Nightcrawler (Trackers #1)

Chapter Six

TRIGG

Book title: To Kill or Not to Kill a Mockingbird

Author: William Blake

Publisher: Self-published

Genre: Paranormal legal drama

Review/rating by Nightcrawler: 3 stars

Synopsis:

This story takes place in a courtroom somewhere in the southern part of the U.S. It’s told in first person by a lawyer who is defending a man accused of murder. The man in question has been accused of staring at, stalking, and following a young victim, by several witnesses. None of these witnesses can positively identify him as the murderer and yet all say he was near the home where the victim was found, on or about the time and date of the murder.

My Review:

My three-star review can be summed up in four words, revolting and yet poignant…thus the reason I’m giving it more stars than you, my dear readers, have come to expect from me. For an Indie, I thought it was well written. The only thing that drops it from a four-star to a three-star is the endless back and forth inside the lawyer’s head as he tries to convince the jury that Tommy-boy Gallager, the supposed killer, is innocent. Personally, I felt that Gallager was portrayed as sympathetically as a character ever could be, but this was only half of it.

What makes this oddly familiar tale a little strange is how the lawyer in this story, Marcus Thorndyke, appears to be going mad when he is visited by the ghost of the victim who cries out for justice he’s not sure he can deliver. He is so conflicted that he feels like he’s losing his mind at times and stays up all night long, nearly every night during the trial, wearing out his area rug as he paces. He cries out, “To be or not to be” so repetitively, I grabbed the Pepto-Bismol every time the book cut away to a scene where he is alone.

Blake has written a book that teachers will probably assign as required reading to every high school class for the rest of eternity. They will expect their students to not only read it, but write comprehensive papers about it, fully understanding the underlying pathos of what he’s trying to say.

They’re going to be fully disappointed.

Most of these poor bastards will take the book home and put it on their bedside table where their helicopter parents will expect it to be, and not under their beds to join a multitude of crusty socks their mothers won’t find until they leave for college. They will escape out their bedroom windows to bone their pimply girlfriends causing them to get Ds on their assignments, before learning that they’re grounded, prompting them to roll the world’s smallest burrito, and get faded.

In conclusion, I didn’t hate this book.

I chuckled as I read the most recent review posted by Nightcrawler, only to look up sharply as a throat cleared. Raven Mathis was staring at me with sleepy eyes from the bed—my bed—where he’d slept the day away.

“It sounds like you’re reading something good,” he said with a smile before wincing as he tried to roll toward me.

“My favorite book reviewer on my favorite book review site,” I said, leaning forward in the recliner next to the bed. It was the only place to sit in my dreary apartment other than the two uncomfortable wooden chairs at my small kitchen table. I put my tablet on the bedside table between us and stood, holding up the palm of my hand. “Don’t move, Mathis. You could open the wound. You remember being shot, right?”

He nodded and I watched him slip his hand beneath the sheet, in an unconscious response to my words. He grimaced, and I looked over at the bottle of painkillers Vonne had left for him.

“How bad is the pain?” I asked, picking up the bottle and showing him the Motrin. “Vonne left these for you, and I have some acetaminophen if you want to layer the two drugs.”

“Layer them?” Mathis asked, looking up at me as he tried to sit up.

I put the bottle down and bent to help him. The quilt fell to his waist, pooling around his hips as he scooted back in the bed with effort. I repositioned my favorite feather pillow behind his back and added a second, firmer one, so that he could sit up and lean against them. He kept his groin covered with the quilt and for that, I was grateful.

“Vonne said you can take one of these 800 milligram Motrin and a 1000 milligrams of Tylenol at the same time if you need it. I don’t have anything stronger in the house, but that combination usually works for me. It’ll definitely take the edge off now that the local has probably worn off.”

“Let me have a Motrin and we’ll see if that works,” he grunted. His face and bare chest were beading with sweat just from trying to get comfortable.

