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Chapter Text

He still recalled every moment of that first time it happened, seven years ago. He'd only taken First Communion a few weeks before, the deep sense of happiness he'd felt still lingered as he recalled the looks of pride on his parents’ faces.

He'd felt like he was so mature, spiritually if not physically. In God's eyes, he was grown up enough to understand right from wrong, and to seek forgiveness. So when the impure thoughts ran through his mind once again, he had gone to confessional.

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned,” he had spoken the words as he'd been taught, already feeling some of the burden of guilt lifting from his shoulders. “I have thought about another boy in an inappropriate way.”

The priest had absolved him, telling him to recite so many Hail Mary's and Our Father's, and he had thought that was the end of it.

But two days later, Father Benedict had asked him to come to his office after choir rehearsal. The priest, whom he had always thought of as a kindly man, had offered him tea and cookies, and asked him about school. 

At first everything seemed fine, and he answered the older man politely as he sipped his tea. But after a few minutes things began to take on a surreal feeling. His vision seemed to waver and shift, and his reactions became delayed.

The next thing he knew the priest had pulled him into his lap, the older man's hands were doing things that he had always been told he wasn’t supposed to do to himself, and something was pushing into him in a place he was certain it shouldn't be.

When it was over, he was in a state of denial, he supposed, as Father Benedict calmly reminded him that he needed to confess his sins to be made pure again.

He hadn't told anyone what had happened, too ashamed, especially as he was confused by his reaction to what had been done to him. He had known it was wrong on so many levels, but, once the pain and initial shock wore off, it had almost felt…good.

When it happened again a few weeks later, his shame once again kept him from telling anyone, except in the confessional.

Over time it almost seemed like some sick game with the priest. The man would do things to him that always left him feeling a twisted mix of excited and dirty, and then Father Benedict would listen to his confession, demanding he describe in detail how it had made him feel, as if it were perfectly normal.

As he grew older, though, the priest slowly seemed to lose interest, leaving him feeling even more confused.

And then one night it all went to hell.

...

Nick gulped down the last of his tea, tossing the disposable cup in a trash bin before flashing his badge at the uniformed cop trying to keep the small crowd that was gathering under control. The officer just gave him a nod, and Nick ducked under the crime scene tape.

He made his way up the stone steps and entered the building. The first thing he noticed was the smell of dozens of candles that were burning near the back of the church. Their flickering flames seemed to add to the already unbearable summer heat, and Nick could feel sweat building at the back of his neck.

As he glanced around, he spotted the forensic team combing over every inch of the space, collecting evidence, and photographing the scene. His partner, Sai Verma, was talking to the Medical Examiner over the cloth covered corpse on the altar. Nick made his way over to them.

“What have we got?” he asked, studying the outline of the body under the sheet.

“A real sick killer,” Sai replied. “The victim is the parish priest, Father Benedict. Whoever did him in really wanted to make a statement. It looks like he's been violated both before and after death.”

His partner gave the M.E. a nod, and the man pulled the sheet back to give Nick a look.

“Oh geez!” Nick had seen some pretty gruesome things in his not quite five years as a homicide detective, but this definitely ranked pretty close to the top of the list of scenes that redefined the term ‘overkill.’

The body was naked. The priest had been strangled, hit in the head with something heavy, stabbed several times, and his penis had been cut off. Someone had also carved the word ‘pedophile’ on his forehead.

“So which insult killed him?” Nick asked. “And where is his dick?”

The M.E., an older man by the unfortunate name Graham Reeper, but often just called Reaper, shook his head. “I won’t know for sure until I perform the autopsy to answer your first question. As for the second, well…” the man leaned over the body and forced the mouth open, revealing the missing appendage. 

Nick let out a low whistle. “Damn. Poor sod. I only hope that came after death, not before.”

“You and me both,” Sai added. “So, motive seems fairly obvious.”

“Any suspects?” Nick asked.

Sai shook his head. “Nothing yet. We don't have any complaints on file against the Father, the only thing on his record is a ticket for parking in a fire zone while giving last rights. I've already sent a request to the diocese for any internal charges, but you know how they like to hush that stuff up.”

Nick nodded. “Let's keep an open mind, though. The pedophile remark might just be a red herring. Look to see if there is any other reason someone might want to kill him. Who knows, could just be some random psycho or junkie too high to know what he was doing.”

Sai nodded. “I have our guys scouring the neighborhood. So far nothing's come up.”

“Who called it in?” Nick asked.

“Dispatch didn't get a name. Said the guy sounded like he was hungover. Claimed he came in to confess a drunken affair with some waitress and found the body, but refused to hang around cause he didn’t want his wife to find out.”

“Typical,” Nick muttered.

“Yeah, well, there's a reason I don't believe in organized religion,” Sai said.

“Me neither,” Nick agreed, shoving thoughts of his dad's philandering from his mind. “Let's track down some of the good Father’s flock and see if any can give us any reason someone might want him dead.”

…

Several hours later Nick dropped into his desk chair at the precinct with a weary sigh. They had interviewed nearly two dozen parishioners, all of whom claimed Father Benedict was a Saint who pretty much gave his blood, sweat, and tears to the neighborhood, running the local food pantry, soup kitchen, health clinic, and youth center single handedly. None of them could fathom why someone would want to kill him.

“Nelson, anything on the priest's murder?” Captain Singh called out from her office.

He shook his head. “Not a thing, Cap. I'm still waiting on security cam footage from the neighborhood. the M.E. puts time of death at a little past midnight. If someone was skulking around that late at night, surely they had to be picked up on one camera or another.”

Captain Singh grunted in reply. “Let me know the minute you find anything. I've got the press breathing down my neck on this one!”

“Aye aye, cap,” Nick said as his phone rang. “Detective Nelson,” he growled when he answered it.

The voice on the other end of the line was muffled and slightly distorted so that he couldn't tell if it was male or female. 

“Father Benedict was a pervert of the worst degree. He deserves to burn in hell!”

Nick frowned. “Who is this?”

“A fallen Angel,” the voice declared, and then the line went dead.

“Hello?” Nick demanded, and swore under his breath. He hung up, then picked up the receiver again and dialed the in-building operator, instructing them to trace the last call.

“What’s up?” Sai asked, entering the squad room, carrying two cups, one in each hand, and a stack of file folders under one arm. He set one cup in front of Nick before taking a seat at the desk across from him and setting the other cup and files down on his own desk.

Nick acknowledged the cup of coffee with a nod before answering.

“Probably just some crazy person looking for attention. They claim the good Father deserved what he got. Called themselves a Fallen Angel.”

Sai shook his head. “Why does murder always bring out the loonies?”

“Hell if I know,” Nick replied and took a long drink from his coffee. “What’s in the files?” he asked.

“A compilation of known criminals in the area; registered offenders, dealers, gang members. None of them have violent records, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to question them, see if any of them have graduated to murder.” He handed Nick half the stack.

Sighing and thinking dinner was probably going to be greasy take out burgers again, Nick wished he hadn’t skipped going to the gym again this past weekend.

…

The next morning Nick found himself at the morgue, along with Sai as they listened to Reaper's report.

“The strangulation and blow to the head both occurred before death. The stabbing and carving on the forehead after.”

“What about the amputation?” Sai asked.

“Before,” the older man replied with an unconscious grimace. “The bugger choked to death on his own cock.”

“How do you know that for sure?” Nick inquired.

“His throat constricted around it, meaning he was still alive when it was inserted. It’s my opinion that the blow to the head came first, temporarily incapacitating him. The killer then attempted to strangle him, but that takes a lot of strength. The killer probably thought he was dead, and proceeded to emasculate him, and when the victim started struggling, he shoved the member in his mouth, probably holding it there until he stopped moving again.”

“So why stab him then?” was Sai’s question.

“Frustration?” Nick offered. “Assurance he was actually dead? Maybe he just needed to release some pent up energy.” He shrugged. 

“One more thing,” the M.E. said. “Unless the killer is ambidextrous, you may have two killers. The angle of the stab wounds and carving of the letters all indicate a right handed attack, while the blow to the head and the removal of the appendage indicate a left handed attacker.”

Nick frowned. “Is it possible someone found the body after the initial attack and mutilated it?”

Reaper shrugged. “It would have been only minutes between the initial attack and the mutilation. If anything, I'd think someone either walked in on the killer, or witnessed the whole thing and tried to cover it up.”

Nick arched an eyebrow. “This case just keeps getting weirder.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Reaper said. “I found one more piece of evidence.” He held up a clear plastic bag that contained a small and brightly colored rosary. “Three guesses where I found this shoved.”

Nick frowned, but Sai just shook his head. “The pedophile priest getting his comeuppance theory is starting to make more and more sense. Someone was sending a clear message here.”

Nick couldn’t argue with that as he and Sai made their way back to the squad room.

“Any updates?” Captain Singh demanded before either of their butts even touched their chairs.

Nick sighed. “Not much. All the perps with priors have ironclad alibis for the time of the murder, and none of the security cameras have given us a clear shot of anyone who looks suspicious. Despite the late hour, there were just too many people out and about. It’s the end of July, school is on break, and all the teens are out looking for something to stave off the boredom.”

“Yeah, well let’s hope murder doesn’t become our killer’s new hobby and that this is only a one time deal,” Captain Singh said. “Go over the camera footage again, frame by frame if you have to. See if you spot something forensics missed.”

Nick just nodded and started to rise from his desk to head down to the A/V lab, but paused when his phone rang.

“Detective Nelson.”

Once again the voice was distorted. “Sometimes the only way to deal with wolves in sheep’s clothing is to cull the herd. Benedict was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“And you are the shepherd, I suppose?” Nick asked. 

“I’m the Fallen Angel who will protect my sheep from the wolves and the shepherds who would harm them.” The caller hung up before Nick could speak again. He immediately requested a trace on the call, but knew it was probably futile. The last call had come from a coffee shop near the church that was always busy, and dozens of people used the payphone in the back hallway. Nick had been shocked, he hadn’t realized there were still such things as payphones.

“Was that your Fallen Angel again?” Sai asked.

Nick nodded and stood up. “Come on, let’s go over the security footage like Singh suggested.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” his partner asked.

Nick shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe a Fallen Angel. Anyone or anything that seems suspicious.”

Sai sighed. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day, and maybe a longer night. I’m going to need coffee for this.”

“Agreed,” Nick said. “I’ll place a Deliveroo order. Just text me what you want.”

…

They'd been at it for the better part of a day and a half, pouring over footage from more than fifty security cameras from various businesses, ATMs, and even some residences. Nick thought he was going to go cross-eyed, staring at all the footage over and over again, going frame by frame in some cases. Even then he nearly missed it. It was only a few frames, and there was so much going on in the foreground Nick hadn’t at first noticed the figure in the background.

The image wasn’t the best quality, but he could just see a young man, thin as a rail, glancing back over his shoulder furtively, as if afraid of being noticed. All the camera had caught was a fraction of a profile, a head of dark, curly hair, and one eye, filled with fear.

Chapter Text

“Excuse me, I’m Detective Nelson, this is my partner, Detective Verma, we’re with Truham PD. We’re trying to locate this young man. Do you recognize him?” Nick showed the photograph to the Asian woman who was watering plants at the small nursery supply store just up the road from the crime scene. They had been canvassing the area all morning. The picture had been zoomed in and cleaned up a bit, but it was still pretty grainy. The woman frowned and shook her head.

“I’m not sure, it’s so hard to tell. Maybe my son can help you.” She turned her head towards the room behind the register, and spoke in what Nick could only assume was Cantonese. A moment later a tall, young Asian boy appeared. Nick recognized him from some of the security footage he’d poured through, though none of it showed him anywhere near the church at the time of the killing.

The boy was looking down at his phone as he emerged from the backroom. “Mum, I told you, try not to speak Cantonese when we’re outside the house! People can’t understand you!” He looked up then, slipping his phone back into his pocket when he spotted the two men. “What’s up?”

Nick showed him his badge as he introduced himself and Sai once again. “Do you recognize this young man?”

As soon as he showed the boy the picture, Nick knew he recognized him, but the boy schooled his face before replying. “Why do you want to know who he is?”

Nick smiled politely at him. “We just want to talk to him. We think he may have witnessed a crime.”

“Tao,” the woman said, touching his arm gently. “If you know him, you should tell these men where to find him.”

The boy, Tao, stood up a little straighter. “I don’t know where he is right now. We were supposed to meet up and go to the cinema day before yesterday, but he texted me, said he wasn’t feeling good, which usually means he’s had one of his episodes. If he has, then his parents either took him to see Geoff, or they took him back to inpatient, depending on how bad it was. I'm guessing it was bad because he hasn't texted me since.”

Nick frowned. “Why don’t you start by telling me his name and where he lives?”

Tao looked like he might refuse to tell them. ‘Look, Charlie’s had a rough couple of years. If he witnessed a crime and is now in the middle of one of his episodes, he’s not gonna wanna talk to you, and you might even just make matters worse, and things were pretty bad to begin with! I was already a lousy friend to him by not noticing how bad things had got before, I don’t want to be the reason things get worse now! Especially since it was all my fault to begin with! Me and my big, loud mouth!”

“Tao! It wasn’t your fault!”  the woman said, taking the boy’s hand. “Charlie forgave you for that, and even he said it was an accident! Stop beating yourself up for something that was outside your control.”

Nick’s curiosity was piqued. “Tell you what, why don’t I buy you a coffee at that cafe across the street, and you can tell me all about this Charlie.”

Tao still looked stubborn, but the woman spoke to him in Cantonese again, and the boy reluctantly gave in. A few minutes later they were sitting in a quiet corner of the busy cafe.

“So, why don’t you start by telling us about Charlie?” Nick prompted once the waitress had brought them their iced coffees, and they were left alone.

The young man sighed. “Charlie has been my best friend since year seven. He and his family moved here from Leeds the summer before term started, and he got sat next to me on the first day of school. We bonded over a Radiohead sticker, and we’ve practically been inseparable since. At first everything was great for the first couple of years. 

“Then in year nine, Charlie came out to me and our other two friends, Isaac and Elle. No one else was supposed to know he was gay, but stupid me and my big mouth just had to talk about it with Isaac at school, and I guess I just got a little too excited and was talking too loudly, and someone overheard us. After that Charlie got bullied pretty badly, although I guess I still don’t know how bad it got for him, he never talked about it. I should have known something was wrong, though.

