The roadcut, p.1
The Roadcut, page 1
Also by Parker Avrile
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The Roadcut
Assured Elites
A Fiercer Heat
A Higher Flame
A Hotter Fire
Flaming: An Assured Elites Romance
Blazing: An Assured Elites Romance
Darke and Flare
Darke Accused
The Double: A Darke and Flare Mystery
The Double
Where Missing Boys Go: A Darke and Flare Mystery
Where Missing Boys Go
Last Chances Academy
Hot Roommate Blues: A Gay Bully Academy Romance
Hot Roommate Blues
Hot Mafia Blues: A Gay Mafia New Adult Romance
Hot Mafia Blues
Storm Sky Blues
Storm Sky Blues: A Last Chances Academy Coming-of-Age Novel
Kickoff Blues: A Gay Sports Romance
Kickoff Blues
The Great Escape Blues: A Last Chances Academy Short Story
Freshman Blues: A Gay New Adult College Romance
Freshman Blues
The Great Escape Blues
Married for the Millions
A Model Hookup
Married for the Millions
Doctor Carston's Honeymoon
The Dreamboat Experience
The Loveboat Experience
The Dreamboat Experience
The Island Experience
The Runaway Model
The Runaway Model
The Runaway Millions
Blackmail Boy
The Runaway Father
Infinity in Blue
Tonight's Encore
The First Dance: A Gay First Time Romance
Tonight's Encore: A Second Chance Gay Romance
Standalone
Vegas Friend
Reaction Shot: A BDSM Thriller
Unfreezing
All Mine: A Second Chance Gay Romance
Scripted: A Gay Marriage of Convenience Romance
Club
Choice of Cages
Star Turn
Next Time
For the Love of Pup: Four Gay Romance Novels Featuring Four Canine Cupids
Castle No Exit: A Gay BDSM Romance
Portrait of a Ghost: An Eerie Gay Romance
Chains: A Four-Novel BDSM MM Romance Box Set
Love in Flames: The Complete Assured Elites Trilogy
Hearing You: A Gay Motorcycle Club Romance
Destination Dungeon: A Gay Valentine Short Story
Bully Crush Blues
The Dreamboat Experience Trilogy
Watch for more at Parker Avrile’s site.
Table of Contents
Also By Parker Avrile
The Roadcut: A Darke and Flare Mystery Story
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Extended Copyright & Credits
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Further Reading: Darke Accused
Also By Parker Avrile
The Roadcut
A Darke and Flare Mystery Story
by
Parker Avrile
©2020 by Parker Avrile & Paris April Press
All rights reserved
A MAN FLEES THE SCENE of a crime in a stolen vehicle. Half an hour later, his burning car is discovered at the foot of a ravine. If it was an accident, where's the body?
For that matter, if it was murder, where's the body?
Darke and Flare were looking forward to a getting-to-know-you romantic getaway without people shooting at them or putting them in cuffs. They've gotten away to the wrong mountain.
This 15,000-word novella is a complete road trip mystery set in the world of the Darke and Flare gay romantic suspense series. The action takes place after the events of, “The Double,” but before the events of, “Where Missing Boys Go.” However, the story is designed so that it can be read at any time without spoiling any of the novels.
Please do not upload my story to free, sharing, or pirate sites, and do not sell or give it away as your own work. This work is fiction, and no real persons or events are described therein.
Chapter One
The maroon BMW 330i undoubtedly knew where we were, but I didn't. Hours before, Darke turned off the elegant voice that kept telling him he'd missed his turn. Truth is, he hadn't missed many turns, and every one of them put us on a smaller road.
“Let's get lost,” he said. “It'll be fun.”
Don't know about fun but it was easier than you'd think. The day before, we abandoned the interstate for state highway. From there, we drifted more or less at random down rural county roads and winding country lanes. Once we found ourselves on an unpaved forestry road that was more puddle and pothole than path. Twice, we got stuck behind tractors, lights flashing importantly to tell us they couldn't be expected to break their regal fifteen miles an hour.
