Cold Winters: Nick Fabian, #2

By Reis Asher

Nick Fabian has settled into life in the small Maine town of Point Clear with his boyfriend Roy Constas, but work in the P.I. business is slow. Struggling for money and a sense of purpose, he considers working at the local laundry with Emily, but the news that his old crush Lieutenant Scott Mordis has been murdered in Philadelphia ignites a deep yearning he'd been trying to snuff out.

 

With their last parting a bitter one, Nick is conflicted about returning to Philly, but is driven by the force of his emotions to obtain justice for Scott. Roy insists on tagging along for the ride, refusing to be left behind. He's jealous of Nick's affection for his former mentor and boss, and the two men face their first major hurdle as a couple.

 

Nick's journey will plunge him back into a cold case—that of Aiden Winters, the murder that drove a wedge between him and Scott in the first place—and he'll unearth connections between the two cases better left buried in the past…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reis Asher
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201455453

Book preview

Nick Fabian has settled into life in the small Maine town of Point Clear with his boyfriend Roy Constas, but work in the P.I. business is slow. Struggling for money and a sense of purpose, he considers working at the local laundry with Emily, but the news that his old crush Lieutenant Scott Mordis has been murdered in Philadelphia ignites a deep yearning he'd been trying to snuff out.

With their last parting a bitter one, Nick is conflicted about returning to Philly, but is driven by the force of his emotions to obtain justice for Scott. Roy insists on tagging along for the ride, refusing to be left behind. He's jealous of Nick's affection for his former mentor and boss, and the two men face their first major hurdle as a couple.

Nick's journey will plunge him back into a cold case—that of Aiden Winters, the murder that drove a wedge between him and Scott in the first place—and he'll unearth connections between the two cases better left buried in the past...

Chapter One

The cold wind tore into Nick as he gazed around an all-too-familiar scene. He didn't want to be at the Winters murder site again, but his subconscious couldn't seem to help but tug at this loose thread any chance it got. Blood-spattered walls. Spotlights casting a clinical white hue on everything. Red-and-blue flashing lights rolling like disco balls, signaling to the city that the party was over. He'd been to this scene a thousand times, and it only became more surreal with time, the facts becoming distorted as they merged with Nick's wishful thinking.

Hey, Nick. Scott's hand closed around his shoulder. Anyone else and Nick might have flinched, but not Scott. Scott was safe, friendly, and warm. I'm glad you're here tonight. The others—they don't get it. You understand.

That wasn't how it happened. Nick fought against the dream logic, but part of him wanted to go along with it, too, as if he might rewrite events in reality by distorting them in his dream world. Or perhaps he just wanted the comfort of imagining how it might have gone differently. Either way, he gave up his fight as Scott smoothed his hand down the outside of Nick's CSI jacket, stroking his arm.

I know you'll get to the bottom of this. You've got the drive, the passion to get what you want. I've never seen a young person so determined.

He hadn't said those words that night. He'd written them in a report, under different pronouns, when recommending Nick's promotion. Back in year one, when he was still a rookie—before Nick's transition.

Before things had changed.

When Nick looked down at the corpse, it wasn't the body of Aiden Winters that he saw, but Sabrina, her long, black curls laid over her face like a shroud. She was pregnant, her belly full and heavy. Impossible. Nick did battle with his dream logic, but it refused to release its hold on him, tethering him to the mirage like it owned his soul and could pluck the strings any way it wanted.

Lieutenant, you've got to come look at this! Nick yelled, but Scott didn't seem to hear him. Instead he smiled the way he always did, the smile that indicated a secret shared between the two of them. Nick had never seen him use it with anyone else. Even after transition, Scott never stopped using it. Flashing it every now and then before checking himself. Indicating that there was something only they knew, and it was something they held sacred to use against the world.

Nick looked back at Sabrina, but she was gone. Scott lay there instead. Nick rushed to his side, cradling him in his arms.

No, Nick whispered. He brushed back the curls tumbling onto Scott's forehead. He'd always wanted to touch them, and now was the first and final time.

You killed him. Sabrina stood in the alleyway now, holding the murder weapon—a knife soaked in the victim's blood. She dropped it, and it clattered against the concrete. The noise brought Nick's peers running with guns in hand. Frank Rogers, a bullish police Sergeant he'd never liked much, pointed his pistol at Nick and he knew Frank wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

Frank's bark reminded Nick of a dog. Put the body down and lay on the ground!

No, Nick replied.

This is your last warning! Veins stood out on Frank's weathered forehead, thick black eyebrows meeting in the middle of his forehead. Mean lips were pursed together. There wasn't an ounce of compassion in that man—never had been. He was the leader of the old boys' culture in the precinct, the same one that had frozen Nick out. He wasn't going to submit to him now.

Nick looked up at Frank, meeting his stone grey eyes with a look of defiance he hoped reflected the fire in his chest. I loved him. You don't understand. You could never understand.

Frank's face wrinkled in horror and disgust, his lip curling upwards in a sneer. Nick didn't break eye contact as Frank pulled the trigger. If he was going to die, it was with his eyes wide open.

