Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Thirteen

River

It was two thirty in the morning when Cyrus pulled into a vacant parking spot across the street from my apartment complex. It had taken over half the drive to convince him we should check it out. He still wasn’t on board, but his protests had been reduced to grumbles under his breath. The rainbow of self-recriminations falling from his mouth made me shake my head. Poor Cyrus had been fighting an ongoing battle of moral and ethical proportions since deciding to help me get out of the institution. Nothing I said helped.

We’d driven by the apartment three times to ensure there were no unmarked cars or police nearby watching the place. So far as I could tell, no one was staking it out.

“What if they have someone inside?” Cyrus said when he killed the engine. He squinted at the front doors, but it was dark beyond the glass, the streetlights reflecting back at us. “It would make sense for them to send someone here. They’ll assume you’ll want to return to your apartment to collect things. We’re walking into a trap. This is a horrible idea.”

“That’s why we’re going to be careful. We need to look around inside. I need an objective pair of eyes on this, not the police who’ve already deemed me guilty.”

“You’re not objective.”

“Nope, but you are.”

“I’m not going in there.” Cyrus’s eyes blew wide. “No way. I drove you here. That’s it. This is on you. I’m staying in the car where it’s safe.”

“You are going in there. We both are.”

Cyrus growled under his breath and started the car again.

“What are you doing? Stop.”

“I’m parking down the road,” he said through gritted teeth. “If they suspect me at all, they might have my car’s description on their radar. If they see my vehicle outside your apartment, we might as well kiss this all goodbye.”

Cyrus drove several blocks before pulling down a side street and parking. When he yanked the keys from the ignition, he grumbled some more, muttering about how stupid he was and how he should be at home in bed and not committing a felony.

I reached out and scratched the curls at the back of his head. “Hey. Breathe a little. You’re already proving your worth. I need you. I’m impulsive. You’re the thinker. We balance each other. You’re smart, Cyrus. I need a smart guy on my side.”

“We’re going to share a cell.”

“Well, on the bright side, at least I’ll be with someone who knows how to suck a mean cock.”

Cyrus threw my hand off and shouldered out the door, muttering something about not taking this seriously.

I met him on the sidewalk. His hands were jammed inside his pockets. I’d convinced him to wear jeans and a polo rather than the refined office attire he seemed to prefer. He looked good enough to eat. His wild curls suited the more relaxed style, and he had a killer ass in denim. Sadly, the guy was going to give himself an ulcer if he didn’t calm down. He was wound tighter than a spring. The king of pessimism. A doom seer.

“How are we getting into the building?” he asked when I got to his side. “It’s secure. You don’t have your keys.”

“Ye of little faith.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Believe me, I hear you loud and clear. Come on.”

My neighborhood was quiet for the most part. A few swampy yellow streetlights made dull pools along the sidewalk. We avoided them, staying in the darker shadows beside buildings. Cyrus’s head was on a swivel as he did his best to keep an eye on every direction at once. I imagined the abusive pummeling his heart was probably giving his rib cage.

I checked the parked cars along the street again, ensuring there was no one inside watching us. I hated to admit it, but Cyrus was right. It would make sense for the police to stake out my apartment. I’d vanished from the hospital. Where else would I go?

A block from my apartment, Cyrus shoved me into an alcove. I stumbled, snagging his T-shirt when I tripped on my feet. My back hit the concrete wall, and Cyrus huddled in close enough his hot minty breath fanned my face. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.

“What the hell?” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

“Cameras. We didn’t think about cameras. How, in this day in age, could we not think about cameras? The city is crawling with them.”

I shoved him out of my space and straightened my shirt. “This neighborhood is scraping the edge of poverty. There aren’t any cameras that I know of.”

“That you know of? Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Would you relax.”

“How can I relax when I’m committing a crime. Another crime.” His face crumpled, and for a second, I thought this was it, the moment Cyrus truly cracked. But he shook his hands and puffed his cheeks with a harsh exhale and seemed to come back down to earth.

I scrubbed my face. It was a good thing he was cute because he was becoming the biggest pain in my ass. “Cyrus, please stop freaking out. Unless they have a reason to go searching camera feeds again, they won’t do it. They’ve already looked at anything relevant. As far as I know, the best they had were the few outside the hotel, and that’s blocks from here. This street has nothing. I swear.”

