Cover Up (23 page)

Ivan’s eyes rounded. “Your first what?”

Did he really have to spell it out? He shouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place. Talking about sex, especially when it involved his own sex life, was not something he was comfortable with. “You know. My first… guy.”

Somehow, he wasn’t expecting the black scowl.

“Now I hate him even more.”

What? “Why? Oh.” The shoe dropped, and Parker couldn’t stop the smile. Suddenly, a lot of Ivan’s actions made a lot more sense. He’d never had anyone be jealous over him before, and he found he liked it. A lot.

“Yeah, ‘oh’.” Ivan smiled back at him. “You’re loving that, aren’t you? Any other ex-boyfriends I need to know about? Other secrets?”

Parker didn’t understand why Ivan’s smile morphed into an almost frightened expression, but Ivan didn’t have anything to worry about.

“No ex-boyfriends. At least, none that I still talk to. But you remember Thom from school? He wanted to ask me out.”

“Of course he did. He couldn’t keep his eyes off your ass.”

Unbelievable. Everyone knew except him. He was used to people staring, but usually because he was the fat kid. Unless someone came right out and said it, he’d never known when someone wanted him, and it just hadn’t happened all that often. That he knew about.

“Usually guys are interested in Neil. I guess I’m just used to not getting any attention.”

“Neil? You’re joking, right?”

“No.” Parker wasn’t sure why Ivan was so incensed, but he did like the implication that Ivan thought he was more attractive than Neil.

“And I hate Thom, too, by the way, although… wait… you haven’t slept with him, have you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, I hate him slightly less than Neil.”

The sound that escaped Parker’s lips was almost a giggle. Yes, he could get used to this.

“You did say secrets, though.” Neil wouldn’t be able to help him figure out the right course of action, and he didn’t know who else to ask. He trusted Ivan not to steer him wrong.

“Um, yes, I did. Did you have something else?”

“Remember when I asked if you’d been in my room?”

Ivan paled slightly and looked a lot less happy than when Parker admitted to having sex with Neil. “Yes.”

“I’m really sorry if it sounded like I didn’t trust you. I do. I trust you.” He did too. In fact, he trusted Ivan more than Neil for many things; one of them was to not make fun of him.

“Okay, that’s good.” Ivan’s mouth worked a bit as though he wanted to say more, but in the end he closed his mouth and shoved his plate away, even though there were still a few pieces of pancake soaking in syrup.

“Here’s the thing. I think someone was in my room.” Parker reached out and squeezed Ivan’s hand. “I don’t think it was you. You had no reason to do this, but I found money in my closet. A lot of it.”

Ivan frowned. “Money?”

“Yeah. Bundles of it, like you see in the movies, just sitting in my file box. I don’t usually spend a lot of time filing.” Parker directed a sheepish look toward the pile of mail in a basket in the corner. “I don’t know how it got there, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You don’t know how it got there.”

What was up with Ivan? Parroting back his words wasn’t much assistance.

“Weird, right? I have no idea what to do. Do I call the cops? Although they’d probably just laugh at me.”

“How much money?” Ivan sounded like he was being strangled.

“I don’t know. I just put it back where I found it. A couple thousand or so.”

Ivan shoved back from the table and started to pace, rubbing a hand over his face. A cold tremble shook Parker’s belly. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Ivan so distressed, and it was freaking him out just a bit.

When Ivan halted and turned to face him, the niggle of fear turned into a full-blown clench of nausea. The scent of maple became sickening. “What’s wrong? It’s not your money, is it?”

“Can we talk in the living room?”

Those words never preceded anything good. Parker might not have much experience on the relationship front, but he knew enough to know that.

“Sure.” With leaden feet, he followed Ivan. He sat on his customary spot on the couch, but Ivan surprised him by sitting down next to him.

“Look, I….” Ivan stared up at the ceiling, and Parker wanted to tell him just to spit it the fuck out, but he didn’t want to upset Ivan any more.

“Shit, Parker, I don’t… I’ve never had to….” Ivan’s knee began moving rapidly up and down. Parker choked back a nervous giggle, because he remembered in high school someone telling him that sort of nervous twitch was the result of sexual repression. After last night, Ivan couldn’t be suffering from that. Stupid thing to think about, but he wanted to focus on anything besides Ivan’s agitation. Because those words sounded like breakup words. He wasn’t sure how the magic pile of money had gotten them here.