“Things seemed to get a little better in year ten. I’m not sure, but I think Charlie might have had a secret boyfriend, but he wouldn’t say. Not that I blame him. But for a while there he seemed happier. But then after the Christmas Holidays, things started to get bad again. He claimed the bullying had stopped, other than some lame banter. You know how stupid some kids can be.”

Nick could picture it. He’d known boys like that when he was in school. He’d been captain of the rugby team, and had heard it all in the changing room at one point or another.

“So, you have any idea who this secret boyfriend might have been?” Sai asked.

Tao shook his head no. “Charlie was always a bit secretive, I just didn’t realize how good he was at keeping secrets until it was almost too late.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked, sipping his drink.

Tao sighed. “Well, like I said, after the Christmas Holidays, things seemed to get bad for Charlie again, but he was good at hiding just how bad it got. He was always cold, so no one questioned when he always wore long sleeves, and he always seemed to have an excuse why he couldn’t stay at one of our houses for dinner, and he was hiding out in the art room at lunch, so no one noticed how much weight he had lost, cause he always had a baggy jumper or hoodie on.

“Then I guess last September he finally told his parents that something was wrong. They tried to get in to see the specialist right away, but they were told there were no appointments till the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Charlie was getting worse, missing a lot of school, and just wasting away. Then at the beginning of October, I guess he hit rock bottom. His sister was in hysterics. She was the one who found him on the bathroom floor.

They got him to A&E, got him patched up, physically, and then got him into an inpatient facility, and found Geoff, his therapist. Charlie is a lot better now, but he still has episodes every once in a while, but they are getting fewer and further between. At least they seem to be, anyway. Charlie still doesn’t always talk about it with us.” He glanced at the two detectives. “Look, if Charlie did witness a crime, and it triggered another one of his episodes, it’s best to just wait until he’s gotten over it to try and talk to him. If you say or ask the wrong thing, it could just make him spiral, and this time he may actually kill himself.”

Nick and Sai exchanged a look. Nick sat forward a little, leaning across the table. “I just have a couple more questions. Do you know if Charlie had any connection to St. Pius, or Father Benedict in any way?”

Tao frowned. “You think he saw that priest get offed?” Tao said, shaking his head. “His family has gone to church there irregularly since they moved to Truham. I take it Charlie’s dad was raised Catholic, but his mum wasn’t all that religious. Charlie stopped going after he came out, and his sister never went, as far as I can tell. Usually it’s just Charlie’s dad Julio, and his little brother, Oliver that go. 

“And of course the youth center is one of the few places to hang out during the summer, other than the cinema or the arcade and bowling alley. Sometimes Father Benedict was there, but Charlie usually avoided him. You know, the whole not really being accepting of gays and everything.”

“Did Charlie seem leery of Father Benedict?” Sai asked.

Tao shrugged. “Not especially so. No. Just didn’t want to hear a sermon about the sin of homosexuality every time he was around the man.” He paused for a moment. “Although there was one time I did see him and Charlie arguing about something. Charlie was really upset, but when I asked him about it, all Charlie would say was that he hated self loathing hypocrites, especially ones who hide behind their religion.”

“And you have no idea what that might have been about?” Nick inquired.

Tao shook his head.

“When did this argument happen?” Nick tried changing tactics.

Tao shrugged. “Before Charlie came out. I think it was the summer before year nine, maybe?”

Nick sighed inwardly. It didn’t sound like Charlie had a reason to kill the priest, but they would still need to talk to him. He had Tao write down Charlie’s full name and address before he dismissed him.

“What do you think?” Sai asked Nick once they were alone.

Nick shrugged. “We need to talk to this Charlie. He may have at least seen something, but it doesn’t sound like he has any motive to kill the priest.”

Sai was more thoughtful. “Unless Father Benedict tried to force himself on the boy. Just because the boy didn’t go to the church, didn’t mean the priest didn’t have means or opportunity to molest him. And if the kid has mental health issues, he could easily have been triggered to attack the Father.”

“True,” Nick admitted. “Let’s see if we can make some phone calls first, find out what exactly happened to send him to inpatient in the first place, and see where he’s at now.”

…

They hadn't learned much about Charlie Spring from their phone calls. His school records showed he was sixteen, and indicated he was of above average intelligence, with an aptitude for Maths. He also played drums in the school orchestra, a fact Nick found interesting. There was also a few references to bullying dated from year ten.

The only other information they found in his record from the recent school year was a notation from September about his absences, another from October that mentioned prolonged hospitalization, with a request for his coursework to be completed in care.  The final note of interest in his file was from January, requesting that his food intake be monitored by the school nurse.

It wasn't a lot to go on, but it did suggest some kind of eating disorder. Unusual for boys, but not unheard of.

They drove out to the Spring residence late that afternoon, arriving just as another vehicle pulled into the driveway. Two people got out of the Skoda Octavia. Nick assumed these must be Charlie’s parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Spring?” he asked as he and Sai approached. 

The woman looked tired, the kind of tired sleep can't fix, only peace of mind that rarely ever came. The man seemed a bit more relaxed, but it was the deceptive ease that would give way to action the moment he knew where the battle lay.

“Yes?” the woman replied, looking leerily at them, the man tensing slightly.

Nick tried to offer them a reassuring smile, but knew it was useless as he showed them his badge. Both merely looked more on edge.

“Detective Nelson,  this is my partner, Detective Verma. We'd like to speak to your son, Charlie Spring. We have reason to believe he may have witnessed a crime.”

The woman's shoulders stiffened, and the man placed his hand gently on her back.

“Charlie can't talk to anyone for twenty four hours.” The woman's voice came out firm, but Nick could hear her fighting not to let it crack. “He's under a doctor's care at an inpatient facility. They say he might be able to come home as soon as tomorrow evening, thank God.”

“I'm sorry to trouble you at a bad time. Would you mind answering a few questions about your son?” Nick asked.

The couple exchanged a look.

“Come inside, detectives,” the man replied, a faint accent coloring his voice. “I'll make some tea.”

They followed the couple inside. The home was neat, but Nick noticed the woman, Jane seemed to feel the need to straighten already ruler straight books on a side table, and brush away imagined dust in the living room. Perhaps the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree in this family.

“Why do you think Charlie may have witnessed anything, detective?” Julio asked as he served the tea a few minutes later.

Nick pulled the photograph from his suit pocket and showed it to them. “This was taken from a store's exterior security camera a few nights ago. We showed the picture around, and Charlie’s friend Tao identified him as your son, and judging by the look on his face, he was scared by something.”

The couple shared another look, then both let out long breaths. 

“Charlie had a self harm episode the day before yesterday.” Julio's voice was flat, his emotions controlled. “He'd snuck out the night before. I was the one who caught him sneaking back in. I was so worried he'd gone to see that boy again, but Charlie refused to talk, said he just wanted to go to bed. I knew I should have checked on him, made sure he didn't have anything to hurt himself with.”

His wife reached out and squeezed his hand. “He'd been doing so much better the last couple of months, we thought we could trust him to at least talk to Tori if something was bothering him.”

“Why don't you start from the beginning,” Sai suggested, opening his notebook. “Start with his hospitalization last fall.”

Jane cleared her throat. “After Charlie came to us and told us he was struggling with his mental health, we took him to the doctor to get a referral, but you know how the NHS is. They said we couldn’t get him in until January. We could see that things were getting worse for Charlie with each passing day. “ She paused to swallow and wrung her hands. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. I didn’t really understand what was going on with him, and thought he was just being lazy. Typical teenage rebellion, you know?”

Julio was the one to offer her support this time, putting his arm around her and placing a gentle kiss on the side of her forehead. He was the one to resume the narrative.

“By the first week of October, Charlie rarely got out of bed. I thought it was a good sign when I heard him get up and go into the bathroom without being prompted to. That is until we heard Tori screaming a half hour or so later. We rushed up the stairs to see what was wrong, and there was Charlie, sitting on the floor, covered in blood, babbling that he didn’t mean to cut so deep.” The man’s face was white at just the memory.

Jane shook her head. “He just kept saying he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to be such a burden, that we should just let him die so we could go on with our lives without constantly having to worry about him.”

“He almost bled out,” Julio continued. “They had to give him a transfusion, and he was in the hospital for a couple days before we could arrange to transfer him to the inpatient facility. They wouldn’t even let us see him for the first two weeks, said it was better to let him adjust without interference.”

“Olly kept asking where Charlie was, wondering why he couldn’t go see him,” Jane added. “We didn’t know how to explain it to him. And Tori refused to speak to anyone, locking herself in her room for nearly the full two weeks. I was afraid we would lose her as well. She and Charlie always were so close, which is why I can’t understand why he never even told her how bad it had gotten.”

Nick cleared his throat. “Tao mentioned some bullying. Is that what triggered Charlie’s depression?”

Jane’s mouth tightened into an angry frown. “It most likely contributed to it, but it wasn’t the underlying cause. Charlie was diagnosed with anorexia and OCD, as well as manic depression. His psychiatrist explained that OCD generally manifests in early puberty, and that Charlie most likely started having episodes around the time we moved here from Leeds when he was ten, but they wouldn’t have been noticed unless they were major triggers. He said that it was the OCD that led to the anorexia, and most likely the depression came later, as he struggled with his sexuality.”

Nick understood that. He hadn’t fully come to terms with his bisexuality until his late teens, and had still struggled with it in his early twenties. He’d been engaged to a woman for a couple of years, but had ended up breaking things off with Imogen when they both realized he had only proposed because everyone had expected it of him, and she had accepted for the same reason. They were still good friends, and he was honorary uncle to her and her wife’s one year old daughter.

“Tao also mentioned he suspected Charlie was secretly dating some boy?” Sai continued. “Do you know who that might have been? You said you thought he had snuck out to meet up with a boy the night of the crime.”

Julio shook his head. “Charlie never said the boy’s name, refused to talk about him at all. I only found out about it because I accidentally overheard him telling Tori that he’d broken things off with him, but the boy wouldn’t leave him alone. Charlie kept getting text messages, but he would lie and say they were from Tao or one of his other two friends.”

“When was this?” Sai asked. 

Jane thought for a moment before answering. “Second term of year ten. He got a text just before the half term break in February. He said Tao needed help with some homework. He was gone for hours, and when he came home, he didn’t say anything, just went to his room and locked himself in. We barely saw him for the entire week-long break. I kept asking him if he was sick, but he just kept saying he was fine, he just wanted to sleep. And he kept taking showers in the middle of the night. I kept waking up to the sound of the shower running at two and three in the morning.”

Nick glanced at Sai at this information. It definitely sounded like Charlie had been assaulted. Had it been father Benedict? But why wait more than a year to kill him? Something wasn’t adding up here.

“Do you mind if I take a look in Charlie’s room?” Nick asked.

Both parents hesitated, but after a moment, Julio nodded. “Just try not to move things around. Charlie is kind of particular about his things.”

“No worries, I’m just going to look around.”

“It’s the first door on the left at the top of the stairs,” Jane said. “Maybe I should come up with you…”

“No, that’s alright. I believe Detective Verma has a few more questions for you.”

As Sai continued to engage the parents, Nick slipped up the stairs. He didn’t go directly to Charlie’s room, but first peeked into the parent’s bedroom. It was neater than any bedroom Nick had ever seen outside a TV show or furniture showroom. Even his mum didn’t keep her room this clean. He wondered if perhaps Jane Spring also had OCD.

He next popped his head into the sister’s room. It was a typical teenage girl’s room, minus the posters of whichever teen heartthrob girls panted over these days. Charlie’s sister apparently didn’t care for boy drama in her life. Was she perhaps also a member of the LGBTQIA community?

The younger brother’s room was the room of a child beginning the transition to tween, with a jumbled mix of toy tractors and stuffed animals beside video games and more age progressive distractions. 

Nick was about to close the door when something on the bedside table caught his notice. Nick moved closer to look at it. It was a small rosary with unusually brightly colored beads, almost identical to the ones found inside the priest’s body. Nick snapped a quick picture of it with his phone before moving on to Charlie’s room.

Nick wasn't exactly sure what he’d expected to find when he entered, but the room did tell a story all its own. Nick just wasn’t exactly sure what the story’s plot was just yet. 

The first things he noticed were the neon sign over the bed that said MUSIC, and the drum kit in the corner. The next thing that caught his eye was the Brideshead, Revisited poster. 

As he moved into the room, Nick couldn’t resist sitting at the drums and attempting to tap out a beat, but quickly realized he had no musical ability whatsoever. He set the drumsticks back down and examined the shelves next to the bed. There was an eclectic collection of books, many on Greek Mythology, a subject that Nick had never really gotten into.

On the desk Nick found a framed photo of Charlie with three other people, one of whom was Tao. Nick assumed the other two were the Isaac and Elle that the Asian boy had mentioned. He studied Charlie’s face in the picture. Nick estimated Charlie was about thirteen when it was taken, maybe twelve. He was laughing, and even in the still image, Nick could see the way Charlie’s eyes twinkled and danced with his joy. It was a far cry from the few more recent pictures Nick had found on the boy’s Insta during his search into the boy’s background. Charlie had smiled in those pictures too, but none of them had reached his eyes.

“What happened to you, Charlie Spring? And did it make you a killer?” Nick truly hoped not. From the sound of it, Charlie’s life was already a tragedy, he didn’t think prison would make life any better for him.

Chapter Text

Nick rejoined his partner and Charlie’s parents down stairs just as Sai finished taking down the name of the inpatient facility where the boy was being treated.

“One more question if you don't mind,” Nick said. “Where are your other two children now?”

“Oh!” Jane seemed surprised by the question. “Charlie doesn't want Oliver to know just how bad his situation can be, so whenever he has an episode, I make arrangements for Olly to stay with my sister or one of his friends. He’ll be home tomorrow. Tori has been staying with her friend Becky for the last few days. They had a pretty big fight just before school let out for the summer, but they made up at the beginning of the break, and have been pretty much re-bonding for the past few days. You know how teenage girls are, always fighting and making up with their friends.”

They thanked the Springs for their time, then returned to Nick’s car.

“Where to now?” Sai asked.

Nick considered for a moment. He really wanted to talk to Charlie, but didn’t think they’d be allowed to if they showed up at the inpatient without warning. “Let’s head back to the precinct for now. I’ll call the facility when we get there and see if we can arrange to speak to Charlie before he’s released. In the meantime I think we should do more digging into Father Benedict’s past, and try to trace his movements for the last couple of days.”

…

Nick made arrangements to meet with Charlie the following day before lunch time, but was told that only one person would be allowed to talk to him, so Nick left Sai going through the Father’s calendar for the days leading up to the murder. 