“And your building?”

“Is not that fancy. Trust me. You’ve been there. If they can’t be bothered to spend the money to get rid of the mice infestation, they sure as shit aren’t worried about security.”

“You have mice!”

“Please focus.”

Cyrus’s brain went into active mode. His eyes shifted back and forth as he processed. Eventually, he nodded, but it was hesitant. “Okay. Okay, fine. I don’t like mice.”

“I don’t have mice. I was making a point. Now. Here’s what we’re going to do. You need to go to the front entrance and push 113. That’s the building manager. He’ll be pissed as all fuck because it’s the middle of the night. Just tell him you don’t have your key. He’ll buzz you in. Act cool like you know him and it’s happened before.”

Cyrus’s eyes were going to fall out of their sockets. He lost a shade of color. You’d have thought I’d asked him to steal a car, not tell a little white lie to a lazy drunk who got free rent to manage our building.

“You’ve lost your mind.”

I shifted him around and shoved him back onto the sidewalk. “No, I haven’t. Go. Call him Fester. Everyone does. He hates it, but he won’t doubt you’re a tenant. He’ll let you in without a hassle because he’ll just want to get back to bed. He’s probably drunk off his ass anyhow. Won’t even remember come morning. Once you’re in, open the back door for me. I’ll wait there.”

Cyrus was looking less and less sure of himself. With another hesitant nod, he wandered down the road. Ten seconds later, he reappeared, frowning. “If there’s no camera, why do I need to do this alone? Why are you going around back?”

I didn’t want to say this out loud. He was going to freak out again. I rolled my eyes. “Because we don’t know if there are police camped out in the lobby.”

Cyrus lost another shade of color. He was officially a dusty gray. I took off my hat and fit it over his curls, pulling the brim low. “If there are cops, then you come out the back, and we leave. They aren’t looking for you. They’re looking for me.”

He wasn’t reassured, but I gave him a shove, and he moved off toward the building’s front entrance. I listened to him mutter to himself until he got too far away.

It took ten minutes before the fire exit behind the building crashed open. Cyrus glared from the wash of fluorescent light beyond the door.

“I am not a liar,” he said through gritted teeth. “And your building manager is a piece of shit.”

“But he let you in.”

“After calling me every name in the book. That man is rude. I’ve never been so insulted.”

Chuckling, I slipped inside and guided Cyrus to the back staircase. “That’s Fester for ya. I assume there wasn’t an audience in the lobby.”

“No one.”

When we reached my floor, Cyrus held me back as he poked his head into the hallway and scanned. When he deemed it clear, he dragged me through by the arm. Side by side, we headed to my apartment at the far end of the hall.

“You know, last time we wandered this hallway together, we were pretty drunk and a whole lot horny. Remember?”

Cyrus wouldn’t be baited.

“You couldn’t keep your hands off me. God, you were so eager.”

He pressed his lips together until they were white, and he walked faster.

Yellow caution tape covered my apartment door in an X, warning people to stay out. It had been five weeks since my arrest. I doubted anyone was collecting evidence anymore and bet they’d just not bothered removing it. Cyrus used the bottom edge of his shirt to cover a hand before trying the knob. It was locked. I didn’t expect differently.

“Now what?” he whispered.

“Do you have a credit card? These doors are easy to jimmy open. I’ve had to do it a few times in the past when I’ve locked myself out.”

“A credit card?”

“Yeah.”

Cyrus blinked at me several times before pulling his wallet from his back pocket and producing a card. I copied his action, covering my hands with my shirt, taking a few minutes to work the lock. I wasn’t an expert. The first time I’d done this, I’d snapped my bank card in half. I thought it best not to share that piece of information.

“Hurry up,” he hissed. “Anyone could come out of their apartment and see us.”

“You yelling at me won’t make it open faster. I’m trying.”

“Do I want to know where you learned this lovely skill?”

“Probably not.”

Cyrus whimpered. “I’m going to jail. I know it.”

“You’re not going to jail.”

The door clicked and swung inward an inch. I shot a beaming smile at my partner in crime. “Ta-da!”

“Yeah, yeah, well done. You know how to break into an apartment. Don’t put that on your resume. It’s not something to be proud of.”

“Christ. Remind me to grab some condoms from the bedside table.”

