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Today we're previewing MM Erotic Thriller Torn and Frayed by Rodd Clark. Torn and Frayed is Book 2 of the Gabriel Church Tales series.
“Conscience isn’t something all people are born with...”
Gabriel Church is a portrait in contrast. It would be easy to get lost in his pale-blue eyes, ache with the need to feel the strength of his masculine frame. He appears to be nothing but animal and instinct. The only people who know the full depth of that truth are dead, murdered, or two thousand miles away.
Gabe is a serial killer. For the first time in his life, he has more on his mind than his own survival. This time he is running from Seattle to protect the only person he thinks innocent in his laundry list of crime and murder: Christian Maxwell, his biographer and unexpected lover. Drawn to a place he never thought to return, Gabe finds new and different realities. Realities that insist he let go of his tragic past, those incredible perceptions of God, and his own divinity. He must open his eyes to what the love of a good man can do to heal a broken soul.
But when the killer is confronted by his own willingness to love and sacrifice, he is forced to ultimately ask the question: Just how far will he go to save a life . . . when all he’s ever done is take them?
Please enjoy this sample chapter from the book . . .
CHAPTER TWO
EVEN THOUGH IT was a
state-governed office, there was nothing sterile or briskly efficient inside
the halls of the Criminal Investigative Division for the Washington State
Police. As Detective Scott Keen could attest, it was nothing more than peeling
paint and cracked linoleum, where an inescapable odor of testosterone and stale
brewed coffee wafted out of every office he passed along his route to reach his
desk.
He couldn’t help but imagine
it as pledging a fraternity, where listless Sunday mornings each man paid a
toll for a previous night’s party or where feet were dragged and men stumbled
through their morning routines like recovering freshmen hauling their bodies
through a.m. classes. The type of men who only appeared revitalized whenever an
opportunity arose where they might goad or bait another weaker, unsuspecting
colleague.
“Hey, Autumn
Boy . . .” someone yelled behind his back as he passed, “are you
making headway on the Schoolgirl Murders yet?”
Like most detectives, Keen
had been given a nickname. His moniker of Autumn Boy was a double
reference. Autumn was a subset category of cases applied to those with
little chance of resolution or arrest. The seasonal terminology was the
description of a cold-case file, one where a hard freeze was all but imminent.
A simple cop’s idiom to show an investigation had reached its highest pinnacle
for success or that there was little hope for a suspect’s arrest or that the
file would ever get presented to the DA’s office. The word Boy had been
intended as an insult because of Keen’s baby-faced features, though it’d been
years since he graduated from the academy and was about the same general age as
nearly all his associates.
“Certainly more than you
could, Simmons . . . so screw ya!” he shouted over his shoulder
without slowing down or glancing back to even acknowledge his detractor.
Keen didn’t mind the
childish taunts from his coworkers. He did, however, require their respect.
He’d worked hard to achieve the status he’d attained, and his reputation for
solving cold cases had become a trait that few could question. He did the
necessary legwork and viewed every suspect with fresh and critical eyes, and
more often than not he brought life back to his dead or dying files. But for
him it was more than just satisfaction of bringing closure to victim’s
families. It was winding up a case where others before had failed the task. It
became the primary reason for his tenacious efforts and why he used every
available resource at his disposal.
And when he was successful
and the potentiality of arrest whispered just above the horizon, he’d walk the
corridors in the Belltown Station like a king who sported a crown of gold. He
was always smugly confident when he headed to his captain’s office, clutching a
once dead file that now breached with surprisingly new life. He counted every
triumph as a personal achievement above his associates, which may not have made
him the most highly regarded among his peers but certainly a man worthy of
recognition. And that became the coin that Keen treasured above all others as
he shuffled through his daily grind.
One of his open cases was
fast becoming known around the station as “The Schoolgirl Murders.” It was
justifiably big news at the moment and the subject of great interest to
families, reporters, and the politicians currently soapboxing on that very
issue. It had begun with the abduction of two young girls who’d been taken in
broad daylight and on a public street. Regrettably the term Schoolgirl
Murders had been coined by a beat officer then sadly picked up later in the
papers. Keen particularly hated the practice of giving nicknames to a killer or
their victims. He knew it might be easier to categorize when working in closed
groups, such as investigators, but it minimized the tragedy when “cute” monikers
were given to unsubs or their act or even as in this case, the victim profile.
Keen knew how widespread it was, particularly with male serial killers. The
public had been doing that since before there was even a term serial killer, remembering that time in
the mid-eighteen hundreds when the public titled Edward Rulloff, The
Educated Murderer.