“Hang on, let me get you a glass of water.” I gave him the pill bottle and got some tap water from the kitchen, handing it to him. “I don’t have any bottled. Sorry.”

“This is fine,” he said, taking the glass from me. I watched him take the pill and drink the whole glass of water with shaky hands. “Thank you, Trigg.” It felt weird to hear him call me Trigg and for a split second, I really wanted to hear my real name on his lips and not Trigg—short for Trigger—the nickname I’d had since my days in the Corps. He smiled at me as he handed the glass back. “Is that amazing smell the hobo stew you were making?”

I smiled, a little surprised that it felt almost normal to do so. “Yeah. I guess you’d like some, right? It’s kinda late and you haven’t eaten all day.”

He nodded. “I’d love some.”

My gaze went to his long fingers as they rubbed across his belly. For the first time, I noticed a silver and turquoise ring on his left ring finger, and it felt like a light switch flipped on in my brain.

“I’ll get you some and I’ll give you a little privacy if you want to call someone or something…just so you can let…you know, someone know you’re alive.”

He frowned a little. “Yeah, I do need to call someone. And I need to pee.” He tried to roll to get out of bed and then went still, grabbing his side, and wincing again. “Shit.”

“Here—” I said, putting the empty glass on the bedside table before stepping forward. “You’re going to need a little help for a couple of days.” I bent and took both of his hands, helping him scoot to the edge of the bed and then stand up. As the quilt and the sheet fell away, I could see that his wound had soaked through the bandages front and back. A circle of blood stained the sheet where he’d lain but it was just one more spot on an already ruined set of sheets…my only set of sheets. Fuck.

“Damn. I’m bleeding,” he said, looking down at the bandages.

“Yeah, Vonne said the wounds are small enough that they should close without stitches, but they may leak for a couple of days. If you feel like you can sit up in the easy chair or at the table while you eat, you should probably do that beforehand. It’s useless to change them first since any movement is going to open them up again.”

“I think that’d work.” He gave me a helpless look and I could tell he hated the entire ordeal.

“Good.”

He smirked. “Now, I seriously need to pee.”

“Oh…yeah. Sorry.”

He took a step and then faltered, and I instantly pulled his arm over my shoulder, supporting his weight. “You’re gonna have to let me help you for a little while.” I left his stay at my place open-ended, knowing now that he had a wife at home, probably worried as hell about him. We walked to the bathroom slowly as I kept talking, trying my damnedest not to notice how smooth and hot his bare skin felt against my body. “Vonne is gonna be here in the morning to give you another shot of antibiotic and then—” I almost sighed out loud before going on. “I can see to it that you get home to your wife.”

He stopped in the doorway to the bathroom and twisted to look at me. “My wife?”

“I saw your ring. That’s why I asked you if you wanted to call anyone. I’m sure she’s worried. It’s after ten.”

He smirked at me, holding up his hand. “That’s not a wedding ring, Huerta. My mom gave this to me when I turned sixteen.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid and for some godforsaken reason, a little relieved.

“But, yeah, I do need to call someone.”

My relief disappeared. What the hell?

He braced himself on the pedestal sink in the bathroom and looked at me. “I can take it from here. Thank you.”

“Are you—you’re fine?” I felt unusually protective.

“I’m steady enough to stand at the john, yeah, Huerta. I really don’t need you to watch me take a piss.” He snorted. “That sounded funny.”

“I’ll be just out here then. Let me know when you’re done.”

He nodded, staring at me for long seconds as he leaned against my sink again. “Thanks for everything, Trigg. I know you saved my life today.”

“I got you shot,” I growled, reaching up to run a hand through my hair.

“I got myself shot.”

I wasn’t about to argue with him. “Let me know when you’re done, and I’ll help you get back to the other room.”

“Okay.”

I stepped back, and he shut the door. I leaned against the wall, mentally doing the laundry in my head, hopeful that no one was using the single washer in the laundry room at the end of the hall. Sometimes my neighbors forgot to take stuff out of the dryer. I hoped the bloodstains would come out because after today, I might not have a job, so buying a new set of sheets would be low on my to-do list.

