Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Sixteen

Cyrus

River hadn’t said a word since leaving his mother’s house. He stared ahead the whole drive back to the motel, grinding his teeth, clenching and unclenching his fists. I didn’t know what to say. Knowing what I did about River, I figured there was a lot going on inside his head. Hearing echoes of Grant’s reprimand, I made a point of not doctoring River to death. Asking him how he felt or acknowledging his discontent and reiterating his feelings were valid would only serve to piss him off. Dissecting his dysfunctional family roots was not what he needed.

It left me without answers. The silence in the car was like wearing an itchy wool sweater in a heatwave.

There was also a horrible tickling impression in my belly that told me River was a hair's breadth away from exploding. He had every right to feel that way. I didn’t want to be the one to set him off.

So I said nothing.

I drove to the motel, making lists in my head of what we needed to do and where we could go from here. Listening to Camilla’s story had made me nauseous. She had no couth, no maternal instinct to protect her son’s feelings. Not once had she looked happy to see him after over a decade’s absence. Not once had she taken him in with loving eyes, amazed at how he’d grown. She’d scanned him, sure, observed how much he resembled his father, but that was the extent of it.

I tried to put myself in River’s shoes, but I couldn’t. My world, my life growing up, had been vastly different. My parents were attentive and doting to a fault. The more I considered how he’d grown up, the more I understood his detachment and reluctance to form relationships. It made sense that he sought different men all the time and refused to settle down. He didn’t have a solid foundation of what family and love meant. Those things were short-term for him. Hence, so were his bonds with other men.

Love wasn’t to be trusted.

That realization sent a combination of pity and sadness flowing through my veins. It compounded what I already knew. No matter how many times we fucked, no matter if it seemed intimate in the moment or not, River had walls so high around his heart it would be next to impossible to break them down.

And it wasn’t his fault. It was a defense mechanism, put in place when he was young.

I sighed.

“What?”

“Huh?” I snapped my gaze from the road to River then back. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You sighed. It was long and regretful. Why? What are you thinking? You’re obviously thinking something.”

“It’s nothing. Are you okay?” I bit my tongue. It was reflexive. That was exactly what I didn’t want to ask.

“I’m fine.”

He was not fine. No one in his shoes would be fine.

“Okay.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter, focusing on the road.

The heat of River’s gaze warmed my cheek.

“What?” I asked. “You’re staring. I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re just going to leave it at that? Okay? Nothing else? You don’t want to dig deeper? This is your bread and butter, Doc. You’re the psychologist.”

“I’m a psychiatrist, not a psychologist. Although both fields of study intrigue me and tend to run parallel, psychiatrists are medical doctors and use a combination of talk therapy and medication to combat mental health ailments. Psychology is more talk therapy based. They are the ones who want you to lie on their couch and talk about your past. I don’t have a couch in my office, and I don’t need you to regurgitate your life story so we can pick apart why you are the way you are. I admit, it’s something I’m prone to do. Grant hated it and called me out more times than I can count. I can recognize when my advice isn’t wanted. I’ll stay on my side of the line and try not to piss you off while you process all you learned today. Please. Take your time.”

River snorted and scrubbed his face, mumbling under his breath, something about me being too much.

My stomach clenched. “Sorry.”

“Oh my god. Shut up. Just don’t talk.”

“You’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

I pressed my lips together, resisting the urge to apologize a second time.

Inside our shared room at the motel, I slinked to my briefcase, grabbed a notepad, a pen, and my laptop, and sat on the bed, making myself as inconspicuous as possible. River stood by the window, staring down at the street.

Instead of taking notes or looking things up like I’d intended, I doodled. River’s discontent bled into me, and it took all my effort not to reach out to try to help make it better.

I watched him.

He hugged himself and chewed a nail. The scowl he wore made him look older than his twenty-eight years. I sometimes forgot about our age gap. When he glanced over his shoulder, I darted my attention to the notepad, but I wasn’t fooling him.

“I’m just going to say it. Grant’s a fucking tool.”

