Page 126 of Reinventing Cato
“We can spend all of Saturday in bed.” Cato smiled and Vigge didn’t.Oh.“Wecan’tspend all day in bed?”
“I don’t think we should.”
Uh oh.There was more to that than there sounded. “Okay. Let’s get you to bed then.”
“I can put myself to bed.”
Oh God. Ouch, that hurts.“Yeah. Sorry.” Cato grabbed the bag he’d just brought in, along with his violin and amp from by the door and struggled outside to his car. Vigge made no attempt to stop him.
Now he knew what Vigge had been thinking about as they came back on the train.How to get rid of Cato.He put everything in the boot, slammed it shut and turned to see Vigge behind him.
“I’ll be in touch,” Vigge said.
Don’t bothersat on Cato’s lips but he just nodded and got in the car. It seemed crazy now to think anything was building between them.
“Congrats on the job, by the way.” Vigge closed Cato’s door and walked back to the house.
What?Cato pulled his iPhone from his pocket. He hadn’t looked at it since he’d called Philippe. He checked his emails and saw one from NASA that had already been opened, but not by him. A job offer. So had the police told Vigge?
Cato gave a heavy sigh. He ought to bang on the door and make Vigge talk to him, but they were both tired and Cato didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to be the outlet for Vigge’s anger and sadness. Vigge had just found out an old friend was responsible for the death of his brother, even if Hendry hadn’t actually killed him. His head wasn’t in a sensible place. Nor was Cato’s. Maybe it was better if they had some time apart.
Except that wasn’t what Cato wanted. He thought they’d be better together. He wanted to fill the hollow in Vigge’s chest. But Vigge didn’t want to be with him. Then again, maybe it wasn’t that straightforward. Cato had told him not to risk his job. Had it taken until now to sink in? Or was Vigge just pissed off Cato hadn’t told him about NASA?
He drove away with his head buzzing.Is this the end?How could he think it wasn’t? Cato felt as if his heart had been broken into so many pieces that no glue could repair it. Vigge had finally started to be true to his sexuality, only to find himself the boyfriend of a murder suspect. Further association with Cato could bring his career to a crashing halt.So I know now what’s important to him. His job.
And so is mine. But I understand. I do.
Cato wasn’t used to feeling so agitated. Nothing in his life seemed to be going right. Apart from his doctorate. He was totally in control there. It was the rest of his world that was in turmoil, fear the dominant emotion. Fear of being arrested for murder, fear that whoever was dicking around with him might take everything a stage further, and fear that Vigge wouldn’t bein touch. Not even a kiss goodbye. Not even a word of reassurance?
Did Vigge think he’d deliberately not told him about the job offer? Probably. This was what happened when he allowed himself to get emotionally involved. It scared him that he’d let Vigge come to mean so much to him over such a short period of time.But isn’t that just like me?Wasn’t it the reason he’d stuck to hook-ups after Max? Cato fell too hard, too fast. Reinventing himself hadn’t worked. He’d found a different Cato, but this one wasn’t any happier than the old version.
As he made his way back to Cambridge, Cato’s anxiety flowed over him with the destructive force of an avalanche, sweeping everything away except his fight for survival. He was consumed by the murders. There had to be something that would either clear him or show him who was responsible for all this. He hadn’t wanted Vigge to get into trouble for asking questions when he was no longer on the case, and now he couldn’t rely on Vigge’s help at all, so he had to do some investigating of his own.
The police hadn’t said they’d found spyware on his mobile, but did that mean they hadn’t found it, or that they weren’t going to tell him? He could do his own forensic check. There’d be experts who could delve more thoroughly than he could. He needed to work out exactly where he’d been and who he’d been with for as many days as he could around the murders, and he had to talk to Aaron Decker.
Cato knew it was important to keep his mind open to all possibilities, but whoever was doing this had to be someone who knew a lot about him.
Either because they lived with him, orhadlived with him.
Or they worked with him.
Or they were friends of his. Except they weren’t his friends. But he didn’t have any real enemies that he knew of.
He forced himself to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. Finding the motive was the key to solving this but he was struggling to accept he was hated so much, even if by just one person. He knew he’d pissed off a few people he’d had sex with, but not enough to make anyone want to destroy his life. It was also true that he might have put the occasional person’s back up in the academic world, but that happened with everyone. Astrophysicists spent a lot of time talking, writing papers and having heated discussions. That was just the way they communicated their work to others in their field. Staying up to date on everyone else’s progress was critical in order to build on advances already made and avoid repeating stuff unnecessarily. Cato had never stolen anyone’s work. He’d been accused of plagiarism a couple of months ago, but he’d easily been able to disprove it. He was admired. He was popular.
Or so I thought.
He turned the radio on to Classic FM and upped the volume. Anything to stop him thinking in circles.
The house was dark when he pulled up. He carried everything inside, and made two trips up the stairs to his room, then locked himself in. Once he was curled up in bed, he allowed himself to unwind. There was no point fretting over stuff he couldn’t control.
Half-awake, half-asleep, his head filled with Vigge, but in a world that didn’t exist. One with no issues, where they played their violins, went on a trip to Disneyland Paris, made each other laugh, made each other come. Even deeper in the fantasy, they bought a home together, purchased plants and IKEA furniture—a bed called Vigge or a sofa or a lamp or a corkscrew, because Viggesoundedlike something they’d find in the store and they’d have to buy it no matter what it was. If it was small—they’d frame it.
But the ideas dissolved like snow when rain fell.
Maybe it would be best, if once he found out who’d threatened his family and was trying to frame him for murder, that he took the job with NASA and made a new start. Easier to reinvent himself in an entirely new environment. Though it pissed him off that Vigge had just assumed he’d take the job. He was the first person he’d told that he wasn’t sure it was the future he wanted.Does he want me gone? Really? Or is he just seeing sense?
Cato rolled over.Let him go.It seemed crazy that he could work out some complex mathematical problem, yet couldn’t work out how to stop hurting.
