Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 38

Together, Thom and I cross the street.

Dougal pulls at his lead, eager to reach the trees and begin an inventory of every possible scent he can find. Thom walks at my side, keeping a measured distance between us, as if we've both agreed not to get too close.

We reach the paved trail and I set a slow pace, letting Dougal enjoy his olfactory explorations.

Thom remains quiet, and I get the sense he's waiting for me to make the first move. I just can't tell if he's doing so in the role of a repentant ex-lover, or that of a chess opponent, waiting to base his strategy on my initial mistake.

"How'd you find me?" I ask, keeping my gaze on the path ahead.

It had rained earlier in the day, and the black pavement, green lawns, and fiery fall foliage all have a crisp, clean, almost hyper-real depth of color. It makes my eyes hurt.

"It wasn't hard, actually," Thom says.

He walks with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly slumped, his posture passive and non-threatening.

"Your family was the only thing you ever really talked about, you know, beside your studies. It's clear they mean a lot to you. The one you talked of most, though, was the 'detective,' out here on the West Coast. There aren't that many private investigators named 'Hunter,' after all."

He laughs under his breath and shrugs.

"I looked up his business address, then tailed him until he led me to you. It took a bit longer than I'd anticipated, but... Well, things worth doing are worth taking the time to do right."

Silence lapses again, and I pause as Dougal marks a tree and then begins a catalog of all the scents left by every dog who'd been there first.

"Why the note?" I ask, keeping my attention on Dougal, though I can feel Thom's eyes on me.

"Because I knew you wouldn't answer anything else. An email can be deleted unread; a phone call, ignored. Texts are immediate and hard not to see, but ephemeral. A letter though... Well, words in ink, on paper—that endures. Sure, you could throw it out, burn it—whatever you like. But first you'd have held it in your hand, felt it, read it, understood it—gave it its own moment in time. You could destroy it if you chose, sure; but it would already have become a memory, and that is harder to erase."

I swallow past the thick, sour lump in my throat. Thom sounds like he used to, when he was a lecturer and I was his student. When I thought he was so brilliant and talented, and I was honored that he'd spare the time to talk to me.

"The note said you weren't well."

Thom doesn't answer right away this time, and when I finally look at him, I find him staring up at the flame-tinted foliage above our heads. When he does answer, he does so indirectly.

"You know, I've thought about the things I did and said, near every minute since I saw you last," he begins. "And every time I do, I regret it a little more. And yet, when I did those things, there was another part of me didn't care at all. It was like there were two people inside me—one a decent, honest man, the other a monster."

He sighs.

"Of course it was always at the back of my mind—a fear I've carried my whole life—and when I finally went and had the tests, I had those fears confirmed."

He stops, removes his glasses, and wipes them with the hem of his sweater. His eyes look suspiciously damp.

"The same thing happened to my father, you see," he continues. "It's a...a rare sort of degenerative brain disease. Comes on slow, causes odd behaviour, changes in personality, loss of inhibition, loss of a clear sense of right and wrong...delusions of grandeur. I don't know how I missed the signs for so long."