The Grave Between Us (A Noah & Cole Thriller, #2)

by Tal Bauer

A paper crane in his palm. His fingers moving through black earth and damp fog. Noah sagging against him, giving all his worries over, taking shelter in the circle of Cole’s arms. Trusting Cole’s words. It was Noah’s job to rest. It was the FBI’s job to find Ingram. It was Cole’s job to take care of Noah. To keep him safe. To keep him alive. “Send me the case files. Send me everything. I’ll find his trail.”

Cole’s stomach clenched, and he took a sip of coffee, thick with cream to settle his constantly churning heartburn. He kept adding more and more cream every day, it seemed. What else could he do? He couldn’t pop Pepto in front of Ian.

Ian stilled. Cole had seen him descend into himself a handful of times, always when Cole was brushing up against Ian’s core, the Ian that existed beneath a black moon and a midnight sky.

Ian offered Cole his origami creation. After a moment, Cole held out his hand. Ian set the crane delicately in his palm.

His stomach turned, and he scooted back in his desk chair and hunched over, burying his hands in his hair as his vision swam and he sucked down a deep breath. Black dirt between his fingers. He’d scrubbed and scrubbed, but it felt like he could never get that ring of dirt and blood out from around his fingernails. Like he’d dipped his own hands in the same blood Ian had, like they were connected—

He mentally took Noah’s hand. This was his life now. Sunshine and happiness. A good man who loved him.

When the sky shifted, lightening in wavering lines of spilled paint,

Once she learned Noah’s skills ended at scrunchies, she’d done her own hair. Until Cole and his French braids. Cole’s gaze found his eyes in Katie’s mirror. Noah smiled, blew his lover a silent kiss. Cole blew him a kiss back.

Noah didn’t remember anything from his and Jacob’s shooting or the crash. He’d traveled through time, it seemed. One moment he and Jacob were driving, and the next, he woke up to Cole’s tear-soaked face and gut-wrenching sobs. He’d been unconscious for almost three days, Cole had said.

He loved it, and he loved Cole for taking him there so unexpectedly. Maybe they weren’t swinging apart.

Noah had no idea what to say. Cole was near and far.

Cole followed Ian’s gaze, his eyes turning to the trees. Not the lake. Cole frowned. From where they’d parked by the water’s edge, the woods surrounding them looked almost like a beckoning tunnel.

Ian, setting a paper crane delicately in the center of his palm. Ian, tucking paper cranes inside the mouths of his victims before he buried them.

Is that fear I smell on you, Cole?” Ian smiled, a hungry wolf’s smile. “I love that most, I think. Those little signs of fear, all building and building into that sweet nectar of terror. I drink that down like wine, the finest, most exquisite vintage in the world. Be terrified, and bring me your fear. Come closer and let me taste it on your skin.”

Noah went redder than Cole had ever seen, fluorescent meltdown magenta, caught checking out another man. Cole giggled and kissed Noah’s temple, his cheek, holding him close, as he whispered, “I love you so much.”

Cole loved these moments, sneaking peeks when Noah was wide open, when he was so happy and in love—

“What was that?” Noah’s voice was hard. Brittle. “Why did you accost that kid about his origami?”

When was a paper crane just a paper crane, and when it was the signature of a serial killer stalking his life?

Cole closed his eyes. “I haven’t told you the whole truth about your shooting, Noah.”

Could still smell death on his skin, sweet vinegar decay, like he’d left soy sauce and rose petals boiling on the stove.

He spent his month-long suspension in his apartment, staring at the walls.

Every scrap of information, every case note, every interrogation report, every video was classified Director’s Eyes Only. They buried Ian and everything he’d done, along with their failure, beneath the crushing wheel of the FBI bureaucracy.

And then, a few years after that, he went to Vegas for the FBI’s annual conference and saw a man on the other side of the bar who changed his whole world.

Cole tried to scream, but when he did, paper cranes fell out of his mouth instead.

He was beautiful, so breathtakingly alive it stopped Cole’s heart.

Cole spoke with a calmness he didn’t feel, relaying the details of Brett Kerrigan’s disappearance and the paper cranes at the bed and breakfast where he was last seen.

