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A Spirit of Vengeance

Summary:

When Josh comes home from a business trip to find out that his lover, Kevin, has been killed, his life takes a terrible turn. Even worse, Kevin is haunting him, wanting Josh to exact revenge on his killer. Josh thinks Kevin is a hallucination to begin with, but he soon starts to believe that his lover's spirit is really hanging around.

As he begins to believe in Kevin's ghost, Josh also starts to believe he knows who killed Kevin. He's not sure what to do, and neither is Kevin, who never really considered an afterlife. Can these two figure out how to catch a killer and how to move on with life after death?

Read the Beginning:

Josh wasn't even the one who found the body. Everyone said what a blessing that was, that he didn't have that memory, that he didn't have to live with the sight of his lover's dead body.

Where? On the bed? On the floor? On the counter? Across the table or the back of the couch? Had they stripped him naked or yanked his trousers off or just slashed an opening in them across his ass? Had they beaten him up before they killed him? Cut him up for fun? Had they played with him? Made him beg for his life?

"Everyone" was wrong and he couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. The sympathy, the "There, there," the "At least you didn't have to..." that he'd heard so often he was ready to scream or cry or break something. If he'd been there then he'd know. If he'd found the body then at least he'd have one image in his head, one, and he wouldn't have to live with the multiple nightmares of what might've happened.

And if he'd been home, then maybe it wouldn't have happened at all, because there would've been two men in the house instead of just one.

He almost preferred the hateful glare of Kevin's father at the funeral (closed casket because the morticians just couldn't make Kevin's face presentable) because at least he was honest, he knew how horrible it all had been, even if he seemed to blame Josh for what'd happened, as though the "FAGGET!" some ignorant fuck who couldn't spell had scrawled across the living room wall in his son's blood had been Josh's responsibility somehow. As though Kevin would've been straight if Josh hadn't been in his life, which was completely insane because Kevin had been gay since high school when Josh had still been in the single-digit age group, and they hadn't even met until almost twenty years later, but grief wasn't rational and that was one thing Josh understood.

Mr. Hammond hadn't patted his hand, hadn't murmured, "At least..." to his dead son's lover, hadn't tried to comfort him as though there were something to be thankful for about the way it'd all happened. Mr. Hammond knew just how hideous it was, that there was nothing good about it, nothing at all to be grateful for. It was the only thing he and Josh agreed on right then, even if the old man wouldn't have wanted to hear it.

All the same, Josh was happy to finally get out of the funeral home. He'd been sitting in a draft and was all-over gooseflesh when he strode out into the parking lot. The heat that had seemed oppressive just a few hours earlier was welcome now because it burned the shivers out of his body.

He drove home in a robotic haze, steering and braking and shifting gears on autopilot, his conscious mind numb and hiding. He was going home for the first time since it had happened, his suitcase in the trunk and the motel receipt in the pocket of his suit coat. The suit his big sister Kat had brought to the motel for him, along with a clean shirt and his good shoes because, "You shouldn't have to go back there yet."

Being taken care of and ordered around had been... not good, nothing was good, but acceptable at the time, right after he'd gotten home from the Philadelphia gallery opening. The opening Kevin had been supposed to attend as well, until his agent had called to tell him that yes, he did have to be at the debut party at the Beck after all, that the museum directors had been miffed that he'd planned on going to his lover's gallery party on the other end of the country but not their unveiling of the piece he'd done for them, and if he wanted to ever sell to a museum again, blah-blah-blah....

Which had all sounded like shit to Josh but not to the extent that he had whined about it. They had absolutely fantastic sex that morning before he had to leave for LAX and then he had gone, with a kiss and a wave and promises going back and forth about what they would do when he came home on Sunday.

Instead he found a haggard Kat waiting for him just past baggage claim. She had thrown her arms around him and squeezed until he dropped his suitcase, then cried into the crook of his neck while gasping out jagged shards of news -- "break-in" and "waited for him" and "paramedics tried, but...." She'd been at work at the time, apologized over and over for not being there, even though they both knew that if she had been she would have probably ended up dead too, and it wouldn't have made any difference to Kevin. Josh understood how she felt, though, because he felt the same way, wishing he'd been home, that he'd been with Kevin when it happened, able to do something, even though he knew that it probably wouldn't have helped at all.

Josh pulled into the driveway of their rented house -- his and Kevin's and Kat's, the shabby old Craftsman the best they could afford by pooling their incomes, the two starving artists and the unknown actress -- stopped the car and just sat. He stared through the windshield at the avocado green paint on the garage door and thought of all the times Kevin had sworn he was going to paint it over some other color, any other color, and forget their deposit.

Another shiver ran through him and he roused himself to get out of the car. He left his suitcase in the trunk but did remember to lock the car before walking through the gap in the privacy hedge up to the front door. Stuck in the crack right above the knob was an invoice from BioClean, the company Kat had hired to clean up the house after the body had been removed. He looked down at the list of services performed -- walls cleaned and steamed (6), carpet removed (3), sofa removed, chair removed (2), windows cleaned (6), floors cleaned (2), misc. unsalvageable debris removed (see itemized list, attached).

Pain slammed through both his knees when they hit the smooth boards of the porch and swelled to meet the agony tearing his heart into fine shreds. He buried his face in his hands and cried, great shuddering sobs that shook his shoulders and jerked his arm and his cheek against the front door; he'd curled up against it when he lost his balance and fallen. He hadn't cried before, not been able to or not quite comprehended in his gut that Kevin was truly gone, that he was dead, but the clinical, businesslike list of all the things that had to be cleaned of blood and whatever else had been spilled, all the things scrubbed and sterilized or torn up or thrown out, added up with a total charge at the bottom, plus tax -- that had clarified all his nightmare imaginings and made it real.

Kevin was gone and Josh sobbed out his grief and loneliness.

:Don't cry for me! Help me!:

The voice, the familiar voice, echoed through his head and Josh jerked up onto his knees, then lost his balance again and fell down the front steps. A cold wind whipped around him, dragging his hair across his face. He brushed it aside, his wide eyes darting back and forth, peering into the corner and through bushes, looking for... what?

Nothing. There was nothing at all.

He pulled himself to his feet and wiped his eyes with the back of one hand, found his keys in his trouser pocket and unlocked the front door. At least he wasn't crying anymore.

This Story Has a Free Sequel:

Read The Last Anniversary.

This book was a 2009 EPPIE Finalist.