Monsters Under the Bed Read online

  It seemed like the kid had been born asking questions. Not even the loss of his parents and brother had quelled those inquisitive instincts. Then again, one could view Mo’s diving into everything but his emotions as a stall tactic, and I had no doubt psychologists were going to write books about him for generations to come.

  To learn more about him, I would need to take a closer look at Mo’s bedroom and that playroom, and speak to Cecil about Lovell, so tomorrow I planned to kill two birds with one stone.

  Of course, Giulia Capello had to come first. No way was that woman going to dodge me again tomorrow.

  The official statements made by the police were inconclusive as of yet, but they would soon come to a conclusion. I had a feeling that despite the weird drugs in Mo’s system, the authorities would be reluctant to rule this as a homicide. If they did, however, they would keep that on the down-low.

  There was enough here to be suspicious of, but not a lot of proof to indicate foul play. And Mo had been connected high up on the rungs of society’s ladder. I wasn’t the only one who had to tread carefully.

  “Coming to bed?” Ford was leaning on the doorframe, his jeans riding low on his hips to reveal his washboard stomach, and his shower-damp chest hairs glistening in the dim light.

  I was hard in less than a second. “Be right there.”

  He smiled and moved off. I placed all the papers back in their respective folders, all the books back in their shelves, and turned off the lights downstairs as I went. I took a scalding hot shower, and it relaxed me to the point of drowsiness.

  After, I studied myself in the mirror.

  I saw the bruises, but I didn’t feel them. Shouldn’t I have felt them? What’s wrong with me?

  I combed my hair and felt the former thickness thinning. God, please don’t let me go bald. Also, what had once been a six-pack was now like a four-pack, or if I was being brutally honest, a two-pack plus the beginnings of a paunch.

  When the thugs had attacked me in the alley, I had felt weak and limp. I hadn’t gotten even a single strike in. I had just let them hurt me. Maybe I was getting too old for this job, or any job that required the brilliance of a child genius, the dexterity and strength of a teenager, and the superpowers of mutants.

  I sighed, feeling all my years more distinctly than ever before.

  I climbed into bed next to Ford, and he snuggled right up against me, warm and solid as ever. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked me quietly, reverently somehow.

  “Have you ever wanted to be someone else?”

  He looked up at me, more curious than furious. “What do you mean? Like role-play?”

  “No. Like someone younger and stronger and more beautiful—”

  “Only once,” Ford admitted, kissing my temple. His breath tickled me but warmed my heart, so I didn’t care about the tickling. “Listen, love. What I said earlier… I do worry about you, and I always will. But I don’t actually want you to stop. You may not be as young as you were, but the job energizes you, and you gain this sort of shine within. You’re good at what you do. I’m a mother hen, so just ignore me.”

  I nuzzled his neck, smiling. “Like I could ever ignore you.”

  Ford chuckled low until the sound turned into moan when I opened my mouth and sucked on his pulse point, flicking him with my tongue. His hands on me became insistent, and he took my mouth in a fiercely possessive kiss. This was different from what had happened at the mall, but no less intense.

  We made love passionately but took our time. He ground against me, and I wanted him so much. My fatigue was long gone, and I let go, like I was only ever able to do with him. He smelled of the outdoors, of flowers and dirt and man and musk, and he filled my senses like no other man ever had or ever could.

  I squeezed his buttocks, cradled his balls, stroked his cock, and fondled every inch of his body I could reach and a few I couldn’t. I willed him to plunge his tongue into my mouth, and he did, always anticipating my needs and wants. How could I not love him?

  “I love you, Ford,” I whispered.

  “I love you, Sam. Always.” His words were a vow, and I prayed I would hear them till the end of my days.

  He moved off, knelt near the headboard, and stuck his hard cock in my waiting mouth. The thick, heavy piece of meat filled me, but I loved it. I licked around his head, teasing the slit with the tip of my tongue. I sucked on the hot, silky, mushroom-shaped top, and I felt his heat, his pulse, his twitching, his skin.