Darke's wide shoulders were relaxed, and his capable hands were easy on the wheel. He had a contagious gift for being happy in the moment, and this moment was a blue afternoon in October 2019. Taking turns in the driver's seat, we'd gone a long way past stubbled fields marked here and there by cairns of orange pumpkins.
Now the fields were gone, and we were deep into forest. Tall skinny trees blazed yellow and pinky-red on either side of us. Darke slowed when he spotted a final cairn. Ghost pumpkins the white of night moths sat piled to mark a right turn onto a dirt road.
I shivered. Ghosts, a fun idea in the city, seemed sinister out in the boonies.
Darke's sunglasses hid his remarkable eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched up. Although there was no one behind us to see the signal, he hit his blinker.
“If someone comes from the other direction, who backs up?” I asked.
Laughing, he slotted the Beamer into the narrowest lane yet. The skinny trees on either side weren't quite tall enough to touch in the middle, but you still had the impression you'd entered a living tunnel.
The lane wasn't bad as dirt roads go. Somebody kept the potholes filled, and yesterday's rain dampened down the dust. The lack of traffic and Darke's deft driving relaxed me. My eyes felt heavy, so I let them close.
At some point, I jolted awake to the swoony feel of the car ascending a mountain made of hairpin turns. Outside my window, green vines twined around yellow trees to reach the sunlight raining into the cut made for the road. Not so much sunlight now. The shadows were longer, deeper. Darke had taken off the sunglasses.
How long had I slept? Half an hour? An hour? I would've expected the dirt road to peter out long before.
He flicked sapphire side-eye in my direction. “We are now well and truly lost. It's official.”
“That isn't how any of this works,” I said. “The car can tell us...”
His left hand squeezed my right thigh. “Ah, Flare, you know that's cheating. Anyway...” He didn't finish a sentence he'd already finished too many times before.
It's good to be lost. Good to take time to figure out what comes next.
Well.
What came next was me and Darke. What came next was getting to know each other when people weren't shooting at us or putting us in handcuffs.
There were other things to think about too. Our future. We'd run out of money sometime. We'd need work. My father's law firm was always waiting to gobble up his only son.
“Stop thinking so loud.” Darke squeezed my thigh harder, a sexy promise for the night ahead. “Let the day happen.” His hand slid up to find my bulge. The Beamer slowed to ten miles an hour.
“You're creating a traffic hazard.”
“What traffic?” But he put his hand back on the wheel at two o'clock.
Not long after that, we found ourselves on a saddle between mountains. Another turn Darke couldn't resist taking.
“Shall we?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Soon, we were ascending a second, steeper mountain. The road was better here—neatly paved if patchy with freshly repaired potholes.
Still no traffic. On my side of the road, a hawk sat hunched on a limb at eye-level to watch for the little creatures that come out to play when the people are away.
I thought of the ghost pumpkins again. Where did the pumpkins grow when all we'd seen was forest?
Darke hummed a few lines of The Twilight Zone theme song.
“I know,” I said. “This is a county road, and it's maintained. All I can figure is it's blocked off somewhere at the bottom.”
“We slipped in the back way. A forgotten way almost no one remembers.”
“Which probably means we shouldn't be here.” But I was curious too. What's a road trip for if not to indulge your curiosity?
As we climbed higher, the trees on my side were replaced by the granite walls of the roadcut. The graffiti was uninspired by Miami standards. Laura ♥ Jordan. Warriors Class of ’22. A crudely drawn dick showed ghostlike where somebody had made a token effort to scrub it out of the stone. The pores in the gray rock wouldn't quite let it go.
On his side, the driver's side, w e had the drop-off. A wide view of the surrounding area opened to us. Mountains and valleys. Green and gold and peachy red. A few sad brown spots that meant bark beetle or fire.
A low metal railing ran along the nearly non-existent shoulder. At night, its reflectors would flash your own headlights back to keep you from driving off the cliff. By day, it served no purpose. It couldn't stop a vehicle from crashing through. It couldn't even stop a hiker from stepping up and over.