I’d put my phone on silent after Vonne left so that the ringer wouldn’t disturb Mathis and thankfully, Jamie hadn’t called to check on my progress. He was probably too busy with his other bounty hunters. It was November. Lots of criminals skipped bail at this time of year, and some were stupid enough to make their way home to see loved ones, making it easy for bounty hunters to find them.

I heard the toilet flush and then the faucet turn on in my tiny bathroom. After a minute or so, the door opened and Raven stood in the doorway. He looked a lot grayer than he had before I’d left him alone in the bathroom.

“I’m feeling kinda dizzy,” he said, reaching out for me, and I instantly stepped forward, sliding a hand around his waist and taking his weight.

“You should’ve let me help you. You’re lucky you didn’t pass out in there,” I groused as we walked back out into the living room. I sat him in my recliner and then retrieved the clean dressings Vonne had left there. “Let me get these dressings changed and then I’ll get you that food. You’re probably not only weak from blood loss but also from hunger.”

“Thank you, Trigg.” He reached out and touched my forearm, looking up and meeting my eyes, making shivers run over my skin. It was all I could do not to reach out and cover his hand with my own.

I pulled away quickly and went back to my closet to grab the last of the towels I had. After setting it down, I knelt in front of him, ignoring the weight of his stare at the top of my head as well as the proximity of all the beautiful maleness right in front of me. It wasn’t lost on me that all he wore was a pair of boxer briefs, unfortunately fitting him like a fucking glove. When I was done here, I was going to give him a pair of my loose sleeping pants. I leaned forward and began removing the tape holding the dressing low on his belly.

I worked silently, cleaning both wounds which thankfully, looked pink and absent of any puffiness or swelling, and then pressed new gauze against them, using tape last. Finally, I opened some wrapping which would go around his abdomen and with him helping to hold it in place, wrapped his torso several times. When I was done, he was sweating again.

I was ready to get as far away from him as I possibly could. If I had to get that close to him again, I was going to lose my fucking mind.

“Be right back,” I grunted, standing and gathering all the soiled dressings, along with the clean ones. I threw away the used bandages, setting the others on the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the room. After grabbing a pair of sleeping pants from my top drawer, I helped him stand and get into them. The touch of his hand on my shoulder to steady himself made my skin hot. As soon as he was sitting in my easy chair so he could eat, I stepped back, safely out of his personal space. I lifted a hand to run through my hair before I recognized it for the nervous gesture only I knew it to be and, looked down at him.

“I-I’m going to start a load of laundry. I… ah …have to clean these sheets. Let me get you some food first, though.”

“Okay,” Mathis said, the first words he’d uttered since we’d begun the dressing change.

I went into the kitchen and ladled a big bowl of stew for him, bringing it back with a chunk of crusty French bread. I’d slathered it with the last of my precious butter—the one luxury I usually hoarded for myself—before walking back to him. I didn’t have to microwave anything since the food was still warm from the stove. After setting up a rickety TV tray and setting it in front of him, I grabbed another glass of water, setting it down with a big soup spoon and napkin.

He leaned forward, winced, held his side, and then inhaled, letting out an appreciative moan of pleasure the minute he’d put the first spoon in his mouth. I smiled inside as I watched him begin to nod and take several more spoonfuls before looking up at me and giving me a thumbs up as he chewed. After stripping off the bedding, I turned around and saw him staring at the bloody sheets in my hands. He was no longer chewing.

“Oh, my God, Trigg. I ruined your sheets…and look at your mattress!”

I turned and spotted the huge bloodstain on the side of the bed where Vonne had worked on him as well as the one higher up where he’d slept all day. He was right. My mattress looked like a crime scene.

I glanced back at him. “It’s fine,” I replied. “It’s a really old mattress.” I sighed before grabbing my detergent from under the kitchen sink and heading to the front door. “Be right back.” I was out of the apartment, headed away from him before I embarrassed myself.

