Tequila Mockingbird (20 page)

Kiki swore softly and came up to nudge her brother. The affable charmer turned hard, and Forest saw the cop in Riley Morgan emerge. The twins huddled and held a private conference, with Riley motioning to Kiki’s phone. Nodding, she pulled back and called out to her partner, who’d somehow found his way through the maze of damage without a speck of dirt on his tailored tweed jacket.

“What’s up? Everything okay up there, Keeks?” Duarte approached the twins, and they immediately walled Forest off from their conversation, standing as close to shoulder to shoulder as their disparate heights would allow. They muttered among themselves, a cardinal and two crows chattering about something obviously involving Forest, if the glances over their shoulders were any indication. When Duarte glanced at Kiki’s phone, he uttered a succinct, hot curse. “Fucking mother of God.”

“Yeah,” Kiki agreed. “Let me see if Ackerman can ID the body. That’ll give us a jump start on things. If not, we’re going to have to wait for the lab to process him out.”

“Body?” Forest stumbled back, and Brigid was there, her hands on his sides to hold him up. “What body?”

Kiki closed the small distance between them. “Is there any reason someone else would have been up in your apartment? Did you send anyone to get you something?”

“No, shit. Jules was the only one who knew I’d gone into the hospital, and she went home. They looked her over, and her mom took her home after they redid her cast. Con got them to wash my clothes, and he picked me up a toothbrush and stuff from the market. No one should have been up there. Shit, I’m barely up there,” he replied. “Why? Did they find someone? Shit,
you
said
body
. Is there someone dead up there? Jesus fucking Christ.”

He knew his voice was going hysterical. Either the fracture in his skull was deeper than they’d told him, and his brains were leaking out, or Forest was just getting tired of being dragged through life’s sudden dramas. Soft hands patted him, and a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist.

“Listen to what Kiki’s got to say, honey.” Brigid rolled her comfort over his panic. “She’ll tell you what she can, all right? And then we’ll go from there. Keeks darling, do you need something from him?”

“I’ve got a picture, Mum, but if you’re not up to it, Forest, then I don’t want you to be looking. We can have the lab people try to track him down through fingerprints and the like.” Kiki kept her phone down, out of Forest’s view.

“If it’s someone I know… fuck,” he groaned, suddenly sick to his stomach. “Goddamn it.”

The woman holding him—Connor’s mother, for God’s sake—stroked at his hair, refusing to let him be alone in his drowning. He couldn’t remember a time when his own mother’d held him like that. Even after some of her guests were done with him, and he’d sobbed from the pain, she’d patted his head and told him he’d better learn to like it because that’s pretty much all he was good for. If anything, Forest wanted to yank himself clear of Brigid’s arms, feeling like he’d somehow stain her, but it just felt too damned good to be held. Another moment more, then he’d pull away. But that moment never came, and when she gave him a tight squeeze and another pat, the tears he’d banished from his eyes swept back down to wet his lashes.

“You’re not a suspect, Forest.” Duarte raised his eyebrows at Kiki, and she filled in, “DB is too new. Maybe even right before we got here.”

“Do you feel up to it, Forest dear?” Brigid asked softly. “Because you don’t
need
to—if you don’t want to.”

“If I don’t—I can do this. Fucking hell. Shit, sorry. I keep swearing—”

“If you’re calling that swearing, Mum will teach you to do it proper,” Riley drawled. “You’re not even close to what she taught me in kindergarten so I could shock the nuns.”

“Hush, they deserve to be shocked. Tight asses, all of them.” Brigid waved away her son. “Are you sure?”

“Only if you’re certain, Forest,” Kiki murmured. “You’ve already taken a couple of shots to the head. You keel over, and Con’ll have my ass carved up for Christmas dinner.”

“Like your skinny ass could feed anyone but one of Mum’s cats,” her brother snorted. Duarte chuckled along, and Kiki shot them both a stern look.

“Show him the picture, Morgan. See if a name pops,” Duarte said, cutting Kiki off before she could reply to her twin. “They’re sending out the wagons in a bit. Con will want him out of the way and safe before they start tearing this place apart.”

