Hide Out (28 page)

“Daniel,” he finally called. “Let’s go!”

“Great,” Danny said, standing up. “More together time so he can be weird some more.”

“You know,” Pete told him, “you could try talking to him too.”

Danny gave a short laugh. “Right. Talk to my dad about being gay. ’Cause that wouldn’t be a fucking train wreck. Later.”

“Watch your mouth,” Pete growled. “See you.”

“Bye,” Trevor said, trying to swallow back his laugh.

Pete shook his head, watching him go. “Remind me to never have any fucking kids.”

* * * * *

Wash had left a note on the kitchen counter, scribbled in the margin of their everexpanding list of things they needed to buy.

“Went running with tall, bald and moody,” Trevor read out loud. “I hate running. I’m only doing this because I love the fucker. Wash.”

Pete laughed. “Does this mean we’ll have to pick both of them up in a couple hours?”

Shaking his head, Trevor told him, “Doubt it. Wash will whine and bitch enough to get Rhodes to turn around before total exhaustion sets in.” He tilted his head, thinking.

“Although Wash might call for a ride just to get out of running.”

“Want to take a shower then?” Pete suggested with a slow smile. “Now that we have the house to ourselves for a while?”

All his blood supply rushed to Trevor’s cock. “Sounds good.” It really did. He took the stairs three at a time, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Pete was following.

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“Get in there and strip,” Pete told him, moving to close and lock the front door. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Hurry up,” Trevor tossed back at him, laughing. He shoved open the bathroom door with his shoulder and reached for the button on his jeans. As he stepped into the bathroom, the door slammed shut behind him and cool metal kissed the skin below his ear.

“Hello, son.”

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Katie Allen

Chapter Fifteen

Pete was at the bottom of the stairs when he heard the bathroom door slam. He hurried upstairs, laughing at himself for his urgency. He was acting like a sixteen-yearold kid around Trev—horny all the time. Having Rhodes and Wash around made it worse and better at the same time.

He seized the knob and slammed up against the door when it didn’t open. “Hey, Trev, let me in,” he ordered, amused. “I can’t fuck you through a locked door.”

“I’ve changed my mind,
Daddy
,” Trevor called, his voice fast and urgent. “I don’t want company.”

A flush of rejection heated his face even as his brain registered the total wrongness of the situation. Trevor’s tone, the words, the split-second change of mood…

There was someone in the bathroom with him.

And “daddy”? Trevor had never called him anything so cheesy. That had to mean Harold Haas.

Pete went cold—a numb, frozen, unable-to-move cold that was almost instantly melted in a wash of rage. He held himself back, even though he was dying to put his shoulder to the door and smash through the jamb, but he knew how easy it was to pull a trigger.

A wave of helpless fury struck him. How could he have been so careless, so stupid?

Pete’d been acting as if they were in a fucking fairy tale again, the devoted couple fixing up their dream home, when Trevor’s life was in danger.

Enough!
Pete’s brain roared, knocking away the flood of self-recrimination. It was done. He had to start thinking about how to save Trevor.

“Okay.” Pete’s voice sounded rusty as he took a step and then two away from the door. He debated running downstairs and grabbing his gun from the kitchen but decided against it. “I’m tired anyway. I’ll be in our room taking a nap.” He winced at how stiff and wooden he sounded, like a kid trying out for the school play—a kid who couldn’t act.

“Okay,” Trevor called back, his voice tight.

Pete headed into the bedroom where Trevor had spent part of that first night. With a final, agonized glance at the bathroom door, he pulled the door closed, making sure to slam it hard enough to be heard in the bathroom. Striding to the window, he silently slid open the lock and eased the window open. He punched through the screen, pulling it out of its frame.

Thanks to their tree-trimming work, the branches were farther away from the window. In fact, they were an impossible distance away. Looking down, Pete saw the 160

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ground was a dizzying drop below. It wouldn’t help Trev for Pete to be lying in the backyard with a broken leg.