No. That was his insecurity talking. If this had something to do with the fantastic sex they’d had, then Ivan was the freak here, not him.

“I’m an undercover cop.”

Parker blinked. Not an insurance salesman. “Okay. I’ve watched cop shows before. I get that you probably don’t tell everyone that.” He refused to be hurt that Ivan hadn’t trusted him with this information. After all, they had only known each other well under a month.

A loud pop filled the room as Ivan cracked the knuckles on his unwrapped hand. “I’m supposed to be investigating you.”

“Me?” Parker didn’t have anything else to say. He stood and did some pacing of his own. “Why me?”

“Drug dealing. Maybe trafficking. You’re a suspected associate of Viktor Razhin, head of the Russian mafia.”

“Drug dealing? Trafficking?” Parker’s voice climbed into soprano registers and cracked, but he had zero control over that. “I’m not a drug dealer! And I don’t know anybody named Viktor Razhin, or even any criminals.”

His eyes landed on a couple of books on the shelf, and he had to curl his hands into fists to stop himself from throwing them at Ivan. He’d never been a violent person, but this… this hurt worse than almost anything. Ivan thought he was a drug dealer.

“I know you’re not. You can’t be.” Ivan turned pleading blue eyes on him, and he wanted desperately to believe everything wasn’t a lie.

The noose around his heart loosened slightly, until a thought struck him. “But you didn’t know until I asked you about that money. Because if I was a drug dealer, I’d know what that money was for.”

There was no mistaking the guilty look on Ivan’s face. The noose squeezed tight like a boa throttling its dinner, and Parker swallowed heavily to keep his breakfast down.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I don’t know if this will help, but after I met you, I didn’t want to believe what my boss told me about you.”

“You had sex with me thinking I was a drug dealer.” And not just sex. He’d accepted Parker, made him think about the future, had been tender with him. And it was all fake. A manufactured mirage. But why? To get him to incriminate himself? His eyes burned, and he turned away from Ivan. He’d taken so much from Parker. He didn’t get to see how he’d gutted Parker with this revelation.

The couch creaked, and a fraction of a second later, Ivan’s body heat radiated against his back. He wanted to lean back, get the comfort Ivan offered, but he couldn’t.

“The sex wasn’t part of the job. I swear. I couldn’t resist you.” Ivan’s hand landed on his shoulder, and he twisted away.

Words he’d have loved to hear just an hour before, words no one had spoken to him with the depth of feeling Ivan infused, and words he could no longer take at face value because Ivan was a lying shit who was a great fucking actor.

“Well, you should have.” Parker was proud his voice hadn’t wobbled a bit. He bit the inside of his cheek hard to force the tears back. He stepped away from Ivan and turned around.

Standing strong against Ivan’s pleading eyes took everything he had.

“I know this isn’t an excuse, but I was doing my job. I still need to.”

“That’s great. And now that you know I’m not a drug dealer, you can run back to your life, Ivan Baker. Oh wait. Is that even your real name?”

A grimace twisted his lips. He was sure he’d called out Ivan’s name the last time he came. He’d almost told Ivan he loved him, even though it was too soon. The thought that not even his name might be real…. His breath came shallow and fast, his vision getting spotty.

“Parker. Snap the fuck out of it! Sit down and breathe. Slowly, evenly.”

Hands, hot like brands, gripped his shoulders and shoved him down on the couch. Parker did his best to comply, because he didn’t want to faint like a fucking loser.

After a few moments of following Ivan’s breathing instructions, he refocused his eyes on Ivan crouching between his legs.

“You okay? You were hyperventilating.”

Parker nodded. Physically, yes, he was fine.

With a tentative touch, Ivan rubbed Parker’s knee before sitting down beside him.

“My name is Ivan Bekker.”

At least the Ivan hadn’t changed. But Bekker? “Hey, that’s what your ex-wife called you. It’s close enough to Baker I thought I’d misheard. How did she find you?”

Ivan’s head fell back against the sofa back. “She’s not my ex-wife, she’s my partner.”

“Your partner? Like a cop partner?”