Cyrus shot me a dirty look. “Why?”

“Because you need a good hard dick up your ass to chill you the fuck out, and I intend on delivering. You are absolutely insufferable like this.”

“Well, excuse me. I lived an honest life before I met you. And I’m not insufferable,” he mumbled. “I don’t need a good dicking to chill me out, thank you very much.”

“Oh, oh! I know this one! What are things I say to make myself feel better, Alex.”

I nudged the door with my toe and peeked inside. I wasn’t expecting a swarm of cops at three in the morning, but you never knew.

“Who’s Alex?” The indignation in Cyrus’s tone was priceless. “Is he another Dalton?”

“Let’s keep going with that category, shall we? I’ll take Cyrus in Denial for six hundred, Alex.”

With a nearly silent “Oh,” Cyrus shut up and followed me inside.

The place had been ransacked. I didn’t live in luxury or have many possessions, but what I did have was scattered about the apartment like a hurricane’s sole focus had been my unit.

The cushions on the couch were tossed, some on the floor, others sitting askew. The stand under the TV where I kept game systems, games, movies, and a few favorite box sets of shows I liked was empty, the contents on the floor. My kitchen cupboards hung open, food boxes and cans littering the counter. A box of cereal was tipped over, mounds of Captain Crunch spilled everywhere and covered in a pile of ants. Great. What exactly had the police hoped to find inside a cereal box?

My linen closet had vomited its guts onto the hallway carpet. The spare sheets, pillowcases, towels, and cleaning supplies had become a tripping hazard. The contents of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom had been relocated to the counter and floor.

My bedroom was in the same state. The dresser drawers sat open, contents rummaged through, no longer neatly folded. The mattress on the bed had been flipped and leaned against the wall. The bedside table’s drawer was upside down on the box spring, lube, condoms, nudie mags, dildos, and other random junk spread over the top.

I crossed the room, avoiding land mines, and plucked a single condom from the pile. I held it up to Cyrus, who glared daggers at me from the doorway. I made a show of pocketing it, in case he thought I was joking about giving him a good dicking later.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Cyrus scanned the room.

“I don’t know. I wanted to grab my secret stash of cash if it’s still here. And some clothes.”

“Well, hurry up. We shouldn’t linger.”

Cyrus moved to the window. The blinds were open, and he had a moonlit view of the alley and service road in the same way I’d seen it night after night for weeks while some woman taunted me. The recollection sent a chill up my spine.

“Where was she when you first saw her?”

I joined him at the window, and a wash of déjà vu hit me. I half expected to see a woman standing beyond the dumpsters, hear the sharp ping of stones hitting the windowpane, or a voice hissing my name.

I pointed. “Past the dumpsters. Near that service door on the right.”

“That’s more than fifty yards away. You said fifty yards.”

“I’m sorry. Next time I’ll grab a measuring tape.”

Cyrus scanned the floor, grabbed a stray tube sock, and fit it over his hand. Then he unlocked the window and slid it open. The faint sound of traffic on nearby roads was audible in the distance. Someone’s car radio thumped for a second until it dissipated into nothing. A horn honked, but it was blocks away.

In the alley below, the dark image of a cat wandered into view before vanishing again into an alcove.

“You said you heard someone calling your name while she stood all the way down at the end of the road, right?”

I scratched at the scruff covering my chin. “Yeah, except I don’t know anymore. I thought I did. Honestly, I was out of my mind at that point. I don’t know what to believe. It all feels wrong and stupid.”

“If you did hear your name, then it wasn’t her who called it. It doesn’t make sense. She would have to shout to be heard from that distance.”

“Maybe. Sound travels in these wind tunnel alleys.”

If Cyrus agreed or disagreed, he didn’t say.

“I think we’re looking for two people,” he said. “I can’t make it work with just one. You were lured away. Then those items were left behind at your door. To me, it sounds like teamwork. How can a person be in two locations at once?”

It made sense but also begged the question, who on earth had it out for me? Who had I pissed off so badly they wanted to frame me for murder? I couldn’t think of one person, let alone two.

“Grab some stuff, and let’s get out of here. We’ve already stayed too long. Don’t take a lot. We shouldn’t make it obvious we were here.”