He looked up. This might be the solution. Twisting his body around to face the house, he eased himself out until he could get his feet beneath him and stand on the sill. In this position, the heavy metal gutter edging the roof was at his shoulders. Hoping the gutter and all its supporting hardware would hold, Pete gripped the edge with his fingers and hauled his body upward. He scrabbled against the shingles for a hold, and the rough surface tore at his palms and fingers. Pete started to slip.

* * * * *

Don’t do anything stupid, Pete!
Trevor heard the bedroom door slam and knew Pete wasn’t going to take a fucking nap. He was going to do something heroic and utterly stupid, like trying to save Trevor’s ass.

Without moving the gun away from Trevor’s head, Harold pushed him toward the tub. Reaching over, Haas turned on the shower.

“Open the door,” he hissed in Trevor’s ear. As he turned the knob, Trevor squeezed his eyes closed for a second, desperately hoping Pete wasn’t standing there, ready to take on Harold and his gun. When he eased the door open and looked, his knees went shaky with relief. The hall was empty.

Harold pushed him out of the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind them. He hurried Trevor down the stairs, the gun a constant pressure against his head. Clamping his fingers on Trevor’s upper arm, he steered him through the kitchen. Shifting the gun so it was now pressing against his spine, Harold urged him through the side door and then paused.

“Where are we going?” Trevor asked, lightheaded with relief. They were out of the house and Pete hadn’t been shot.

“My car’s on the next block. We’ll cut through.” Harold nudged him into motion again, heading along the house toward the backyard.

“Why didn’t you just shoot me in the bathroom?” Trevor asked. Oddly enough, he wasn’t scared. It all felt inevitable, as if his life had been heading toward this moment ever since he’d stared at his murdered ex-boyfriend as his father pointed a gun at his only son.

“Because this way you just disappear,” Harold explained in a rational tone. “No body, no crime and, best of all, no witness.”

* * * * *

Ignoring the pain burning his hands, Pete dug in his fingers and swung one leg up toward the edge of the roof. After whacking his knee on the edge of the gutter, he 161

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managed to wedge it into the metal channel. Thrusting against his throbbing knee, he heaved himself higher onto the roof. Just inches away from his right hand, a plumbing vent protruded from between the shingles. Gritting his teeth, he gave another shove against his knee and closed his fingers around the pipe. With his new handhold, he dragged himself up so he was on his hands and knees on the shingles. Although the roof was sloped, it wasn’t so steep he couldn’t crawl across it. His first instinct was to head toward the bathroom window but he knew Haas wouldn’t be keeping Trevor in there for long. Harold had to get him out of the house. When he reached the peak of the roof, Pete peered over. He couldn’t see anyone in the front yard but his view was obstructed by the porch roof on one side and the overhang on the other.

He scooted to his left, headed for the side of the house. He peeked over the edge to see the kitchen door swinging open. Trevor walked out first, followed closely by Haas, who had the gun pressed against his son’s back. Haas was trying to use his body to hide the view of the gun from any casual observer on ground level. The sight of that black pistol pointed at Trevor’s spine brought another surge of rage. Pete shoved it back, knowing it was useless to be angry, to be scared or guilty or any other emotion. Right now, he needed to act. If Haas got away, Trevor was dead. Haas was nudging Trevor toward the backyard. Sliding as quietly as possible toward the back corner of the roof, Pete rose to a low crouch. When the two men passed beneath him, Pete knew this was his only chance to save his lover’s life—even if his half-assed plan probably
would
get Trevor shot. He couldn’t think about that now. It was do-or-die time. Pete jumped.

Despite knowing for years his father was a nasty, murderous son-of-a-bitch, it still seemed surreal to Trevor that the guy holding the gun against his spine was Harold Haas—his
dad
.

“How’d you find me?” Trevor asked.

“When you’re trying to hide out,” Haas began in the same condescending tone that had driven Trevor nuts in high school (the familiarity didn’t help his feeling of unreality), “don’t let your picture make it into the national news. The guy who was killed and got his dick cut off—the story was in all the papers. Guess who I saw in the background next to the sheriff?”

“I’m so honored you came for me yourself,” Trevor bit out, the sarcastic words heavy and bitter in his mouth. “Figured you had employees for this sort of thing.”

“Of course I came,” Haas said. “You’re my son. There’re some things a man has to do himself.”