  While I maneuvered his cock deeper down my throat, Ford’s right hand got a hold of my erection, and he tugged gently, just enough to set off sparks in my balls but not enough friction or pressure on the length to get me off.

  I eased him out of my mouth and kissed his shaft all over, suckling on occasion. I tapped his hardness against my tongue and then flicked the sensitive bundle of nerves under the ridge, giving him shocking jolts of pleasure.

  Quickly, in retaliation, he moved off, dipped down, and took my cock in his mouth. The wet heat surrounded me as he sucked, and my hips bucked involuntarily. I heard myself groan loudly, and he responded in kind. Then even that wasn’t enough, and he repositioned himself, straddling my face, his groin above my head. His cockhead was perfectly aimed toward my mouth, and I eagerly sucked him in. He did the same with my dick.

  The feeling of being blown while you have the same man’s penis in your own mouth is nothing short of glorious. I changed this up by licking my way to his tender sac and taking his balls in my mouth. I swished them around in my saliva and gently tugged them.

  Ford was writhing and moaning, and I loved it, his wanton abandon. He rubbed my dick over his cheeks, and his stubble was rough, burning, and woke up my nerves to tingle and yearn for more. It was almost too much.

  Without further ado, he backed off again, and his cock fell out past my lips. I managed to steal a final kiss on the head before he was on top of me again, cock to cock, his kisses ravishing my lips, his tongue entering me.

  Ford squeezed our cocks together and stroked us to completion. I came so hard it felt like my dick flew off my body and my balls were siphoned through the slit. His milk-white drops landed on my belly, chest, and even my jaw, hot and sticky and bittersweet.

  As we lay there in a heap of sweaty, limp limbs, our chests heaving with the exertion, he cuddled me. “I got us tickets to the theater next weekend.”

  I nodded wearily, teasing him. “Mmm, fat ladies and castrates singing all night long. You sure got my number.”

  He shoved his elbow slightly against my arm since he couldn’t reach my chest. I pulled him close and kissed him. He kissed me back slowly, letting me take the driver’s seat for a while.

  “The weekend after that,” I said. “Dinner and a movie?”

  “I thought we were going to have snacks at the bar with the guys from the department. Weren’t we supposed to shoot pool with them?” Ford was my human social calendar. Without him, I would have forgotten I had any friends.

  “Right. I forgot.” I nodded my compliance while kissing his jaw and cheeks and lips with chaste, closemouthed kisses. He held me in his arms tightly, though the sticky mess between us should be cleaned off. “Oh, in exchange for the Chance case files I promised Benny you’d soon make him those BBQ ribs with the chocolate-chili sauce. I know I shouldn’t have. Pretty please, babe.” I wasn’t above entreating since I had used his name to get results.

  Ford merely chuckled. “Okay. Anything for you.” Then he grew a bit more serious. “I need your help the day after tomorrow. I’m going to the nursery, and I need you to carry some things from there.”

  With my mind’s eye, I foresaw wooden boxes of flowers, shrubberies, maybe even tiny trees, and I shuddered. The exertion had me exhausted already, the kind of lazybones I was. “Yeah, sure. Of course. Wanna meet there? Two cars….”

  He kissed my temple happily and ruffled my sweat-damp hair. “I thought I was the man with the plan. Okay, two cars it is. I’ll text you with the time and a place to p
ark.” He nibbled on my earlobe, and I giggled. “Ticklish little boy,” he teased lovingly. “So, what’s on your agenda for tomorrow?”

  “Giulia Capello. Mo’s former nanny and current… who knows?”

  “Hmm.” Ford seemed pensive. “I read about her in some fashion magazine a month or so ago.”

  I laughed good-naturedly. “You and your women’s mags.”

  “Bitch,” Ford retorted, but I sensed his grin, and snuggled closer. “She has her own fashion line, if I remember correctly, with fashion houses in Paris, Milan, and other global centers of haute couture. I seem to recall she was married to a race car driver, and a French aristocrat, and an international playboy millionaire, and an actor of some notoriety, and—”

  “Busy woman.” It was funny, and convenient, for my man to be such a huge wealth of information. Ford always kept his ear to the ground and knew what was going on better than most. Sure, this wasn’t anything I couldn’t have found on my own on Google, but I was certain something would pop out of Ford’s mouth that would surprise me.