Cyrus grabbed the matching tube sock from the floor and went down the hall while I threw a few belongings into a gym bag. I tucked a few more condoms into a side pocket along with some lube, just in case. For as much as Cyrus claimed he didn’t want to keep engaging with me, his willpower was almost nonexistent. The simmering flames burning behind his eyes when I’d suggested a good fucking a few minutes ago had been clear as day.

In the bathroom, I gathered a toothbrush, deodorant, a razor, and a few soaps. So what if the police came back and knew I’d been here? It wasn’t like I was making things worse. Things were about as bad as they could get.

I found Cyrus in the kitchen, tube socks over his hands as he pushed aside a stack of mail on the table. When he saw me, he picked up my wallet. “Found this. You want it?”

“Yeah.”

“Something has me curious. You can’t make a reservation at a hotel without a credit card. At least not at Destination. That’s a high-end joint. How did someone manage to reserve a room in your name without a credit card?”

I frowned. “I… don’t know.”

“I suppose it would be asking for a miracle for you to remember all the names of the random guys you’ve brought back here to fuck in the past several months, huh?”

I snorted. “Yeah, not for a million dollars. And I will not apologize for it either. I’m a grown-ass adult, and if I want to sleep around, I will. Besides, names are rarely included, and if they are—”

“They’re often fake. Yeah, I remember, Craig.”

I didn’t miss his turned-up nose at my comment. Cyrus made himself busy rifling through my bills.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Something that might help us. At this rate, we have a better chance of winning the lottery than proving you’re innocent. And your long list of randoms certainly isn’t helping matters. Any one of those guys could have targeted you. If they got inside your apartment, all they’d have to do is wait for you to pass out, find your wallet, and jot down your credit card information. They wouldn’t need it in their possession to make a reservation. So, your list of suspects is likely as long as your list of one-night stands over the past three or four months. Care to put a number on that?”

“Not particularly.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re already shouting and angry, and the last thing we need to do is wake my nosy neighbor.”

Cyrus clamped his mouth shut and darted his gaze to the wall separating my apartment from the next. His cheeks took on color. He pulled the socks off his hands and tossed them onto the table.

“We should go.”

“Look. Don’t be pissed. I’ll try to make a list. I… know who some of the guys were. They’re regulars like Dalton, but… Honestly, I can’t think of anyone who I pissed off that much. Besides you,” I said as an afterthought. “I definitely pissed you off.”

“Right, because I was the one person who didn’t understand the rules. Let’s go.”

“Cyrus.”

“Never mind.”

It was funny, for a guy who’d been so knotted up about coming back to the apartment and worried someone would catch us or see us, he certainly didn’t care anymore. He stormed out the door and was halfway down the hall, stomping his feet like a child having a tantrum. When he hit the stairwell door, he pushed it open hard enough it clattered against the wall. Then he took the stairs at a run before I even got the apartment door shut.

I raced after him. “Yeah, we have definitely got to work on this jealous attitude.”

I caught up with Cyrus on the ground floor. He was in the lobby, peering through the glass doors into the street beyond. He held up a hand, warning me to stay back, so I waited. He waved me forward after a minute and stuff the ball cap back on my head before saying, “Let’s go out the back and take the long way around. I can’t see down the street from here. It’s too dangerous.”

We hustled back to Cyrus’s car a few blocks away and got in. We sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. I let him stew in anger and blow steam out his ears until he was ready to talk.

I physically felt the decompression in his body about two minutes later. The air in the car grew lighter, the tension evaporating.

“I’m sorry.” Cyrus stared out the windshield, a furrow in his brow.

I tried hard not to chuckle. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I’m a little wound up.”

“Oh, I know.”

“I have no right to get pissy over… I’m just… not like you. Or them. I ended up with some seriously skewed ideas after we got together back in May, and now I’m punishing you for them, and it’s not fair. It’s my problem. This is why we need to draw boundary lines. It’s embarrassing. I get the wrong idea otherwise. And I know it’s all in my head, but—”

He'd gotten the wrong idea because I’d given him the wrong idea. Not on purpose. It had just… happened.

“Cy. Relax. We’re good. Trust me. I don’t like it when you get all worked up, but I get it. You’re an old soul. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I don’t seem to know when to stop teasing or poking the wound. So, I’m sorry too.”

He nodded, his chin dropping. He stared at his hands in his lap. “It’s going to be morning soon.”