Trevor opened his mouth to explain exactly how fucked up that logic was—when something huge and heavy fell out of the sky and sent them sprawling. 162

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There was a spitting sound and his body jerked as if someone had punched him. He tried to scramble to his feet but his right side refused to cooperate, dragging behind like dead weight.

He finally gained his feet and stood there, hunched over and swaying. Pete had Haas pinned to the ground, the gun resting several feet away.

“Run!” Pete yelled at him.

Trevor shook his head and took a stumbling step toward the gun. He couldn’t run—he had to help Pete.

“Fucking run!” Pete snarled at him, fighting to hold Haas down. Harold was a big guy. Trevor got his size from his dad. “Go!” Pete tacked on, sounding so desperate Trevor turned away and broke into a shambling run. Everything looked overexposed and progressed in slow motion.

Get help
, Trevor’s brain demanded, but Morty and Iris’ house looked so far away. He knew he’d never make it. Turning back toward the struggling men, he decided to go back to help Pete. He had to—no matter what Pete had ordered him to do. Before he’d even taken a step back in their direction, Haas raised an arm. There was something in his hand. Trevor couldn’t tell what it was. Haas’ arm swung in a swift arc and the thing connecting with Pete’s head, toppling him to the side.

“Pete!” Trevor screamed, although he couldn’t tell whether he actually screamed it out loud or if the name was just echoing in his head. Haas climbed to his feet, glancing around and then stepping over Pete’s limp body toward the fallen gun. Taking three stumbling steps backward, Trevor turned and ran, moving so slowly, as if he were in a nightmare. The garage loomed in front of him and Trevor fell against the side door, the knob sliding in his hand and refusing to turn. He wiped his fingers on his jeans and tried again.

The knob turned, the door falling open and tumbling him inside. He fell to his side, jarring his shoulder against the floor. Twisting over to his back, he kicked the door closed. He scrambled to his knees and turned the flimsy handle lock. Looking around frantically, the only thing he could see to prop in front of the door was the lawnmower. He tried to stand but the floor shifted under his feet and he went down to one knee. Pushing up to an unsteady stand, he squeezed his eyes closed when the world rocked and went gray. The dizziness eased and he opened his eyes and took the two steps necessary to reach the mower.

“Thank Christ it rolls,” he muttered, pushing it in front of the door. Trevor was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to lift a damn thing, whether it was ninety pounds or nine.

The garage was swaying again, so Trevor blinked hard. Most of the building was cluttered with unusable crap. Pete had joked about having a huge neighborhood bonfire to burn all the pallets, cardboard boxes and scrap wood piled in the garage. 163

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Pete.
Trevor’s side was throbbing but it didn’t matter, not when he thought about Pete slumping to the side, his body motionless. Shoving the image out of his mind, he took a shambling step and then another, moving toward a messy pile of oddly shaped pieces of wood.

He had to hide, had to survive—it would totally piss off Pete if Trevor got himself killed.

He huffed a humorless laugh at that, which turned into a rough inhale at the rattle of the side door. Trevor moved faster toward the corner next to the wood-scrap pile. His foot caught on the corner of a pallet and he went down, hitting the ground straight and hard like a felled tree.

Trevor just lay still until a crash at the door jolted him out of his gray haze. He halfcrawled, half-dragged himself the final six feet, wedging his body into the corner. There was another crash and a thump, followed by a stream of steady swearing. Trevor curled even smaller. His father was coming after him.

“Trevor Harold Haas,” his dad scolded, his voice sickeningly fatherly. “Did you leave this lawnmower in front of the door? Didn’t I teach you to put your tools away?”

His footsteps were audible, echoing through the dim space. Trevor knew his father could walk completely silently, so this was just an intimidation technique. Huddled behind the wood scraps, Trevor felt ten years old again, powerless and scared out of his mind.

“You know you left a trail of blood, right? A path that leads right to your pathetic hiding place?”

Shit.
He looked down at himself for the first time since the bullet hit him. There was a small round hole in his right side, just above the waistline of his jeans that seemed to be bleeding quite a bit. No wonder he was lightheaded. Trevor had to suck back a laugh at that.