I snapped my head up and met River’s harsh glare. “Um… Okay. That wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“You’re a mess because of him. You cower because of him. You don’t stand up for yourself because of him. Your self-esteem is practically nonexistent. Wanting to help people when they’re going through emotionally difficult times isn’t a bad thing.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because you backed down in the car.”

“You told me to stop talking. You were mad at me.”

“For the last time. I wasn’t mad at you. I was upset because of my mother and this whole fucked up situation. It had nothing to do with you. You’re sitting over there right now, squirming out of your skin because you don’t know what to do, and you’re afraid to say the wrong thing because that shit-for-brains got in your head and did a real number on you. I get it. I see it. I just wish you could see the person I see.”

I swallowed the tight lump in my throat and squeezed the pencil in my fingers. “I think it was how I approached situations that upset Grant all the time. I tend to make everything into a therapy session. I don’t mean to. It’s just—”

“Stop. You’re still doing it. Cyrus, you’re programmed to want to help people. It’s who you are. You function more competently in doctor mode. So what? It isn’t a bad thing. Stop making it a bad thing.”

River cracked his neck with a groan and came and sat on the edge of the bed. “Look, I’m agitated and pissed off. I know you want to help, but you can’t. I need to process it. I need you to understand I’m not mad at you. To tell you the truth, I’m not surprised by what I learned today. I mean, I’m shocked to a degree that my father is a homicidal maniac, but also, I’m not. Consider who my mother is. Consider what she did for years. Decades. I have no feelings for my father one way or the other. I never held the man to any standard, thinking he’d show up someday, and we’d have this big bonding moment. No. He’s always been a nobody to me. My mom? Well, I’ve known my whole life who she was. So again, not exactly shocking.”

“Is there anything I can do?” I stopped fidgeting and met his gaze.

“No. Well, yes.” He reached out and took my notepad and pencil, tossing them aside. Then he slid the laptop off my knee, closed it, and placed it on the side table. “Stop fake working. You’re fooling no one. I can’t be worried about you when I have everything else to worry about.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And stop being sorry.”

We both leaned against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder. The weight of River’s troubles was suffocating us both. I was in too deep to back out now, but part of me wanted to go home. A big part.

River tipped his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need a game plan.”

“I agree. Should we take your dad’s name and the whole story your mother told us to the police?”

River stared at the ceiling a long time, a furrow in his brow. “Definitely not we. You can’t march into the station, or they’ll know you helped me get out of the hospital. Game over for you. If I go alone, it’s a huge risk. What if it backfires? What if they don’t listen and re-arrest me on the spot?”

“We could make an anonymous call.”

“Maybe. But what do we have? If we tell the police the whole story, they’ll go to my mother, and I guarantee she’ll lie through her teeth to cover her own ass. You heard her. She wants nothing to do with the cops. She’s already been charged with harassing him. She’s a hooker with a rap sheet. I’m her kid, and I grew up in the system. That’s more points against me.”

“Then we need to find this Justice Adams and get more solid evidence.”

River sank down until he was lying on the bed and covered his face with his hands. “How?”

He left his hands over his face, and the faint tremble running up and down his arms told me he wasn’t as all right as he claimed. He wasn’t as indifferent to his father’s and mother’s actions as he wanted to be.

I dragged myself down to lie next to him, gently encouraging him to uncover his face. He kept his eyes pinched shut, his jaw tight. Risking rejection, I shimmied closer and tucked myself against his side, head on his shoulder. Fearing my words might do more damage, it left only one weapon in my arsenal. Human contact. Physical comfort.

River didn’t push me away. He tucked me against his side, arms wrapped tight around me. After a long minute lying still, he moved his hand to the back of my head and played with the ends of my hair. He seemed to have a thing for my curls, and I didn’t mind.

“I wonder if there’s any possible way to find out where this guy lives now.” River didn’t say my father, which I thought was a means of separating himself from the connection causing him pain. “If he went to the Destination hotel a lot, they would know him, right? But… If he went there with the girls they found dead, why didn’t the police make that connection?”