RAVEN

I watched Trigg vanish out the door wondering why he was in such a hurry and feeling terrible about what I’d done by bleeding all over his mattress. I could tell by the humbleness of Huerta’s apartment, lack of furniture, bare floor, and walls, that he wasn’t exactly living the high life. I wanted to kick myself for not realizing how desperate he’d been when he’d fought me so hard for the bounty on Gemma’s prosthetic boobs. I should have known he needed the money even after his cracks about my shoes, my truck, and how he’d referred to me as a rich boy.

I turned and looked at his bed, noting how old and ratty it looked and felt even worse. I’d bled all over it. He hadn’t put a mattress pad over it and as I thought about that, another realization hit me. He’d felt it necessary to wash the sheets even though my phone told me it was past ten which probably meant the sheets and the stack of bloody towels he gathered before walking out of the room were all he had.

“Fuck, you’re a total idiot, Raven,” I said out loud to the empty room.

“Meow!”

I looked over the side of the chair to see where the call had come from and spotted a pair of golden eyes staring up at me. They sat in a heart-shaped white face. The kitten was small and if I had to guess, less than six months old. He appeared to be mostly white with black markings on his head, sides, and back. I’d completely forgotten the kitten as Trigg had practically carried me into the apartment earlier in the day. I couldn’t remember what he’d called the little guy, Henry? Steven? Harley? I set down my spoon, carefully pushing the empty bowl aside and reached down. The kitten immediately walked into my petting fingers, rubbing against them as I scratched the top of his head.

My side was killing me with the effort it took to bend, so I sat up slowly, leaning back in the recliner as I picked up the crusty bread and chewed on it. A second later, the kitten jumped up on the arm of the chair, balancing there with all four paws like one of those circus elephants you see balancing on a ball, a feat I always knew was impossible. He gazed at me for a few seconds, blinking, and then looked down into my nearly empty bowl before walking to the end of the chair’s arm and leaning toward it. He obviously thought food was much more interesting than I was. I grinned and picked up the bowl, holding it out for him. He stared down into it and then reached down, catching a small piece of potato with one paw, and pulling it out. It dropped onto the floor and he instantly followed. I laughed as I sat back in the chair, and the door opened.

Trigg walked into the room and immediately came over, holding a small bottle of laundry soap as he looked into the bowl. “How was it?” he asked, staring into my eyes. Jesus, the guy is intense.

“It was really good. I don’t know where you got the recipe, but it was amazing. Thank you again.”

He gave me the ghost of a smile and walked over to the kitchen table to pull out one of the hard backed chairs, dropping down into it, still holding the bottle. When the kitten came running over to him he grinned, bending over to meet the little guy who was standing on his hind legs, holding up two white paws. Trigg’s whole face changed when he saw the kitten. He looked soft and approachable, even kind, traits and characteristics that I wouldn’t have guessed he had. Then again, he’d been so kind to me after the shooting. When I’d first met him, he’d been such an asshole. I was seeing a very different side of him, and this one, I really liked.

“There you are, Stanley!” he said, picking the kitten up by the nape of his neck like a mother would. He immediately hugged the little guy and that’s all it took for me to become a goner in no time flat. Trigg’s big, dark presence holding this small kitten made me want to melt onto the floor.

Stanley. That’s his name . I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him cooing into the side of the kitten’s neck. When he looked up, all the stress of the day had been erased from his face. That was no ordinary kitten. He had to be magical. I grinned at my own foolishness.

“There’s no recipe,” he suddenly said, pointing to my bowl as he returned to the topic we’d been on before the reappearance of his beloved pet. I chewed the rest of the buttered bread as he kept talking. “That’s the kind of stuff me and my Marine Corps unit used to make when we had nothing else to eat out on patrol. Sometimes we’d be separated from the rest of our platoon for days, high up in the mountains, or deep in some stinking, sweating jungle, so we didn’t have access to refrigeration or anything other than what we could carry in our packs. We’d procure whatever cans of food we could find if we were somewhere populated but if we weren’t, we hoarded them for later and carried them on our backs.”