NICK AWOKE TO THE SOUND of his alarm in place of the gunshot. Roy lay beside him in bed, but he didn't stir. Last night's lovemaking must have tired him out. The older man was dead to the world, a steady snore coinciding with the rise and fall of his chest. The sheets were thrown halfway off the bed, a testament to the malfunctioning heater which made Nick's trailer too warm. If he complained, the landlord might turn his heat off altogether. He was late on rent, after all.

Ten a.m. and it was still dark. Nick slipped out of bed, padding across the trailer to the window. He drew the curtain across slightly, all too aware he was naked and shouldn't be seen above the waist. One of these days he'd afford top surgery, but that was no small feat for a freelancer with no health insurance. Even giving up his expensive apartment had done little to stem the flow of money out of his bank account. He'd even resorted to finding lost pets to pay the bills. The local laundry Emily and Sabrina worked at was looking like a more attractive proposition, but the Criminal Justice diploma hanging on Nick's wall while most of his possessions still remained in boxes was evidence that he still had too much pride to submit to shift work.

The trailer lot was blanketed in snow, easily six inches deep, and thick flakes fell from dark, heavy clouds. Nick was surprised by it. Mid-November seemed too early for so much snow, but the seasons here in Maine were a little different to what he was used to in Pennsylvania. The weather was pretty, for a man who had nowhere to go on this particular day, but it reminded him of his dream, as well. Aiden Winters had died on a cold November day, albeit one without so much snow. A trans man who'd been brutally slaughtered, his killer never found. The final case Nick had ever worked as a CSI for the Philadelphia Police Department before walking out on the job.

That scene was the last time he'd ever seen Lieutenant Scott Mordis, and it had played out nothing like in the dream. Scott had declared the murder of Aiden Winters, a transmasculine sex worker, as an issue of low priority to the department. Nick had called him out, stung to hear such words coming from a man he idealized. His heart had broken into a million pieces as Scott declared his life to be of equally low importance.

He'd walked away and never looked back, building his own private detective business from scratch. He'd been failing, until Emily Bright of Point Clear, Maine, had hired him to investigate the murder of her friend, fellow trans woman Sabrina Tobias. Nick had solved the case by discovering that it was Sabrina's sister who had been murdered by a cheap hitman named Vladimir Petrovsky, in a case of mistaken identity. The killer had been sent by their father to erase the embarrassment of their trans daughter before she made a public appearance at her sister's wedding.

The FBI were still processing the case, but the last time he'd heard about it, they were ready to go to trial. Nick didn't expect George Tobias to get away with it. There was too much evidence piled against him. Solving the case was the one crowning jewel in Nick's hat. He was starting to realize there might never be another.

Nick had never left Point Clear, returning to Philly only to gather his belongings and vacate his apartment. He couldn't afford it, anyway. This trailer in rural Point Clear was a fraction of the cost. He might even be able to buy it, someday, if things got serious between him and Roy. Or maybe if they didn't. He wasn't making any long-term plans one-and-a-half months into their relationship.

The snow was nice, though. Like a blanket of quiet over the world. It was a far cry from Philadelphia nights, sirens wailing through city streets in the early hours of the morning. Philly was a hard place for hard people. Point Clear was a small, rural town where everybody knew each others' names.

He glanced back at Roy, who was still blissfully unaware that Nick was awake. Guilt surged in Nick's gut as he realized he'd rather leave him that way, at least for now. Seeing Scott in a dream had unsettled him. He'd had a crush on the guy, and he wished it would have faded with time. A new relationship should have broken the bonds that shackled him to a man who hated him, but he found the cord of feeling thrummed just as strong despite distance, time, and hurt. How long would it keep Nick leashed, unable to move on with his life? He wished he could forget Scott, erase all memory of him and the wound he'd created that never seemed to heal right. Like an old gunshot wound, it had torn through him, leaving a scar to mark his skin for life.

He grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV. He turned the sound all the way down and switched on the closed captions. The newscaster was reading off world events. There was always a new disaster somewhere, but current events felt so distant in this rural corner of the United States.

Nick brewed a pot of coffee and sat down on the ratty couch underneath a blanket, enjoying the smell as it dripped down into the carafe. He still felt like he was on vacation, stealing these quiet moments from a hectic life. The truth was he didn't have any work this week, and likely wouldn't for as long as the bad weather lasted. People didn't need him to investigate ex-partners and spy on their adult children while there was six inches of snow on the ground. The world was on pause, and somehow he had to scrounge together the cash to make rent anyway.

It grated on him that he'd cashed Emily's check for the last job. He'd wanted to rip it up, but ethics and principles didn't put food on the table. It had been a security deposit and first month's rent on the trailer he'd badly needed when it became apparent his last landlord had no intentions of coughing up his deposit from the old place. He could have fought for it, but he wouldn't win. One picture of the hole he'd punched in the wall when he'd left the police department would prove that he'd been a neglectful tenant.

Nick poured himself a cup of coffee. He was still naked, but the thermostat was reading seventy. Getting dressed would mean taking a shower, which would inevitably wake Roy. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with Roy, but this silent morning was a blessing, especially after the dream he'd had. He needed a