Keen had been given the case
only after the girls’ bodies were recovered in a field in the city’s industrial
section of town. With almost no physical evidence and an absence of
eyewitnesses, it was proving to be a difficult case for Keen. Being as his
former partner had been recently reassigned, it meant he would be working
alone. With the double homicide drawing public scrutiny, Keen was juggling more
than he’d have liked. He used to tell his wife, Carol, that by the time he got
a case, most of the witnesses had died, moved out of state, or were currently
incarcerated for other unrelated charges. It was typically the type of problem
he enjoyed tackling. He had only recently transferred from Homicide to the
Criminal Investigative Division, or CID, and even though his solve rate had
dipped during the interim, he was finally catching his footing. That was until
he was bestowed the more noteworthy double homicide to close.
Keen knew he had the general
perception of being an amiable enough fellow around the water cooler, but his
often-brusque exterior and single-minded focus could be a tad off-putting to
some detectives. It was another reason his diminutive title came into being
then later stuck after others saw how much their newcomer loathed it. In part,
it had been their way of drawing him and even welcoming him into their
collective, while simultaneously and subtly reminding him that it wasn’t his
age that bothered them but his lack of tenure in the group. Keen understood all
that, though in his mind he could’ve hoped to get a cooler nickname. Autumn Boy
seemed so haphazard in his mind. But like jet fighter pilots, no one gets to
choose their call sign, and around the station Keen was simply Autumn Boy. It
was a handle he hoped to grow out of as quickly as he could.
“There you are, Scott. Been
looking for you,” a female detective said when she encountered him in the
hallway.
Where Keen’s baby-faced
features may have instilled his most hated epithet, it was just as much an
equal draw for the women in his office. All of them knew Keen had a wife. Some
had met Carol, and on occasion, she had even charmed one or two. But that
didn’t stop them from looking, or coquettishly batting their long lashes in his
direction.
“What’s up, Erin?” Keen
asked cordially. “Did you need me downstairs?”
Erin Franks was a second-tier
Lieutenant, currently assigned to the high-tech unit of the CID. Besides being
attractive, smart, and flirtatious, she was an excellent contact for Keen and
had become invaluable as a resource whenever he needed record searches or IP
traces. He’d allowed her artful advances and, oftentimes, over-the-edge teasing
to get slightly out of hand, but he knew the importance of balancing a
favorable connection with someone in her skillset. Though, out of all the
detectives on site, Erin was the one he wouldn’t have liked Carol to meet or
become acquainted with.
“Well, not yet,” she said
with a suggestive lilt in her words. “I just have that vehicle records printout
you requested. Of course, Scott, you’ll need to drop by and get it at your
leisure, since I don’t carry it around on the hopes I’ll just bump into you.”
Laughing to shatter the
mood, Keen said, “Sure thing, detective. I’ll stop by later when I can.” Then
as quickly as she’d met him casually in the hall she was gone, with a trail of
soft perfume trailing in her wake. She smiled briefly before she sauntered off,
her shoes clicking across the tile. Erin’s reputation always preceded her
wherever she went, mainly because she was one of the few females on the force
who had the chutzpah to wear fashionable, yet inappropriate heels to work. And
much like all the male detectives at the station, Keen saw her as one highly attractive
woman. Though in his head he had to wonder how she thought her choice in
footwear might enable her to race after a fleeing suspect.
Keen was an old-school
detective. He still utilized a murder board even in these technical times. His
familiar whiteboard, with its green and blue pen-scrawled notes, represented
every possible suspect and timetable relating to each crime. He only erased the
board completely after he’d presented a suspect to the pretty law grad in the
DA office. Her name was Connie, and she saw every file prior to submitting it
to the District Attorney or his associate attorneys.
Keen had only just sat down
at this desk when his captain popped his head around the corner and knocked on
his open door. “Hey there, detective. Can you squeeze in one more cold
case . . . maybe sometime before your next public appearance?”
His captain was gruff as he dropped the sheet assignment on his desk and walked
out, not waiting for his answer.
Keen knew he was referring
to the media for the Schoolgirl Murders that he’d been tasked to solve. His
superiors didn’t like giving away the types of cases that brought the most
notoriety to the precinct. At least, not until they were personally involved in
the outcome and could stand center stage during a press announcement or
generally take their sizeable chunks of credit for everything the detectives
had finished prior to an arrest.