The drive to the facility, The Daffodil Clinic, was a bit longer than Nick expected, and he was grateful he had left early enough. From the outside, the place seemed cheerful enough, and Nick was thankful the Springs could afford a private clinic like this. Nick had heard horror stories about some inpatient places, especially state run ones. 

Nick was met at the check in by a woman named Susan, who introduced herself as Charlie’s primary handler.

“Handler?” Nick asked in confusion.

She smiled kindly at him. “I’m the one who sees that he gets up in the mornings, that he gets to his sessions and sits with him during meals. We prefer to use the term handler rather than attendants or orderlies. The intention is to make the patients feel less like inmates in a psychiatric ward and more like people who just need a little TLC.”

Nick decided he liked the woman. She led him to a small room off the main dining room. “I’ll bring Charlie down in just a few minutes, he’s finishing up a session with Geoff. But before I leave you, I need to ask you to hand over your cell phone or any device with a camera in it. I’ll put it in one of the lockers in the hall.”

“Why?” Nick asked, handing her the phone. 

“It’s for the patients’ privacy and safety. Cell phones are great for keeping in touch with loved ones, but not so great when cyberbullies are on every platform and can be accessed on any phone.”

Nick nodded as she took the phone and left the room. He should have thought of that. Cyberbullying was one of the top causes of teen suicide and teen on teen violence  nowadays.

As Nick waited, he studied some of the artwork that had been hung on the walls, obviously drawn by current and former patients. Some of the art was rather fascinating, showing nuances of Mental Health issues in various forms. Some of it looked like typical teenage graffiti. Such as the very obvious phallus displayed in one picture.

“I didn’t draw that one, I promise.” The voice startled Nick, who had leaned in closer to study the dick picture with a grin. He spun to face the speaker, and found himself face to face with Charlie Spring at last. The boy was slightly taller than Nick had expected. He’d seemed a little smaller in the photograph, but then he’d been hunched forward in the image. The curly hair was just as dark as it had been in the grainy image. Nick had seen other pictures of the boy, but none of them had prepared him for just how Angelic his face was in person. His blue eyes seemed as deep as the ocean, and just as mysterious.

“Susan said you wanted to ask me some questions. I think she was supposed to be in the room when you did, but there was a fight down the hall between one of the other frequent flyers and a new guy.”

“Frequent flyers?” Nick asked.

Charlie shrugged. “People like me that come back here more than once. Although I guess I’m not that frequent. This is only my fourth trip back since I was initially released last December, and I haven’t been back since April.”

“I see. I’m Detective Nelson, I’m investigating a homicide, and I have reason to believe you might have some information about it.”

Charlie didn’t seem surprised. “He is dead, then? Father Benedict?”

“Yes. What do you know about his death?”

Charlie shrugged. “I think maybe I killed him?”

Nick frowned. “Maybe I should wait to hear anything more until your parents can be here, and maybe your lawyer.”

“No, it’s okay. I think it would be a relief to tell what happened.”

Nick studied the boy carefully for a moment. Charlie seemed calm, not overly emotional. The only indication of any Mental Health issue was the bandage that Nick could just see peeking out below the sleeve of Charlie’s shirt, evidence of the self harm incident that had brought him to the inpatient facility. The incident that had taken place just hours after the violent murder of a priest.

“Are you sure?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. I was just talking to Geoff, my therapist, and while I didn’t tell him what happened, he said it was important that I talk to someone I feel comfortable with about why I hurt myself this time. I guess a cop will do. There’s no one else I really feel comfortable talking to about this.”

Nick wasn't sure he felt comfortable taking the boy’s confession without a witness, but he did carry a small recorder for interviews. “Do you mind if I record this? It will be better for both of us if there is another set of ears to take your statement, otherwise you can always say I made it up later in court.”

Charlie shrugged and sat down at the table in the center of the room. “I guess so. I mean, I understand you have to do your job.”

Nick sat across from him and retrieved the recorder from his pocket and set it on the table between them.

“This is Detective Nick Nelson at The Daffodil Clinic for mental wellness. The date is July twenty fifth. 2023, and the time is ten fifty five am. I am speaking to Charles Spring, a patient at the clinic. Charlie, are you speaking to me of your own free will?”

“Yes,” the boy replied, and Nick smiled at him reassuringly.

“Thank you. Please state your full name and date of birth for the record.”

“Charles Francis Spring, April twenty seventh. 2007.”

“Okay, Charlie, why don’t you start by telling me why you went to see Father Benedict four nights ago?”

Charlie sighed. “I was following my sister, Tori.”

That surprised Nick. “Why was your sister going to see the priest?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I know she was angry about something. She said the bastard needed to be stopped.”

“She was referring to Father Benedict?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know, I just know that she’d been acting strangely all day since picking Olly up from scouts. I thought she was sick when they first got home. She could barely make it up the stairs, and then she just fell on her bed and slept all day, which isn’t really like her at all. I mean, I know sometimes she says she wishes she could just fall asleep and never wake up again, but she doesn’t mean it like that.

“And then when she woke up later that night, I heard her pacing around her bedroom, muttering incoherently to herself. Something about Oliver and tea. I tried to ask her what she was talking about, but she’s been so worried about me since my breakdown last year, she wouldn’t tell me, said it wasn’t my burden to bear, and that she would deal with it.” Charlie paused to lick his lip, and Nick unexpectedly found himself following the action with his eyes.

“She told me to just go to bed, not to worry about it, that she would be fine. She said she was still tired, and was probably going to go back to sleep herself, and take care of things in the morning, when her mind was a little clearer. So I went to bed.”

“But you obviously didn’t stay there,” Nick prompted.

Charlie shook his head. “I heard her sneak out sometime around eleven. I knew our parents were already asleep. Mum finished a project at work, and she’d been so stressed out about getting it done on time that when she finally turned it in that afternoon, she was exhausted, and dad commutes to London several times a week to teach his class at Uni, he almost always falls asleep by ten thirty. I was worried about Tori, so I followed her.

“At first I thought she was going to her boyfriend’s house, but Michael lives out by the river, so I was surprised when she turned into the center of town, and even more surprised when she marched up the steps of the church. Tori hates churches. She said more people throughout history have been killed because of religion than wars and famine combined.”

“Did you follow her right away?”

Again Charlie shook his head. “No, I wasn’t sure why she had gone there, and thought maybe she’d come right back out, but she didn’t. I waited about fifteen minutes before I went inside.”

“What did you see when you went inside?”

“Father Benedict was angry, accusing Tori of sticking her nose into his private business. He was moving towards her aggressively, as she was backing away from him, but she was trapped in a corner, and he looked like he was going to hurt her, so I grabbed one of those statues they had all over the church, and hit him with it. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard! I’m usually not that strong! But seeing him threatening my sister, I guess the adrenaline just kicked in. 

“The wound bled a lot, and he just kind of slowly dropped to his knees, and fell to the side. I was so scared, I just froze there. At least until Tori told me to go home.”

“So, you are saying you followed your sister, saw her being aggressively pursued by Father Benedict, and hit him over the head to protect her?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear!”

“What happened after that?” Nick asked. Something about Charlie’s story still wasn’t jiving with the autopsy report.

Charlie sighed. “Tori insisted I go home, she said she would take care of everything, make it look like an accident. I tried to argue with her, but she insisted. She said she’d always protect me, that’s what big sisters did. So I went home, but I couldn’t stop feeling guilty. I really didn’t mean to kill him. And I felt bad for Tori having to clean up my mess again, like she cleaned up the blood in the bathroom.

“I think it was seeing Father Benedict that triggered my spiral, and feeling guilty when my dad caught me sneaking back in, and not being able to tell him where I had been or what I had done. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t, I just kept seeing the blood,” Charlie’s face went blank at the memory, his voice hollow. It was almost eerie to see and hear. 

“There was so much blood. The next thing I remember was the scissors in my hand, and the burn as they cut into my wrist.”

Nick studied him in silence for a few minutes. Charlie didn’t seem to notice, lost in his own thoughts. Maybe Charlie wasn’t the killer. Maybe his sister finished the job after Charlie had left.  The M.E.’s report said the blow to the head hadn’t killed him. But the report said that both the blow and the removal of the penis were done by a left handed person. He hadn’t even established yet if Charlie was left handed. And there was still the matter of motive. 

A blow to the head in defense of a sibling was one thing, but strangulation and mutilation suggested malice aforethought.

“Charlie, I need you to answer a few more questions for me, can you do that?”

The boy blinked slowly, and seemed to take a moment to refocus on him. “What?”

“Can you answer a few more questions, or should we call it for now?” Nick asked slowly. “I don’t want to over exert you, or cause a delay in your recovery.”

“Oh, I’m okay. What else do you need to know?”

“What was your relationship to Father Benedict?”

Charlie frowned. “I don’t understand? Do you mean how well did I know the man?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Did you visit the church often?”

Charlie’s frown deepened and he shook his head. “No, not since I came out. The church isn’t really supportive of people like me.”

Nick nodded. “What about outside of the church, did you see Father Benedict often outside of the church?”

The boy shrugged. “Just at the youth center sometimes, and when I picked my brother up from the scouts. Mostly I just ignored him when I did see him.”

Nick tilted his head to the side before asking his next question. “Your friend Tao mentioned a confrontation you had with Father Benedict a few years ago. Would you mind telling me what it was about?”

Charlie’s frown turned into an angry grimace not too dissimilar to the one his mother had made the day before when Nick had brought up the bullying. “Oh, that! The man was a hypocritical asshole! He was constantly talking about how homosexuality was a crime against God, then I caught him wanking off to gay porn in his office at the youth center one day! I called him out on it. He tried to argue that he was just human, and that all humans sin, but that he could ask forgiveness for his transgressions, and that he would never act on his urges. I said I didn’t believe him, that he would probably keep popping off to porn until it wasn’t enough and he moved on to physically having sex with men. That was when I decided to come out to my friends and family, and stopped going to church.”

Nick studied him again before asking his next question. “Did he ever physically assault you?”

Something in Charlie’s eyes shifted. “He never hit me or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

Nick frowned. “Did he ever try to sexually assault you?” he clarified.

Charlie’s voice was devoid of any emotion when he replied. “No.”

It was a lie, but not a lie, Nick could tell. The question was, what exactly about the answer was he lying about?

“Well, Charlie, I’ll need to collaborate your story with your sister’s, but if you attacked Father Benedict to protect her, you might be off the hook for murder, but your sister may be in trouble for trying to cover it up.”

Charlie’s demeanor changed once more. “She won’t go to prison, will she?” He sounded so much younger now, a child worried about his older sibling.

“I’m sure a judge would take into account the circumstances. You try not to worry too much about it right now.”

Charlie bit his bottom lip, and Nick suddenly felt himself twitching. Geez, there was no way he was reacting to a sixteen year old boy! Even one who looked like an Angel.  A Fallen Angel.

Charlie couldn’t be the one who had called him, claiming to be a Fallen Angel, his parents had checked him in here the day after the murder, and he didn’t have access to a phone, and both calls had been tracked back to businesses near the church. But what about Charlie’s sister? She could have made the calls. Were they in it together? 

Nick’s mind was in overdrive, and he knew he wouldn’t get any more answers here.

“Thank you again for your cooperation, Charlie. I’ll be talking to your sister, and looking into the evidence again. You’ll be hearing from me again, I’m sure.”

“I really didn’t mean to kill him, Nick. I’m really sorry.”

Nick felt another little shiver travel up his spine when Charlie spoke his name. Damn, he needed to get out of there, fast. This case was starting to mess with his head. Susan arrived right on cue to escort Charlie to lunch, passing Nick the key to the locker where she’d left his phone.

Nick palmed the recorder and retrieved his phone, immediately noticing that he had two missed calls, one from Sai, and one from Reaper. He waited until he was in his car to call Sai.

“Did you get anything out of the kid?” Sai asked. 

“Oh yeah, I got a full blown confession, only problem is, he claims he only hit Father Benedict with one of the statues from the church, and nothing more. He said his sister was there and was going to cover for him by making it look like an accident.”

“Nothing about strangulation and emasculation reads accident to me,” his partner said in disbelief.

“Me either, but we need to talk to the sister. And there’s something else, but I’ll talk to you more about it when I get back. Was there a specific reason you called me earlier? Did you find something?”

“Nothing obvious, but there was an unusual notation in the margins of the Father’s calendar for the day of the murder; cbsojs,2lfs, training. No clue what it means. Everything else is just your basic day to day stuff about visiting the sick, praying for certain individuals, a reminder about a dinner with the bishop this week.”

Nick sighed. “Alright, I’m heading back, and we can track down Charlie’s sister, get her side of the story. Oh, you wouldn’t happen to know why Reaper called me, would you?”

“No, I’ve been too busy trying to go over the evidence.”

“Okay, guess I’ll call him next. See you in about an hour.”

He hung up and dialed the M.E.’s office, only to learn that Reaper had gone to lunch, but had left a message with his assistant that if Nick called back, to have him meet him in the morgue before the end of his shift.

…

They hadn’t been able to locate Tori Spring that afternoon, she hadn’t gone home, and according to the friend Becky, Tori had bailed on her pretty much the day after she’d told her parents that she was spending a few days with her friend,

“She said she was going to her boyfriend’s place,” the girl had told them.

“And where does he live?” Nick had asked.

“Somewhere out by the river is the only thing I know, You’re a detective, can’t you track him down? His name is Michael Holden. He just finished year thirteen. He should have a driver’s license you can trace or something.”

Nick had politely thanked her for the information, and resisted the urge to slam the phone down on the annoying girl.

While they waited on the trace on the name of Michael Holden, they paid a visit to Reaper.

“What’s up, doc?” Sai quipped.

The Medical Examiner gave him a death glare, and turned to Nick. “I don’t make mistakes very often, but when I do, I freely admit them, and I made a mistake in my assessment of Father Benedict's attack.”

Nick frowned. “How so?”

“I assumed that from the angle of the cutting motion, the victim's penis was cut off by a left handed person, which if the killer was standing in front of him, would have been correct, but then I realized that the killer had to be standing behind him.”

“Why behind him?” Nick asked.

“Well, we know he was struck in the head by a left handed person from behind and slightly to the right. I’ve verified this against the weapon that has been confirmed to have been used in the attack, a statue of St. Vincent.”

Nick nodded. “Our prime suspect admitted to that much at least. I haven’t verified yet if he is right or left handed, but he wasn’t the only person at the scene. He claims he saw Father Benedict moving aggressively towards his sister, perceived she was in danger, and hit him with the statue to protect her. So, go on, why do you now think the killer was standing behind the victim when he was emasculated?”