But even if the skies did fall, and the world collapsed, and he and Cole were left in the ruins, he’d rather be with Cole than without him.

If he closed his eyes and envisioned their wedding, he pictured… color. Lots of color, vibrant color, like the saturation of the world had been dialed up.

Noah wouldn’t leave Cole to pick out flowers on his own.

The only thing he knew how to do was be there for Cole.

“Okay.” Gravel crunched again until Cole was face to face, forehead to forehead, with Noah. His breath was hot on Noah’s lips. He took Noah’s open jacket in his hands, tugging him even closer until they were pressed together from knees to chest. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t have found any of this on my own.”

The dogs leaped to their feet and bayed as the bloom of death flowed up out of the probe hole. “We’ve got human remains,” the anthropologist said. He spoke softly, his voice heavy.

“Hello, Cole.” Every muscle in Cole’s body froze. Even his heart stopped and his lungs stilled, his mind stalling for an endless moment as his vision went blurry. The horizon, a fuzzy squiggle of forest and fog and farm, turned neon-intense as the world went white. Every cell in his body seemed to detonate at once, a burn that seared through him like a nuclear blast. “Ian,” he breathed.

“I know everything about you. I know you’re low on milk. I know Katie doesn’t ever pick up her shoes. I know you’re low on soda and someone—Noah, right?—likes his toast well done. I know you have indigo towels in your guys’ bathroom, but Katie has seafoam green ones in hers. I know Noah leaves his wet towels on the end of the bed and that you haven’t done your laundry in a few weeks.”

He’s in my house. Oh my fucking God, he’s in my house.

“I can’t wait to see you again,” Ian said. “I can’t wait for us to be together forever.” “You motherfucker!” Cole spat. “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you the next time I see you! Do you fucking hear me?”

Siting on the kitchen counter was a police scanner, tuned to the emergency channel.

Ian. He’s been listening the whole time. To everything.

Noah flew across town as soon as Jacob asked, “Hey, boss, the police scanner is reporting a B&E in progress at your address. Know anything about that?”

“I’m not willing to risk your life. I’m not willing to take the chance that he could hurt you. I love you, and I’ll do anything to keep you safe. Anything.” “Even leave me?”

“Don’t do this,” Noah begged. “We’re supposed to face the world together. Face everything side by side. Aren’t those the vows we’re about to take? For better or worse, in sickness and in health? We’re supposed to face everything together.”

But Cole slipped through his hold, and he walked across the grass, toward Michael and the waiting FBI car. He climbed inside and didn’t look back. Noah sank to his ass on the dead lawn and watched the love of his life drive away.

And I’ll do anything to save our love, Cole. He took a breath. “Yes. It has to do with the investigation. And I’m going to fix it. I’m going to stop the son of a bitch that’s tearing our lives apart, starting right now. But to do that, I’m going to have to steal some FBI files, and then I’m going to have to run my own, off-the-books investigation.” He looked each of them in the eye. “If we put the bastard away, no one will complain about the details. If we don’t…” His throat closed up. He couldn’t even let the idea take shape. He pressed his lips together. Felt his pulse hammering. “Will you help me?”

“I promise, K-Bear. I love you. Cole loves you.” “You guys still love each other, too?” “Of course we do.” He swallowed.

The scent of Noah, of his soap and laundry detergent, how his button-downs smelled like him after a long day, the starch and his skin and his hair mixing together, creating a fragrance that was all Noah.

“I’ve got something,” Jacob rumbled.

“Except. There was red-and-orange paper residue on the teeth they recovered. As if some kind of paper product had disintegrated inside the mouth.”

“Oh God.” He slumped forward, head in his hands. “Oh God, that’s it. That’s the intersection. That has to be it.”

Three blond men, all in their late twenties to early thirties, each with brown eyes and defined jaws, easy, friendly smiles, open expressions. Each one could be a brother to Cole, or, in the case of the skier, a doppelgänger.

It had to have been that day. Fresh snow, Katie asking if she could learn to snowboard. They’d had so much fun as a family. He’d held Cole’s hand for hours, had kissed him as they waited for Katie to finish her first snowboard lesson. They’d laughed until their sides cramped, leaning into each other to stay on their feet. That night, they’d made love for hours, slow and languid and deliriously happy.