“It is. We should get off the street and find a cheap motel or something. Make a game plan. Sleep. I have a bit of cash now if that helps.”

Cyrus didn’t respond. He started the car and pulled away from the curb. We drove several blocks before we found a Motel 6 opposite a plaza. There was a twenty-four-hour pizza joint nearby, so once Cyrus got us a room—two beds, I applauded his tenacity—he ran across the street to place an order.

I showered and shaved while he was gone. It felt good to get the itchy hair off my face. Then I tossed our bags onto one bed and turned down the covers on the other.

My stomach grumbled as I waited for Cyrus to return. I turned over the idea of one of my hookups being responsible for the mess I was in. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t think of one person who might have wound up royally pissed after a night together. Not frame-a-guy-for-murder pissed. Plus, I was still convinced we were looking for a woman, and I’d never entertained the idea of being with a woman.

A thought hit me, and I bolted upright.

The door opened at the same time, and Cyrus came through balancing two pizza boxes, a plastic bag from the Circle K hanging off his arm. I hopped up to help, relieving him of the food and setting it on the bed closest to the door. Cyrus took a second to note how I’d covered the second bed with our belongings. It was a silent message to him that it wasn’t getting used.

His jaw worked back and forth, and he glanced sidelong at me. Before he could object or come up with excuses why we shouldn’t share a bed, I cut in.

“So, I thought of something.”

He swallowed his protest and dug a few paper plates and napkins out of the bag hanging off his arm. He handed me a bottle of Coke and set a Sprite on the bedside table. I waited until we’d filled our plates to explain.

“You said one of my hookups might have been responsible, right?”

“It was a thought.”

“Well, I still say we’re looking for a woman, and I have never brought a woman to my apartment, but—”

“I said I thought we might be looking for two people.”

“I know, and I can entertain that idea too. But, what if one of the guys I brought home was married? I would never do that on purpose, believe me. I have no desire to be a homewrecker, but it wouldn’t be the first time a married straight guy decides he wants to see what he’s missing, right?”

Cyrus licked pizza sauce off his fingers as he stared at me. “Okay. You’re thinking of an angry wife then. I can see infidelity pissing someone off. People have killed for less. But why kill prostitutes and set you up as the fall guy?”

“Maybe her husband is a cheating sonuvabitch who usually fucks around with young blonde hookers. The tipping point was when she found out her husband took it up the ass. Maybe he decided he liked dick more than he expected and told his wife he was done and was going to live the gay life he was meant to live. So maybe I broke up his marriage, and she decided to have her revenge.”

“Then why not frame her husband?”

“Because she still loves him and wants him back.”

The corner of Cyrus’s lip twitched. He grew overly focused on his pizza, picking off pepperoni and eating it slice by slice.

“What?”

“I think you like the idea of your almighty dick having the power to convert straight men.”

“Hey, I was painting a realistic scenario, and I am fucking great in bed. It could happen. I didn’t hear you complaining.”

He continued to chuckle as he nibbled his pizza. “All right. I admit, it’s a plausible argument, but it kills my theory of how the person got your credit card information.”

“Well, I can’t think of everything.”

“Plus, who would help her? We need a second person.”

“I don’t know. A best friend? A protective brother?”

“How can we find out if you’ve slept with a married man?”

“We could talk to Jimmy. He’s one of the full-time bartenders at the Tool Shack. He knows everyone.”

“Two problems. One, would a married man disclose his marital status if he was at a gay bar looking to hook up? And two, you forget you’re a wanted man and can’t go marching back into the bar to ask Jimmy anything.”

“But you could.”

Cyrus ate his pizza.

“It’s an option we should explore. Think about it. What’s our next step otherwise?”

“We hang out here until it’s night again. Then I think we should see if we can talk to some of the girls on the street to see if they knew those dead girls from the morgue and who they might have been last seen with.”

“Prostitutes.”

“What?”

“You want to talk to prostitutes. Say it.”

Cyrus glared. “Eat your pizza. You knew what I meant.” He pulled a long string of cheese off the top of his slice and tilted his head back as he guided it into his mouth. “And by the way,” he said as he licked sauce off his lips, “We aren’t sharing a bed.”

I chuckled. “You’re cute when you try to be bossy.”

“We’re not, and that’s final.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

I used my trump card. “What if I let you suck my toes?”