Reaper resumed his narrative. “After being struck on the head, the man was then strangled. We can’t verify if the person who strangled him was right or left handed because they used both hands wrapped around the throat. All we can tell from that is that the person was standing behind him with their hands at the front of the throat, like this.” He demonstrated the position of the hands on Sai, without applying pressure.

Nick frowned again. “But that only proves he was strangled from behind. The killer could have laid him on the altar and began cutting away at his dick from the front, left handed.”

Reaper smirked. “You’re forgetting the surprise we found in his rectum. I believe the killer was in the process of filling the priest's orifice from behind when Father Benedict started coming to. The man would have been struggling, most likely, and it is easier to subdue someone from behind than in front. The killer would have had leverage on their side.” As he spoke, he once again demonstrated the actions on Sai. 

“The killer wrapped his left arm around the victim’s chest, pulling him back off balance, grabbing the knife with his right hand, and reached around the body to do the deed.” He mimicked slicing off Sai’s appendage.

“Okay, point made,” Sai said, stepping out of his reach. “But cutting off his dick didn’t kill him.”

“No, you’re right,” Reaper admitted. “Father Benedict was most likely in a lot of agony now, and probably screaming. The killer needed to silence him. He picked up the prick, laid the man out on the altar, and shoved the item into his mouth, presumably applying pressure until he then stopped struggling, and even after to make certain he was truly dead this time. Then in anger, or frustration, or just to make certain the good Father was actually dead, he then stabbed him repeatedly, right handed. By that point it was just adding insult to injury, and the killer went on to make it known what he thought of Father Benedict, carving it into his forehead like a brand.”

“Alright, so if it does turn out Charlie is left handed, all we can pin him with is assault with extenuating circumstances, if it’s true he left before the other attacks were committed. Which currently makes his sister our primary suspect.”

“Would a teenage girl have the strength to do all that, though?” Sai expressed, and the three men were left with doubts. 

“We need to find Tori Spring, immediately!” Nick replied, grimly.

Chapter Text

Finding where Michael Holden lived proved a bit more difficult than just tracing his driver's license, as apparently the young man never applied for one, but they did find one for a Marilyn Holden at an address on the bluff over the river. A little more research uncovered a son named Michael.

When Nick and Sai arrived at the address the next morning, however, neither Tori nor Michael were there. The boy’s mother explained that her son had a competition that day in Leeds, but Tori had left the night before.

“Do you know where Miss Spring went?” Sai asked.

The woman shrugged. “She didn't say exactly, but mentioned something about finding proof. I have no idea what that means.”

Nick frowned. He just realized he hadn't discussed his interview with Charlie with Sai beyond his confession of hitting the priest with the statue. Now he was recalling some details about the interview he hadn't paid any attention to at the time.

He thanked the woman  and led Sai back to the car. 

“Where to now?” his partner asked. 

“The Spring house,” Nick said grimly. 

“You think the girl went home?”

Nick shook his head. “No, but we're not going there to talk to the sister.”

The drive to the Spring house was short, less than five minutes. Nick had just enough time to explain his theory to Sai. His partner agreed that it made sense.

They knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer. They knew at least someone was home, as the car was parked in the driveway, and they could hear the sound of drums coming from an open window above them. Apparently Charlie had been released from the inpatient facility.

The door hadn't been answered after nearly a minute, and Nick exchanged a look with Sai. The shorter man shrugged and reached for the doorbell this time. The sound of drums stopped almost immediately, and a moment later the door opened, revealing Charlie Spring.

Nick studied him for a heartbeat. The boy was wearing jean shorts over sports socks, and no shoes, along with a baggy green hoodie that was virtually identical to one Nick wore on his days off. It was Nick's favorite article of clothing.

Charlie's face brightened, a smile warming his face when he spotted Nick.

“Hi!” the boy said, sounding slightly breathless, and once again Nick felt something stir inside him.

“Hi, Charlie. How are you doing?”

The boy blushed a little and lowered his gaze. “I’m good. They didn't let me come home until this morning, though.”

“Well, the good news is, you're home now. This is my partner, Detective Verma. Are your parents home?”

Charlie frowned and glanced back up at him. “Dad is, but mum had to go to work. Have you talked to Tori yet?”

Nick shook his head. “Not yet, we haven’t managed to locate her yet, but we did have a few more questions. Can we come in?”

Charlie hesitated for a moment, then turned to look down the hall that led to the kitchen.

“Dad, the detectives are here. They want to come in and talk for a few minutes!”

Julio Spring appeared behind his oldest son. “Detective Nelson, come in. Sorry, my wife isn't here right now. Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you, we won't be here that long, I just wanted to clarify a few things from Charlie's statement yesterday before he signs it.”

The man nodded. “Charlie mentioned you'd spoken to him. Do you need me to stay while you ask your questions?”

Nick considered for a moment. He'd felt a bit awkward talking to Charlie alone the day before, but Sai was there now. “Not at the moment. We’ll call if we need you.”

Julio nodded as they settled in the living room, speaking briefly to his son in Spanish before leaving. Charlie sat in the armchair, feet tucked up under him, and faced them. 

“So what did you need to ask me?” He kept his eyes on Nick as he spoke.

“You said the day Father Benedict died, your sister picked up your brother from scouts, and that she was acting oddly when they returned, and that later she was saying something about Oliver and tea. Do you remember anything else about your sister’s behavior when she got home, or anything else she might have said, particularly about your brother?”

Charlie’s face scrunched up in concentration as he thought about it, and Nick couldn’t help thinking how adorable the expression was.

“She was staggering when she got home, like she might be drunk, but Tori rarely ever drinks, and never if she knows she’s going to drive, and she drove to pick Olly up from cub scouts that day, which is why I thought she was sick. I mean, sometimes when the anorexia was bad and I didn’t eat enough, that’s how I would walk, kind of wobbly, you know? So I thought maybe she had a stomach bug and maybe hadn’t eaten enough. And then she slept all day, just like when I…” he hesitated. 

“Anyway, she didn’t say anything at all then, just went straight to her room. I asked Olly if she threw up on the way home, but he just shrugged and said she was talking funny in the car, like her tongue didn’t work right, or like mum did after the time she went to the dentist a couple years ago. Later, when I heard her in the bedroom she was rambling, I only heard part of it, cause she stopped when she realized I was standing in her doorway. The only thing I could make out was something being in Olly’s tea, and she needed proof.”

Nick frowned. “Charlie, is your brother home? I think we need to ask him a few questions.”

“Yeah, he’s in his room, playing Mario Kart,” the teen grinned. “He says he’s trying to get good enough to beat me, but so far it hasn’t happened. Do you want me to go get him?”

“No, if it’s alright, I’ll go up and talk to him myself, but I should get permission from your dad first.”

“Dad’s in the kitchen, preparing a roast,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “He’s probably forgot to season it again.”

Nick grinned at him. “Detective Verma will stay here with you and go over the rest of your statement, and have you sign it. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

He couldn’t help noticing the disappointment on the boy’s face as he left the room. He found Julio Spring in the kitchen, just closing the oven door.

“Everything alright, Detective?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I was just wondering if I could speak to your younger son for a moment? I just have a couple of quick questions for him.”

Julio frowned. “Is it really necessary? What can he possibly have to tell you about Father Benedict’s death?”

Nick hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “How much did Charlie tell you about what he told me yesterday?”

Charlie’s father sighed. “He said he confessed to you, and that Tori is trying to cover up for him.”

Nick nodded, “I want to ask Oliver about what had upset his sister when she picked him up from cub scouts.”

The man sighed again. “Very well. Just please, try not to upset him. We’ve been very careful not to overwhelm Oliver with all the stuff going on with Charlie and everything else. We’ll tell him when he’s a couple years older, but now we just want him to be a child.”

Nick nodded, and made his way up the stairs to Oliver’s room. He could hear the younger boy talking to himself in a sing song voice, as if talking to an imaginary playmate.

Nick knocked softly on the door, which was several inches ajar. The boy looked up from where he was racing what looked like two tractors over a racecourse made up of strips of cardboard. Nick felt a punch in his gut looking at the boy. He was a miniature version of Charlie, except for the eyes, which were brown, not blue.

“Hi! Who are you?” the boy asked, more curious than confused.

Nick smiled at him. “My name is Nick. Your dad said I could come talk to you for a minute. Is that okay?”

Oliver grinned at him. “Do you like Mario Kart? I’ve been practicing so I can be as good as Charlie someday! He’s the best Mario Kart racer I know!”

Nick shrugged and moved a little further into the room. “I’m pretty good, but I’m probably a bit rusty, I haven’t played in a few years. But it looks like you’re more interested in racing your tractors right now.”

“Oh, I was just taking a break, pretending I was driving for real! I can’t wait till I’m old enough to drive, like Tori.”

“Your brother Charlie is almost old enough to drive, isn’t he?”

Oliver shrugged. “Charlie probably won’t learn to drive till he’s older. He said they probably won’t let him until he gets fully better. I don’t really know what that means, and no one will tell me, they just keep saying they’ll tell me when I'm a little older, but I'm a little older now, and they still haven’t told me.”

Nick smiled at the boy, who he estimated to be almost eight. “So, Olly… you don’t mind me calling you Olly, do you?”

“It’s okay, that’s what everyone calls me, except grandma Driscoll. She hates it when people shorten our names. She says we have such regal names, we should be proud of them, not debase them. I don’t know what that word means, though.”

Nick laughed. “Well, Olly, I heard you were in cub scouts. Do you like being a scout?”

The boy shrugged. “It’s alright, I guess. I only joined because my friend Lewis was in it, and he said he could get a special prize from Father Benedict if he got some of his friends to join.”

“Was Father Benedict your pack leader?”

“No, he doesn’t really have anything to do with the scouts, except for when we have to do religious stuff to get a belt loop.”

“So why was Father Benedict the one encouraging for more boys to join?”

Again Olly shrugged. “I don’t know, I think it has to do with the fact that the more boys in the pack, the more the scouts have to pay to use the youth center for our meetings, and Father Benedict was in charge of the youth center.”

‘I see. So Father Benedict was just there when your pack had its meetings?”

“Some of the time, but not every time. Every few weeks he would bring snacks and make us tea, like we have at home at Christmas or special occasions.”

“Did Father Benedict make tea the other day?”

“Yeah, and he brought lemon buns, too. I love lemon buns.”

“Did you drink the tea?” Nick asked.

Olly frowned, and looked guilty. “Do you think I’m bad for lying to Father Benedict?”

“About what?” Nick asked, his instincts kicking in now.

“He made me promise to drink every drop of tea, that he made it especially for me, but I didn’t drink any of it. The truth is, I don’t like Father Benedict's tea. He always makes it too strong, and he never lets us put milk in it. So when Tori came to pick me up, I tricked her into drinking it instead.”

“How did you trick her into drinking your tea?”

Olly leaned forward and whispered as if imparting a secret. “I poured it into her tumbler of lemonade.” He leaned back and continued speaking. “She took a big gulp of it before she realized what it was and dumped it out as we got in the car. Then when we were almost home, she started talking funny, her words were all slurred and she was talking really slowly. I thought she was doing it just to scare me for tricking her.”

Nick frowned. “Did you ever feel weird after drinking the tea Father Benedict made? Or notice any of the other boys acting strangely after drinking the tea?”

Olly seemed to really think about it, even going so far as to assume the ‘thinking pose,’ with one leg crossed over the other, and his chin in his hand, tapping his cheek with one finger.

“Jimmy Allendale got woozy once last year.”

“What happened to Jimmy?”

Oliver shrugged. “I don’t really know. Father Benedict took him to his office to call his mum and tell her he was sick. He stopped coming to scouts after that.”

“Did he ever talk about it at school?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know, he doesn't go to the same school as me, and he’s a year ahead of me.”

Nick made a mental note to look up this Jimmy Allendale. “Can I ask one more question?”

“Sure!” The boy said, fiddling with the controller for the video game. “But then I should get back to practicing my racing.”

Nick smiled at him. “I just wondered, where did you get that brightly colored rosary there on your table?”

Oliver’s face brightened a little. “Father Benedict gave it to me last month, after my first Communion. He said not to tell the other kids, though, cause it was just for the special ones like me!”

“I see. Well, Oliver, you’ve been very helpful.”

“I have?”

“Yes, you have. Thank you. Now I’ll let you get back to your racing!”

Nick left the room, a feeling of dread filling his stomach. He hoped the boy never learned just how lucky he was, if what Nick was thinking was true.

He made his way back down the stairs just as Sai was thanking Charlie for his help. The teen's face seemed to light up once again upon seeing him on the stairs. Charlie had wrapped himself in a blanket, and Nick couldn’t help thinking how cuddly he looked, and he had to fight the urge to wrap the boy in a hug and reassure him that everything would be alright.

“Everything squared away here?” he asked, trying to ignore how gravelly his voice sounded.

Sai raised an eyebrow in silent question, but otherwise gave no indication that he noticed anything off with his partner.

“Charlie has decided to wait to sign the statement until the family's lawyer has had a chance to review it.”

Nick nodded, and smiled at the boy reassuringly. “That’s perfectly fine. You can come down to the station whenever you're ready.”

They asked Charlie and his dad to call them if Tori came home, and returned to Nick’s car. 

“Did you get anything more from Charlie while I was speaking to his brother?” Nick asked. 

“Just questions, mostly about you. I think the boy might have a bit of a crush on you. Be careful around him. But I did manage to learn that he is left handed.”

“Oh?” Nick asked as he turned the corner, deliberately ignoring the rest of the man's statement.

“The bandages are on his right wrist, which means he used his left hand to make the cut.”

Damn, why hadn't Nick made that connection sooner? He had seen the bandage himself the day before at the inpatient clinic. He’d been more focused on the teen's face and his own reactions to him. Nick needed to get his mind back on the case, and off Charlie Spring, who was still connected at least in part to Father Benedict’s murder.

“Good observation,” was his only remark.

Sai nodded. “Did you get anything useful from the younger brother?”

“Very useful. I think we need to search Father Benedict's office at the youth center, and probably the rectory as well.”

“For what?” Sai asked.

“Whatever the good Father was putting in his special tea. And we need to track down a boy named Jimmy Allendale.”