  Ford shrugged. “Ms. Capello does seem to be one of those people who are perpetually in motion.”

  “She could help solve the energy crisis.”

  “Don’t be crass,” he scolded. Then he stilled, and I knew he’d recalled something vague, an unsubstantiated rumor maybe, or an old connection to this woman. I swear, sometimes I thought Ford knew everyone via one or two people. I had no idea how he could be so socially widespread, if you know what I mean, when before his shooting he had been a cantankerous bastard with equally displeasing habits. “She was rumored to be involved with a young boy once. A charge of hers. But I don’t remember the particulars.”

  It was a possible lead. Did I believe that a class act like Ms. Capello was a pedophile? No, but in my experience, about three-quarters of rumors had some kind of basis in fact, no matter how distorted down the line. A young charge, eh? It could have referenced Mo. Surely it couldn’t have meant Haydn Chance since Haydn had been only thirteen when he disappeared. That would certainly have qualified as statutory rape.

  But could I ask any of this of the eminent Ms. Capello? I’d have to wait and see.

  “There was another piece of innuendo,” Ford said quietly, lost in thought and startling me in the process. “A man.”

  “A grown woman can be with a man, even if either is married. Adultery is so boringly commonplace these days.” Was it me who just said that? God, I sounded like a gossipy, embittered woman.

  Ford buried his face in my neck, but before he fell asleep he mumbled, “The man was a mythical being, or so the rumor went.”

  Now that was interesting.

  Journal Entry 10, the Chance Case: Dreaming My Dreams

  THE airship swayed gently in the breeze, and the air smelled of vanilla and licorice.

  “Perfect view, wouldn’t you say?” a posh voice spoke with a feminine pitch.

  I turned away from the wooden railing and found Ford standing there. Long, dark curls waved around him with the wind, and his colorful, heavily made-up face reminded me of a young Boy George, flamboyant and androgynous.

  He grinned wickedly, quirking an eyebrow. “Come here, soldier boy.” He crooked a finger toward me, and like an obedient robot, I went. His kiss tasted of caramel, and his lipstick left a wet, tacky mark on my mouth. “Isn’t it lovely here on the high perch?”

  Thick, gray fog covered everything, and only the airship gliding through an airy sea of obscurity was visible. “I can’t see.”

  “Let the spirits guide you,” female/male Ford whispered in my ear, and I heard the smile in his voice.

  “What spirits?”

  “They dance in the wind, they swim with the waves, they crawl on the earth, they burn in the fire, they sparkle amid the stars. Hush, lover.”

  I listened to the gales, walking closer to the bow. Too many voices.

  The mists parted like shrouds.

  Statues of gods and warriors rose from the sea beneath us, an ocean of light and fire, ever transforming. These magnificent spikes of stone rose high up above me and descended deep underneath the surface of the sea.

  And far away in the distance, I caught silhouettes of translucent castles in the sky, with waterfalls of diamonds and rains of flowers. The air was sweet and fragrant.

  “Fly with me?” A boy dropped down on the bow of the airship before me, avoiding the bulging sail with skill and swiftness. His mischievous grin reminded me of someone whose face I couldn’t recall.

  I took his hand with a bout of confidence; I knew not where it came.

  He drew me up off the wooden deck, and lightning showers lit up the darkening storm clouds, puffy and nearing rapidly amid thunderous roars. We flew toward the heart of the bad weather without veering off course. A deep blue surrounded me from all directions, and sparks of all colors flew around from the whip of the boy’s dragonfly wings.

  I saw the core of the maelstrom ahead and wanted to deviate, but the boy gave me courage with a smile. I couldn’t shake the feeling of his familiarity, and when we dove down into the spiraling tempest, I knew he was Mo Chance.

  “Who killed you?” I asked, my voice nothing but a whisper lost in the raging winds.