“Because the room was in your name, not his. Maybe he did things differently that time so he wasn’t seen with them. Plus, if the girls were known prostitutes, they might have been to the hotel several times with any number of men.”

River sighed. “You’re right. But they’d have him on file. Justice Adams. He went as himself too. He would be in their computer system.”

“True.”

River didn’t have to say what he was thinking. I knew. My insides coiled and knotted tighter. “You want me to go ask questions, don’t you?”

“It can’t hurt.”

“They won’t tell me anything. That information will be confidential.”

River squirmed until he got his wallet from his back pocket. He dug a handful of bills from inside and counted them. “Two seventy-five. Not much, but people have taken lesser bribes for information.” He held it out, but I refused to take it.

A shiver started in my core and radiated through my limbs. “I… don’t know if I can do this.”

River dropped his arm, letting the money fall onto the bed. “I figured.”

But he couldn’t do it either. He couldn’t show his face in public, let alone at the hotel where he’d supposedly committed three murders. He was a wanted man.

“If you’d let me borrow your laptop, I might be able to do some digging to figure out where Justice Adams moved to. We have his old address. It might help. He might be in the directory or something too. Of course, he might be unlisted. Especially if he had a problem with my mother. That’s all I can think of. I’ve got nothing else.”

“Do they list stuff like that on real estate sites?”

“Probably not, but I can make some phone calls and maybe bullshit my way into some answers. I’m crafty like that.”

I was torn. I wasn’t made for this life. The guilt and anxiety were going to tear me apart and make me sick. But what if I walked away? If I went home, could River do this on his own? He was innocent. If I abandoned him, he could easily wind up back in prison because I gave him no choice but to take risks that would expose him. He needed help, and I was all he had.

If I left and River wound up arrested again, it would have all been for naught.

I was the king of inaction and indecision. We lay there for a long time. The air conditioner chugged and hummed while the hot July day tried to penetrate the window. River had left the curtains pulled aside, and a pool of midday sunshine shone across our entwined legs.

“You can leave if you have to,” River mumbled.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

More silence. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, but his arms seemed to hold me a fraction tighter. “I want you to stay.”

My heart pattered an erratic rhythm. I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure how.

Despite the pressures of the outside world and all we had to do, it was nice lying there with River. For once, the connection we shared went beyond sexual. It was comfort and reassurance that went both ways. It was not indicative of two men who were simply hooking up. As much as I tried not to read too much into our cuddle—because it was exactly that, a cuddle—I couldn’t help it.

Something had changed between us over the past few days. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me again, but I didn’t think so. There were notable moments between us that were… different. I didn’t know how to describe it. Friendlier in a way. We argued and bantered, but there was rarely heat behind it. Then it would fizzle out, and we’d laugh. When I struggled, River stepped up. He knew how to handle me.

When River struggled… well, I did my best.

He certainly wasn’t complaining about the snuggle-fest that had been going on for… I had no idea. A long time, judging by the movement of the sun out the window.

“Shh,” River said, snapping me from my musings.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your mind is so loud.”

“I’m sorry.”

He chuckled. “Of course you are. I’m stressed, and I’m trying to catch a nap. When I wake up, maybe I’ll be more focused, and we can sort this out.”

“Okay.”

He sounded sleepy. His words were heavy and almost slurred, so I did my best to fret more quietly as he suggested.

River slept. His body grew heavy, and his breaths deepened and slowed. His fingers in my hair stilled.

“I could get used to this,” I whispered, tilting my head so I could study his slack face. “I know you don’t want it, but it could be good. I could show you what a real family looks like. What it means to love and be loved in return because, despite my mountain of issues, I do know what that’s like.”

I sighed, rubbing my nose along his forehead, inhaling, pecking a gentle kiss on his cool skin. They were foolish thoughts, not only because they were based in fantasy but because nothing could ever happen between us unless River’s name was cleared. I wasn’t sure if carrying on a relationship in prison was possible—or wise.

I drifted after that, on the cusp of sleep but not quite falling under. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when my phone rang, jarring us both awake.

River was half on top of me, and he popped his eyes open with a confused start.

“It’s my phone.” I peeled him off and stretched to grab it on the bedside table.

