He'd think on that one as he helped Josh.
"Hey," he said from the door of the comms room.
"Hey," came Josh's response.
Josh was deep in thought; his fingers already dancing over the touch pad and the keyboards. He was doing the basics, running the pictures through facial recognition and the like. Manny had already done this but he didn't interrupt—Josh needed to get used to Sanctuary systems and he may as well start with information Manny could verify visually. With reports running on one screen, Josh was flicking through hard copy photos.
"What was the name of Alastair Bullen's ex-girlfriend? The one that they're looking for on the property?"
"He originally gave her name as Susan something or other, but she's alive and well, and her DNA isn't a match for the blood on the necklace."
Josh tapped on the nearest screen twice causing the image there to enlarge. The picture was the infamous senator receiving a blow job.
"Could the dead girl be her? Only if you look closely you can see a smudge of something around her neck that could be the necklace that was placed in evidence."
"That's a pretty far reach." Manny leaned in and in doing so he was close to Josh. The scent of him was intoxicating. Nothing more than one of the shower gels in the bathroom, he assumed, but still, the crisp freshness of tea tree was now forever linked to one of the hardest orgasms he had experienced since he was a teenager. His dick pressed against his zip and he self-consciously wriggled back in his chair. Something about Josh was enough to send him over the edge merely by smell or gentle touch alone. Josh frowned quickly at the move and then blinked away the question in his expression and concentrated instead on the necklace.
"Pretty damn far," Josh finally agreed. Suddenly he sounded unsure when just before he had seemed so confident of the investigation path he was taking.
Manny had done that. Manny had put doubt into a fairly serviceable theory and he cursed himself for doing so. Jeez. He sounded like Jake when he was in devil's advocate mode. Manny hated it when Jake sat there and questioned everything Manny was proposing. He knew there was a reason for it and hell, it had made him better at his job, still… Josh had just been snatched from his real life and he needed a bit more from Manny. "But. Go for it. See if we can link the senator to whoever this girl is, find out why she would be at the mansion for Alastair's dead wife to see her being murdered. Maybe we should get Beckett in on this and see if he recalls anything at all."
"Beckett is Gregory's son—the dead brother?" Josh asked.
"Yes, we have him at Sanctuary—another one of the Bullen lost boys." As soon as he said it he wished he could pull the wry joke back to where it belonged. In his head. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"It's what I am," Josh shrugged. "Just another piece of detritus tossed out of the way of whatever this damned family was planning."
Manny stared straight into beautiful clear green eyes. There was no anger in them, more a silent resignation.
"Hey," Josh said with a snort, "at least this Beckett guy and I are still alive. Unlike this poor woman."
"If it is our woman," Manny said softly.
"Yeah. If."
There was a momentary silence in which it appeared both men contemplated where they were at in this case.
"It's a pretty cheap-looking necklace," Josh said, breaking the silence. "The description says it's gold and cubic zirconia, which is a fake diamond. Still, it's pretty detailed and arty. Maybe we shouldn't be focusing on who the girl is and whether she is the dead girl on Bullen land.
What if instead we track down where the necklace came from? If we're lucky it's a one-off design or a minimal run then we can connect to the owner from that angle?"
Manny nodded. That was a good call. He liked the way Josh thought.
"Go for it," he said enthusiastically.
Josh half smiled. "Really?"
"Yeah. As good a place as any to start."
Mollified, Josh sat back in his chair and began to type. Manny observed for a moment. He was fascinated to watch someone as good as him switch from one source of information to another, from one computer to another.
Mesmerizing. He looked on until he realized he needed to work on his Altosinno profile ensuring there were no loopholes in his story. Not that it was an actual story. The life part up until year one of MIT was dead-on accurate.
The more recent years, however, not so much. He had
created a couple of arrests and detentions in the state's finest and Jake was backing a pretty hefty bank balance for anyone that wanted to know. Add in a few web links and he was ready. Idly he leaned back in his chair and then pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged. One benefit of being vertically challenged was that he could get way past comfortable in a chair.
He thought back to the sex. Josh hadn't argued about Manny stating he was a switch and that he wasn't some girl to be treated like glass. That was a first. Normally he only attracted assholes who saw him as some kind of short-assed twink. Of course, a few well-timed Tae Kwon Do moves later ended with said prospective partners flat on their backs and gasping like a fish needing air. He never knew who was more surprised. His lovers, who were sorely disappointed, or himself, for the same reason. Josh appeared different, although how Manny felt… after one encounter he didn't know.
Maybe it was the soft green eyes, or the gentle voice, or Josh's eagerness to please Manny with what he