The sheet the captain had
given him was informational. It coded to a particular banker’s box held in
storage, where every box consisted of old investigative notes and minor
evidence packets. Each cardboard box comprised the sum of a particularly stale
homicide that hadn’t been closed to date. It was Detective Keen’s primary claim
to fame, and his most stalwart commission inside the CID.
After retrieving the
evidence box and skimming the contents, Keen learned it was the murder of a
young woman who’d lived in a run-down apartment in a less than reputable
quarter of Seattle. Her name was Shea Baltimore, he read. Her lifeless corpse
had been discovered in her own residence, and the attached crime scene photos
displayed her limp and frail figure positioned on a bright-red sofa, which he
presumed had to be the victim’s.
Immediately, Keen was seized
by the way her tiny frame was placed in the photos. Even though her head was
slumped awkwardly to the right, in her final moments of death, she could’ve
almost appeared as if she were sitting on her couch comfortably. Keen suspected
she’d been positioned in that manner and possibly situated there post mortem.
That suggested another possibility, one where she might’ve been killed at
another location and then moved there. But whoever sat her upright in her
seated position, with her back against the pillows, had done so with seemingly
kind and gentle hands. Or maybe it was just a gesture to show a killer’s
remorse. And if true, that would speak volumes about her assailant. Even
without knowing any of the particulars of the investigation, Keen was already
defining his suspect pool. One he knew would chiefly consist of all the
victim’s friends, family members, and lovers.
The young woman’s death was
initially thought to be a sexual attack gone awry. But that was just supposition first responders had
suggested to officers after seeing no telltale clues to suggest otherwise. It
wasn’t a robbery, they’d said, and there hadn’t been any sign of a break in,
with nothing disturbed at the scene as far as anyone could ascertain. Sexual
assault was just as quickly discarded from their line of possible inquiry when
the medical examiner’s office found no evidence of rape. Miss Baltimore’s
remains were absent the necessary DNA that might’ve resolved the case more
quickly, and there were no physical signs of assault still lingering on her
body. This was why the case had gone tragically cold, Keen figured—first
responders weren’t detectives. Even those seasoned investigators previously
assigned to the case had, in Keen’s opinion, failed their victim. He wouldn’t
be burning through his afternoon, elbow deep and buried in a cold case evidence
box, if they hadn’t. He also wouldn’t be trying to decipher through the
hen-scratched notes of their early investigation with reports strewn across his
desk.
Shea Baltimore’s grisly
resolution had yet to be transcribed onto a new murder board, but it appeared
it would be necessary. Sometimes seeing a photograph of a victim taken by CSI
could spark an outrage that worked to skewer the case directly into a
detective’s head. But looking at a candid photo of the victim had always worked
best for Keen. It served as his motivation by keeping the outcome of that
nearing finish line somewhere within his reach. He knew what most investigators
knew: that it was hard to not find yourself motivated whenever the victim’s
face couldn’t be shaken from your mind.
Such was the case with his
latest acquisition still perched on the corner of his desk. So he flipped his
whiteboard over to the clean side and begrudgingly put the Schoolgirl Murders
on a temporary hold. The detective began scotch taping photographs to the top
of the board, and with a marker he jotted down the highlights of the known
analysis under a double underlined title that he’d written in capital letters: THE SHEA BALTIMORE
HOMICIDE. Next to that declaration he included the date and time of death he’d
found listed in the ME’s report.
Sometimes family presented
law enforcement with a photograph of the deceased to use during their
investigations, because it wasn’t just detectives who understood what the sight
of a fresh face smiling bright with vitality could do to drive and inspire. It
was the very first connection, which more often than not became forged between
a family in grief and the champions they turned to in their search for their
loved one’s killers. But Keen couldn’t find any real photos of Shea Baltimore
when he rifled through his evidentiary contents. He did find an old high school
picture buried inside near the bottom of the box, which for his purposes was
fairly useless, but he found nothing more recent that he could use on his
murder board, making him strangely curious.
Skimming through the
investigative notes, Keen read Miss Baltimore had already lost her mother and
was survived by her only living relative, her father. From the scrawled
assessment the investigating detective had made of DeWayne Baltimore inside the
margin edges of his notepad, their first meeting had been less than promising.
He’d already been informed of his daughter’s death by the black and white’s
who’d first entered the apartment. Keen wondered right off the bat why it’d
been police officers who made the death notice visit and not the investigative
agents who arrived next. His question wasn’t addressed in the notes he
currently possessed, so he quickly decided to investigate that anomaly the
following morning.
