Remembering the photo he’d snapped in the doctor’s office, he fumbled for his phone, opening it and scrolling through until he found its location. In this photo, the man exuded that same sexiness that had held Gabe enthralled in the dream…in the nightmare. Because it had been a nightmare. He shuddered.
He would hate to think a man who looked so much like him had met a bad fate, and he wondered what had become of him. And that got him wondering what had happened with that spur of the moment purchase he’d made on the doctor’s computer.
He’d bought a man. A flesh and blood man. On his boss’s computer.
After he realized what he’d done, he’d been careful to cancel the transaction, delete every email, every trace of the sale.
But he hadn’t been able to forget him.
Or help but wonder what had happened to him.
Had the man gone back up for sale? If so, what was he being used for, other than the obvious?
Did that sale have anything to do with the man from the scrapbook?
That led him to thinking about the photos in the scrapbook he’d found in the doctor’s office and wondering if there were more pictures he hadn’t seen. He tried laying back down, but his mind kept wandering back to the dream, then the photo on his phone, and the canceled purchase.
Finally, he rolled out of bed, took a quick shower, and got ready for work. It was early to go in, but he wanted…no. He needed to see if there were more pictures of the man.
At the office, Gabe wiped the sweat already beading on his forehead as he retrieved two heavy-duty paperclips from his desk drawer. He’d used them before in his old life in Florida and couldn’t believe he was stooping to that low now.
At the doctor’s office door, Gabe’s stomach clenched, and a wave of nausea climbed up his throat. He was risking everything. The doctor had done so much for him, dragged him up out of a life that made him ashamed to even think of. Still, he couldn’t forget the dark eyes in the dream—just like his.
His hands shook as he inserted a straightened paper clip as a pick, bending another for a tension wrench. Feeling around in the lock with it, he concentrated, wondering for a second if he’d lost his touch.
Click! The knob turned, and he was in.
The doctor usually didn’t come in early, but Gabe’s stomach churned all the same on his way to the desk.
“Dammit.” He’d forgotten about the lock on the drawer. He checked the clock, debating on whether he had time, slipping the center drawer open. He hadn’t searched this drawer last night. He’d take the time to do it now.
He didn’t see them at first, the contents of the drawer were so neat. Stacked neatly and placed under a tablet of paper were the white edges of polaroids. Moving in slow motion, he fished under the paper, pulling them out.
His mouth spread into a slow grin as he stared at the photo, much like one he’d seen before, of the man with his shirt open. Hoping for a new pose, Gabe flipped the photo onto the bottom of the stack, his muscles locking as his brain struggled to comprehend what he was now seeing.
The dark-haired man, this time crouching in a cage. A real cage. Like a large dog would sleep in at night.
Catching his breath, Gabe flipped to the next photo, frowning. This one was much like one of the others, with the man lounging on a couch. Only something was different. His eyes weren’t smiling. His coloring was paler, like when Gabe thought about the things he’d done in the past. When they came back to him in nightmares, sort of like last night.
The lips that had burst into nasty larvae last night in his dream had fallen open in the picture, almost as if he were unconscious. Gabe’s gaze flicked back to the man’s eyes. And it took him a beat to face what his eyesight was telling him.
This man, who’d come to him in his dream, was dead.
Gabe dropped the photos, stumbling back and knocking into the desk chair. The doctor’s leather desk chair.
Anger rose up through disbelief.
Had the doctor bought a man, courted him, and killed him? Or something worse? What was the significance of the cage? A prop. Or had he really been kept prisoner, like an animal?
Gabe knew what it felt like to be restrained. He rubbed his wrists as a tight sensation wrapped around his wrists like phantom ropes.
He’d allowed that then. Because of how far he’d fallen. He was better now, and though he knew his relationship with the doctor wasn’t entirely healthy, he’d never thought him capable of something like this.
When Gabe himself had purchased that other man, who also looked like him, on the doctor’s computer, had he saved his life by canceling the purchase, or sent him back to something worse?
He knew he would never be able to rest until he found out. He couldn’t just walk away. Couldn’t forget.
Even if it meant putting his own life on the line.
Straightening the desk drawer and chair, he tucked the photos into his shirt.
4
Ellie knocked on the door to Chief Marcus Johnson’s office. Taking a deep breath, she went over what she was going to say one more time.
“Come in.”
Chief Johnson sat behind his desk, his brown face clean-shaven, close-cut kinky hair showing more gray than she remembered. He was holding a file in one hand, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, writing furiously, completely wrapped up in whatever he was working on.
Setting the pen down and lifting his head, the chief of police’s dark brown eyes crinkled at the corners as his face broke into a wide smile. “Detective Kline. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She closed the door behind
