Cool metal handle beneath his fingers.

The weight of heavy steel pulling against his shoulder.

Sounds of pulleys grinding against thick wire cables.

 The distinctive clang of the stop.

Just opening the loft door flooded Justin's senses. At once so intimately familiar and so painfully foreign. He had gone through this same process a thousand times, sometimes afraid of what he might find on the other side. But, never had he felt the aching emptiness he felt at this very moment. This void. This absence of Brian.

As he entered the loft it just all seemed so very wrong.  Musty. Dark. Dank. Just... wrong.

This is a really nice place.  

But it wasn't now. There was no impressive feeling of an elegant minimalism today, merely starkness. The high ceilings held only ghosts rather than sensual shadow.

I like your kitchen.

But he didn't now. There was no shine or gleam on the stainless steel appliances. There was only a thickening layer of dust. The ever present Granny Smith's now wrinkled and drying in the bowl.

Justin continued to walk through the place that had been more his home than any other place had ever been. A place that had meant safety to him, even when his hold on that safety seemed tenuous. Now it felt so...desolate.  

It just wasn't home right now. Dropping his battered duffle on the floor next to the sofa, Justin turned and walked out of the loft and, once again, closed the metal door.

*******

Waiting in the lobby of Kinnetic, Carl Horvath again looked over the few notes he had made of his conversation with the investigator this morning. Much as he hated to even think it, this wasn't looking good. At all. The fact that Kinney had been missing  for some time, his car abandoned near the river with the keys still inside? No, definitely not a positive sign.  

"Carl?"

Looking up, the detective met the painful gaze of Justin Taylor.

"Justin. I'm glad you're here. I'm getting ready to meet Ms. Moore, but it's probably good that you be in on this, too."

Justin sat on a small settee across from the detective, and absently ran his hand across one of the soft leather arms. Absolutely nothing in his life had prepared him for the kind of confusion, fear and pain that had consumed him since that phone call yesterday. Had it only been one fucking day?

"God this is such shit!"

"I have to agree with you on that, son. But as I promised Ms. Moore yesterday, I've contacted an investigator - man by the name of Krawczynski - rather than turn this over as a police matter at this time."

Justin bit his lip and nodded slightly. "We have to find him, Carl. I can't..."   

"Detective? Ms. Moore will see you now," the young receptionist stated and escorted the men to Brian's office.

As soon as she noticed Justin, Cynthia wondered if meeting in Brian's office was for the best. She couldn't help but see the young man's eyes immediately drawn to the photographs sitting on Brian's desk - one of Brian and his son, another of Brian with his arms playfully around Justin.

"Justin. Will you be okay in here? We can move to my office if it would be more comfortable."

"Cynthia, no. This... this is fine. I'm fine. It's just...difficult, you know?"

"Yeah. I know." Cynthia was finding it increasingly difficult, as well.

"Well," the detective began as he sat facing Cynthia across Brian's desk. "I assume you filled Justin in on our discussion yesterday?"

Cynthia sat forward, her forearms resting on the cool glass of Brian's desk, looking down at her clasped fingers and nodded her response. Justin shifted uncomfortably in his seat beside Carl, torn between facing the reality in the room or continuing to stare at the photo of Brian and him - trying to will himself into that moment, that reality. A reality that wasn't broken and twisted into some kind of mockery. He hadn't seen or touched or fucked or even talked to him in over three weeks! Three weeks and a plane ride into some alternate goddamned reality.

"Justin?... Justin?" Cynthia's voice called Justin back.

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm okay." He wiped his eyes and reached over to place his hand lightly on the detective's arm. "What do you have, Carl?"

"I was saying that I contacted my investigator last night. Gave him as much information as I had. He's good. Real good.  He contacted me earlier today, and he had run the note through his programs. Seems it's Irish but the message itself is a bit cryptic." Carl opened the small notebook he held in his hand and read, "‘May there be peace with you, brother. You protected. We will protect.' Do either of you have any idea what this might mean?"

"I have no idea, Detective. Are you sure it's related to Brian's disappearance?"

"Ms. Moore, I'm not sure of anything right now. I'm trying to find that out. But we do know the note wasn't written by Brian."