“Yep.”

A brief spurt of pleasure warmed his heart before he remembered that just because the ex-wife wasn’t real didn’t mean they were in any position to start a relationship. Ivan
Bekker
was a lying creep who thought he was a drug dealer.

“Why did she show up here, then? Is she your backup or something?” Because she’d played the role of wronged ex-wife to perfection. She and Ivan could be Hollywood stars.

“I don’t have any backup on this operation.” The weariness in Ivan’s voice exhausted Parker just listening to it. “My boss, Sarge, thinks there’s a leak in the department. We had a sting that didn’t go well, and he leapt on this chance to take Razhin down without alerting him to our actions.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but I really don’t know this Razhin guy.”

“Doesn’t matter. There’s enough evidence in your file box upstairs to connect that grow-op to you, enough to put you away for a long time.”

Panic exploded in his chest. “Grow-op? What grow-op?” Holy fuckarama, Ivan was going to put him in jail? There had to be some mistake.

“How much land do you own in cottage country?”

The odd question sliced through the panic scrambling his brain. “A couple of acres or something. But it’s only got about a hundred feet on Georgian Bay itself. Why?”

“Judging from the invoices in your file box, most of that land is probably full grown marijuana plants.”

“Invoices? What are you talking about?” Could he be a drug dealer and not know it?

“The invoices. With the money.”

Anger overpowered the fluttery panic. “You searched my room. You knew about the money, and you know about invoices I don’t even know about. Are you trying to set me up?” That made more sense than anything else Ivan had said.

“I’m not. I swear. Parker, please. We need to go in. Turn this over to my colleagues.”

“But won’t that mean I’ll get blamed for all this?” Although if his cottage property was covered with weed, he maybe deserved some of the blame. After all, he hadn’t done much to ensure the property was looked after. He’d spent so much time avoiding the memories of that place… too much time, obviously.

“I’m going to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. There’s something very wrong here.”

Tears welled up again, but this time he wanted Ivan to hold him and tell him everything would be okay. No matter how Ivan had lied to him and betrayed him, he still felt safe. Parker came dangerously close to opening his mouth and pleading with Ivan to protect him.

“What can we do?” That was better. Much more dignified and adult. “How did I get involved in all this?”

“We have to go in. But if this is still somehow tied to Razhin, he might get wind of me taking you in and think you’re a threat. Problem is, the only people I can trust are Homicide cops.”

Oh dear God. A drug kingpin might find him, Parker Wakefield, a threat. A loose end that needed to be tied up. What he wouldn’t give for one of Neil’s joints right fucking now. For now, he had to trust Ivan to keep him safe. After this was all over he could worry about how he’d never speak to Ivan again for all the shit he’d put him through.

“So, let’s go.” There were a lot of windows in this place. And all those guys at the party last night. What if one of those was Razhin or one of his… goons? Was that a word real criminals used? What if they’d bugged his place? Neil hung out with some real lowlifes. Maybe one of them had planted shit in his room. He rarely delved into that particular box.

Ivan clamped a hand on his knee. “Breathe. Calm down. I have to make a phone call first.”

Parker waved his hand, indicating Ivan should get the fuck on with it. Calm down, the man said. No fucking problem. The sooner this was over, the better. Then he could go back to his boyfriendless existence. Concentrate on school and friends. Things that weren’t going to slice his heart into ribbons… literally or figuratively.

I
VAN
glanced back at Parker before he took his cell phone out on the porch. God. He’d almost made the guy cry. He was such a fucking shit. It had been a fantastic night, and he’d had to go and ruin it. Finding out for sure Parker wasn’t the criminal he’d been expecting had been a very short-lived relief because immediately after, he’d had to crush Parker’s spirit. And he wasn’t any closer to figuring out who was responsible.

Never expecting to use Kurt’s number this soon, he quickly dialed and waited for Kurt to pick up. He didn’t have a long wait.

“Kurt, it’s Ivan. I need to come in.” Calling Kurt first and coming in without notifying Martelli could be career ending decisions, but he couldn’t think of any other way to protect Parker. Not when Martelli was so determined to take down Razhin by way of Parker. He’d never be able to live with himself if Parker ended up as collateral damage.

“Already? Are you okay? What happened?”