Forest nodded, and Kiki brought her phone out, showing him the picture Connor or Kane sent to her. Shock grabbed his throat, and he couldn’t breathe. It took a second for him to choke in some air, and he coughed, unable to get out the surprise of seeing someone he knew—a familiar someone—lying still and motionless. They’d taken care to only show him the guy’s face, but the speckled blood across his mouth and his graying skin told Forest the man was very dead.

It was too close to home. Death seemed to be circling him, and he couldn’t seem to run away fast enough—far enough for it not to touch him with its steely cold hands. Numbly, Forest opened his mouth to tell Kiki he knew the man, but his stomach rebelled, and he doubled over, puking out the oatmeal and sweet black tea Connor’d forced on him before they left the hospital.

“Take that away, Kiki,” Brigid admonished softly.

“Do you know who it is, son? Does he look familiar?” Duarte cut in, crouching next to him. Forest nodded and swallowed the thick saliva coating his tongue.

“Darcy. Darcy… Martin. We use him sometimes—at the Sound. Used to. He started using too much and missing gigs.” Forest took the open water bottle Riley shoved at him, then drank. “Tried to give him another chance, but he ripped a few of the guys off. Emptied their wallets when we were having a session, so I banned him.”

“When was this? The theft?” Kiki asked softly, scribbling down notes in a tablet. “Recent?”

“Four… five days ago? One of the guys—shit, Marcus… um, he’s a singer for Tweaked Possum… he wanted Darcy to sit in on the session. He was bringing in his own musicians, so it wasn’t like Darcy was on my rolls. Marcus was the one who caught him going through the band’s stuff. I told Darcy not to come back and struck him off the list. Wasn’t going to use him even if the band brought him in.” Forest tried standing up, but the world went wonky on him, and he staggered back. Riley caught him, then handed him over to Brigid. “I don’t know why he’d come back here. He pissed a hell of a lot of people off.”

“Did he have a key to your place?” Duarte asked. “Is there any reason he’d have come here to get back at you?”

“The shooting took place before or after you kicked him out the first time?” Kiki interrupted.

“Before,” Forest replied. “And no, he didn’t have a key. We weren’t even friends. He’s an… was an asshole. Abusive. I had to tell him to not swear at the coffee shop staff when he went in to get something to drink. The Amp gives anyone working the Sound free coffee and shit on the days they’re needed. I don’t know why Frank even let him sit in on anything. He’d come by and beg for work but then fuck it up or wouldn’t learn the tracks.”

“How many people use stand-ins?” Kiki filled a page and flipped over to a new one. “Was this Marcus guy the only one? Could Darcy have been trying to get back at you somehow?”

“I don’t think he’d want to get back at me. He’s lazy, barely did the minimum, you know? Hell, it’s not like we were a huge source of cash for him. I don’t think we used him a lot to begin with,” he said, sighing. “Lots of people use studio guys, especially if they’re doing their own stuff. I drum for a shit ton of people. It’s cheaper to use studio musicians than it is to hire your own crew. The Sound’s got packages set up—for stuff like that. It’s how I pay the bills.”

Kiki’s pen flew across the page. “What sessions do you have planned? Could Darcy have wanted to talk you into letting him play?”

He shook his head, instantly regretting it when a storm of sick threw lightning-flash warnings across his eyes. “Shit, I’ve got to get the calendar. Check what I’ve got going on.”

“Do you have an assistant?” Duarte cocked his head.

“Dude I
am
the assistant.” He snorted. “Frank ran everything. I just had to learn my parts and show up, or I’d rearrange their bass lines or percussion, depends if I liked them. I’d schedule sessions, but pulling in the talent, that was all him. It’s like trial by fire for me. I just want to drum. I hadn’t planned on running the damned place.”

Sirens cut through their conversation, and in a few seconds, it seemed like the world exploded into a snowstorm of sound and uniforms. It took Brigid only a moment to disconnect Forest from the fray, dragging him away from the center of activity with a gentle pull on his hands. He was lost, more lost than he’d ever been, and other cops came by, some to take his fingerprints and DNA so he’d be excluded from the scene’s results and another with hot sweet and sour soup, bought from one of the many restaurants in the area. He was bundled up into Connor’s jacket and put into the Hummer, sharing the back seat with Con’s mother so they could watch from their fishbowl existence as what seemed like the entire SFPD descended upon the building.