It was my office back in St. Catherines.

I connected the call. “Sabine? Hi.”

“Dr. Irvine. Sorry to bother you. Are… Have you left St. Thomas? I got some paperwork from the police this morning. They showed up here bright and early with a warrant requesting the files for River Jenkins. I saw the news. I thought you’d be back by now, but I haven’t heard from you. Is everything okay?”

My spine stiffened. “River Jenkins?” I glanced at River whose eyes grew darker at hearing his name.

“Yes, sir. I don’t have those files. The police said we have until the end of the day to produce them. By five.”

“Shit,” I said under my breath.

River sat up, panic making his body taut. He looked ready to flee.

I reached for his hand and held it tight.

“Also, sir. Dr. Mazdoc is requesting a consult. Ideally, for Monday afternoon at his clinic in Toronto. I told him I’d get back to him as soon as possible. Again, I wasn’t sure where you were.”

“Okay, thank you, Sabine. I…”

I what? I’m on my way? I’ll take care of those files? I’ll head to Toronto?

The line between right and wrong had blurred the second I’d opened a drawer back at the hospital and found it full of key cards. Maybe it went farther back than that. I’d toed the line at the city morgue when I’d gone to investigate the deaths of two homeless girls. Then it had truly blurred with the key card event. It had virtually disintegrated when I’d decided to stick with River while he returned to London to find answers.

Was this my ticket out? River had told me I could go.

But he’d also asked me to stay.

My stomach cramped, and I clutched it.

Did I fudge a few reports for the police and return to St. Catherines? Did I act like nothing was amiss and travel to Toronto to consult with Dr. Mazdoc? There was a chance—albeit slim—no one would discover my misdeed. I could go on for the rest of my life as though I’d done nothing wrong.

Or did I risk it all, go to the Destination hotel, bribe a desk clerk for information about his father, and help River clear his name?

The true question was, who did I want to be at the end of the day? Did I want to be the Cyrus who lived in a box for the rest of his life and refused to take risks? The Cyrus whose whole life was his job? Who was lonely and whose sole source of entertainment was visiting his elderly parents and eating lemon blueberry muffins before work each day?

Or did I want to be Cyrus the Fighter? Cyrus the Risk-taker? The man who stood up for injustice at the risk of everything?

I glanced at River, who watched me intently. Could I walk away? Could I return to a safer life and forget all this?

Logically, I should. I was breaking the law.

Staying and fighting wouldn’t change River’s heart toward me. If I remained, it had to be because I wanted to, not because I had a lonely heart that yearned for affection and attention and love. I wouldn’t get that from River. He’d said as much.

Was that okay?

“Um… Listen, Sabine… I… have some personal things I’m taking care of at the moment. I’ll be off for a few days. I’ll take care of those files and ensure the police receive them. Can you let Dr. Mazdoc know I won’t be able to make it until at least Thursday or Friday at the earliest? If that time frame doesn’t work for him, I guess he’ll need to find someone else.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. Sabine was used to working for the Dr. Irvine who jumped however high he was asked. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Thanks, Sabine. I’ll be in touch.”

I hung up. The indecision that had lingered and seemed so permanent over the past few days vanished.

I blew out my cheeks and tossed the phone on the bed. “I’m going to clean up and head to Destination to see what I can find out. Use my laptop for whatever searches you need to do. Hopefully, one of us can get an address for this guy.”

River scrambled to his knees on the bed and snagged the front of my shirt. Before I knew what was happening, he kissed me senseless. I went with it. What else was I supposed to do? I had an unhealthy attachment to this man, and it grew bigger the more time we spent together. I yearned for this type of contact. If I was going to be a mess in the end, I might as well make it worth it.

River pulled back and stared at me for a long time. The faint sparkle in his whiskey eyes lit up with his smile. “You’re something incredible, Doc,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

I flushed, his words tickling something inside me. He didn’t mean it the way I’d heard it, but that was okay. “I’m going to change.”

In theory, a dress shirt and tie would make people more receptive to chatting with me—or so I hoped.

