Page 69 of The Evening Wolves

“What’s the one that had the secret Illuminati message in The Da Vinci Code?” Shaw asked.

North set his jaw and looked at Jem. “Go ahead. Open the fucking door for him.”

Jem laughed so hard he almost slid out of his chair.

In a matter of minutes, they were all headed out into the night, the cold popping against John-Henry’s cheeks as he stepped out of the restaurant. North, Shaw, Tean, and Jem crossed the lot toward their parked cars. Jem was asking about a wizard’s eye while Shaw quivered with his eagerness to answer, and North looked like one of those cartoon characters with steam about to come out of their ears.

Emery lingered by the door. The lone security light threw stark shadows across his face. One scarecrow eye glittered in a ribbon of light. He took John-Henry’s hand. “Are you ok to drive?”

John-Henry nodded. The night fell still as the other men got into their cars and conversations cut off, and for a moment, he almost knew what he wanted to say. Then North started his car, the engine roaring, and the moment broke.

“I’ll follow you home,” Emery said.

He walked John-Henry to his car. He shut the door for him like it was the end of a date, and suddenly, for some reason, John-Henry wanted to cry. He drove home, thinking about wall sconces shaped like Chevy Bel Airs and Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower and a boy who had trembled under his touch. The night was a long, dark tunnel through the ice.

14

When they arrived at Auburn’s small harbor the next afternoon, the day was overcast, and the light was a dirty yellow that made the clouds look like cigarette smoke, but Emery felt like a new man. Part of that was the night’s sleep. And part of that was knowing that his daughter was safe with her mother, and his son was safe with Ashley’s parents (who were under strict orders not to let the boys share a room), and his husband looked—well, like John again. The color was back in his cheeks. His eyes were no longer bloodshot. He’d slept almost twelve hours, and then, while Emery worked from home during the day—making phone calls, primarily, trying to turn up anything he could on Vermilya or the other recent victims—John had napped another handful of hours. The only interruption had been a phone call from John’s lawyer, Aniya Thompson, who had informed them of Brey’s death and suggested, in a roundabout way, that various law enforcement agencies would be asking where they had been the night before.

Now, as they parked in the harbor’s small lot, John could have been any other man in this part of the world: his mussed hair tucked under a Cardinals cap, a dark coat, dark jeans, Adidas. Then Emery reassessed that statement; his husband was simply too attractive to pass for anyone else.

John checked the sky, which was already darkening, and frowned. “We should have come earlier.”

“He would have been sleeping, John. He works second shift.”

“We could have asked around about him. Found out what people knew.”

“If we need to, we will.”

“You didn’t have to spend all day pretending to make phone calls so I could sleep.”

“Do you feel the pressing need for an argument?”

John’s grin was quicksilver. “You know what? I don’t.”

“Fantastic.”

They followed the boardwalk past the marina shop, toward a storage facility at the end of the harbor. Ice crusted the rocks along the shore, glinted on ropes and pilings, and had been trampled into a dull, compact layer on the docks. A breeze stirred the gray water into shark’s teeth, disturbing the petroleum sheen left by fuel and motor oil. It sent an old Dairy Queen cup bobbing toward the shore. That same breeze, when it reached land, cut through Emery’s coat as though it weren’t there, and he pushed his fists deeper into his pockets.

He hadn’t spent much time in harbors and marinas; most of what he knew, he knew from reading. Only a few boats bobbed in the water. The majority would be drydocked until the spring. The marina shop flew a miserable-looking American flag, its windows crowded with fishing poles. A single orange-and-black sign said WE RENT. They passed a fish-cleaning station, and Emery caught a whiff of the reek and was grateful for winter. Farther down—past the storage facility—he could see the fuel pumps, and next to them, a pile of life jackets under a skin of ice.

The storage facility was a post-frame building with steel panels for walls and an orange metal roof. A ramp led down into the harbor, presumably for people who needed or preferred to load and unload their boats here. John took the lead, heading toward a service door set into the side of the building. When he tried it, the handle didn’t turn, but he gave it a tug and it opened. Someone had taped the latch to keep it from setting—the small-town preference for convenience over security.

Inside, the air was warmer, and the steel panels made a soft humming sound as they caught the wind. Fluorescent panels provided steady light. They began their search. The layout of the structure was straightforward enough: it had been built in a U, with the shortest side facing the harbor. On either side of the hallway were storage units that could be accessed through roll-up doors. Occasionally, one of the doors had been left standing open to expose a vacant unit. Each unit, Emery discovered, had a second door that connected directly to the outside of the building. It made sense, he decided, for a facility designed to store boats—once the boat was on a trailer, it could be moved directly into one of the units.

They heard the music first—pop that, as they grew closer, resolved into what sounded like Harry Styles. Then a long scraping noise came, followed by a soft swish-swish. They followed the sounds until they stood outside one of the roll-up doors. Light showed in the gaps, now they could hear singing along with the music.

“He sounds like a cat in heat,” Emery said.

John grinned and rapped on the door. The metal shivered, and the singing cut off. A moment later, the music quieted, and a man said, “Uh, hello?”

“Braxton Campbell?”

The pause was longer this time. “Can I help you?”

“We were hoping you had a minute to talk.”

Often, it was enough to leave it at that—most people were accommodating, to greater or lesser degrees, and even more so, most people were curious. Sure enough, the latch drew back, and the door rattled up.

---