.”

E
VAN
HUNG
up with Matt, disturbed by the conversation they’d just had. Someone staking out Jim and Griffin’s house? They’d talked to local police, but with so little to go on and few resources in the rural community, Matt and Jim had made the decision to send Daisy and Sadie back to the city. At least at the penthouse, they were sure of the security.

Evan sent a quick text to Griffin:
Here if you need anything.

When his door opened, he looked up with some annoyance.

Casper.

“We’re past the knocking thing, I see,” Evan said, only half joking.

“I thought we were.” Casper was always a smooth dresser, but today he’d outdone himself. He looked like he’d fallen out of a high-end men’s magazine.

“You on camera today or something?”

Got a tank?
Griffin texted back.

“No, but thanks for noticing.” Casper shut the door behind him and Evan swallowed a sigh.

“Did we have a meeting?”

Casper came up short at that; Evan’s tone clearly was not welcoming. “No, but I think we need to talk.”

Evan texted Griffin again.
You and Jim are welcome at the bunker if you need a place to stay.

Putting his phone to the side, Evan looked at Casper with his most patient expression. “I have a few minutes, sure.”

Sitting down, Casper pulled a serious expression. “I’m worried about you, Evan.”

His phone buzzed. Evan got distracted, then looked back at Casper. “What?”

“After Saturday night—I just can’t keep quiet anymore. Matt’s behavior was shocking and inappropriate. You were in front of fellow officers.”

“Who were drunk and grinding and off duty.” Evan tried to wrap his brain around Casper’s train of thought. “Besides, what the hell did he do? We danced a little bit—neither of us were drunk or inappropriate.”

Oh, have times changed
, Evan thought.
How I’ve changed.

Casper sat back in the chair. “You have to be aware of the gossip about him,” he said, shifting and looking anywhere but at Evan. “He’s a liability, Evan, as much as you don’t want to hear that.”

“Is this a joke?” Evan felt his hackles rise with each word out of Casper’s mouth. “Are you kidding with this bullshit?”

“He reflects on you, Evan. You ever think he’s why you’re stuck in Midtown South?”

“No, I know exactly why I’m at Midtown South. Because I’m a token and you put the token in the safest, least problematic place so he doesn’t fuck up and embarrass you.”

“Or you put the guy with the boyfriend whose ass got booted out of the NYPD for misconduct somewhere no one will bring it up.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem.” Evan stood slowly, splaying his hands on the desk. “I think you should leave.”

Flustered, Casper stood as well. “He’s bringing you down. You need a better person at your side, Evan. You need someone—”

It dawned on Evan then what this was about. He didn’t even try to stifle the laugh, rude and loud, that escaped his mouth. “Someone like you? No—thank you, but no. I’m not in the market for a relationship designed to please other people.”

Casper headed for the door, his face flushed and his mouth twitching with unspoken words.

“And Mr. Vaughn, just so you’re aware, I’m going to call your superiors and inform them our collaboration isn’t working.”

A sneer came over Casper’s face. “I’ll be better off. Watching you dumb yourself down for the constituents makes me sick.”

“Get out of my office,” Evan snapped.

E
VAN
STEWED
for the next few hours. He worked, had a meeting, called Matt, texted Griffin—all on the edge of throwing a filing cabinet through his fucking window.

It wasn’t even ego. He would tell Matt tonight that he was absolutely right about Casper. He would even take the “I told you so.” It was more that he had thought Casper was a friend, someone in a similar life situation to Evan, someone he could help move on after a breakup. The reality of their friendship being a lie, that Evan missed all the signs… his feelings were hurt.

And then there was the overwhelming anger, because fuck that jerk for speaking about Matt like that. How dare he? How dare anyone?

When the powers that be came to him before the test, before all of it—when they questioned his relationship with Matt—Evan had threatened to quit. His job meant the world to him, but he would quit for Matt. He would also punch Casper in the mouth if he ever heard Matt’s name on his lips again.

“Asshole,” he muttered, reaching for his phone.

A knock at his door: his sergeant, with a concerned look on his face.

“What’s up?” Evan asked, putting the receiver down.

“Building by Bryant Park got vandalized. Lots of damage.”

Evan cursed. He expected to hear from the community board president any second in that case. “Anyone hurt?”

“No, but uh—the person who called it in was a James Shea. He mentioned your name.”

Bryant Park? Jim?

“Shit. I think I know whose office got hit.” Evan got up and was around his desk in a flash, moving for his suit jacket. “I’m going to go over there. I have my phone if you need me.”

E
VAN
MOVED
through the chaos on the street. Three patrol cars, a fire truck, EMS. Gawkers and rubberneckers crowded the entrance of the building. Evan was already on the phone.

“Nora? Could you get me another car down to 1140 West Forty-Second Street? I need some crowd control and someone moving the traffic through so we don’t wind up with a mess at rush hour. Thanks.”

He flashed his badge and got waved through.

