Kaz rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and leaned back, exasperated, into the mesh of the only expensive piece of office furniture he owned. Sitting for any length of time always gave him a migraine, and with the paperwork involved in his business he might as well have been a frigging school teacher. So he splurged. On a fuck-ugly, shamefully expensive ergo chair. And he loved the goddamned thing.

Right now, he was more than thankful for the purchase. Resting back on the head bar, he tried to focus on this latest case. He was familiar with Brian Kinney. If you were a gay man in Pittsburgh, you at least knew the name, and you probably knew a hell of a lot more than that. He lived out and proud and never made apologies for who he was or what he did. People envied him his success and his lifestyle. Hell, Kaz himself had been known to envy the man. He was an open book and led a charmed life.

Except that he wasn't and he didn't.   

Only one day of intensive research had turned up so many anomalies in Kinney's life, and holes in his public persona, that the investigation was beginning to look like an archeological dig. The information Kaz had given to Horvath this morning was not even the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Kinney had a number of arrests to his credit, a childhood medical history that read like War and Peace, and an apparent penchant for maintaining bank accounts and sub-par rentals all over the county under various names. How could someone this public fly this far under the radar?

For an out and proud gay man, Kinney had a fuckload of secrets.

*******

As Justin turned on the lights and walked into the open space of the loft he just felt empty. An empty that reached so far down he didn't think there could be an end to it. How could one's life become so desolate, so completely unrecognizable in just a little over twenty-four hours? But it really hadn't been only that long. The desolation had started when he left for New York. He just hadn't been aware of it at the time.

He walked over and picked up the duffle he had abandoned that morning and walked to the bedroom, tossing the bag on the floor and his body on the bed. Justin simply had no energy to do this right now and didn't know if he could find the reserves upon which to draw. He was just fucking raw. And he didn't want to cry - again. He was Brian Kinney's partner... boyfriend...whateverthefuckhewas... Shit!!  But the tears did come and Justin allowed himself to feel the pain. For Brian. For himself. And for the fools they had both been.

As Justin wiped his eyes, he forced his exhausted body from the bed and began the job of putting Brian's loft back into order. There was no way Brian could come back to find his home in this condition. And he would come back. Soon. Making a mental note to make sure the cleaning service came tomorrow Justin still felt he had to do something now. He walked down the steps into the open room of the loft, his eyes scanning, noting the confusion of papers on Brian's desk and the haphazard pile of books and DVDs lying on the floor in front of their shelving. Brian had always been meticulous about keeping his things in order. He would start there. A tangible beginning to an unknown ending.

*******

The calls had been made first thing in the next morning. Since Carl had made the requests, rather than Debbie, each family member saw it as much more a demand than a request. Yes, they all agreed, they would be there. By nine a.m., everyone was present, indulging in coffee and breakfast at the Novotny table. A few - Justin, Cynthia, Michael, Ben - knew the import of this meeting. The rest of them could sense it. Some sensed it in the tension drawn across Carl's face, some in the way that Debbie reigned in her normally effusive behavior, and some in the way Justin actually looked older than his years. The one clue that allof them picked up on was the presence of Justin and the absence of Brian.

Emmett was the first to break the silence.

"Debbie, sweetie, what's going on? And...where's our Mr. Kinney this morning?"

Debbie took one deep breath and tried to square her shoulders. Justin moved closer, gripping tightly to her hand. "Carl...I..."

"It's okay, honey. I'll talk," Carl reassured her. And he did. As Justin paled and closed his eyes. As tears ran down the faces of Cynthia and Debbie. As Ben cradled Michael, his husband's shoulders slightly shaking with quiet sobs.

By the time Carl had finished relating how Brian's car had been found, the murmurs and cries of disbelief had stopped and a shocked silence had fallen upon the group. Jennifer caught her son's eyes and was immediately crushed by the weight of pain she found in them. As she rose and hugged her son, hot tears flowing between them, the rest of the group began to breathe again, painfully.

Emmett again found his voice first. "Has anyone called Lindsey?" he asked quietly.

Justin responded, carefully, "We haven't told them what's going on, but we did find out that Brian hasn't been there. Until we know more..."His words trailed off as Carl spoke again.

"Actually, Justin, I would like to speak with you privately for a moment if I could."

Justin squeezed his mother's hand and nodded slightly toward the back door. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply as they stepped outside. "You have more, Carl." There was no question in his words, only a uneasy certainty.

"Yes, well... I do have a bit more information." As he held out a fax sheet he continued, "I received this from the investigator early this morning at the station. Please, read the whole thing first. Then we'll talk."

The young man took the single sheet, his hands shaking visibly, and read silently.

Re: Preliminary investigation into the missing person, Brian A. Kinney...

