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“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” I swallowed, and looked at the red lipstick print on my glass. “We didn’t know you were gay.”
“No, no, no,” Gideon said, waving his hands in front of his chest. “I’m not gay.” He gulped a mouthful of air. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. But, I’m not. Gay, that is.”
It was hard to imagine the smooth agent losing his cool, but there he was, sputtering over his glass. I smiled at him, which only managed to make the blush in his neck grow deeper.
“Ok. Not gay. Got it.”
The way he defended himself was so entertaining I was tempted to push it further, but decided against it. This was the guy that had just accused me of having something to do with a kidnapping and murder. It wasn’t the time to flirt.
“So, what was it you wanted?”
Gideon set his untouched glass of wine on the counter, and pulled out a folded manila envelope from inside his leather jacket. “I’ve got some photos to show you. Maybe something’ll look familiar. Any miniscule detail you can recall might help.”
He drew a dozen photos out of the folder and led me to the kitchen table. Sitting just close enough for both of us to be able to view the pictures, he dropped the first photo on the table. I was distracted by the warm and spicy scent of his body wash. Body wash made me think of steamy showers, which then made me think of Gideon with nothing but a towel draped around his waist. And that led to a line of thought I wasn’t willing to pursue. So, I glued my eyes to the photo in front of me.
It showed a mostly empty warehouse. Tin walls stretched up high toward the steel ceiling. A few giant shipping containers still sat on the massive cement floor. In the middle of the photo was a rusty folding table. On the table lay a man, face up. His arms had been straightened out to his sides, as if nailed to a cross.
“Is that…?” I squinted at the photo.
A shock of gray hair on the man’s head confirmed my suspicions. It was Mr. Yonas.
“Why are you showing these to me?”
Gideon didn’t answer. Instead, he threw another photo on the table, this one a closer shot of the body. Mr. Yonas’ arms had several slits up them, with trails of blood leaking from the wounds.
“I don’t want to see this.” I turned my head away and set down my glass. It was way past wine time. Now I needed some heavy liquor.
“I know,” he said. “But this is really important.”
For the first time, he dropped the cocky SI agent act. I looked up into his eyes and saw a glimmer of sympathy.
“I don’t want to do this, but I need you to look,” he continued. “We don’t have any leads. Not a single clue about where the rest of the family is. I need you to think as hard as you can. Look…please.”
The puppy dog expression on his face was getting to me. I nodded and looked down at the table as he began running the rest of the photos by me. More close up shots of Mr. Yonas. Very close shots of the cuts on his arms. A picture of his slackened face that made me want to throw up. More pictures of the warehouse. Nothing clicked.
Gideon was watching me very intently. I avoided his gaze and clicked my fingernails on the table. The sooner we finished looking through these the sooner I could hunt down that bottle of whiskey I knew Johnny kept in the kitchen somewhere.
“Are we finished yet? It’s already almost seven.” I glanced at the cheap plastic wall clock next to the TV. Crawling into bed didn’t sound like such a bad idea. But then I remembered something. “Oh wait, I have a date in an hour. You need to leave.”
Gideon pulled back, his eyebrows raising. “A date? With who?”
“A guy. A friend. A guy-friend,” I said. Real smooth. “He’s
taking me out to dinner. You know, a date.”
I could’ve taken that cork screw on the counter and drilled it into my skull.
Gideon nodded and clenched his jaw. He pulled out the last photo and held it in front of him.
“I just need you to look at this photo. Last one, I promise.”
He sat it down in front of me. It was a picture of Mr. Yonas’ bare chest. He was propped up on a metal table, probably in a morgue. His shirt was gone and he lay exposed beneath the cool white light.
I wanted to cover him up, preserve his dignity. But the dead didn’t get to hide their flaws anymore. A bright red circle stood out against the white and soft flesh of his abdomen. Inside the circle was a giant symbol, almost like the letter Z. Four smaller symbols that I didn’t recognize surrounded it.
“What is that…?”
The vision hit me like a tidal wave, rolling over my body and throwing me back into my chair. Distantly, I felt Gideon’s hands enclosing around my shoulders and propping me up from falling, but that was the last thing I remembered before a dark room appeared in front of my eyes.