…

They found five Jimmy Allendales that attended three different schools across Truham. By late afternoon, they had spoken to three of them and eliminated them as being the one Oliver had known from scouts. One of the remaining two was apparently out of the country on a family holiday. The fifth no longer lived at the address listed. Sai was trying to track down where they had moved to. Meanwhile, Nick was going through the crime scene photos again, looking for anything they might have missed, when a voice spoke his name.

“Detective Nelson?”

He looked up at the young woman who stood next to his desk. She was around average height, slim, with straight black hair that Nick was pretty sure was recently cut, and blue eyes that were almost as deep and mysterious as her brother's. 

“Victoria Spring?” he asked, just to verify it was her, even though he recognized her from the family photos at the Spring house.

“My brother didn't kill Father Benedict. I'm the one who bashed him over the head with that statue.”

Nick arched an eyebrow at her statement. “He claims he was the one who hit him, and that you told him to go home, and you would make it look like an accident. Why should I believe this isn't just your attempt to take the blame for his actions? And just where have you been staying for the last several days since the murder?”

Tori Spring crossed her arms over her chest. “I needed time to figure things out, and I can't think in that house when Charlie’s not there.”

“Your brother is home now.”

“I know, he called me earlier, after you left. He told me he confessed.”

Nick nodded. “Why don't you sit down and talk to me?” he suggested, closing the file of photographs.

The girl dropped into the chair, arms still crossed. Nick could tell that she was an intelligent young woman by the way she studied him.

“I know Charlie is the one who struck Father Benedict with the statue,” Nick said, forestalling any lie she could spout. “His confession matches up with the forensic evidence. What I need to know from you is your side of the story, and what happened after your brother struck him.”

Tori scowled at him. “Charlie shouldn't even have been there! He always feels like he has to take care of everyone else, and protect them, but can't take care of himself! I told him I could take care of this myself. I just needed to find some kind of proof of what that bastard was doing!”

“Slow down, and start from the beginning. Your brother Oliver poured his tea into your tumbler of lemonade. Tell me what happened after that?”

She let out a long breath. “At first, nothing happened, but I do remember the tea left a nasty taste in my mouth, unlike any tea I've had before. Then when we were just a few blocks from our house, my vision began to waver, like I was looking in fun house mirrors. It got hard to think, and when I tried to say that I felt strange, my mouth didn't seem to work right. I don't know how I managed to drive the last few blocks to get home, but I did. I was feeling so bad, I just wanted to lay down, before the wonky vision made me sick to my stomach.”

“Then what happened?” Nick asked.

“I slept for hours, and when I woke up, I realized I had to have been drugged. I knew whatever it was had to have been in the tea, and that Oliver was the one it was meant for. I was furious. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why someone would drug a boy his age. I wasn't going to let that happen again!”

Nick frowned at her words. Charlie's mother had indicated that something had happened to Charlie the previous school year, and now Tori seemed to be indicating the same thing.

“What exactly do you mean, you weren't going to let that happen again?”

The girl frowned. “Well, Charlie never admitted it, but I know something happened to him last year. He refuses to talk about it, though. I don't think he's even talked to his therapist about it.”

“Do you have any idea who it might have been?” Nick asked.

She shook her head. “I know he had been seeing someone in secret for several months, but broke it off shortly after the Christmas holidays.”

“Did he say why he broke it off?”

“Charlie didn’t like the fact that the other guy wouldn't acknowledge him in public, while pressuring Charlie for sex in private. Charlie told him he wasn't ready for that yet, and he was still only fourteen at the time, so he was under age. Charlie broke up with him, but the boy wouldn't accept it, and kept hounding Charlie for weeks, until Charlie agreed to talk to him. I told him not to go, to just block the guy, but Charlie is stubborn, and just a little too trusting. 

“I knew something had happened the moment he got home. I saw it on his face, but he rushed upstairs to his room before mum or dad could see him. That was when everything changed with Charlie. He stopped eating, stopped talking to me about his problems, stopped pretending to even care.”

“And you have no idea who the person was?”

“No, Charlie refused to out them the way he had been outed.”

Nick frowned. “Is there any way possible that the person Charlie had been seeing was Father Benedict?”

“Ew! Absolutely not! Charlie wouldn't have let that man touch him!”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, Father Benedict was in his late forties! Charlie might like older guys, but not that much older! And secondly, Charlie always said Father Benedict was a hypocrite and liar. No way would Charlie have willingly gone out with someone like that, even in secret.”

“Okay, then let's talk about what happened when you went to the church the other night. Did you confront Father Benedict with your suspicions?”

She shook her head. “Not immediately. I knew I would need some kind of proof, so I started searching the church. I didn’t even know he was there until he caught me going through the storage closet. That was when I confronted him. He was really angry, said it was my word against his, that there was no proof, and that he wasn’t going to let me ruin his reputation. I kept backing away from him, but he kept coming towards me, his face was contorted with anger. That was when Charlie came in and saw us and grabbed the statue.”

“And what happened after Charlie struck the priest?”

Tori unwrapped her arms and sat back in the seat a bit. “He just stood there, stunned, as Father Benedict slowly collapsed. I could see Charlie wasn’t handling the situation very well, so I told him to go home, that I would take care of everything, and make it look like an accident. Charlie tried to protest, but I insisted that he go, and eventually he left.”

“What did you do once he was gone?”

She frowned again. “I started to try and make it look like the bastard had tripped and hit his head, but it was so quiet in the church, I started to get creeped out, so I left.”

“You left? Where did you go?”

“Home. Charlie must have got there a few minutes before me. I heard my dad confronting Charlie about where he'd been. He was so focused on Charlie, neither of them noticed me slip into my room.”

Nick frowned in concentration as he considered her story. Neither Charlie nor his sister had mentioned anything other than bashing the victim with the statue. Both of their stories stop there. Either the two of them were lying through their teeth, or they were telling the truth, and there was a third person involved. The question remained, did Charlie and Tori know who the killer was, and were they covering for them?

Chapter Text

Nick hadn't slept well last night. This case was just fucking with his mind. Their prime suspect had confessed, but was not the killer, as he was left handed, and their killer was right handed. This did not mean Charlie was completely innocent, nor was his sister. For all Nick knew, the two of them could be working together to throw off their entire investigation. 

Or they could both be telling the truth, and Father Benedict was still alive when they left, and some unknown person took advantage of the situation.

When Nick had finally fallen asleep, his dreams had been filled with images of Charlie, and most definitely weren't PG13. 

Groaning, Nick rolled out of bed and stumbled into the shower, grateful it was his day off. After dressing in jogging shorts and his favorite green hoodie, Nick grabbed his iPod, slipped his earbuds in, hit play on his favorite playlist for working out, and set out for a jog.

He ran through the park, smiling at all the dogs he passed, along with their owners. He missed having a dog, but after his last dog had passed away while Nick was at uni, he hadn't had the heart to get a new one, and now he was rarely ever home during the week, and any dog he got would be alone in his tiny apartment for long hours. That wasn't fair to any animal.

Nick finished his first circuit of the park, and had just started a second when he noticed a disturbance near the overturned tree on the edge of the woods. Two young men appeared to be struggling with each other. Nick recognized one of them.

As he drew closer, he could hear them arguing.

“I told you, I don't want anything to do with you ever again! Leave me alone!”

“Don't you dare walk away from me, Charlie! I've risked everything for you! Even condemned my soul for you!”

“Go to hell, Ben!”

In the struggle, Charlie lost his balance, falling to his knees, but the one called Ben still gripped him by the arm, and dragged him a couple of feet towards the woods.

“Hey!” Nick shouted as Charlie cried out in pain.

The other boy froze for a second, but then let go of Charlie and took off running when he saw Nick. Nick's cop instincts were to run the other man down, but the sight of Charlie laying on the ground and in pain had him skidding to a stop beside him.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Charlie had tears in his eyes, and wouldn't look at Nick. “I'm sorry!”

“What for? You haven't done anything wrong, have you?”

“Sorry,” Charlie said again, wincing as Nick examined him for injuries.

“Charlie, you have nothing to be sorry for.” The boy's face scrunched up, and Nick could see the word forming on his lips once again. “Don't say it!” Nick admonished, trying not to laugh, but it did the trick. Charlie looked chagrined.

“I kind of want to say it.”

“Don't!” Nick replied, smiling at him. The teen seemed much calmer now. “Can you stand up?”

“I think so,” Charlie said, but when he tried, he cried out in pain. “Or not. I think I sprained my ankle.”

“Come on,” Nick said, helping him up and taking most of Charlie’s weight, which wasn’t much. “I'll get you to my car and drive you home.”

“No! Please don't take me home! I'm tired of my mum and dad treading on eggshells around me! They all act like I'm a fragile bubble that will pop under the slightest pressure!”

“Charlie, I thi-”

“Please? Not yet! I just need a little time to be me!”

Nick closed his eyes and let out a breath. This was a really bad idea.

“Alright, I'll take you back to my place and patch you up, but once you're all cleaned up, you have to go home.”

Charlie nodded and let out a sigh of relief, and Nick carefully led him along the path through the woods to his apartment, and settled him on the couch. “Wait here, I'll get the first aid kit, and some ice for your ankle.”

He retrieved the kit from the bathroom, and set it on the coffee table as he passed back through the living room to the kitchen. Grabbing the kitchen towel, he put several pieces of ice in a baggie and wrapped it in the towel as he walked back to Charlie. He picked up one of the pillows from the back of the couch, and lifted Charlie’s foot to rest on it on the table, and laid the ice across it.

Neither of them spoke as Nick gently cleaned the scrapes on the teen’s hand and knees. Nick was aware of the blue eyes studying his every movement, could almost feel Charlie's gaze on his face like a caress. His body was wound tight by the time he finished his task. 

He’s sixteen, for God’s sake! Nick told himself. And still a suspect in a murder!

“Nick?” Charlie said softly, and he realized he’d just been sitting there on his haunches, staring at the boy.

He blinked and looked away, returning the unused disinfectant wipes and antibacterial creme to the kit, clearing away the trash from the plasters. He froze when Charlie placed a hand on his arm, just below where he’d shoved the sleeve of the hoodie up above his elbow. His eyes focused on the delicate fingers touching his overheated skin. His gaze slowly followed the length of Charlie's arm to his face. The longing in the boy’s eyes nearly killed him.

“Please, Nick? Would you kiss me?”

He knew it was wrong. He knew he should have moved away from the temptation, but Nick was no Saint. He leaned in, his eyes fluttering closed as their lips met, and he knew he was lost.

Charlie’s responses as Nick deepened the kiss were an intoxicating mixture of hesitant innocence and shy boldness, and a desperation that matched Nick’s in intensity. He felt Charlie’s hand cup his face as his own hand buried itself in the soft curls at the back of the boy’s neck.

He didn’t remember shifting position, but the next thing he knew, they were stretched out on his couch, Charlie’s thin body under his much broader one, with one of Nick’s knees pressed between Charlie’s legs. The teen was writhing against him, grinding himself on Nick’s leg, seeking some kind of friction. He could feel his own cock swelling and weeping in anticipation.

Charlie’s hands tugged at the back of Nick’s hoodie, pulling it up so he could reach the skin on his back, and with a groan, Nick yanked it off over his head and tossed it across the room. 

Some part of his brain that was still functioning told Nick to move carefully with Charlie, and instead of yanking off the boy’s shirt like he wanted to, he slowly eased it up, exposing the pale skin of Charlie’s belly. He slid down and kissed his belly button, trailing wet kisses over his stomach as he eased the shirt higher, until his tongue could rasp over the rosy pink nipples. Charlie’s keening cry of pleasure was almost Nick’s undoing, and he had to turn his head away and breathe before he came in his pants.

It was then that he realized what he was doing, and froze. He couldn’t do this. Charlie was a sixteen year old, emotionally disturbed young man who may or may not have killed someone. But no matter how many times he told himself that, his body was a quivering mass of want. 

As if sensing his confusion, Charlie’s hand slipped into Nick’s jogging shorts, finding his length, and taking it in his narrow hand, gently squeezing and caressing it. A shudder passed through Nick, and he shoved the shorts and underpants off, and peeled Charlie’s shorts and underpants off as well, leaving Nick fully naked, and Charlie in only his twisted up shirt. He captured Charlie’s mouth in another searing kiss as one hand reached between them, stroking Charlie’s remarkably long and thick cock, then moving lower and cupping his balls, one finger teasing the stretch of skin between his scrotum and his ass.

Charlie whimpered and arched into the caress, and Nick’s finger traveled closer to the tight bud of muscles, lightly teasing it, pressing against it, testing its resistance.

Charlie gasped, breaking the kiss. “Oh my God! Please Nick!” he cried out, and Nick pressed his finger in deeper, stretching him open.

“Have you ever…?” Nick panted out, and had to control the throbbing in his cock as Charlie shook his head no, and let out another whimper as his hips writhed, seeking something more.

“Shh, just relax. I’m going to take care of you,” Nick assured him, carefully adding a second finger, and kissing him again. By the time he had Charlie stretched and ready for him, Nick didn’t think he would last long, and barely remembered to slip on a condom. He nearly lost his mind sliding into the still tight passage. Charlie’s hands gripped at Nick’s back, and he knew the boy’s fingernails would leave marks that would remain for days.

He stopped when he could go no further, and waited for the boy to adjust and get used to the sensation. When he felt Charlie relax, he slowly pulled out and thrust back in, finding he could go a fraction deeper after all. Charlie cried out in pleasure, his fingernails digging into Nick’s back deeper as well.

“So beautiful, Charlie!” Nick panted out as he thrust into him again. “You’re so beautiful!” He continued to murmur Charlie’s praises as he thrust into him again and again, and Charlie’s cries of pleasure grew louder, more guttural. “Come for me, Charlie!”  Nick cried out as he felt his orgasm reaching its crescendo.

“Nick!” the boy shouted, and came, even as Nick’s own release tore out of him.

Nick collapsed forwards, careful not to land his full weight on Charlie, and tried to catch his breath, his eyes closing as he fell into a blissful, exhausted sleep.

…

Nick stood in the doorway of his bedroom, staring at the boy sprawled out in his bed. Nick had woken up earlier and carried Charlie into his bedroom, intending to merely tuck the boy into his bed and let him sleep, but Charlie had woken up and smiled at him, and Nick had given into the temptation once again. Charlie had surprised him by pulling his shirt off and sliding on top of Nick, straddling him, and lowering himself onto Nick’s waiting cock. Nick had been so lost under Charlie’s spell, he hadn’t realized they hadn’t used a condom until he was coming inside the boy. 

The next time Nick had woken up, Charlie’s mouth had been wrapped around him. 

