Vic cut her off. “After I get Matt back.You’ll help me?”
Without the slightest hesitation, Officer Jonesasked, “What do I need to do?”
“Meet me at Azalea Road,” Vic explained. “Alone. Noflashing lights, no radio communications, no partners. If I’mwrong, I don’t want half the police force to know about it.”
“Can I at least bring my gun?”
Ignoring the sarcasm that colored her voice, Vicsaid, “If I’m right, you’re gonna need it.”
* * * *
Chapter 24
In the front seat of his car, Vic clicked on theoverhead light and rummaged through his glove compartment for anold, worn map of the city he’d bought years ago, when he first wentto work for the Transit Authority. A lot of the newer subdivisionsand shopping malls weren’t on the map, but Vic had a rough ideawhere he thought Azalea Road might be—somewhere near Broad andLibbie, was his guess. Matt’s half of their mental connection had avery small range, no more than two blocks or so. Vic wouldn’t besurprised to find that Jordan’s house was close to the bus stopwhere he first picked up on his lover’s duress.
But none of the streets in that part of the map werelabeled Azalea, and that section of the city was old andwell established—Vic was pretty sure nothing new would’ve beenadded since the map was printed because where would they put it?Pissed at his error, he flipped the map over and scanned throughthe list of street names on the reverse side, looking for the rightone. Maybe Matt could transmit farther in extreme circumstances,when he was in pain or stimulated to the point of orgasm. Vicscoffed at the idea, but it explained why he’d connected with Mattthroughout the day, and again this evening, once he managed toclear his mind.
Still…every time he comes? Vic shook hishead—wouldn’t he have figured that out before now?
Well, to be honest, no. Since they’d been together,the only time Matty came was when he was with Vic. There was nodenying that during sex, their entire beings seemed to open to eachother, mind and body and soul, a response Vic had never felt withanother, ever. So who knew if Matt wouldn’t seek aconnection with him each time he got off?
Though he’d promised to tell Officer Jones all hecould about his powers and where they came from when Matt was safeand this ordeal over, Vic suspected she was going to be prettydisappointed about just how much of it he didn’t know andcouldn’t answer.
Azalea.
The word caught his attention, written in tiny,italicized print. There were a half dozen Azaleas listed, but onlyone marked Road. He noted its quadrant, then flipped the mapover to pinpoint it—well away from where he’d originally looked. Itwas one short street in a subdivision in the far West End, near theYMCA where Matt used to swim before he began dating Vic andswitched to the gym. Vic knew right where it was.
He clicked off the overhead light and started to foldthe map, but the paper crinkled in the car’s small front seat andhe couldn’t seem to refold the creases the way they were supposedto go. With a growl of frustration, he balled the whole thing up inhis hands and tossed it into the back seat. At the rate he wasgoing, the damn cop was going to get there before he did. With ahard twist on the car key, already in the ignition, he jerked awayfrom the curb and took off down the street, tires squealing intothe night.
During the drive, Vic stretched his mind out ahead ofhim, seeking contact with Matt. But his thoughts were full ofdistance and emotion; looking for Matt through all that static waslike trying to tune in a station on a radio without an antenna.Only once did Matt come in, a moment of clarity so startling thatVic stood on the brake and ignored the car behind him, whose driverhit the horn and swerved to avoid a collision. Again Vic wastrailing along, looking for his lover, when his mind snapped intoMatty’s like two magnets locking together with an instantattraction. One moment he drove through a busy intersection; thenext, he felt a hard hand clench around his dick and tug. Vic bitthe inside of his cheek as he struggled to keep the car on theroad, an erection chafing inside his jeans. ::Holdon,:: he whispered into Matt’s numbed mind. ::I’mheading your way right now, Matty. Just hold on until I getthere.::
A sense of release flooded through him—Matt’s cockspasmed as if in fright, and Vic wondered what powers, if any,could be drawn from such an anticlimactic ejaculation. Jordanmust’ve somehow pushed Matt beyond the realm of normal sexualactivity: his orgasms were fading, his body over-sensitized, hiscock and balls exhausted from constant stimulation. When Vic foundthat asshole, even the police wouldn’t be able to hold himback.
* * * *
Azalea Road was draped in dusk that fell over wellmanicured lawns like a fine sprinkling of sand one didn’t noticeuntil a porch light clicked on, pushing back the growing night. Vicsquinted, looking for house numbers as his mind reached out toflicker across the homes, seeking Matt’s familiar presence. Whenthe road ended in a cul-de-sac, he turned around and retraced hisroute, looking for the house he’d seen in Jordan’s mind during thephone call…
There. At the end of the second block, a long ranchersprawled across a corner lot, the numbers 256 written ingold script on the mailbox at the street. Vic slowed to a stop andstared past the rusting chain-link fence that hemmed in the lot tothe house beyond.
Every window was dark, making the houseseem…deactivated, or something. Turned off. Abandoned. Thegrass had been cut recently, and the garage door buckled a littleon one side, not quite closing flush with the driveway. If they hadto break in, Vic thought maybe that would be the way to go. Somepeople closed their garage doors but
