“Slow your roll down that hill. It doesn’t have a sound. He spoke in a more feminine way, like he was trying to come acrossas gay instead of genuinely being gay. It sounded fake. Then, slowly, as he talked to us, he started talking more like us, and masculine. Less…showy. All I’m saying is that it sounded forced at first.”
Gene hadn’t noticed.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“It was that overly flamboyant-sounding tone, where you know immediately a person is gay. It was exaggerated. It felt…performative.”
Now, Gene got it.
This wasn’t a shot at him, or gay people, but Ethan trying to explain it from a non-gay, or bi angle. That he understood. Ethan had a different perspective coming from someone who had been straight for almost thirty years.
“I’ll run him in the car and start working on all the teachers there. I’ll use the school’s website to get their names. We’ll see what pops up on him and go from there.”
Ethan looked at his watch.
It was mid-morning, and he could use some fuel. Plus, if he knew he was hungry, Gene would be ravenous.
“Let’s get something to eat. We can’t have you hangry and unpredictable,” he said, as they walked out the front doors of the school—only to be assaulted.
By.
The.
Media.
Well, shit.
They had to be followed there. They were now on the media’s radar.
“Agents! Is there a serial killer inDamascus?” someone shouted.
And the questions kept coming.
“Why has the FBI been called in?” someone else called.
They were relentless.
“Are the women inDamascusin danger?”
Oh, boy.
Ethan knew one thing.
It was a damn good thing that he gave Gene that candy bar.
Because this was definitely going to make him hangrier.
And downright mean.
Chapter Twelve
A Café
Saturday Still Morning
Damascus