Now he stood there, lost in thoughts, and racked with guilt. He never should have allowed himself to give in to the temptation. If anyone found out he’d slept with a suspect, they’d have his badge! Nick needed to solve this case, one way or another, and until then, he needed to keep his hands off Charlie Spring.

As if triggered by Nick’s guilty conscience, his cell phone began to chime an incoming call. He scrambled to answer it before it woke Charlie up.

“Yeah?” he mumbled into the phone, without checking the caller ID.

“Nick,” Sai’s voice came over the line. “I just thought you should know, Forensics went over Father Benedict’s office at the youth center with a fine toothed comb. They didn’t find anything. We’re still waiting to get a warrant for the rectory. Also, I’ve located the fifth Jimmy Allendale. His family moved to Rochester at the beginning of the month. I spoke with a Detective Otis Smith in their Major Crimes division. We can interview the family on Monday.”

“Thanks Sai. Aren’t you supposed to be off today too?”

“I am, but I had to stop by the precinct to pick up my wallet. I apparently dropped it on my way out last night. Christian filled me in on what was happening while I was there, and I thought you’d want to know.”

“Yeah. Thanks again, Sai. I’ll see you on Monday.”

…

Nick had driven Charlie home after lunch, hoping his face didn’t show his guilt as he explained to Jane Spring that he had spotted Charlie in the park, had seen the boy take a fall, and had patched him up and brought him home.

He’d spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday trying to ignore the memories of Charlie in his arms and in his bed, and trying to figure out how to prove the boy and his sister were innocent.

He had barely slept, and on Monday he was decidedly more rumpled looking than usual.

“You look like hell,” Sai informed him as Nick picked him up early for the drive to Rochester.

“Rough weekend,” was all he’d said.

“Wanna talk about it?” Sai asked.

“No.”

“Alright, then. Detective Smith will meet us at the family’s residence. He’s already called ahead to be sure they’ll be home.”

Nick nodded, and pulled onto the motorway. Rochester wasn’t that far away, just three towns over, and they arrived within a half an hour. They parked behind another vehicle with a dark skinned man sitting behind the wheel. All three men exited their cars and met in the middle.

“Detective Smith?” Nick asked.

“Yes, and you must be Detectives Nelson and Verma. Nice to meet you, mates.” They shook hands. “Mind if I ask what exactly you are investigating?”

Sai shrugged. “Our main investigation is the murder of a parish priest. We’re hoping the Allendale boy can help us with a motive.”

Smith frowned. “You think he was dipping the wick where it didn’t belong?”

“We have reason to suspect the possibility, but no sure proof just yet,” Nick replied.

“I see,” the other Detective said, shaking his head. “Makes me glad my parents never converted. Thank Allah.”

They knocked on the door, and it was answered a moment later by a woman in her late thirties, early forties. They introduced themselves, and she invited them inside.

“Mind the boxes, we haven’t finished unpacking yet,” the woman said, picking a crying baby up out of its crib as she passed. Three more kids between the age of four and seven were chasing each other around the living room. “Sorry, my husband, Dan, had to work today.”

“It’s alright,” Nick assured her. “We really just need to speak to your son, Jimmy. Is he about?”

“Jimmy? He’s not in some kind of trouble, is he? I know he was acting out at school this past year, but-”

“No, no, he’s not in trouble, we just want to ask him a few questions,” Nick assured her. “Where is he?”

“In the backyard, in the treefort. I don’t know if all three of you will fit up there.”

“It’s alright, Detective Smith and I can wait on the ground while Detective Nelson speaks to him. You look like you have your hands full in here,” Sai assured her.

Nick didn’t question why he had to be the one to go up into the treefort, despite being larger than the other two men. He knew Sai had a bit of a fear of heights, and Detective Smith wasn’t familiar enough with the case to know what questions to ask.

As they were about to head out, Nick paused and turned back to the woman as a thought struck him. “One quick question before we speak to Jimmy, did your family attend St. Pius when you lived in Truham?”

She shook her head no. “We’re Protestant. Why?”

He smiled reassuringly at her. “Just checking. Which way to the backyard?”

She showed them to the backdoor, calling out to her son to alert him to their guests.

Nick spotted the boy looking out of a window of the treefort, which was up a large poplar tree about twenty feet off the ground.

“Hi, Jimmy. “I’m Detective Nelson. Do you mind if I come up and ask you a couple questions?”

“You aren’t going to arrest me are you?”

Nick laughed. “Did you do something I should arrest you for?”

The boy shrugged. “I guess you can come up, then.”

Nick made his way up the makeshift ladder into the treefort, and settled into one corner of the small space. He studied the boy for a moment, noting the wary look in his eyes.

“So Jimmy, I just have a few questions for you. Did you used to be in the cub scouts in Truham?”

The boy shrugged. “Yeah, last year, but I dropped out.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t like it.”

“How long had you been in the scouts before you dropped out?”

“A few months.”

“One of the other scouts from your troop told me that the last time you were there, you got sick. Do you remember that?”

The boy tensed up and looked away from him. “Yeah.”

“Can you tell me what you remember?”

He began picking at the frayed ends of his cut off shorts. “I got really dizzy, kind of, everything looked funny. I almost threw up.”

“What happened then?”

Jimmy shrugged again. “Father Benedict took me into his office. He seemed angry about something, said I was a bad boy for drinking someone else’s tea, but maybe I’d do for now.”

“Do for what?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know, it’s all fuzzy in my brain. I remember he made me watch a video. I didn’t like it, but Father Benedict said I had to watch it all. I don’t remember anything after that. I didn’t like the way Father Benedict kept looking at me, so I didn’t go back to scouts after that.”

Nick frowned. “You said he was angry at you for drinking someone else’s tea. What did he mean by that?”

Jimmy’s frown deepened as he pulled at one loose thread. “I accidentally spilled my tea, so my friend Tony gave me his. He said he didn’t like tea, and had only taken it to be polite, anyway.”

“What was Tony’s full name?”

“Antony Scarlatti.”

“Did Tony go to your school in Truham?”

“Yeah, he was my best friend.”

“Did he stay in the cubs after you left?”

“No, his family moved about a month after I stopped going.”

“Do you know where they moved to?”

“I think he said Wessex? Yeah, Wessex. Tony was excited because one of his favorite footies got their start at Wessex.”

“Thank you, Jimmy, you’ve been a great help.”

The three Detectives met back up in front of the house. 

“Did you get the information you were hoping for?” Smith asked.

“Yes and no. Jimmy basically confirmed that he’d been drugged, but the only thing he remembers is the good Father making him watch a video he didn’t like, and can’t remember now. Interestingly, he also said that he wasn’t the one the tea was meant for. It seems Father Benedict still hadn’t refined his delivery of the drug yet, as that’s twice now the wrong person had received the drugs. At that rate, I’m surprised there haven't been more reports of something suspicious with Father Benedict’s special tea.”

“Who was the original target?” Sai asked. 

“Jimmy’s friend Tony, who graciously gave Jimmy his cup after Jimmy spilled his.”

“Any idea where to find this Tony?” Sai asked.

Nick shook his head. “The family moved to Wessex about a month after the incident. We can try tracking them down, but I don’t think they’ll have anything useful for us. I think we should head back to Truham and see where we are on getting the warrant for the rectory. And I want to talk to Tori Spring again.”

“You think she could be our killer?” Sai asked.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. Something just isn’t adding up here.”

…

Three hours later, Nick sat across from Tori spring once more, trying not to dwell on how similar her eyes were to her brother’s as he had her go over her every movement once she entered the church, as Sai went with the forensic team to serve the search warrant on the rectory.

“I told you, I didn’t even know Father Benedict was there until he caught me searching the storage closet.”

“Did you see which direction he came from?” Nick asked.

She frowned. “Not really. He surprised me. Scared the crap out of me. Now I get why my brother hates it when I sneak up on him. Don't ever tell Charlie I said that, I'll deny everything!”

Nick fought not to smile.

“Okay, you were searching the storage closet, that’s just off the vestibule. How close was he to you?”

Tori thought about it for a moment. “About the length of this room, maybe a little less.”

“Was he between you and the exit to the street?”

“Not at first, no, but when I confronted him about the drugged tea, he moved between me and the doors. I didn't realize it right away, I was too pissed to notice. I wanted answers. It wasn't until he moved towards me that I realized I'd have to get past him to leave.”

“And then what happened?”

She shrugged. "I started to back away from him. His face was all twisted with rage, I really thought he might hurt me, but I was still angry and I knew I needed some kind of proof, so I kept demanding answers.”

“And where were you when Charlie entered, and where was Father Benedict?”

“I was almost in the corner near all the candles. Father Benedict was a little closer to the confessional.”

“And when Charlie struck Father Benedict?”

“I was fully in the corner then, and Father Benedict was about five steps away from me.”

“And Father Benedict fell in the spot where Charlie struck him? He didn't take any more steps forward, or to one side or the other?”

She shook her head. “No, he just dropped right there, kind of just falling to the side.”

Nick sighed. So far everything she said matched the movements established by the forensic blood splatter, and other evidence found at the scene.

“Alright, go step by step, what happened then?”

“Both Charlie and I just stood there in shock for a moment. I recovered quickly, but I could tell Charlie wasn't reacting well. I moved to his side and-”

“Wait, how did you get to Charlie’s side? Father Benedict was between you. Did you go around the body, or did you step over it?”

She frowned. "I stepped around it. I took the statue from Charlie and told him to go home. We argued for a minute or so, but I convinced him to go. 

“Then I tried to figure out how to make it look like an accident. I had basically just set the statue back on the base, on its side, and tried to move the bastard so it looked like he fell and hit his head, but like I said, I got creeped out and left.”

Nick leaned forward a little, studying her face. “What exactly spooked you?”

Tori shrugged. “It was so quiet in there. I couldn't even hear any noise from the street. You know how sometimes when it is too quiet, you start to imagine sounds? I kept thinking I heard noises from the confessional. I even imagined the curtain had moved.”

Nick frowned. “The curtain?”

“Yeah, you know how the side you go in to blab to the priest has a curtain you close so you can pretend it's all confidential? Well it was closed, and I got a little freaked out that there might be someone in there, so I left.”

Nick was frowning again, but asked, “how long was it after Charlie left that you left?”

“I don't know, it couldn't have been more than five minutes. Like I said, I got in as my dad was scolding Charlie for sneaking out, and neither of them saw me slip into my room.”

Nick nodded. He believed her, but he needed to check something.

“Wait here. I'll be back.”

He went to his desk and searched through the crime scene photos once more, until he found the one he was looking for. Frowning, he picked up his phone and dialed the photographer who had taken the picture.

“Yeah, this is Detective Nelson. Look, I'm looking at one of your pictures from St. Pius the other night. I need to know, when you photographed the confessional, did you open the curtain, or was it already open when you got there?”

The woman answered him, and he thanked her, a mixture of frustration and relief running through him. He was about to return to the interview room where he'd left Tori when Sai entered the squad room carrying an evidence box.

“What did you find?” he asked his partner.

“Evidence of some kind of homemade tea mixture. The lab is testing it now.”

Nick nodded. “What's in the box?”

“A headache. Ten years worth of notes and papers, as well as some photographs to go through. How did your interview with Miss Spring go?”

“Well, I think I can prove she and her brother are telling the truth, and that neither of them killed Father Benedict.”

Sai arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Nick shrugged. “It’s not exactly complete proof, but it is enough that it sheds some doubt on their guilt.”

“I'm all ears,” Sai said, so Nick explained. When he finished, Sai nodded. “It’s still just her say so, but it could be enough to sway a jury. Which leaves us with no suspects at the moment.”

“Exactly,” Nick said. “Unless we can find something in that box.”

Chapter Text

“Alright, let’s review what we do know,” Captain Singh said Tuesday morning. “What have we found out about Father Benedict’s past?”

A lot. Some of it was even helpful,” Sai reported. “He was born Robert Leland Carlye, age forty seven, third of three children. His oldest brother was in Parliament, the other a surgeon. Seems Robert was the slacker in the family. He was an average student in school. Originally studied business at uni, but gave up on that after one year, and switched to education. That only lasted one term. He next tried Botany. That seemed to suit him better, as he nearly made it to graduation, but was forced to drop out when another student accused him of stealing their research for their final project.

“After that he joined the military, and was stationed abroad for nearly five years, until he was kicked out for, get this, drugging his superior officer’s tea. His family then gave him a choice, join the seminary or be disowned. Guess which one he chose? He became Father Benedict ten years ago, and was assigned to the Truham Parish eight years ago.”

“Sounds like a lovely fellow,” Captain Singh said dryly. “Alright, what else have we got to go on?”

Nick shrugged. “Not a whole lot. When we first interviewed his parishioners, they all sang his praises, saying he was the kindest, most generous man they’d ever met. They all seemed to love him.”

“Perhaps he’d learned to hide his flaws by then,” Sai said.

Nick merely shrugged. “We’ve been through most of the good Father’s notes, so far there isn’t too much to go on, other than some unusual notations in his calendar and in his personal journal that we haven’t deciphered yet.”

“Keep at it, and keep me informed,” the captain said, and returned to her office. 

Nick sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s go over those strange notations again. Let’s try to put them in chronological order.”

Sai nodded, and picked up his notebook. “The first one is from about eight years ago, a few months after Father Benedict came to Truham, LB5684,TB&T. The next one is from about nine months later. BWH, 1C, potential. Then a few weeks later there is another one, CHRPBHW, test1lfs, success, monitor. That was followed a few months later with BWH progressing nicely, training complete. Then nothing for the next three years, until there was another note. VER, 1C, potential. Again a few weeks passed before another notation, CHRPVER,1lfs, failure, removal may be required. Then nothing until last year. AGS, 1C, potential. Followed by CBSAGS, 2lfs, intercepted. JFA may need removal, monitor. And then the last one from the day of the murder, CBSOJS, 2lfs, training. That’s it.”

Nick studied the cryptic messages, trying to make them make sense. “The first one is different from the others,” he pointed out.

Sai shrugged. “It’s still gibberish, though.”

Nick sighed again and nodded. “Let’s look at the rest of the paperwork from that box. Maybe there will be some clues there.

They pulled everything out of the box again, going over the various papers and photographs. One of the pictures caught his eye. It was a group photograph of about twenty children between the ages of seven and nine, all wearing white, with their hands clasped in front of them as if they were praying, each clutching a small rosary. The caption below the picture read, ‘1st Communion, June, 2023.’ Each of the children’s names were listed below.