* * *

I left River at the motel, doing all he could to pinpoint an address for Justice Adams. We knew his old address, provided the one Camilla had given us was correct. River claimed he had two or three possible avenues to take to locate the new one. Whatever they were, I got the sense they were underhanded. I left him to it. Not my business.

My job was to charm information out of one of Destination’s front desk receptionists. Anyone else might thrive in my position. Lying and deceiving weren’t my forte. This was doomed to fail. As a last resort, I had River’s money stashed in a pocket. Bribery could land me in hot water. The receptionist might decide to call the police, which would be bad.

As I entered the well-lit lobby, I adjusted my tie, smoothing a hand down the length. It was cornflower blue with tiny silver diamonds embossed in the silk fabric. River had told me it brought out the color of my eyes.

It was officially my favorite tie because, god help me, the man had given me a compliment, and I was sad like that.

My loafers clicked on the marble tiles underfoot, echoing off the walls. Destination was a respectable chain hotel, not quite upper class, top-dollar accommodations, but far superior to most middle-class establishments.

Grant and I had traveled to Vancouver once. The trip had been work-related; I’d had a week-long conference to attend at one of the universities. But Grant had gotten it in his head that we were on vacation. Every time I had to attend a lecture, he got irritated. I had to listen to him bitch for seven straight days. It was exhausting.

We’d stayed at a Destination much the same as this one. His father had pulled some strings and set us up in a suite on the top floor. Terrance Overton might not always get along with his son or agree with his whimsical decisions to remain in school indefinitely, but he was one of the top shareholders for Destination. He didn’t blink an eye when family needed a place to stay. But boy, did that make Grant cocky. He was that type of person. Abuser of power. He abused room service because Daddy said to use it at will. He abused the staff because, why not, they were beneath him. He abused me simply for having other obligations. The audacity.

Some days, in retrospect, I didn’t know why it had taken me so long to find the balls to leave him. He was an ass at the best of times. It proved what kind of person I was—more inclined to want to smooth out a person’s flaws and anger than protect my self-worth.

Desperate to be loved.

Too desperate.

It was sad.

I needed to remember that and not do the same thing with River. If he didn’t want more than a roll in the sack, I shouldn’t push.

Or fantasize.

It would hurt me in the end.

I was hopeless.

“Accept it and move on.”

I needed to focus.

The chain’s hotels all had a similar look and feel. The same thick glass partitions sectioned off areas of rest and relaxation. The same textured walls and wainscoting ran at waist height throughout the ground floor. The same elegant décor surrounded me. The main room was lit by several hanging chandeliers with multi-faceted gems that refracted the light in shimmering patterns over the windows and walls. The marble floor gleamed.

The front desk was long and made of shiny dark wood. The people working wore uniforms and gold-plated name tags. I scanned the four receptionists, unsure who would be the best target for what I had planned. Who was most gullible?

I snorted. Me. I was the most gullible.

Fine. Who was most like me?

I chose the young, busty woman on the far left with a name tag that read Christine. She was in her early twenties with pale skin and auburn hair tied back in a high professional ponytail. She wore modest makeup and carried a bit of weight on her short frame.

Christine greeted me with a practiced smile. It was toothy and showed a crooked canine. “Good afternoon, sir. Checking in today? Do you have a reservation with us?”

I did my best to display outward calm when internally my heart was flopping around like a fish out of water, and a sheen of sweat pooled under my arms. Pits stains were not what I was going for. At least I could blame it on the July heatwave.

“I don’t. I have a friend staying here. I wasn’t sure if he was checked out yet. The name is Justice Adams. Can you tell me if he’s still here, and if so, what room?”

The woman flinched at the name. It wasn’t an excessive gesture, but there was definitely a reaction along with a momentary pause while she put herself back into professional mode.

She folded her hands together on the desk in front of the computer’s keyboard, and her eyes moved around the room behind me. “I’m sorry. Justice Adams isn’t staying here at the moment, sir.”

I dashed my gaze to the computer and back. “But… you didn’t check.”

She wet her lips and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I don’t have to, sir.” Another glance over my shoulder.