  Skyscrapers of glass and steel sliced through the clouds like knives.

  He laughed. “I’m the start of change and the end of ethic, and I’m never removed from clickety-click.”

  Like a rocket, he plunged down into the cascades of flowers, and I, still holding his hand, was dragged along, swirling around like a leaf in the wind.

  Shadows of winged lions and mighty dragons were reflected on the clouds, plump like marshmallows, but were they really there? I couldn’t tell.

  “While I’m alone and blue as can be, dream a little dream of me,” Mo’s image sang to me.

  “Where are you taking me?” I hollered above the thunder.

  “Come, seeker of truth.” We flew above the storm clouds and through the star fields, endless pinpricks of light over the curtain of night. I felt dizzy, and I didn’t know if I was rising or falling.

  But there, far or close ahead, I saw the black hole between the stars, like the mouth of some galactic creature, waiting to devour me. Harmonies of music swept my way, and like sparks of fireworks, I saw notes born out of nothing sound off and vibrate into the universe and die out as fast as a candle’s flame blown out. I saw the waves of sound in the void, cresting toward me, only to pass through me, and continue on into the deep night afar.

  “What is this place?” My voice quivered with fear.

  “Birthplace of prophesy, of motion, of change, of the night.”

  The music flowed everywhere now, the rhythm faster, more distinct, and yet I never heard the beat, only saw it wash over me.

  “This is the edge of all. Do not peer beyond the edge. To do so is to invite madness.”

  I nodded, afraid, heeding his call like a last lifeline.

  A dark figure emerged from the black crevice that split the living universe. I saw no one inside the shroud, but I felt eyes on me. I might have screamed then and closed my eyes tight, praying for the dream to end.

  But it did not.

  When I dared to open my eyes again, the figure was gone.

  “What was that?” I asked in a reverent whisper.

  “Death.”

  I shivered. Coldness seeped into my veins, giving me chills within and without.

  He spoke to me softly. “Have no fear. It is not your time to enter the deep. And this is a place of creation as well. I know. I was born here. My brother and I.”

  I looked at him, this weird angelic form of Mo Chance, who was maybe me, maybe no one, maybe him, maybe nothing.

  “The night is only scary to those who have fear in their hearts.”

  I nodded, though my fears were far from dispelled.

  “Come, dreamer. Let us travel to the warmth of the hearth and home.”

  The cold darkness was left behind as light and life moved b
eyond the clouds shaded with purple, red, orange, and yellow. I sighed in relief.

  But when the vapors parted like curtains, I saw a field of fire, expanding beyond the reach of vision. Toward it we flew, and the heat and flames arose as a living being, seeking me out with burning hot tendrils and pungent smoke sent to suffocate me.

  At the heart of this plain of fire stood a stone structure. The roof and the floor were two enormous stone slabs held apart by a ring of stone pillars, all rough-hewn, unyielding. And in the center, a hearth surrounded by a stone circle kept the flames from escaping. Around it was a circular wooden desk with pots and pans and kitchen utensils of all kinds, and the smell of food reached my nostrils.

  I was immediately starving.

  “Hungry for food or knowledge?” imp-Mo asked me with a laugh.

  At the edge of the structure rose a forge and a kiln, and a man stood there. No, a giant. His red hair was aflame, his skin was black from soot, and muscles bulged under the dark skin.

  As Mo and I landed on the stone floor, he turned to look at us over his shoulder. Huge fangs peeked past his lips, and scars marred his face.

  His mirage-like face.

  I could have sworn I saw three separate faces, one a white-skinned boy, another a red-masked man, and the third a black-hued old man. I was dreaming, and I didn’t know what to think.

  “Ah, brother dreamers, welcome,” the being said, his voice a deep rolling wave of storms brewing. “See what I have made for your mother.”

  He turned completely to us now, away from the forge, and he flung a large cloak in front of him. Only the material was the dead of night, and in the fabric sparkled stars in the heavens.

  “Will she like it, you think?” the creature asked, his visage never still.

  Angelic-Mo laughed. “She likes you plenty, doesn’t she?”