Page 31 of Dead O’Clock

Ronan’s eyes narrowed on Rhodes. He’d just admitted to killing two men and planning to kill a third. He wasn’t going to be set free ever again, unless… “Rhodes, wait!” Ronan shouted.

Rhodes pulled an auto-injector pen from his back pocket and held it mere inches from his neck.

“You don’t want to do this, Damien. Please don’t do this.” Ronan couldn’t allow this man to kill himself, no matter how reprehensible he was.

“I’ll be reunited with Josh. He was right. We can build a life together now.” Josh jabbed himself with the pen. He grinned at Ronan before sinking to the floor. The pen fell from his hand and rolled several inches away.

“No!” Ronan shouted. He ran for the door and yanked it open. “Send in the medics! He just dosed himself with something.”

Rhodes lay on the floor staring up at the ceiling. Ronan scrambled back to him and grabbed the pen. It was an auto-injector for insulin.

Hitting his knees, Ronan felt for a pulse. It was barely there. “Why, Damien? Why did you do this?”

Rhodes smiled. “Josh is here, Ronan. He’s here. He came for me. Let me go. Let me go to him. Don’t try to save me. I’m too far gone.”

Behind him, Ronan heard the pounding footsteps of the EMTs. “He injected himself with insulin.” Ronan held out the auto-injector.

“Jesus, Ronan,” Jude grabbed him and pulled him away from the EMTs who were desperately trying to save Damien Rhodes. “Are you okay?”

Ronan nodded. “He was in love with Josh. He did this so they could be together again. Rhodes could see Josh here in this room. He believed every lie Josh told him, that he had a new attorney who was filing a sure-fire appeal and he’d be out soon and they could start their lives together. He begged me to let him die.”

“Ronan!” Fitz shouted, running into the house. Cisco was right behind him.

“I’m fine,” Ronan said, as tears cascaded down his cheeks.

“Time of death, 10:42 P.M.,” one of the EMTs said.

Ronan watched dumbfounded as the medics gathered their things and left the house. “One more life lost to Josh Gatlin. Rhodes was free. He could have done anything, gone anywhere, but instead he decided to kill everyone who had hurt him. Why? Why did he sacrifice everything for Josh?”

“Wouldn’t you do the same for Ten?” Fitz asked. “It might sound crazy, knowing Josh the way you did, but people do strange things for love. Who are we to say Josh wasn’t in the room waiting to take Damien home?”

Ronan had no answer for Fitz’s supposition. Maybe Josh had come for Damien. Maybe theirs was true love. Ronan didn’t think Josh was capable of that kind of love, but like Fitz said, people do strange things for love.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Jude wrapped an arm around Ronan and led him out of the house.

He buried his face in Jude’s neck and cried his heart out. There wasn’t a mark on him. Rhodes hadn’t come within ten feet of Ronan. He was safe. Ten and the kids were safe. Why the hell was he crying like he’d lost his best friend? None of this made any sense.

Josh had nearly ruined Ronan’s life when he left. He’d spent years at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey trying to cope with what he’d thought he’d lost. Now here was Damien Rhodes, dead on the floor. Dead because he loved Josh. Dead because Josh lied.

If not for Tennyson, was this the path Ronan’s life would have taken? Would he have sacrificed everything for his ex the way Damien had? Ronan didn’t think so. He’d found Ten and Ten had saved him.

Tennyson and the kids were everything good life had to offer. The same was true with Jude and Fitz and their families. All Ronan wanted to do now was go home to the family he’d built. The family who loved him.

EPILOGUE

Tennyson

One week later…

Tennyson Grimm stood beside the empty grave as Ronan lowered Damien Rhodes’s remains into the same plot that held Josh’s cremation urn. He’d somehow gotten permission to inter Damien with Josh. Ten thought the mayor of Salem had stepped in to help.

Ronan agreed to pay for the cremation, the urn, and all the other incidentals. Ten knew it was something Ronan felt he had to do. This was his way of closing the Josh Gatlin chapter in their lives, once and for all.

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” the man from the funeral home recited when Ronan slid the top of the urn vault into place. “Go in peace.”

Everly grabbed Ronan’s hand when a man from the cemetery crew began to fill the hole with the turned earth that had been hidden under a piece of green astroturf. “Let’s go home, Daddy.”

Nodding, Ronan followed Everly past Jude and Fitz, then back to the car.