A bead of sweat trickled down my spine. I couldn’t help it. I followed her gaze, but apart from a few people milling about in the lobby’s sitting area and a concierge helping an elderly man with a stuck wheel on a roller bag, nothing was amiss. I turned back.

Christine’s widened eyes were watching me. Something was wrong. I gripped the edge of the desk, grounding myself so I wouldn’t fly into an instant panic.

“Do you know Justice Adams?” My voice croaked, so I coughed to clear it. “I have to… return some of his belongings. He… at my house. I…” I was falling apart. My lungs constricted, making my breathing erratic. I tugged at my tie, wanting to loosen it but refraining.

Christine’s already pale face had gone paler. Her fingers inched toward her phone like she was going to snap it up and make a call. If I didn’t say something soon—something coherent—she might call security.

Rubbing a hand over my jaw, I laughed. I meant it to be one of those dismissive sounds, like Whoa, we’ve gone off track. Let me clarify sounds, but it came out loud and explosive.

Manic.

Christine touched the receiver. I shot my hand over the partition separating us and touched her arm. “Stop. Please.”

She froze. With my other hand, I dug out River’s cash. If I was going down anyway, I might as well use my last option.

I slid the bills toward her. “Look. I need to find Justice Adams. It’s important. I know he stays here regularly. Is there any way you can check your computer to see what information is on file for him? Please. Then I’ll walk out of here, and you’ll never see me again. I swear.”

Christine eyed the bills. She glanced to the end of the desk where the other receptionists were working to check people in and out. She stared at the bills again and pushed them back toward me.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

But she removed her hand from the phone. After one more glance around, she leaned closer and dropped her voice. “There is no Justice Adams. Did you see the news?”

I whipped my head around. That was what she’d been looking at. There was a TV mounted to the wall in the corner of a lounge area. It was too far away to tell what was on the screen.

I turned back and waited for her to explain.

“Yesterday, Bianca Rolland was in here asking about him. She said they were supposed to meet here.”

Rolland? Why was that name familiar?

Christine must have noticed my confusion.

“Bianca Rolland? Mayor Brian Rolland’s daughter.”

“Mayor Rolland’s daughter?”

She was at Destination looking for Justice Adams as well?

“She was found dead last night.”

“What?” My voice rose a whole octave with the exclamation.

Christine nodded. “She was in here yesterday afternoon to see Mr. Adams. She got pretty upset when Terrell told her he couldn’t help her. He wasn’t here. She caused a scene when he never showed up. When we saw the news this morning saying she was dead under suspicious circumstances, we called the police to report it. They came and took our statements. Turns out they can’t find a record for a Justice Adams anywhere. He doesn’t exist. They asked us ten times to confirm that was who she was looking for. We said it was. Now you’re asking about him.”

My brain went into high gear, turning that information around and around. Bianca Rolland. The mayor’s daughter. She wasn’t some homeless prostitute.

Murdered.

“How old was she? What did she look like?” I blurted without thinking.

“What?”

“The woman who was here asking. Bianca. What did she look like?”

“She’s… I don’t know. Early twenties? Blonde. Skinny little thing. Pretty. Real attitude problem, you know? She went off on Terrell like it was his fault the guy didn’t show. They’re saying on the news they think it’s tied to those girls who were killed here. That guy escaped, you know. Now Bianca’s dead. The police think that Justice Adams is an alias for that River guy. But… how did you know the name?”

The information was overloading my head. She fit the profile. She was looking for River’s dad. But…

“No. That is his name. He is a person. Check your system. He’s been here a lot. Probably Friday and Saturday nights. He’s been coming for years.”

Decades, if Camilla’s claims were true.

“Sir,” Christine lowered her voice, “I’m telling you. He isn’t in the system. We have no record of a Justice Adams ever staying here. I think I should call the police. I mean, if you know—”

“No! I…” My heart jackhammered, blood roaring so loud in my ears I couldn’t think.

I turned and ran, hightailing it out of the hotel like my ass was on fire. If the police showed up and questioned me, I’d be screwed.