The soup warmed him, as did the comforting touch of the woman sitting next to him. Forest finally spotted Connor among the other Morgans, popping up a few inches taller than Riley and Kane. The man’s attention was definitely on the case, but he’d caught Forest’s eye once and smiled.

It was a damned sight better and warmer than the soup, and Forest huddled back into the seat, drawing the jacket even tighter around him.

“He loves you,” Brigid said softly. “Ah God, does my boy love you.”

“He doesn’t even know me,” Forest countered, but his eyes continued to search through the crowd, his attention firmly on the man who seemed intent on being his white knight. “How can he love me? Shit, I don’t even love me.”

A large vehicle pulled up, a black-and-white SUV emblazoned with yet another SFPD shield. A man got out, older than the Morgans, but the stamp of their bloodline shone in his features. Nearly as wide shouldered as Connor, the man approached with authority, a solemn cast to his face. The sun peeked out of the clouds, picking at the silver strands in his hair, and the wind caught up the edge of his long coat, flapping it away from his pants leg. He stopped in front of the siblings, listening as they went round-robin on the goings-on. Forest could see them talking, and even from a distance, he could see their deference to the man as they worked through whatever it was they needed to tell him.

When the man glanced at the Hummer, drawn there by a point of Kiki’s finger, his eyes narrowed slightly and sought out the faces of the car’s occupants. He caught Forest’s gaze and then shifted, moving to the titian-haired woman next to him.

The man’s face softened, and Forest saw Connor in the man’s expression. He
knew
that face. He’d just been given that face by Connor right before he turned away to talk to his siblings. Brigid smiled and brought up her hand so the man could see it and waved her fingers at him, a delightfully whimsical gesture that made the man smile. He returned the wave with a firm salute and a definite wink before turning back to the Morgan siblings to ask them something.

“
That
man there, Forest? That is my husband and Connor’s da.” She sighed, sounding as if she were still in the first blush of youth. “That’s the exact same expression Connor has when he looks at you, and I’ve cherished it since before you were born, son.
That
is how I know he’s in love with you—just as I know Donal is in love with me.”

I
T
’
D
BEEN
a short skirmish, and to be fair, Forest was outclassed. The only person other than himself who could have possibly come close to winning it was Brigid, and his mother backed down once Donal put his hand on her shoulder. It was a quiet, silent reminder of their marriage. Not a remonstration but rather more of an urge to let Connor win. He’d seen that gesture used right at the point Mrs. Delany’d come up the walk to tear into the Morgan boys.

It was a reminder to, sometimes, pick your battles.

Kind of like letting Forest sleep off his exhaustion for two days but still not arguing when the man wanted to check his e-mail, get a new phone to replace his damaged one, and coordinate studio sessions. Jules—thankfully—took over the coffee shop repairs, and it was one more burden off Forest’s shoulders.

He’d winced over the damaged drum kit, but then he’d wept over Darcy’s body, silently weeping silvery tears when they’d brought the dead man down the stairs and pushed him up into the coroner’s van. He’d come out to pay respects to Darcy, because as much of an asshole the man’d been to everyone around him, Forest wanted to see him off. Connor’d been there then, pulling Forest into a loose embrace, then patting his back, asking him if he wanted to go home.

“Home’s upstairs,” Forest snorted through his sniffles. “Fucking hell, when is it all going to stop?”

“Home’s up the hill,
a ghra
. You’ll be staying with me.” And with that, Connor fired the first volley, and the battle ended soon after, fought silently through mumbled objections and then Donal’s tacit agreement.

That’d
been a week or so ago, and Connor’d spent as much time coddling a sleepy Forest as he’d been down at the station, working his shift. The drummer insisted he’d be okay, and from what Connor could see, he’d been right. Still, it hadn’t hurt to have Jules sit with him, although she’d informed him Forest mostly slept, and Connor needed new furniture for the family room because it was fucking shit on their backs.

He’d arranged for something to be delivered that next day, a wide, comfortable L-shaped sectional with recliners built into it. The couch was a damned sight better to sleep on than the old one, and Connor had to admit, Jules’d been right. His back and shoulders felt much better after spending the night on it.

His dick would have preferred to be lying in bed with Forest, but Connor knew the man’d needed time to heal. At least his brain had some common sense—even if it probably more than partially agreed with his cock—he fell asleep after only lying awake on the very comfortable couch for an hour or so, listening to the house rise and fall around him.