“And you’d just cook up a bunch of canned stuff?”

“Sure. We’d put them all in one pot and just make it. Sometimes we’d find cans with no labels.” He grinned. “Those were always entertaining to open.”

I laughed, pain making me momentarily breathless as I remembered I shouldn’t…fucking…do that.

“One time, one of my buddies opened a can and found pickled scorpions.”

“Oh my God!” I stared at him horrified as he sat there calmly petting Stanley. “Please tell me you didn’t eat them.”

He shook his head. “Fuck no. We passed on that can, but we often found canned meats we couldn’t identify. Needless to say, we never added that to the stew. If we opened a can and found a dried protein, bacon or beef jerky, we’d add those. One time there was a can of crickets which made it into the pot.”

“Gross. I mean I know some people eat bugs but, no. My friend had a gecko, and she fed him live crickets. I watched that cute little lizard eat this poor cricket and really felt for him,” I said.

Trigg smirked. “The cricket or the gecko…or your friend?”

I laughed and grabbed my side as an involuntary moan escaped.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he said, losing his smile. “You, okay?”

“It’s okay, just an ache when I laugh.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Anyway, we called what we made hobo stew, but it’s also known as—”

“Mulligan stew, yeah, I heard Vonne telling you to make it earlier today.”

He smiled. “Yeah.” He bowed his head, kissing the top of Stanley’s head as the sleeping kitten lay in his arms. He looked so tiny against that big, strong body. A few years ago, my assistant Judy had given me a calendar with pictures of a different hot guy holding a kitten for every month of the year. I remember being sad when I got to December knowing my daily dose of completely hot guys holding kittens had come to an end. Trigg should have been on the cover. They would have sold a trillion copies.

The awkward silence once again filled the void between us. He was frowning a little as he glanced up. “How’s your pain now?”

“It’s good…I mean not great, but better.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Good.”

The silence returned and I realized how tired I really was. In the morning, I’d have to call Judy to let her know I was still alive and explain what had happened. She was going to have a shit fit over me being shot and honestly, it was the only reason I hadn’t called her until now. I heaved out a big sigh and Trigg looked up, having been slumping in that really uncomfortable chair while I sat over here feeling way too comfy in the only soft piece of furniture in the room. For a fleeting second, I wished I was at home where I knew thousand thread count sheets, my welcoming, soft suede couch, and my own clothes were. I put the thought out of my mind a moment later, feeling horribly guilty at my own selfishness.

I had to make another call too. She’d be worried.

“I’m going to go check on the laundry,” Trigg said, getting up. He looked uncomfortable in his own skin, and I knew the reasons behind it centered on having me here, crowding his space. I was an intruder here. He looked around, holding Stanley, and seeming undecided as to where to put him.

I held out my arms. “Give him to me. I’ll hold him.”

“Yeah, okay.” He walked over and handed the sleeping beauty to me. Stanley instantly readjusted himself in a new set of male arms, sleeping on as if he hadn’t missed a damned thing. I glancing at Trigg’s bulging muscles, Marine Corps tat poking out from under his sleeve, and the way his T-shirt stretched across his chest to show off his muscles. It made me realize I’d miss the loss of that man’s arms were I ever lucky enough to feel them wrapped around me.

I swallowed hard, burying my face in Stanley’s fur and breathing in his kitten scent as I ignored Trigg cleaning up my empty dishes and putting away the TV tray. I was embarrassed because I was unable to do even the smallest thing to help. I kept my face down, not wanting to look up and into those deep, brown eyes which might see too much, until I heard the door close as he walked out of the apartment.

I made my call, trying not to worry her, checking how she was before she asked about me. “I’m okay. Just got caught on a job. I love you. Get some good sleep. I’ll be home when I can.”