One boy in the photograph in particular caught his attention. Oliver Spring was the spitting image of his older brother in miniature, except for the eyes. Nick read the list of names below the picture, pausing when he read Oliver’s name. He was listed as Oliver Johnathan Spring. Something pushed at the back of his mind, and he frowned. Oliver Johnathan Spring. Nick picked up the list of cryptic messages and reread the last one. CBSOJS.

“Fuck!” Nick exclaimed.

Sai glanced up at him. “What? Did you find something?”

“Maybe,” Nick said, and moved to the whiteboard where they often wrote messages down for the other shifts, and wrote out CBSOJS on it, then below that wrote CuBS Oliver Johnathan Spring. Sai swore as well, and Nick started digging through the pile of papers, and found two more photographs of children.

He studied them for a moment. “That’s it! AGS, Antony Gino Scarlatti, and VER, Victor Edward Rhodes. And look at the rosary the boys are holding, all three are identical to the one found in Father Benedict.”

Sai frowned. “Wasn’t there a missing persons report filed on a Victor Rhodes a few years ago?”

Nick wasn’t sure, but the name did sound familiar. “And what about BWH? Are there any more pictures in that box?”

Sai shook his head. “I only found those three.”

Nick sighed, and studied the messages again. His eyes kept going back to the first one. LB5684,TB&T. Why was it different from the others? He shook his head, and stood up.

“Let’s see if we can talk to the Rhodes family. Maybe they can give us something to go on.”

…

Mrs. Rhodes looked a decade older than her thirty nine years, the premature aging most likely brought on from not knowing where her son has been for the past five years. She showed them to the parlour, offering them refreshments that they politely turned down.

“Detectives, has there been any news on my Victor's disappearance?”

Nick shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, nothing definitive. We’d like to ask you about the events leading to his disappearance, though.”

“I told the officers everything about the day Victor went missing when I filed the report,” she said with confusion.

“I know, but we’d like to go back a little further, if you don’t mind. Was Victor in the cub scouts at the time he disappeared?”

She frowned. “No, Truham didn’t have a pack when Victor was that age. I believe the pack didn’t form until a year or two after his disappearance.”

Nick frowned. “Was he in any after school activities, or extracurriculars? Any organized groups?”

“He was in the orchestra at school, and the church choir.”

Nick sat forward slightly. “Had he attended choir practice the day he went missing?”

She shook her head no. “Not that day, no. His last choir practice was a couple days before. I remember, because he came home feeling sick afterwards, and I was worried he was coming down with the flu.”

Nick and Sai exchanged a look. “Did he say anything about that day? Did he seem upset?”

She frowned again. “He didn’t say anything, but now that you mention it, he did seem a bit distressed, quieter than usual. I just chalked it up to illness at the time, but he was still quiet and subdued the next day as well, even though he no longer seemed to be ill.”

“What about the day he went missing?” Nick continued. “Was he still upset then?”

“I couldn’t tell you. He was still in bed when I left for work that morning. I got called in early to cover another nurse’s shift when she was injured by a drunk on a rampage. Victor’s older brother, Thomas was the last one to see him. Thomas said Victor told him he was going to go to confession, and that was the last time anyone saw him.”

Nick nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Rhodes. That’s all the information we need for now.”

She stood as they did. “Why are you asking these questions now? Have you found something?”

“We’re not certain,” Sai informed her. “For all we know it may not be connected, but we had to check. Maybe it will help us locate your son, but I can’t promise that right now. What I can promise is that if anything comes from it, we will let you know.”

They returned to the precinct with grim expressions. Captain Singh spotted them and came to see what was up.

“The day the Rhodes boy disappeared, he was on his way to confession at St. Pius, with Father Benedict,” Nick informed her. “I checked the original officer’s notes on the boy’s disappearance. Father Benedict claimed Victor never came to the church that day, and it was assumed that either he was abducted on his way there, or that he simply changed his mind and ran away.”

She shook her head. “I’m starting to sympathize with this guy’s killer more and more. Keep looking. We gotta solve this soon, before the press gets ahold of this information and the place turns into a madhouse.”

Nick and Sai nodded and returned to their desks. 

“Where do we start?” Sai asked.

“Good question,” Nick replied. “Why don’t you work on figuring out who BWH is, while I concentrate on LB5684,TB&T?”

His partner nodded, and they both set to work. Occasionally, one or the other would shift through the contents of the box again, or make a phone call, only to come up empty handed and sigh in frustration.

Nick was absently picking at his lunch when a thought occurred to him.

“Did you guys find any keys when you searched the rectory?” he asked Sai.

The other man looked up absently at him from his latest wild goose chase. “What?”

“Keys? Did you find any when you searched the rectory?”

Sai frowned. “Yes, several sets. Why?”

“LB5684,TB&T. Lock box 5684, Truham Bank & Trust.”

Sai sat up straighter. “I’ll get a warrant.”

…

Nick wasn’t sure what he expected when they opened the lock box, which had been purchased under the name R.L. Carlyle, not Father Benedict. There were no secret journals with hand written confessions, just three thumbdrives, and a surprising amount of cash.

“It seems Father Benedict decided to ignore the vow of Poverty,” Sai quipped.

“Along with the vow of Chastity,” Nick added later as they viewed the content of the first drive, which mostly consisted of gay porn clips. “Charlie said he’d caught Father Benedict watching gay porn in his office at the youth center a couple years ago.”

They plugged in the second thumbdrive. Again, it was mostly gay porn clips, but there was another file titled ‘confessions.’ Nick clicked on that one, which revealed a few more files, none of which were titled, only numbered. He clicked on the first one, which turned out to be a video clip. The image that appeared on screen was dark and distorted, as if it had been filmed through a filter of some kind. The time stamp in the corner was dated from five years ago, six days before Victor Rhodes went missing, and three days before his mother said he came home sick from choir practice.

“Is that the inside of the confessional at St. Pius?” Sai asked, studying the image.

“One way to find out,” Nick replied, clicking play on the clip. The darkness was briefly interrupted as the curtain parted, and a boy slid into the confessional box. 

“That’s Victor Rhodes,” Sai said, and turned the volume up on the computer.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week since my last confession. I’ve tried to be good, but this week I called my teacher a stupid cow, and I got mad at my mum for not letting me go to the cinema with Thom and his friends. But the worst part, Father, is why I wanted to go with them. Thom’s friend, Kyle was going to be there, and for some reason, I keep having funny feelings every time he’s around. I know boys aren’t supposed to react to boys like that, and I’m scared.”

Nick assumed it was Father Benedict’s voice that responded. “And how does his presence make you feel?”

Victor hesitated before answering. “Kind of warm, and tingly, and like I won’t be able to breathe if I can never see him again.”

“Homosexuality is a sin, my child, but do not despair, for you can be made perfect.”

The clip ended there, and Nick looked at Sai, a bad feeling forming in his stomach as he clicked on the second video clip, dated the day Victor went missing. The curtain was already open when the clip began, but there was no one in the confessional. They could hear a disturbance in the background, however. They had to turn the volume up higher to make it out. A boy sobbing, and asking over and over ‘why?’ 

And then the voice was pleading, the words distorted, as if the speaker was drunk, or drugged. “I’ll be good! I won’t tell anyone, I promise! Just let me go home!”

Then Father Benedict’s voice once again. “I’m sorry my child, but I can’t have you ruining my position here. Besides, you’ll learn to enjoy your new life in time. These men will take very good care of you, you’ll be among your own kind!”

“Fuck!” Sai exclaimed. “Father Benedict was involved in human trafficking too?”

Nick clicked on the last video with trepidation. This one featured Tony Scarlatti, confessing to having a physical reaction to seeing another boy naked at a sleepover. Father Benedict once again assured the boy that he could be made perfect.

“I don’t think Father Benedict had a second chance at Tony after Jimmy drank the tea meant for him,” Sai said. “The boy moved not too long after. Benedict spread his little tea parties out over several weeks, but it would have looked suspicious to have two children get sick at back to back events.”

“That’s a comfort at least,” Nick replied, but was staring at the file in thought. “There’s no video clip of Oliver Spring here. I don’t know whether to think that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“There’s still one more thumbdrive,” Sai pointed out.

Nick didn’t want to see what was on the last thumbdrive, but knew they needed to investigate what it contained. He hoped Sai didn’t notice the slight tremble in his hand as he inserted the final drive. This one contained dozens of files, again with no titles, just numbers. Nick clicked on the first one, the time stamp on the video indicating it was from seven years ago.

They didn’t recognize the boy who entered the confessional, but Nick couldn’t help but feel like the boy was familiar somehow. He seemed to be slightly older than both Victor and Tony, maybe eight or nine to their seven or eight. It was hard to tell his hair color in the dark chamber, but Nick would guess at a medium or dark brown. 

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” The voice was soft and mature for his age as he proclaimed that it had been five days since his last confession, and then proceeded to list his perceived offenses, finishing with, “I have thought about another boy in an inappropriate way.”

“I think we just found BWH,” Sai muttered.

The next video, time stamped three days later, showed the same boy, but his voice seemed less assured now. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I allowed another to touch me in inappropriate ways, and use my body. I didn’t mean to allow it, I didn’t feel like I was in control at the time, but Father, I… liked what they did to me. What you did to me.”

“Tell me how it made you feel, my child.”

The boy hesitated. “At first it didn't feel good, I felt confused and scared. But then it was like something else took me over, like my body was acting on its own without my mind telling it what to do, and it felt excited by what was happening, and I didn’t want it to stop, even though I knew it was wrong!”

As the boy spoke, they could hear a rustling sound in the background, and the priest’s breathing started to grow more labored as he encouraged the boy to keep talking about what was done to him. He made the boy describe every detail.

“Is he jerking off while listening to his victim describe what he’d done to him?” Sai said, sounding disgusted. 

Nick didn’t wait for the video to finish, exiting out of that one and clicking the next one, dated a month later. The same boy, once again being encouraged to describe his own abuse as his abuser jerked off to his retelling. There were dozens of videos, taken over about five years, all of the same boy. Over time the boy’s voice changed from shameful retelling to almost eager rehashing, as if the longer the abuse went on, the more the boy seemed to think it was normal. And as the image of the boy aged, the more Nick felt like he should recognize him. 

There were only three files left, and it was starting to get late in the evening.

“Might as well finish them out tonight,” Nick said, and clicked on the next video. This one had a different tone to it. It was the same boy, but instead of his eager retelling of his abuse, his voice was angry.

“You’re trying to replace me! You said I was your special one!”

“And you will always be special to me, my child. You were the first one to reach perfection! But there are others out there who need my help!”

“Sounds like this BWH was getting too old to fulfill Father Benedict’s fantasies anymore,” Sai commented.

Nick clicked on the next to last video. This one was different, it wasn’t from the confessional. It looked like it had been filmed on a cell phone. It was taken at the park, and Nick felt his blood run cold when he saw the two boys in the video. Charlie was younger, about twelve, maybe, and Oliver couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time. Both boys were laughing, carefree, as Charlie pushed Oliver on the swings. The footage zoomed in on Charlie, detailing every inch of his face and body, then focused on Oliver, again zooming in and detailing every inch of his face and body. It went back and forth between the two boys for several minutes, as if comparing the similarities between the two.

“Fuck,” Nick said. “I think Father Benedict targeted Oliver because he is basically a miniature version of Charlie. I think he was angry when Charlie confronted him after catching him watching gay porn! This looks like it was taken just before Charlie would have started year Nine, which is around the time Tao said he witnessed the confrontation between the two.”

Sai frowned. “So why not go after Charlie directly?”

“Maybe because Father Benedict truly got off on making his victim confess how he made them feel when he used them, and Charlie had pretty much stopped going to church around that time. Also, Charlie was already older at the time. I think Father Benedict liked to hook them younger, so he could play with them longer before he lost interest as they got older.”

Sai fidgeted. “We should check the last video.”

Nick didn’t want to watch, but knew it was necessary. He clicked play. The time stamp was from February of the previous year.

The video once again started off in the confessional, but like the last video of Victor Rhodes, the cubicle was empty. They turned the volume up again and heard an argument between Father Benedict and BWH.

“It’s all your fault!” the boy shouted.

“Keep your voice down, child!”

“I’m not a child anymore! Stop calling me that!”

“I know you’re not a child anymore! That’s why you’re no longer necessary to me!”

“Necessary? I gave up everything for you! You’re the reason Charlie won’t even talk to me now!”

Nick froze at the name, the hairs at the back of his neck stood up on edge. He suddenly knew why BWH seemed so familiar to him. It was the boy he had seen in the park with Charlie the other day.

…

Nick sat in his car, parked on the edge of the park later that evening, knowing he was making a mistake. He had told Sai that he would go to the Spring house in the morning to speak to Charlie while his partner took a forensics team back to the church to search the confessional to see if Father Benedict’s hidden camera was still there, and if it contained any more evidence.

But Nick was worried that if he asked Charlie about the boy in the park in front of his family, the boy would clam up. And Nick was desperate to see Charlie again. It had been over three days, and Nick felt like a junkie jonesing for his next hit.

So there he sat, alone in his car, on a secluded road, waiting. He'd texted Charlie ten minutes ago to meet him here. He didn’t know what excuse the boy could give his parents for going out at almost eight at night, but Charlie had agreed to the meeting, and said he'd be there in fifteen minutes.

Nick tapped his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently as he scanned his surroundings. He sat up straighter when he spotted the lean figure approaching him. Charlie was wearing the green hoodie. Not the one Nick had seen him wear last week, but Nick's green hoodie, the one he had been wearing Saturday morning, that Charlie had borrowed when he'd climbed out of Nick's bed. Nick could tell it was his hoodie because Charlie was practically swimming in it. He felt a twitching in his pants at the thought of Charlie wrapped in his clothes, bathed in his scent.

Charlie smiled at him shyly as he slipped into the passenger seat.

“Hi,”

“Hi,” Nick responded, voice rough with desire, but he pushed that aside for now. “Charlie, I need to tell you something. You didn't kill Father Benedict.”

Charlie looked surprised by this news. “But I hit him o-”

“It wasn’t the blow to the head that killed him,” Nick interrupted.

Charlie stared at him in silence for a minute, then shook his head. “Tori wouldn’t have-”

Nick shook his head. “No, I don’t think your sister killed him after you left. We have reason to believe there was a third person there when your sister confronted Father Benedict.”

Charlie frowned. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

“No, we think they were hiding in the confessional.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. “So, that is good news, right? Tori and I won’t be in trouble?”

