Scott Sherman: First You Fall

The detective nodded. “Alrighty, then.” He handed Tony his card. “Have him cal me tomorrow. You’re free to go.”

The minute we got into Tony’s car, I started to ask him questions.

“Listen,” Tony said, “why don’t you just relax for a minute? Close your eyes. We’l talk when we get back to your place.”

I looked around at the suburban neighborhood.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Where are we?”

“White Plains,” Tony said. “Now, quiet.”

Fine, I thought. I’l close my eyes for a minute.

Then I’l cal Freddy and tel him ail about what happened. I think my little adventure was even better than Charlie’s Angels.

That was the last thing I remember thinking before fal ing into a sleep so deep that I didn’t wake even when Tony carried me into my apartment.

I woke up an hour later in my bed. In Tony’s arms.

Finally.

He had fal en asleep while holding me. I looked at his stil, peaceful face. How beautiful he was with his strong cheekbones and silky black hair. Even his eyelashes were perfect as they fluttered in his slumber. Like butterflies, I thought.

Then they opened.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, yourself,” I answered.

“You OK?”

“Never better.”

He pul ed me onto his chest. “You sure? Maybe we should go to the hospital. Just to get you checked out.”

I slipped my hand inside his shirt and felt his strong chest.

“I’m fine,” I insisted. “There’s just one thing I can’t figure out.”

“Shoot,” Tony said.

I shuddered. “Don’t use that word.”

Tony chuckled. “Sorry.”

“If it wasn’t Paul, Michael, or Alana who kil ed Al en, who did? I stil can’t believe he kil ed himself.”

Tony sat up. “That’s what I was trying to cal you about! You were right, Al en didn’t kil himself. But it wasn’t a Harrington, either.”

“Who was it, then?”

“Remember those two women at the reading of the wil? From the Association for the Acceptance of Lesbian and Gay Youth?”

I nodded.

“Turns out that one of them was embezzling contributions,” Tony explained. “Al en was studying the financials and noticed the discrepancies. He cal ed them the day of his death and explained that he was going to have someone look into it.

“What he didn’t realize was that the one he talked to was the one who was doing the embezzlement.

She was a quiet woman, but she had a quiet problem: an addiction to gambling. She panicked and went to see him. She was terrified that the exposure of her crimes would cause her partner to leave her. She’s very shy and withdrawn and would have been lost without her girlfriend.”

I remembered Lori, the woman I thought of as a

“gentle giant.”

“Anyway, she panicked and went to see him. She thought she could change his mind. When that didn’t work, she total y lost it and hit him over the head with a marble paperweight he kept on his desk. It knocked him out cold.

“She didn’t know what to do. Not only was he going to expose her as a fraud, not only would she find herself alone, but now he would have her arrested for assault. So, she threw him over the railing. Figured that would hide the fact that he’d been hit, and with his death, any chance of her charity scam being exposed would die with him. She had no idea her group was in his wil, though.”

“Holy shit,” I said under my breath. I remembered bumping into Lori at The Stuff of Life and being struck by how powerful she was. I could see her tossing Al en’s body as effortlessly as I’d toss a tin can. I shuddered.

“She knew that if Al en lived he’d tel the truth about her and that she’d probably end up in jail. Of course, she’s going away for a lot longer now.”

“How did you figure this al out?” I asked.

“I didn’t,” he said. “She was right-the fal from the balcony crushed the back of his skul so badly that we total y missed the trauma of her blow. But she confessed to her girlfriend, and the girlfriend convinced her to turn herself in. Apparently, she did it in a moment of madness and she’s been unable to live with herself since. Plus, I think there’s something a little off with her, too. Turns out there were a lot of victims in this case.”

I remembered Lori’s words to me when I met her at The Stuff of Life. Something about how you don’t know what someone was capable of until they did it.

The stricken look on her face when she said it. I wasn’t surprised she confessed-I think she was giving us clues even then.

Then I remembered something I had seen when I went to Al en’s apartment with Tony. The spreadsheets I saw on his desk with “cal T. S.” written on them. They must have been the financial statements for the Association and T. S. was…

“Tamela Steel!” I shouted.

“Excuse me?”

“Tamela Steel, Al en’s lawyer. I met her at the reading of his wil.” I reminded him about the note on Al en’s desk. “That’s who he was going to cal about the embezzlement.”

“Huh,” said Tony.

“So that uncapped pen real y was a clue,” I bragged. “See, I’m not bad at this detective stuff.” I couldn’t wait to tel al this to Freddy.

“I gotta admit you got a lot of it right. Al en didn’t kil himself. And if you hadn’t looked into the Harringtons, we would never have found out about Michael and Alana’s sick little game of murder by suicide. Who knows how many more people they would have convinced to kil themselves?

“Plus,” Tony added, “there was that business with the brother, Paul. Maybe now he can get his life back together.”

He tousled my hair. “You done good, Kevvy.”

Kevvy. If he knew how giddy it made me every time he cal ed me that, would he stil say it?

“Those men,” I said, leaning up on my elbows so I could look him in the eyes. “The ones who kil ed themselves. They only wound up going to Michael because they couldn’t accept themselves.”

“I know,” Tony said.

“What about you?” I asked him. “Can you accept yourself? This? Me?”

Tony pul ed me towards him. “I don’t know. I think so. I want to find out.”

I smiled.

“But I don’t think I can accept what you do for a living, Kevvy. We’re gonna have to talk about that one.”

Ouch. “OK,” I said.

“And I stil have a wife. Let’s not forget that.”

I nodded.

“We have a long history, kid. It hasn’t exactly been a great one, either.”

History does tend to repeat itself, I thought for the second time that day.

“I guess I don’t know. I just don’t want…”

“You don’t want to hurt me,” I finished for him.

He rol ed his eyes. “OK, you got me al figured out, don’t you, Doctor IQ?”

I nodded.

“How about you?” he asked. “What do you want?”

What did I want? What did I need? Conflicted, complicated Tony who stil made my heart race like no other man? Sexy, faithful Freddy who was always there for me? Bril iant, sweet Marc who needed me to rescue him? And what about Romeo at the balcony? He was a good reminder that there were a lot of possibilities left to be explored.

Tony was waiting for an answer. So was I.

I spent so much time trying to figure out what Tony was after, but what did I want?

That was the mystery I really needed to solve.

Have I mentioned recently how beautiful he was?

“I know what I want right now,” I said, straddling him. His lips parted in anticipation of my kiss.

I figured it was a start.

Acknowledgments

My fondest gratitude goes to my wonderful, supportive agent, Matthew Carnicel i. Matthew, when you cal ed to tel me you “laughed out loud” and wanted to represent my book, it was the highlight of a year’s hard work. Thanks for pestering me to finish the first sequel, too. I’m working on it, I promise!