The elevator was locked to go only to the floor in question, the rest of the building already evacuated. When the doors opened, Evan caught a whiff of smoke and bleach.

Another flash of his badge, this time to the patrolman stationed at the entrance.

“What happened?” Evan asked, looking through the mess, trying to find Jim or Bennett.

The patrolman walked him over to the cordoned-off area. “Everyone came in late today. The upper floor was fine. But they smelled smoke, so they called 911. Fire department puts out a few waste can fires, then they realize the place had been wrecked before the fire.”

Evan nodded through his explanation. “Arson squad?”

“Already here.”

“Thanks.” He started to walk toward the sound of voices but paused. “Hey, when the detectives get here, tell them there are security cameras all over the place. Make sure they get the feed.”

Evan kept walking. He heard Matt’s voice.

“W
HAT
THE
fuck happened?” Matt asked, pacing around the farthest office, one of the only spots not destroyed by the fire or vandalism. Out there, accelerant over the rugs and desks, a sharp, heavy object taken to walls and windows, the fires—it was almost a total loss. “How did none of the alarms sound?”

Jim didn’t say anything. His face was drawn and tight; he had his arms folded over his chest, not offering anything to Matt as he ranted.

“Matt?”

Hearing his name, Matt ducked out of the small office to find Evan walking carefully over the wreckage. “What are you doing here?”

“Got the call. It’s my precinct.” Evan gestured for Matt to head back to the office.

“Jim, thanks for letting me know.”

Jim nodded, then reached in his pocket for his phone. “I’m gonna call Griffin and go upstairs, see what I can figure out.”

When they were alone, Matt couldn’t help pacing.

“Did you pull the security feed yet?”

“No,” Matt spat. “There isn’t any. Someone shut off the cameras. The sprinklers didn’t activate, the silent alarm—nothing.”

In all his time doing this, he’d never had a break-in. Never
vandalism
or damage—nothing. This infuriated him—to see the destruction of
property and peace of mind around him.

“Inside job?”

Matt had thought of that. But he trusted their crew. He and Jim had investigated them thoroughly before hiring them, and they were good judges of character. But history had taught him that for the right money, most people would give up their mothers. “We have to look at my people, and Bennett’s,” Matt said with a heavy sigh. He pulled at the collar of his shirt. “I have to see who worked on this gig specifically.”

“You get me names, I’ll run them,” Evan offered, but Matt shook his head.

“I already did that.”

“I have access—”

Matt put his hand up, regarding his boyfriend with a “really?” expression. “So do I.”

Evan opened and closed his mouth. “Please tell me you didn’t just admit to having access to police databases.”

“I didn’t admit to anything.” Matt pulled out his phone. “Let me call
Eddie.”

E
DDIE
,
WORKING
on a job uptown, freaked out a little about the vandalism. He took a cab down and met them in the lobby. “Matt, I’m so sorry,” he said, joining them in the corner for an impromptu meeting.

“Not your fault, at least I hope not,” Matt said grimly. “You did the final walk-through.”

“Right.” Eddie stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, shifting from foot to foot. “With Alex.”

“The temporary guy,” Jim put in.

Eddie nodded. “We checked everything, did the list, signed off on it.”

Matt narrowed his eyes as he watched Eddie. Something was up. He knew his employee, and he’d never seen this level of anxiety. “You personally checked everything,” Matt said, without the question mark at the end. “With your own eyes.”

Eddie dropped his gaze.

“Oh shit,” Jim sighed.

“Alex came recommended,” Matt said, looking over at Jim.

“By Eddie.”

All eyes turned to the young man. Cracking him wasn’t even going to require work.

“I’
LL
HAVE
him picked up,” Evan tried again, but Matt and Jim were already half a block away from the mess, trying to find a cab.

“Or I’ll go talk to him and find out who he sold the codes to, which will take about a quarter of the time,” Matt snapped.

Evan put up his hands, dodging pedestrians on the corner of Fifth and Forty-Second. “I’m asking you to let this be a legal interrogation.”

“We get lawyers involved in this and we’ll never figure out who
did this.”

“Matt, think about what you just said. Jim, help me out here.”

Jim said nothing as he stepped into the traffic and hailed a cab.

A
LEX
DIDN
’
T
put up much resistance in the end.

Matt and Jim were terrifying enough, but Evan felt confident that his badge loosened the young man’s tongue. He sat on the floor of his Inwood apartment, hands over his face.

“I haven’t worked in fourteen months,” Alex muttered, sniffling between words. “I needed the money. Eddie didn’t know what was going on—I swear to God. He thought he was just helping me out.”

Jim shared a look with Matt.

“What happened?” Evan asked, sitting across from Alex. He tried to keep the young man’s attention on him and not the glowering twins on either side of him.

“After I got the job, I was at the bar down the street with Eddie, and this girl started talking to me after he left. She said she had a friend and he, uh, needed some information.”