The trembling in his hands increasing with each written line of the report, Justin vainly tried to reconcile the man he had loved for over five years with the man reflected in the words he was reading:

Six arrests... four juvenile... sealed by the court... six month detention... Shuman Juvenile Detention Center... adult arrest... vagrancy and panhandling... fifteen ER visits prior to age 18... four known residences... seven bank accounts located...

Shit.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

"Fuck... There have to be some serious... mistakes... here, Carl. Arrested six times? Six months in juvie? All these residences and bank accounts? Fifteen fucking hospital visits in eighteen years!?" He walked over to the fence and leaned his head against it, his body sagging.

"Kaz is going to check into this further, son," Carl offered, his hand on Justin's shoulder. "I don't know what to say at this point. I take it you didn't know all of this?"

"I didn't know most of this, Carl! This...this just can't be..." He stubbed out the cigarette, turned around and looked at his friend. In a broken voice he whispered, "Carl, I don't think I even knew this man."

"I don't think any of us knew him, son. I'm fairly sure that if Michael or Deb were aware of any of this before, they wouldn't have been able to keep it quiet."

"Carl, Brian wouldn't want..."

"None of this goes any further than us right now. Like I said, Kaz is looking into it. But... you're his partner, Justin. You deserved to know."

The young man gave an almost imperceptible nod of thanks toward the detective as he wondered just when the hell their lives had entered the Twilight Zone.

Debbie and Jennifer were robotically clearing away the evidence of the mostly uneaten breakfast when the two men re-entered the kitchen. Carl walked over and wrapped his arms tightly around the normally irrepressible red-head. He knew she was hurting. He knew she felt deeply for all her lost boys - Brian in particular. But he wasn't quite sure how to deal with the quiet, controlled woman she had become as she realized the extent of the situation they were facing. How did he deal with someone who almost seemed to be in mourning?

"We'll find him, honey," he finally said, and Debbie clutched him even more tightly. "We'll find him."

What Carl couldn't see - what none of them could see - was the weight of guilt that was bearing down on Debbie Novotny's soul. Guilt for letting one of her boys slip away. Guilt for every ‘asshole' she could remember having tossed out at Brian. Guilt for the anger she was now feeling toward him for pulling yet another asshole stunt, even as she also knew he could be suffering. The twisted push-pull of blaming Brian for every wrong she could and loving him, as well.

They all had their guilt, their Brian-demons to battle. And as Carl Horvath answered his cell phone, they remained blissfully unaware that very soon they would be thrown into the middle of Brian's own personal war - and none of them would remain unscathed.

*******

Kaz sat in the booth waiting for the other two men to arrive, staring at the subject of his current investigation and thinking how very much more fucked up things were about to get. He didn't think he'd ever been more thankful for the crap lighting that seemed obligatory in these small bars. Kinney wouldn't recognize him, he was sure of that. He'd never tricked with him, never done business with him. The clubs hadn't been his scene while he was on the force - for obvious reasons - and he had never gotten into them when he went private. Sure, he'd visited a couple of the clubs a time or two, but he was very discrete. No, there was no reason for Kinney to recognize him. But he would recognize his companions when they arrived. Yeah, he was really thankful for really bad bar lighting.

It had been almost too easy. It hadn't taken him long to turn up a shitload of unexpected information on Kinney when he started investigating. And that info had brought him right to Kinney in record time. But as surprising as some of the information he found had been, what he was watching right now was a hell of a lot more surprising.

He turned when he saw the door open out of the corner of his eye, and discretely signaled to the two men entering.

"Carl. Glad you could make it so fast."

"Kaz, thanks for calling. This is Justin Taylor, Brian Kinney's partner. Justin, this is Kaz Krawczynski, the investigator I contacted." As Carl Horvath motioned to Justin, the investigator nodded in acknowledgment at the young man and moved over a bit on the round booth seat.

"You said there was something we needed to see? You found Kinney?" Carl questioned.

The investigator nodded, his face twisted in a bewildered frown. "Yeah. But I have to warn you. This is not the Brian Kinney you may think you know."

"Mr. Krawczynski, I appreciate what you have done. Are doing." Justin stared at the man beside Carl and, with as much strength as his exhausted state would afford him, stated, "But just tell us where Brian is."

Kaz looked over the young man. He had learned to read people well while he was on the force. One of those necessary by-products of being a cop. The body language he was seeing told him that this Justin Taylor was scared shitless but meant business. The determined look in his eyes also told him that he was a strong little fuck. Okay...

The investigator slowly brought his beer to his lips and took a long drink before pointing the bottle toward the other side of the room, to a table near an old fashioned jukebox.

"There," he stated simply. "Kinney."

Justin and Carl both looked in the direction pointed out by their companion. Both men stared for a long moment, somewhat stunned by what they saw. Carl was the first to speak.

"Holy shit."