Page 4 of Headcase
The cold, hard truth was his parents didn’t love him. He and Gage had been accessories to them. Only Gage had been the designer brand and Zane the cheap knock-off. Which was why he lied to his mother about his glamorous job as an investigative journalist. Writing borderline slanderous articles for the tabloids and blogging about true crime stories was nothing his mother could brag about over brunch.
He pushed the thought away, refusing to give her any more real estate in his head.Shake it off, Scott.What he did wasn’t pretty, but it paid the bills. Just as he opened his laptop, the door rocketed open, Blake falling through, like the wind had blown him in off the street. Except, Blake was that wind. A big, bearded tornado with copper skin and inky black hair just a smidge too long.
“Took you long enough,” Zane grumbled.
Blake frowned at him. “You know what the lines are like at McKabe’s this time of day. You want it fast or you want it good?”
Zane sighed. He didn’t know why he was taking out his frustration with his mom on Blake. He was pretty much Zane’s only friend.
When Zane didn’t answer, Blake frowned. “What happened to you? Why are you suddenly so grumpy?’ Blake gestured to the wall before them. “I thought you wanted to talk me through all of this.”
“Let’s just eat,” Zane muttered, unwrapping his tuna sandwich and taking a bite, closing his eyes and enjoying a tiny sliver of peace.
Blake made anahanoise. “Shit. Your mom called, huh?” Zane stared at him warily. “Yeah, she definitely called. Nobody but Bev can make you look like you just watched your cat get mauled by a bear.”
Zane winced. “You have such a way with words.”
Blake scoffed. “You’re the writer. I just take pictures. Why do you still take her calls? You could just stop answering. Hell, I cut my mom off years ago. Best decision I ever made. It hurt, but it’s like gangrene. Sometimes, you gotta cut off the infected limb before that shit spreads. Your mom…she’s spreading.”
Zane’s lips twitched with the barest hint of a smile. His mom really was like deadly bacteria. But she was his mom. “Your mom’s a two-time felon who runs with one of the most violent biker gangs in the US territories.”
Blake fell into the swivel chair in front of Zane’s desk, spinning it a few times before he peeled back the paper on his pastrami sandwich. “And your mom is a gin-swilling narcissist who spends her days sucking the hopes and dreams out of people like a dementor. The only difference in our moms, man, is capital. One’s rich, one’s poor. They’re both shitty people.”
Blake was right. He was one hundred percent right. But Zane still wouldn’t cut his mom off. He didn’t know if that made him a masochist or weak. His mom would say the latter.
Zane sighed, glancing up at the wall covered in string and multicolored pins. In the center, he’d tacked a map of the city, highlighting certain areas in a garish yellow. Thomas Mulvaney’s properties. Zane had taped the man’s picture to the top.
He’d reserved the sides of the map for the key players in Mulvaney’s life, starting with his seven children.
“Run me through this,” Blake said around his pastrami sandwich.
Zane finished his tuna sandwich in four large bites, then pointed to the silver-haired man in an expensive navy blue suit. “You know Thomas Mulvaney.”
“Everybody does,” Blake said, chewing obnoxiously.
“These are his kids.” He pointed to each. “The professor, the doctor, the architect, the designer, the gambler, the model…and last but not least, the loner.”
Blake scoffed. “Yeah, man. I photograph celebrities for a living. Tell me the ones I don’t know.”
Zane pointed at a photo taped next to Mulvaney’s youngest, the model. Adam. “The pretty freckle-faced one who looks like he should sell skin care? He’s engaged to the model. His name’s Noah. Noah Holt. Name sound familiar?”
Blake shook his head. “Should it?”
“Son of Wayne Holt. Suspected child molester and murderer. He died under ‘mysterious circumstances.’”
“Good fucking riddance,” Blake muttered.
Zane agreed. But it was only one small piece of the puzzle. He pointed to a man in a tweed coat. “That one there. That’s Lucas Blackwell, a former FBI profiler who had a mental breakdown.”
“It is a stressful job,” Blake reasoned. “I wouldn’t want to deal with all that stuff.”
Zane picked up the baseball on his desk and tossed it into the air. “He told his superiors he solved cases using psychic powers, then he pointed to another FBI agent as the perp in a dozen abduction cases.”
Blake barked out a laugh. “Shit. Did he get carted off to the funny farm?”
Zane nodded. “Thirty day psych hold. Then they sent him to teach at a small liberal arts college where he met the genius professor and they fell in love, got married, and had two babies.”
“So, they’re living the American dream. What am I missing?” Blake asked.
