Excerpt: Lambda Literary Finalist in Gay Mystery: Fair Game by Josh Lanyon

Fair Game by Josh Lanyon

Excerpt:

Elliot was still brooding—and increasingly annoyed with himself for doing so—as his car topped the pine-tree-lined drive and his headlights illuminated the dark cabin.

The porch light was out again.

Maybe there was a short in the wiring on the front of the house. The cabin wasn’t new. Or maybe he’d forgotten to turn the light on when he’d left that morning. He couldn’t specifically recall doing so, but leaving the light on was automatic by now.

There was nothing concrete, but he felt uneasy.

He pulled into the garage, turned off the engine and removed his pistol and flashlight from the glove compartment. He racked the Glock’s slide and slipped out of the car, leaving the door open.

The garage was nearly pitch-black and Elliot spared a grateful thought that he hadn’t lived in the cabin long enough to accumulate much junk. He edged past the cabinets and tool bench, crossed behind the Nissan, and made his way as noiselessly as possible to the side door. He unlocked it, eased it open and stepped out into the crisp, cold night.

Above the serrated silhouettes of the pines he could see the moon sailing serenely through the silver edged clouds. The spicy scent of pine mingled with the faint tang of the sound.

The rough wooden logs caught at his jacket as he inched down the length of the cabin. He held his pistol at low ready. When he came to the sunroom, he craned his head and stole a quick look. The room was in darkness. He could make out the shape of furniture in the gloom. Nothing moved.

The only sound was the wind soughing through the tree tops.

Moving across that wall of windows would be a mistake if someone was waiting for him inside, and though his knee was better than it had been on Saturday, the days when he could crawl along the ground commando style were gone.

He thought it over and then went back the other way along the side of the house, pausing by the side door to the garage and listening intently.

Nothing.

He peered inside. No light shone from under the kitchen door. Not the faintest glimmer.

Continuing along the wall of the cabin, Elliot climbed with some difficulty onto the side of the shadowy porch, and ducked past the nearest window. He pushed gently against the front door. It didn’t budge.

He touched the handle.

Locked.

Was he overreacting? If he really believed there was a threat he needed to get down to Steven’s cabin and summon the Pierce County Sheriff Department.

Stubbornly, he resisted the idea of not being able to deal with this, not being capable of handling his own problems—assuming his problem was anything more than too much imagination.

If someone was in the cabin they would be expecting him to enter through the kitchen door leading onto the garage. Second best guess would be the mud porch entrance which he might use if he had gone around to the back to get firewood or dump something in the trash cans. He used his keys to quietly unlock the front door. He pushed it wide.

It swung open with a yawning sound.

Elliot stayed well to the side to present the smallest possible target and avoid being backlit by the bright moon behind him. A quick scan showed the front room bathed in quicksilver: furniture, rugs, fireplace. All looked perfectly, reassuringly normal.

He pulled the flashlight from his waist belt and advanced into the room, using the hands-apart technique: his gun hand extended, his left holding the flashlight at random heights. He intermittently pressed the tailcap sending short bursts of radiance bouncing across the room. It was a long time since he’d done this and it felt awkward—not to mention silly—but the advantage was it made it difficult for his possible quarry to mark his position. It there was someone waiting for him, the moving light would theoretically draw fire away from his center-of-mass.

The flashlight beam caught and spotlighted the empty rocking chair, the face of the grandfather clock, the painting over the fireplace of the Johnson Farm, the black oblong of the hall entrance.

He proceeded to the hallway. The light illuminated family photos and the staircase at the far end.

Elliot turned the opposite direction and walked toward the kitchen. His empty water glass sat on the counter, a copy of William L. Shea’s Fields of Blood rested on the table where he’d left it that morning before leaving to catch the ferry for the mainland.

No sign of any disturbance. No sign of any intruder.

But Elliot’s unease, his sense of something wrong, was mounting. His scalp crawled with tension, his back and underarms grew damp.

He stepped into the sunroom, still pressing the flashlight button at irregular intervals and alternating the light position.

At first quick glance the sunroom seemed just as he’d left it. But the next instant the flashlight beam highlighted the half-full crystal wineglass balanced on the edge of the diorama.

Elliot’s heart stopped and then his pulse went into overdrive. He flashed the light around the room, finger quivering on the Glock’s trigger.

No one was there, but an open bottle of Lopez Island merlot sat on the fireplace mantle. It gleamed dully in the overbright glare of the flashlight.

Was anything else was out of place? No. Or was it? He stepped forward, shining the flashlight on the diorama. The diminutive hand painted houses and trees, the miniature gardens and roads popped up in the spotlight. Something was wrong…

JEB Stuart’s entire cavalry unit was gone.

Vanished.

He checked the diorama to see if they had been moved. They had not. The flashlight beam finally picked out what was left of the resin and alloy men and horses crushed and broken in the fireplace grate. Stuart’s small plumed hat winked like a jewel in the ashes.

The mudroom door slammed shut, the bang reverberating through the dark cabin. Elliot spun, the incautious move sending pain flashing through the damaged nerves and muscles of his knee. He ignored it and sprinted for the back of the cabin.