Page 51 of Dropping Like Flies

“He doesn’t look like a serial killer.”

He didn’t. Stripped of the knife and having calmed down, he was back to looking like a lost little boy. But he’d certainly looked dangerous when he’d been waving a knife around with a crazed look in his eye. It had been easy enough to believe at that point that he’d murdered Rupert and the rest of them. “If most serial killers looked like a serial killer, they’d get caught a lot sooner.”

Carl huffed out a laugh. “I suppose so. I’ve served him a few times, though, and he always seemed really sweet and polite.”

I’d stopped listening to him, all my attention focused on the man making his way across the now almost empty club toward me. Ben looked like if he didn’t get to a bed soon, he’d fall asleep where he stood. He’d lost his jacket during the fracas to leave his muscular arms bare, his casual clothes now seeming completely out of place despite us still being in the club. He stopped in front of me, his gaze dropping to the bottle I held. “Since when have you drunk ginger beer?” Even his voice sounded tired.

I held the bottle out, Ben finishing the rest in a series of long swallows before placing the empty bottle on the bar. Either for discretion’s sake or because he’d thought of something better to do, Carl had done a disappearing act. “Since tonight,” I said in response to the unanswered question. I checked over Ben’s shoulder, relieved to find no sign of Harry or Olivia, the two PCs presumably still upstairs. “Can we get out of here, or do you need to stay?”

Ben’s contemplation of the question took an age before he finally nodded and we made our way to the exit. I said a silent prayer that nobody would try to stop us. For once, I got my wish, Ben and I reaching the street awash with squad cars and uniforms without being intercepted. I paused on the threshold to drag in a breath of considerably fresher air, the stuffiness of the club only now becoming apparent when I was out of it.

There was an alley next to Eclipse, Ben looking bemused as I tugged him down it until we were out of sight. “Griff, I have to—”

Backing him against a wall, I silenced him with a kiss, concentrating on the reassuring feel of him against me. Our reunion might only be a recent one, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the three-year separation had been nothing but a blip. One I’d caused, but a blip nevertheless.

“Griff!”

I released his lips, but kept my forehead pressed against his, the enveloping darkness cocooning us and making it feel like we’d traveled much farther from the club than we had. “Never do that again,” I said.

“Do what?” Ben’s tone suggested uncertainty between amusement and annoyance.

I lifted my head, just able to make out his features in the dark. “Take on a crazed lunatic single-handedly with a blade that could have gutted you in a matter of seconds.”

“What else was I supposed to do? Leave it to Harry?”

The word yes hovered on my tongue, but I didn’t say it. Deep down, I knew that had never been an option, but I wasn’t driven by logic at this moment. I was driven by a deep-seated fear that had things turned out differently, I could have lost him, that those years I’d thrown away might have turned out to be the biggest regret of my life.

“I’m fine, Griff.” He lifted his hands to palm my cheeks. “No cuts. No bruises. No injuries at all. And we have a lead. Something to investigate.”

“Yeah… We do.” It still seemed somewhat dreamlike, particularly the part where we’d just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Ben dragged me forward, our kiss this time more passionate. I gave myself up to it, my hands roaming over Ben’s hard body and seeking skin until that wasn’t enough and I pulled him tighter against me, hard cock against hard cock as we celebrated a breakthrough in our own inimitable style.

Just as I was prepared to fuck in an alley for the first time in nearly forty years of being on the planet, Ben drew back. “Hold that thought.”

“Till when?”

He sighed. “Not a question I can answer, unfortunately. We might have caught him, but that’s just the start. The hard work of proving it really was him starts now.”

I frowned. “Multiple witnesses, including three police officers, all heard him confess. Olivia recorded him saying it.”

Ben laughed. “It’s not that simple. He wouldn’t be the first person to confess to something he hadn’t done. You saw him in the club. Would you say he was in his right mind? And why would Dougie Elrod be trying to summon a demon? What was he going to do with one when he succeeded? Move it in with him and his mother?”

“Maybe he wasn’t trying to summon one. Maybe he drew those symbols because he thought they looked cool and they took us down the wrong path, made us assume something that wasn’t true. Or maybe he always meant them to be misdirection, in order to make it look like it wasn’t him.”

“Maybe. That’s my point, though. There are still too many unanswered questions.”

Much as I didn’t appreciate Ben being the voice of reason, I got where he was coming from, and he was the expert. I stroked a hand through his hair. “You need sleep.”

Ben snorted. “I wish.”

“You’re not going home?”

He shook his head. “I need to go to the station and see what Dougie has to say for himself. I should already be on my way there. I would be if someone hadn’t dragged me down an alley.”

“You’re running on empty.”

He extricated himself from me and I lamented the loss of his body warmth. “What’s new? It’s nothing that coffee won’t solve.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call a cab for you.”

I pressed my hand over his to still his movements. “Don’t. If you’re going to the station, then I am too.”

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