The first of many
discrepancies he wanted to address. The notes went on to describe the father as
being a heavy drinker by the sight of empty, crushed aluminum cans surrounding
his chair when they stopped by for their initial visit. It was protocol to meet
the family to establish their relationship and learn anything they could about
the victim, while surreptitiously asking about their own alibis, under a guise
of concern and compassion in those heartbreaking, worst of moments. Keen knew
as well that he too would be introducing himself to DeWayne Baltimore in the
very near future, because he wanted to know why the man hadn’t given police a
photo of his daughter that wasn’t years before she’d been murdered. It was
nothing more than a question but the first of many in a long line of puzzling
incongruities.
His concentration was broken
when Detective Gilroy peaked around the corner to ask, “Hey there,
Scott . . . whatcha doing?”
“Just messing around with
photos of dead folks,” Keen replied over his shoulder.
“Well, do you have to do
that now?”
“Well, when I do it at the
park, people stare,” Keen said with a light chuckle.
Then Gilroy chimed back.
“No, buddy, I mean the captain wishes to see you.”
Putting his murder board
aside, Keen turned to the big man and asked, “So now you’re a messenger for
him? Well congratulations on the promotion, Dennis. Let’s hope with the small
pay increase you can finally afford the stomach staples.” His smile was warm
yet cutting as he patted the man’s belly. Then he whisked up his suit jacket
and headed down the hall for his meeting.
THE PALMETTO Inn was visible
from the highway, leaving Gabe to pull through the parking lot to gauge each
access road in and out of the motel. His instinct turned to second-nature, and
he wasn’t always even aware he was performing the tasks that might one day save
his life. He was always checking for exits whenever he entered somewhere new.
And whether conscious of it or not, it became a habit he’d taken for granted
for far too long. When he was satisfied with the layout, he parked his truck
and grabbed the duffle he kept behind the seat. After pulling out a phony ID,
he headed inside to rent his room.
The desk clerk was of Indian
descent. He spoke a funny version of English, and being as Gabe had grown up in
both the hills of Kentucky and the sticks of Tennessee, it couldn’t have been
any more awkward an exchange. He was as white bread as was possible to bake.
The exchange was awkward, and with some effort, he made it more so in his
attempt to distract the clerk from inspecting the phony ID for flaws. Even a
hillbilly such as himself had his own charms, and he dazzled with every feigned
miscommunication. Not that the clerk seemed to care if his papers were
legitimate or not.
Gabe convinced him to accept
cash but left a copy of his stolen credit card to ensure the deposit. He’d
asked for a room to the rear of the parking lot, and he chose to back into a
space before heading off to locate his room.
He found it surprisingly
spotless, bright and airy, at least as far as cheap motels along the highway
tended to be. Tossing his duffle on the bed, he closed the curtains and
immediately began undressing. It had been two days since his last hot shower,
and he figured he was going to take full advantage of one immediately. Ever
since he’d left Seattle, showers and clean linens had become a luxury he
couldn’t always afford. But the memories of that drew him back to his time at
that fancy-schmancy Mayflower Park Hotel, where Chris and he had stayed. Maybe
it was the weird sensation he felt holding the same tiny bar of Ivory soap or
the clean tiles under his bare feet, but he felt yanked backward in time to
where the two of them had spent all their time fucking and drinking and
discussing Gabe’s childhood back in Tennessee. He remembered always waking up
slower than usual, naked and still wrapped around Christian like a cocoon. His
whole adult life had been comprised of wasted, empty moments of time—those long
strings of nothingness stretching through his days and the thing he worked
diligently to kill before it’d take his mind. But that time with the writer had
felt different; it had somehow had purpose without a purpose.
For the first time in his
life all that freedom felt more like he was relaxing on a beach somewhere
without any care in the world. But prior to meeting Christian, it had been
nearly unbearable as an existence. The sluggish periods between the killings
had felt endless, as if he were actually sleepwalking through his days like a
zombie. The weighted gaps of days were like stones tied around his neck,
dragging him down and burying him in that black, empty abyss. Gabe knew how
real people lived. Some would probably be envious of his life, no ties or
responsibilities to hold him down or imprison him, but he knew better. He had
lived that life and knew the consequences of that freedom. Some might be
envious or think it would be emancipation, but for him it was different. It
could just as easily steal your mind and make you seriously insane.
It was different with Chris.
He knew that to acquire that transformation all he had to pay him was his time.
