The Silenced Tale, стр. 38

“I dunno—for smutty fan fiction or something? You know fans like slashing the side characters. He’s probably one of those Three Pointe Turn writers.”

“The what?”

“It’s a ship name. You know? Three Pointe . . . the sheriff, his wife, and Forsyth?”

“What about them?”

“They’re stories about a threesome with . . . ? Never mind,” Juan says quickly when Elgar makes a garbled, sort of disbelieving sound.

“Rupin and Dorthi and . . . right, no. No,” Elgar says quickly.

Juan chuckles. “I dunno, boss. Wouldn’t be the first threesome you’d written.”

Elgar rubs his eyes hard enough to make the darkness spark in his head. “No.”

“All right, I’ll lay off. Did you get the email about the table read in LA?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you . . . want to go?”

Elgar looks back over his shoulder at the man in the impeccable suit and large headphones listening in on his conversation. The man gives a nod.

“I guess,” Elgar says at length. “I . . . I mean, I can’t stay here forever.”

“Right, and maybe jetting off to LA for a few weeks is a good idea. Clear your head.”

Elgar snorts. “Clearly you’ve never been to LA. The air there is many things, but clear will never be one of them.”

Juan makes a sort of wistful sound.

“Oh,” Elgar says slowly. “Do you . . . want to come to LA with me?”

Juan makes another sound, this one a bit strangled. “Linux, boss . . .”

“I hate to say it, but maybe Linux will be, ah . . . better—”

“Safer?” Juan interrupts tentatively.

“Yeah. In a, you know, a kitty hotel.”

Juan sighs, and Elgar can envision him nodding. “If someone is still watching your place, they may now be watching mine, you mean?”

“Come to LA,” Elgar blurts. “We’ll stay two weeks. You can go clubbing somewhere appropriately gay—”

“Boss,” Juan chuckles.

“We’ll do everything face-to-face for a while. I haven’t seen Kim in the flesh in a dog’s age, anyway. Come on.”

“Boss, you sound really—”

“Please, Juan.” Elgar is aware that it’s needy and begging, but he can’t seem to keep the desperation out of his tone.

The silence on the other end of the connection makes it more than clear that Juan has heard it, too. Heard it, and is moved by it.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll book the tickets. Out of SeaTac?”

Another look over his shoulder and another subtle nod from Impeccable Suit has Elgar saying, “Yes, SeaTac’s fine. Book it for two days from now.”

“Okay, I’ll pack a bag for you—”

“No, I . . . I want to go back to the house myself. I can pack.”

Impeccable Suit has no opinion on this desire, apparently, as he neither nods nor shakes his head.

“Are you sure, boss?”

“I’ve got some stuff I need to take with me to LA. Papers and things, and a gift for Kim. It’ll be faster if I do it.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure,” Elgar says, and he’s proud of how his voice doesn’t quite quaver when he says it.

“So, we’re not telling anyone we’re going, right?”

“No,” Elgar says.

“Not even your cousin?”

“Maybe,” Elgar hedges. Impeccable Suit has no opinion on this, either. Elgar hasn’t had enough privacy to call Forsyth yet, but his worry that his email and texts are being watched is waning with each passing day. He’s determined to call them tonight, safe house or no. It’s time he brought Forsyth in. Maybe he can even take a minute while he’s packing—nip into his en suite and do it then.

Whoever it is that seems to be trying to scare him hasn’t threatened him in any new ways. The cops that were casing his place for clues said nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and nothing about the TV series—which is all he’d been emailing his agent about for the last three days—has appeared online. If someone was watching his email in order to scare him or find ways to ruin his life, then wouldn’t they have leaked the TV series casting all over the place by now?

Perhaps it’s a bit arrogant to conflate leaking optioning news with grievous bodily harm, but for Elgar, they’re analogous. He wants this TV series to go well so badly. He needs to know if the things he created can have happy endings. He wants to get to the end of the TV series, nine seasons down the line, so he can canonize Kintyre and Bevel’s relationship, the joy of Kintyre’s son Wyndam, and to make sure that no one else can ever write something into his world that will hurt the people that Forsyth and Lucy love. Or take away the happily ever afters they created for themselves after he stopped writing them.

He needs to know that Tristin and Vanna from the Shuttleborn trilogy are going to be able to find happiness after everything he’s done to them.

“How’s Linux?” Elgar asks, because the silence has grown a bit strained over the line.

“Bit of a terror,” Juan says. “He didn’t like the new environment at first, but once he had a good sniff around, he was fine. But, boss, I can tell you, he really doesn’t like my new beau.”

“The book nerd?”

“Yeah. Some people just really don’t like cats, I guess. And Linux can tell.”

“Poor little buddy,” Elgar says.

“Yeah. How you holding up, boss?”

Elgar shrugs. “I’ve never been so on top of my admin. Riletti’s been good help— Jackson’s reading Hand of the Foesmiter now. They’re okay company.” Elgar pointedly doesn’t say anything about the rotating cast of men in suits.

“So, when will you head out?”

“I assume I’ll be going back to pack . . . tomorrow?” Impeccable Suit nods. “Yeah, tomorrow. Probably the morning, after rush hour.”

“Tomorrow, after rush hour,” Juan repeats. “Okay. Oh! Also, I had Carmen come in, give it all a scrub after forensics left. I hope you don’t mind the extra bill.”

“God, no!” Elgar says. “No, I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.”

“No worries, boss. You pay me to think about these things.”

“That poor woman.”

“The cops took most of it away as