Page 76 of Headcase
The new moon brought an almost inky darkness with it, the cloud cover obscuring the stars in the sky. There was no light but for the single yellow street lamp three houses down. It seemed as though Jerry’s parents lived in the upstairs part of the house. Asa seemed confident that they’d discover Jerry was a basement dweller. Zane didn’t question how he’d come to that conclusion.
“I really hope you know what you’re doing,” Zane muttered. “I really don’t want to get popped for robbery. I won’t do well in prison.”
Asa gave him a long lingering kiss, his voice low and sexy in a way that was entirely inappropriate given what they were about to do. “I don’t know. You did a great job pretending to be an inmate the other night.” His lips dragged from his jaw to his earlobe, biting down hard enough for Zane to flinch. “But if you tried to trade favors with the guards in real life, I’d have to kill them. All of them. I don’t think you want that kind of blood on your hands. Right, Lois?”
Zane shivered, his pulse tripping and his cock hardening. “Are you saying you’d kill anybody who touched me?”
Asa’s raspy chuckle was knife sharp. “Killing would be the kindest thing I could do to somebody who touched you without my permission. And I know that turns you on, you bloodthirsty little thing.”
Zane scoffed. “It does not.”
Asa’s breath panted against Zane’s ear as he whispered a single word. “Liar.”
Zane grinned. “I plead the fifth. Now, can we go break into this guy’s house?”
Asa grinned. “Okay, Lois. Just follow my lead. And stay close.”
With the signal jammer, a few other toys, and balaclavas over their faces, they ran in a crouch across the side yard, stopping at a small basement window at the back, lying on the ground to peer inside.
“Gross,” Zane muttered, face twisting in disgust.
No matter what Lucas’s profile had told them about their possible suspect, nothing could have prepared Zane for the filth within. Even through the grimy window, there was no missing it. The only light was from the glow of five computer monitors, each with separate dizzying screensavers, set up slapdash on a desk that took up almost an entire wall.
There was a bed—well, a mattress—pressed against one wall, but Jerry hadn’t bothered to put sheets on it, leaving every questionable stain front and center for all the world to see. There was no comforter. Instead, there was a grungy sleeping bag and some kind of fur blanket with a naked woman on it.
“If this isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is,” Zane said with a shudder.
“Red flags don’t always mean murderer,” Asa murmured. “Sometimes, people are just dirty.”
Zane gave him a stunned look. “That’s not dirty. That’s…vile. The carpet looks black. There’s definitely roaches. I don’t even want to know what’s in those jars on the floor by his computer.”
“You are the guy who wanted to be an investigative journalist, no?” Asa teased.
Zane leveled a glare at him. “I didn’t know that meant entering places like this without a hazmat suit,” Zane said, wrinkling his nose.
“Do you want to just play lookout and I’ll go in alone?” Asa asked. “I wouldn’t want to upset your delicate sensibilities.”
“You don’t have to be condescending,” Zane said, his tone pouty.
Asa shook his head. “I’m not being condescending, Lois. I’m trying to be accommodating. If you don’t want to do the dirty stuff, I’ll do it for you. I like getting dirty for you. It would be my honor to crawl through this window and wade through…all that…so I can get what we need to torture this guy. For you.”
Zane narrowed his eyes at Asa. It was always hard to tell whether he was being sweet or sarcastic. “No. Let’s just do this. But if a roach crawls on me, I cannot be held responsible for what I do.”
“Noted.”
Asa turned on the jammer, waited a moment, then tested the window. When it didn’t give, he pulled out a strange flat metal rod that looked a lot like what locksmiths used to open locked cars from the inside. He slid it beneath the window, using it to pull up the gold latch from the interior of the lock. The window still took a bit of maneuvering but then finally slid up, making a shuddering sound Zane hoped sounded louder than it truly was. Asa slid in feet first, looking around, before gesturing for Zane to follow.
Zane temporarily forgot the grime as Asa helped him inside, letting him slide down his body before his feet found the floor. But before he could contemplate anything fun, he covered his nose and mouth. If he’d thought the place looked bad, the stench was so much worse, almost incomprehensible. It smelled like mold, sweat, stale beer, and weed. The air felt…damp, like Zane could feel the spores settling into his lungs.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Zane whispered.
Asa leaned in. “Anything that could prove this piece of shit is the handler we’re looking for. These creeps like to keep trophies.”
“Do you?” Zane asked.
Asa frowned. “Do I what?”
“Keep trophies?”