"It wouldn't be unusual for Brian to have odd quotes or phrases around. He's an ad man, always working on some campaign from home. Words and phrases are his life's work." Justin looked toward Cynthia, eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

"I don't know of any active campaign we have that would address those words, Justin."

Carl cleared his throat. "There's more. Kaz was able to locate Kinney's car."

"Shit! Carl! That's good, right? Did he find Bri?" Justin jerked forward in his seat and for half a moment he felt warm again. But in the next half of that same moment he felt the warmth seep away again.

"Justin...the car is in impound. Officers found it abandoned almost a week ago and had it towed."

He could feel dread squeezing his throat, suffocating him and he didn't want to hear any more. Couldn't hear it...

"They found it outside the tunnels next to Liberty Bridge. Next to the Monogahela." Carl fought back his own bit of pain, knowing the implications of what he was saying. And he knew the next part would only make the implication stronger.

"The keys were still in the ignition."

Not even the whisper of a breath could be heard in the room as Cynthia and Justin both sat stunned.  But it was only a moment. Cynthia's quiet sob broke through the thickness of the silence that had settled around them. "Oh my god..." Justin's body stiffened and he raised his head, an odd little smile playing at the corners of his lips. He looked into Carl's eyes and huffed out a small, gentle laugh.

"You think...you think he..." Justin laughed full-on and shook his head. He stood up, walked to the corner of Brian's desk and picked up the photograph of him in Brian's arms. His fingers traced the face of the beautiful, complicated man.

"No. Fucking. Way."

"Justin, we don't know anything," Carl tried to sound reasonable.

"You're right, Carl. You don't know anything. But I do. I DO!" Justin's nervous humor had changed rapidly into rage, his body vibrating with it.

"THIS!" He held the photograph out toward Carl and Cynthia. "This man is not dead! I would know! I would feel it! I would...I..."His words trailing off, every remaining ounce of the young man's resolve crumbled. His body wracked by quiet sobs, he clutched the photograph to his chest, and with a soft keening moan, he sank to his knees.

*******

He recited the passage again. One more time. Protect you from the evil one.* ‘Lord,' he prayed again silently, ‘help me.' Pressing his hands against the worn and faded pages of the book lying before him on the small table, he felt the fear - his oldest friend - once more settle down inside him. A small broken laugh rose from his throat. His oldest friend. His only friend. His frenemy.

He couldn't remember. The nights, the days. They all blurred together and teased him with something...hinted at something. But he could never remember. From one moment to the next it seemed he was always becoming again, as if he was and wasn't at the same time. The Father had told him... Was it The Father? The Father had told him something important, something important about a first time. But he couldn't remember anymore. Fuck!

Rising from the table and placing the worn book back into the drawer, Mac turned to the window. He re-lit the half smoked cigarette that lay in the ashtray and sucked the poison deep into his lungs. It helped. The smoke. It's all smoke. And mirrors. Smoke and mirrors, he thought. A fantasy. A pretending. A fakery.

A protection.

As he stood inhaling and staring out at the darkening streets, he pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering about the alien familiarity of the gesture. He knew he couldn't remember much anymore. Had he ever? Last week? Was there a before last week? Christ's name! He hated this fear. There was just so fuckin' much of it!

With a single tear marking his cheek, Mac gave his shoulders the slightest shrug and fell again into the black.

The man stubbed out the burnt cigarette, closed his eyes and leaned his wet cheek against the glass of the small window for a moment, gathering the coolness into his skin. Squaring his shoulders, he pulled back and made his way to the small bedside table, pulling out the well used Bible. He removed a small photograph hiding itself in the back flap, tossed the book aside and returned to the window. Picking up the small silver lighter, he read the familiar inscription with a sharp glint in his hazel eyes.Ignite your Rage...indeed. The photograph - a rumpled man holding a small boy - slowly turned to ash with the flick of the man's thumb. As he placed the burned reminder in the ashtray, he grimly whispered, "Sonny Boy says burn in hell, Jack. It's where the evil one belongs."

Sonny Boy replaced the lighter on the window sill, grabbed a worn jacket from the back of the sofa and walked away from his deed. He needed a drink. Or three.

*(2 Thess 3:3)