but we don’t need a point,” Davy replied. “We bust your balls out of sheer habit. Mouthy little punk.”
Hardly little. He was as tall as either of his brothers, and bulkier than Connor, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. He heaved himself into the back of the Avalanche. Connor got in on one side, Miles on the other, squishing him into immobility. Seth put the vehicle in gear.
“You free to take on some work?” he asked. “You don’t look busy.”
Sean stifled a groan. He sometimes did freelance bodyguarding for SafeGuard, Inc., the security company that Seth and Davy had recently founded. Usually they called him when they had explosives to deal with.
Today, the idea bored him into a state approaching rigor mortis.
“What, a bodyguarding gig nobody else wants? I’m not in the mood to ego-fluff some executive asshole, or carry shopping bags for some fat cat’s trophy wife. Take me off your list. Permanently.”
“It’s not a bodyguarding gig,” Connor said. “And it’s not for SafeGuard. It’s for me. I’m working on a weird case. Real flesh-creeper. The Cave called me in to consult. Thought you might be interested.”
And Connor’s consulting gigs for various law enforcement agencies were always fascinating, in a gruesome sort of way.
He caved almost instantly. “What’s so creepy about it?”
“We’ve got a predator who likes math and science geeks.”
“Huh.” Sean blinked. “Wow. Weird.”
“Yeah. Six cases in four months. College age, males and females both. They turn up dead, ostensibly an OD outside dance clubs, but nobody remembers seeing them inside. All gifted in math, computers, engineering. All with the same unexplained cerebral damage. None of them have family. Someone’s picking them out real carefully.”
Sean considered it. “Evidence of sexual violence?”
“In the girls there’s evidence of recent sexual activity, but this prick’s careful not to leave any DNA. He doesn’t like to fuck the boys, evidently. I’ve already got Miles on it. I could use your help, too.”
Sean had his private misgivings about “the Cave,” the covert FBI task force that his brother used to belong to. Mostly because they’d practically gotten Connor slaughtered, on more than one occasion.
“What makes you think I could help?” he growled.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Con said. “You’re useful, when you’re not bouncing off the walls. And you could, ah, use a distraction.”
“Ah,” Sean said slowly. “So this is, like, a mercy fuck.”
“Shut up,” Connor snapped. “You’re bugging me.”
“It’s mutual,” Sean said. “Don’t project your own twisted coping mechanisms onto me, Con. The Superman cape drags on the ground when I wear it. I’ll find my own distractions. A hot three-way with a couple cute babes is more my speed. Shallow butterfly that I am.”
“I’ve known you since you were born,” Connor said wearily. “Don’t even try.” He passed a brutally scarred hand over his face, a souvenir of one of those near-death experiences. Sean got an unwelcome flash of just how bad his brother felt. He blocked it. Didn’t want to know.
He shook himself. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m not hurting for money. I’ve got my own projects to keep me busy. Consulting for law enforcement agencies feels too much like real work to me.”
“It is real work, you lazy slob,” Connor lectured him. “You come into focus when you’ve got real work. That’s what you should be doing, not this frivolous bullshit…what’s your latest craze again? Consulting for goddamn fight films? Give me a fucking break.”
Sean had gotten very sick of this deep-rooted disagreement long ago. “It’s lucrative frivolous bullshit,” he growled. “I’m busy, I’m off the streets, I’m not in trouble with the law, and I’m not hitting you guys up for money. What the fuck more do you want from me?”
“Not from you. For you.” Davy swiveled his head, fixed his brother with a laser beam gaze. “This isn’t about money. It’s about you concentrating on something other than your own miserable self.”
Sean flung his head back against the seat and sealed the light out with his hand. Here was the blood price he had to pay for a ride home.
Experience had taught him that to put up a fight at this point in the lecture was useless. They’d just keep at him with their meat mallets until he was quivering, bloody pulp. Not that they had far to go.
Best to keep them talking til he got a chance to cut and run.
“You’re going down the drain, and we’re sick of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, watching it happen,” Davy went on.
Going down the drain. Goose bumps prickled up Sean’s back.
“Funny you should say that,” he said. “It gives me the shivers. Kev said the exact same words to me last night.”
Connor sucked in a sharp breath. “I hate it when you do that.”
His tone jolted Sean out of his reverie. “Huh? What have I done?”
“Talked about Kev as if he were alive,” Davy said heavily. “Please, please don’t do that. It makes us really nervous.”
There was a long, unhappy silence. Sean took a deep breath.
“Listen, guys. I know Kev is dead.” He kept his voice steely calm. “I’m not hearing little voices. I don’t think anybody’s out to get me. I have no intentions of driving off a cliff. Everybody relax. OK?”
“So you had one of those dreams last night?” Connor demanded.
Sean winced. He’d confessed the Kev dreams to Connor some years back, and he’d regretted it bitterly. Connor had gotten freaked out, had dragged Davy into it, yada yada. Very bad scene.
But the dreams had been driving him bugfuck. Always Kev, insisting he wasn’t crazy, that he hadn’t really killed himself. That Liv was still in danger. And that Sean was a no-balls, dick-brained chump if he fell for this lame ass cover-up. Study my sketchbook, he exhorted. The proof is right there. Open your eyes. Dumb ass.
But they had studied that sketchbook, goddamnit. They’d picked it apart, analyzed it from every direction. They’d come up with fuck-all.
Because there was nothing to come up with. Kev had been sick, like Dad. The bad guys, the cover-up, the danger for Liv—all paranoid delusions. That was the painful conclusion that Con and Davy had finally come to. The note in Kev’s sketchbook looked way too much like Dad’s mad ravings during his last years. Sean didn’t remember Dad’s paranoia as clearly as his older brothers did, but he did remember it.
Still, it had taken him longer to accept their verdict. Maybe he never really had accepted it. His brothers worried that he was as nutso paranoid as his twin. Maybe he was. Who knew? Didn’t matter.
He