“Well, you acted in defense of your sister, they probably won’t prosecute you for assault. Tori may still be charged with tampering with evidence, but the judge will probably let her off easy under the circumstances.”

Charlie nodded, and they sat there in silence for a moment, and Nick studied the younger man’s face.

“Charlie, tell me about that boy, the one who you were struggling with on Saturday.”

He saw the way Charlie’s body tensed up at the mention of the other boy.

“He’s nobody, I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Please, Charlie, it’s important. I need to know who he is.”

“Why?” he demanded angrily. 

Nick tread carefully with his words. “We need to speak to him, we think he may have some information about a missing boy.”

Charlie frowned and looked down at his hands, which he had knotted up in his lap. “His name is Ben Hope.”

Nick nodded. “Is he the one you were seeing in secret in year ten?”

He could see the boy tense even more as he nodded his head. Nick wanted to scoop him up and hold him in his lap and rock him while murmuring reassurances, but he held himself back. He needed to know more about this Ben Hope.

“Tell me about him.”

Charlie flinched, but after a moment, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know you know about the bullying, Tao told me he’d talked to you about it.”

Nick nodded, but didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue.

“It was really bad the last term of year nine. People were calling me gross and disgusting to my face. One boy told me I should just kill myself. I was barely eating, using self harm as a coping mechanism, which is stupid, I know, but it was the only way to get the pain out.

“Then towards the end of the school year, some sixth formers stepped in and tried to put a stop to it, mostly because I think Mr. Ajayi, the art teacher and one of the few faculty members who seemed to care, asked them to. It helped, most of the bullying stopped, although there were still some insults thrown at me in the halls, and the stares, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been.

“When year ten started, I tried ignoring everyone, stayed to myself a lot, sat in the art room at lunch more often than not, hung out in the practice room, playing the drums during break. That’s where I met Ben. It was the second week of school, and he came into the practice room, and sat down beside me on the stool.

“At first he was really nice, he complimented me, and wasn’t afraid to sit beside me, as long as we were alone. He told me he wasn’t ready to come out yet, and I respected that. But then after a while, he kept trying to convince me to do stuff with him, stuff I wasn’t ready for then. He got frustrated when I said no, and he started saying I was a prude, and that I was wasting his time, and he refused to acknowledge I even existed in public, not even to say hi to me in passing.

“Things got really nasty early in January when I once again told him I wasn’t ready to do anything sexual. He called me pathetic, said no one else would ever want to date me, so I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

Nick remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt, even though he wanted to assure Charlie that it wasn’t true, that he wasn’t pathetic, and that Nick definitely wanted him. Instead he remained still and listened.

“He kept calling me and texting me after that, but I ignored him. Tori told me I should have blocked him, and she was probably right, but he had been the only person who had ever shown any interest in me, and I half convinced myself he was right, no one else would ever want to date me, and I kept hoping he would change, would say we could be together in public. So when he asked me to meet up with him in February and said he just wanted to talk, I agreed. I’m so stupid!”

Nick reached over and squeezed his hand. “You aren’t stupid, Charlie. I’ve seen your school file. You’re very smart. You just want to see the good in people.” Charlie shook his head, and looked out the window. “What happened when you met up with him?”

Charlie visibly swallowed, refusing to look at Nick, continuing to stare out the window. “I met up with him in the music block after school. It was the Friday before half term break, so of course everyone else had rushed home, and the school was deserted. He tried to act like nothing had happened, like everything was perfectly normal, and that I was just scared of getting caught. I got angry, reminded him that I was already out, that everyone knew I was gay, and that he was the one who was scared of getting caught.

“He didn’t like me fighting back. He shoved me into the wall, forced himself on me. I tried to push him off, but he was stronger than me. Then he slapped me, hard. I think it stunned me, cause the next thing I knew, he had his hands in my pants. I fought him again, but he forced me down on the floor, and…”

Charlie’s voice trailed off.

“What did he do?” Nick asked. “You told me the other day you’d never done that before, so what happened next?”

Charlie’s hands twisted in his lap, and his voice sounded so small as he continued his narration. “He tried, but he couldn’t do it. That made him even more angry. He forced me to jerk him off, but he still couldn’t get hard, so he started jerking me, but he did it roughly, and it hurt. He said I deserved it for making him fall from grace.”

Nick swallowed and licked his lips. “That was almost a year and a half ago. What happened after that?”

Charlie hunched his shoulders in. “For a while he just ignored me, but then one day I ran into him at a party my friends had dragged me to. He acted like he’d done nothing wrong, and that I was the one who had made a big deal out of it. He mostly left me alone after that, but sometimes I would see him staring at me outside of school. Then in the beginning of year eleven, he seemed to be everywhere I went. I’m sure he was stalking me. He started acting more and more obsessed, almost deranged. That was when I had my breakdown and ended up in inpatient.”

“What happened after you returned to school in January?”

“Nothing. He’d transferred schools. I thought I was finally rid of him, until he showed up in the park the other day when I went for a jog.”

Nick reached over and brushed one of Charlie’s curls aside so he could see his eyes. “He won’t hurt you again, Charlie. I promise, I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”

Charlie turned to look at him, a mixture of hope and longing on his face, and Nick couldn’t resist any more. He leaned across the seats and kissed him. Charlie responded with just as much need.

“Where did you tell your parents you were going?” Nick asked between kisses.

“I said I was going to Tao’s house to watch a movie and spend the night,” Charlie replied.

Nick growled deep in his throat, kissing him once more, then shifting back to start the car. He drove them to his apartment, and the moment he had the door closed behind them, he had Charlie pinned to it in a hard kiss. Charlie opened his mouth for his tongue to invade, and Nick took full advantage. He lifted the teen easily and carried him to his bedroom.

He took his time stripping Charlie, kissing every inch of skin as he exposed it. He encouraged Charlie to kiss and touch him as well, groaning as Charlie took his time exploring, finding places even Nick had never considered erogenous before, but caused his cock to twitch and drip as Charlie’s fingers or tongue traced over them.

They both shivered and gasped as Nick sank into Charlie’s heat at last. Nick loved the way the teen gave himself to him, opening like a flower for him, trusting him. He took his time, drawing out their pleasure, until Charlie whimpered his name with need.

“Yes, come for me, Charlie! Come with me!” And they both fell into the abyss, crying out each other’s name. Nick kissed him again as they both succumbed to blissful oblivion.

Chapter Text

Nick watched Charlie watch him get dressed as the teen lay in his bed, naked, with the sheet barely covering his hips, one arm raised over his head.

“Enjoying the view?” Nick teased.

Charlie shrugged. “Wishing you didn’t have to go.”

“I’m tempted not to, but I need to get back to the precinct.” He moved over to lean down and kiss Charlie once more, claiming his mouth briefly. “I would love to find you here when I get back, just exactly as you are now, but you should probably go home, or your mum might start to worry.”

Charlie shrugged. “I’ll go home, but I’ll be reliving every minute of last night until I can see you again.”

Smirking, Nick kissed him again, and then forced himself to pull away. “I’ll text you later.”

He grabbed his suit jacket, and headed out to his car, dialing Sai’s cell phone.

“How is the search going?” he asked his partner.

“The camera was still there,” was the reply. “It appears to be motion activated, as well as by remote. We also found another thumbdrive taped under the seat. I’m on my way back with both. Forensics is going to give the church another sweep and see if they find anything else. How’d you make out with the Spring boy?”

Nick was glad the other man couldn’t see him, as he nearly tripped at the question. He’d ‘made out’ with him all night. “Good. I got a name, Ben Hope. I’m heading in myself, so I’ll see you in a few.”

They met up in the squad room, and plugged in the thumbdrive. Nick had expected it to contain more porn at the very least, or more of Father Benedict’s twisted collection of confessions, so was surprised when all it contained was a list of transactions, and locations.

Sai frowned. “I recognize this place,” he said, pointing to one of the addresses. “Last year when I was covering Vice when half the department was down with the flu, we busted a child prostitution ring here.”

“Looks like the good Father was a regular there before you shut it down,” Nick said. “According to this, he electronically wired nearly fifty thousand in cash there over the previous two years.”

“Where did a priest get that kind of money?” Captain Singh asked, overhearing them.

Nick studied the figures on the screen with a growing frown. “By selling off a boy who almost ruined his position. Look, here, this transaction was to the Father’s account. I’m betting if we trace that money back to the originator, we’ll find Victor Rhodes.”

“Bastard,” Captain Singh said. “Get that down to the tech guys, let them see if they can trace it. What else did you find?”

“A camera with an SD card still in it,” Sai said. He connected it to the computer, and scrolled through the footage until he found the night of the murder. After watching the thirty minute clip all the way through, all three of them looked at each other, wondering just where society went wrong.

“Find him and bring him in,” the captain said.

…

Nick studied the boy sitting across from him in the interview room two days later. To look at him, you would think he was nothing more than your average sixth former. He wore a polite but bored smile, said please and thank you, and knew how to charm people.

“I’m sorry, I still don’t know why I’m here. The officer only said you had some questions for me?”

Nick just continued to look at him for another moment before speaking. “Were you aware that Father Benedict had a camera hidden in the confessional?”

The polite smile cracked only slightly. “Isn’t that unethical?” the boy asked.

“Very, especially when he used it to exploit the vulnerable, especially young boys who were questioning their identity.”

Ben frowned, and Nick saw the charming facade crumble away. His voice was still remarkably calm when he spoke. “I was nine years old the first time. Nine! How sick was that? I was so confused, and ashamed to tell anyone, so scared my dirty little secret would get out. He kept telling me I would be seen as impure, filthy, a sinner if anyone found out, but if I confessed it, I could be forgiven, and made perfect again.”

“Yet as you got older, you continued to let him do it, even pleaded with him to keep using you even after he’d grown tired of you.”

“I didn’t know better! I had no one else! Not until I found Charlie and realized he was like me! But he kept pushing me away! I couldn't be seen with him in public because then the world would know my shame, and I wouldn’t be perfect any more! It was Father Benedict’s fault! He made me what I am!”

“But you didn’t go there to kill Father Benedict that night, did you?”

“I went there to plead with him to take me back, I didn’t want to be alone anymore, and I couldn’t be with anyone else. But then Father Benedict caught that girl snooping around. She yelled at him, said he tried to drug her little brother. She called him a pervert, and demanded to know what he’d intended to do to her eight year old brother. Then Charlie came in, and I realized Father Benedict intended to replace me with Charlie’s little brother, even though it was his fault I lost Charlie in the first place!

“I thought Charlie had killed the bastard when he’d struck him with the statue, and after he and his sister left, I came out of the confessional. I was going to run, but I heard Father Benedict groan. He saw me and begged me to help him. I was so angry that he would ask me to help him when he wouldn’t help me. I stood over him and began strangling him with my bare hands. 

“I thought I had killed him, but I was still so furious at what he had done to me, I wanted to show the world what he was, so I used my pocket knife to cut off his clothes, and stuffed that fucking rosary he had given me in his ass. But the bastard still wasn’t dead! He started struggling, so I picked up the knife again, and because I really wanted him to hurt as much as I did, I cut off his filthy dick! He screamed so loud, I picked it up and shoved it down his throat, forcing him back onto the altar as I jammed my hand under his chin to keep him from spitting it out. I thought it ironic, considering how many times he’d shoved the damn thing down my throat.”

Nick sat there calmly listening, watching the boy sink deeper and deeper into the madness. “What did you do then?”

“I wanted to make sure the bastard really was dead this time. I picked up the knife and stabbed him again and again. I can’t describe how good it felt to plunge the knife into him over and over. I thought I might come, it was better than sex.” The boy’s face twisted into a smirk. “Then I decided to make my message perfectly clear, and branded his forehead so everyone would know exactly what the bastard was.”

Nick sat back in his seat a bit. “Do you know anything about the disappearance of Victor Rhodes?”

Ben scowled. “Only that Father Benedict arranged it. He bragged about it to me a couple years later, said if I continued to annoy him, he’d arrange for me to meet the same fate.”

Nick didn’t say anything else, merely stood up and walked out of the room. He stopped by where Sai and Captain Singh had been watching the entire interview through the mirrored glass.

“The press is going to have a field day with this. You know any good defense lawyer will get him off on an insanity plea.” Nick shook his head in disgust.

“It is what it is,” Captain Singh replied. “Our job is to solve the crime, we leave justice to the courts.”

“By the way,” Sai said, "Toxicology report came back on the substance in the tea. It’s a mixture of a narcotic poppy flower, a stimulant made from damiana and ginkgo biloba, which stimulates arousal, and a drug known to make people more susceptible to suggestion. They suggest the 1lfs and 2lfs might have been a dosage based on how much of the mixture was added to the tea, though he wasn’t exactly sure what kind of measurement it referred to.”

“What about the 1C in those cryptic messages?” Captain Singh asked. “And the CHRP?”

“I think the 1C was First Communion,” Nick suggested. “Each one correlated with the date of the photographs. And CHRP was for choir practice. It seems that before the cubs pack formed at the youth center, Father Benedict held his little tea parties regularly for the choir, but they were more private affairs, invitation only. He should have stuck to that policy, as he missed his next two intended targets.”

“And when he couldn’t find a toy of his own to play with here, he would take little trips outside the local area to play in someone else's toy box,” Sai said, reminding them of the list of payments the priest had made, most of them had been tracked down to known or suspected child prostitution rings.

“Any word yet on Victor Rhodes’ fate?” the captain asked.

“Not yet,” Nick replied grimly. “The ring he was sold to was busted just a few weeks later, but there was no one matching the boy’s description found. They think he was traded to another group just days before the raid. The truth is he may never be found, especially if he was moved out of the country.”

“Well, turn everything you’ve got over to the DA’s office and close the book on this one.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Nick said, glad to be done with this case at last. They headed back to the squad room, and Nick was surprised to see someone sitting in his chair.

“Charlie, what are you doing here?” he asked, fighting to keep the hungry look from his eyes as he looked the boy over.

“We came in to sign our statements. I finished with mine, but the lawyer had some questions about Tori’s so it’s taking a little longer. I thought I’d just wait here for her.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to know we arrested the real killer, and you won’t be facing charges. We have it all recorded on video.”

“So,” Charlie said. “The case is closed?”

“Yeah,” Nick said.

“Will I see you again?” The teen asked.

Nick glanced around, lowering his voice. “You know where I live,” he replied, giving Charlie a smirk. “I'll text you when I get off duty, and we can talk.”

Charlie smiled, as his sister called his name.