Toronto Tales 1 - Cop Out Read Online Free PDF

a stranger now, Davy shouldn’t be. No way would Kurt deny him the same comfort he’d give a stranger. Not this pale, thin man Ben must have loved.
Davy’s spine played like Braille under his palms, and each of his ribs told the story of Davy’s self-neglect.
    The minutes ticked by as the edge of hysteria smoothed from Davy’s sobs. Warmth radiated back from the body in his arms, and the muscles loosened, became supple.
His shoulder was soaked, and Davy sniffled, the tearing grief easing at last.
    “C’mon Davy, I think you need a nap.” If he could have avoided disturbing Davy, he would have, but his arm and leg were already protesting.
    He coaxed Davy to his feet and followed him as he stumbled and swayed into a large bedroom with a king-size bed. He assumed this was the room Davy shared with Ben, but aside from a small pile of clothes heaped in a chair on Davy’s side of the bed, the room could have been found in any moderately priced hotel in the nation.
    Seconds after rolling Davy into bed—thankfully the guy was wearing pajamas—he was asleep, emitting soft, snuffling snores.
Returning to the kitchen, the mouth-watering scent of his mom’s stew tickled his nose as it heated. Davy could sleep for hours after his cathartic episode, and Kurt should leave. Should. But dammit. The whole Davy and Ben situation was odd, and his overactive curiosity was a major reason why he became a detective in the first place.
Starting with the fridge, he opened up every door in the room. It only confirmed what he’d suspected—Davy hadn’t bought groceries in a while and probably had eaten very little since the funeral. Cleaning products, though, were available in abundance, which was no surprise given how perfect and white everything appeared. Confirmation of a theory didn’t appease his curiosity in the least.
    Graduating to drawers, he opened each until he came to one crammed with unopened mail. He took it out and sorted through it. Every piece had been postmarked the week of Ben’s death or later. Since Davy hadn’t brought in the mail for a few days, Kurt wondered if Davy’s sister brought this in. He wished he knew which of the men was the obsessive neat freak. He’d only gone through the kitchen, but that’s what he was seeing—a borderline pathological compulsion.
    He popped out to grab the mail and paused by the untidy pile of newspapers by the front door. All of them were dated after Ben’s death. After grabbing the mail, he placed it on the kitchen table, although he suspected Davy would shove it away in the same drawer with the rest. He followed up by cleaning out the rotting food in the fridge and giving it a wipe down with bleach. He didn’t know when garbage day was, so he just left the bag in the garage.
    After turning the Crock-Pot to low—it could stay that way all day, and Davy would have something hot to eat when he awoke—Kurt turned his attention to the rest of the house.
    Working through the house as methodically, although far tidier, as when searching for evidence, he found almost nothing. Almost nothing to suggest anyone lived here, let alone two men who were apparently committed to each other. The décor was uniformly bland, and there were no personal effects from either man. Not one raggededged, broken-spine book sat on the few generic bookshelves. Hell, not even a brand new book was visible. Not one photo graced a single horizontal surface. Even Kurt’s lonely apartment had pictures of his family—never again would Kurt call his apartment sterile. It was lonely, but not sterile. This house was sterile, and he was tempted to dust for prints to prove Davy wasn’t a ghost hanging around a model home.
    Finally, there was only the spare bedroom and the master bedroom left to search. He couldn’t search the master bedroom without waking Davy, although he was more curious than ever to find out what—if any—secrets it contained.
    The spare room didn’t appear different than the rest of