In exchange for feeling whole again, he’d only have to suffer through the
spilling of his details and the examination of his soul. Though at times it
felt exhausting, having to dissect his childhood and expose its weaknesses, in
the end he didn’t mind. He liked watching Chris as he excitedly wrote down his
notes, forgetting he was naked and still sitting on the floor, the bottle of 90
proof sitting beside him, which they both were sharing. He’d stacked his little
notes like firewood and eagerly begged for more. And even when it felt
invasive, like he’d been strip-searched, his cavities explored, it was still to
him a bargain. He was beginning to realize how much he would have traded just
to keep those moments flowing.
Even though he’d set out to
have his story told, there were times when he regretted it. It was embarrassing
having to relive parts of his childhood and damned near impossible to explain
his motivation. He knew there were those who he sought to tell who’d only stare
back at him with astonishment, their eyes frozen wide in fright and disgust, and
merely just sit there perplexed and blank as the horrors of his life were
spilling off his tongue. But Christian had urged him forward, and he could see
how the writer tried not to judge him as he scrawled out notes, which as it
occurred to him, he’d never gotten to read after it was all said and done.
“I could use a drink,” he’d
said one afternoon, crawling out of the hotel bed they shared. He’d given a
resounding slap to Christian’s bare ass cheek before plodding off naked into
the front room to find the bottle of bourbon the writer had brought with him.
“And I would support that
notion,” Christian muttered as he left the room. It was his way of asking for a
cocktail, he presumed, and Gabe found himself smiling his faint half-grin as
he’d walked away. He liked that man.
At the time, maybe neither
of them knew just how truly those emotions had been ingrained into his life. It
was in the small gestures, the ones the other man didn’t see, that cemented
their attraction. Like the secret pleasure Gabe felt every time the writer said
something astute or clever. But real men didn’t talk about their feelings like
pre-pubescent schoolgirls. They were just there and remained as something
unsaid and somehow understood.
Standing in the tiny shower
at the Palmetto Inn Motel, as Gabriel rubbed a soapy washcloth over his hairy
frame, he suspected if anyone ever wrote out his obituary, Christian’s name
would surely have to be there. Then he became morose at the prospect the only
person who could write his obit was Christian, and he doubted
that he’d ever see the writer again, despite the fact he wanted to.
Leaning back and allowing
the spray to hit his chest and face, he rested against the tile and wallowed in
the hot mist. Not that he deserved that much relaxation. But it did help him to
forget. He had considered a nap before clubbing but thought also about hitting
a gym for an hour or so and working out his kinks. He knew San Antonio wasn’t
that big and saw how eventually all roads led to Mecca. If you wanted sex you
headed to the bars, to the gyms, or to the baths. With so few places to choose
from, and in a town with a decidedly closeted military presence, Gabe presumed
he knew their blueprint well. They would labor under the pretense of pumping
iron, as seductions began with long, lingering glances from across the floor.
They’d nod and smile when they noticed one another in the locker room heading
to and fro the showers, with the steam and sweat making slick mirrors along
their muscular builds.
They’d strut around like
proud fighting cocks with towels draped around oversized necks, wearing only
olive drab military-issued boxers, or nothing at all. Their privates bouncing
erotic and free under the white cotton fabric in a hint of promise of grander
things to come. Time would seemingly stand still then; the males loitering
uneasily as they slowly changed into, and out of, their street clothes. And whether
straight or gay, it didn’t matter to most, as long as each man drowned in that
sea of overstuffed jocks, perfectly round cherry tomato asses, and testosterone
sinew stretched across overworked frames. It was a game of understanding, even
with contrived and methodic gestures as they meticulously shaved or primped
their hair. There was always finite comprehension to an endgame they both
shared. Both knew to gap the minutes from one departure and the next. But each
knew they’d end up in the parking lot where a better introduction would
culminate in them sharing a bed somewhere for an afternoon of furious
bare-assed fucking as their reward. It would be over just as quickly as it
began, but at least they carried their salacious memories with them as they headed
back to their jobs and offices.
Before he stepped out from
under the showerhead, he’d already decided the best defense against old
memories was to make newer ones. First a nap, then he was determined to hit the
nearest club or dive bar and order a tall drink, then many others to follow. He
felt reasonably confident there would be someone that’d strike his fancy
wherever he ended up. And whoever got the lucky nod would be dragged back to
his room at the Palmetto, because Gabe was certain he’d get his wick wet sooner
than later, and residents in the adjoining rooms would be hearing his raucous
fucking and tasting the bitterness of envy on their salivating tongues.
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