Page 61 of What I've Tasted of Desire

“Physically, he’s fine. Mentally…?” I shook my head.

“Goddamn,” Rob cursed under his breath as he looked back at the truck. “I’ve gotta call Melissa.”

Once the detective arrived on scene, she talked with the other officers before introducing herself to me. I told her the same thing I had told the officer. That I had arrived around seven and then went inside for the night.

“Where is Mr. Winters?”

“Alex is upstairs, resting.”

I followed her into the house. “Can you please have him come down. I’ll need to get a statement from him.”

“He’s not doing well; he’s been sick.”

“Do we need medical?”

“He needs to rest.”

The detective pinned me with a look, and I sighed. “I’ll try to get him to come down.”

Don’t like her…

I made my way back upstairs and softly knocked on Alex’s bedroom door. When I got no response, I opened the door slowly and walked in. “Alex?”

He moved slightly and peeked over the blankets at me, his eyes big and hollow.

“Detective Rhodes is here. She wants to talk to you downstairs. I tried to get her to come up, but she’s insisting you come to her.”

I walked over to the side of the bed and caressed his hair. He outstretched his arms and I reached down and pulled him to a sitting position. He laid his head on my chest and clung to me with his fingers.

“I’ve got you,” I vowed.

He sniffled and then pulled himself away. I stood up and helped him to get to his feet. He was walking on his own two feet, but leaning heavily against my side. We slowly made our way downstairs and into the kitchen. I leaned down and picked Alex’s phone up off the landing as we walked by and slipped it into Alex’s pocket.

When we entered, the detective was speaking to a blonde woman who wore way too much makeup. They stopped talking when they noticed our entrance and the woman’s manicured eyebrows flew to her hairline. “Alex!”

That must be Melissa.

She walked over and reached her hand out towards Alex. He immediately flinched away from her and buried his face into the crook of my arm.

Seeing Alex’s reaction, she quickly retracted her hand and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at me.

“It’s been a long morning,” I offered softly. “I’m Gabe.”

“Melissa,” she replied, her voice thick with emotion. “I’m Alex’s boss.”

Rob walked into the room from the far side. Trailing behind him was one of the largest men I’d ever seen in real life. He must have been 6’5”, with ebony skin that stretched over what had to be at least 300 pounds of hard muscle. He was carrying a laptop and gave everyone in the room a solid once-over before setting the machine down on the counter.

“Detective,” the man said by way of curt greeting as he nodded towards Rhodes.

The thin woman frowned and rolled her eyes. “I should have known you’d be all over this. Anytime there's a cute little gay boy involved, you come running.”

The man shrugged nonchalantly. “Someone’s got to protect them, Detective. God knowsyouwon’t. Now, you wanna get down to business, or do you want to just keep riding my nuts?”

I coughed to hide my chuckle as the man opened the laptop and clicked away until he’d brought up Westing House’s security cameras. Everyone except Alex scooted closer to the monitor.

The screen showed me pulling into the driveway at 7:14 PM. At 3x speed, I watched Alex walk out onto the porch and approach the side of my truck. He stands there leaning into the open window talking to me for a moment and then you see me get out of the car and follow him into the house. Then, the screen went black.

“That’s all I have,” the man announced.

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