Yellow signs held numerals that dropped the speed limit to twenty-five, twenty, sometimes as low as fifteen miles an hour. Driving that slow made me twitchy, but Darke was patient. Even happy.
“You forget about mountains in New Orleans,” he said. “Just plain forget about ’em until you see them again.”
Around a curve, and another curve. Suddenly, there were three parked vehicles—two tractors and a heavy-duty pickup truck—pulled over on the passenger's side as close as they could get to the granite wall. On the cliff side, a gap in the metal railing had been replaced by a rope of orange flags.
An accident. And the vehicles of the people employed to clean up after the accident.
Only...
Where were they?
“A little late for lunch,” I said.
Darke stopped to consider. It would be a tight squeeze. “You want to drive?”
“You can always turn around if you think you can't make it.”
“Long way to back up.”
“I won't yell if you ding the paint job.” I smiled. “If that's what you're asking.”
He smiled too. “I guess maybe it was. Sure, babe. I trust you not to yell.” In the event, he scooted around the vehicles with inches to spare. Then he pulled over to the granite wall himself.
“It's OK,” I said. “You're clear. Not a scratch on her.”
“That isn't why.” He shrugged out of his seat harness and out of the car. The wall stopped me from opening the passenger door, so I scooted over to follow him out the driver's side. By the time I was untangled from the Beamer, he'd walked around to inspect a section of roadcut a little in front of where he'd parked.
Baffled, I looked where he looked— a stained track on the granite wall. It was a place where water flowed during snowmelt season. When it ran, the seasonal stream brought down round, smooth pebbles from somewhere high above. They might be sparkly with mica and pyrite when wet, but they were dull and gray today, when there were only a few streaky damp spots left from yesterday's showers.
“Thought so.” Darke took my hand, put it on a stone. “Chert.”
I felt ridges that must have once been sharp, although their tumble through the ages and down a mountain had softened them. “An old arrowhead.” Holding it up, I turned it in what remained of the afternoon light. The color was dull green splashed with pinkish spots. “Are we allowed to keep it?”
“It's a public road. Collecting from public roadcuts is a time-honored form of rockhounding.”
“Well.” I closed my fist around my prize. “Good spotting from the car.”
“I wasn't sure anything would be there. I only hoped.”
“Still good spotting.”
Neither of us had said a word about the orange flags. We weren't law enforcement now. It wasn't our job to investigate an accident somebody official was already working.
Still, you wondered. As we walked back to the car, he glanced down and then I glanced down too.
A bad one. This mountain had a new black scar in the green and gold. The damage track was at least a hundred yards long and perhaps thirty yards wide. In movies, vehicles went off the side of a mountain and then exploded. Here, it was the other way around. A vehicle exploded, then burned through the landscape all the way down.
What kind of vehicle? The twisted tangle of fire-blasted black metal far below didn't tell me.
“Arson,” I said. “A professional job.”
He nodded. “Recent.”
“Yesterday, probably. They sent it off the road in the rain. It could've started a real forest fire if it wasn't so wet.”
He nodded again. We were both thinking the same thing. It was arson, nobody had been in that car, but if they had been...
Nobody's walking away from that.
“I can drive for a while,” I said after a minute. His parents and sister had died in an auto accident. Years ago and far away, but...
“It's all right.” He slid behind the wheel, and we kept going.
Chapter Two
Near the peak was a micro-resort. A diner, a gas station, picnic tables. A few boxy cabins with fine views. One of the cabins sported a small sign that said, Office, above a larger sign that said, Rock Shop and Country Crafts.
Darke pulled over. We walked out onto an overlook complete with a heavy metal telescope on a post—the kind that took quarters for a ten-minute peek. The place that ate your quarters had rusted shut a long time ago. Well, we didn't need its help to see the view. Yesterday's rain had cleaned the sky, and we could see for a hundred miles.
There were other vehicles parked up close to the diner. Several pick-ups, a cement mixer, a brown Crown Vic that I would have made as an unmarked car if we were in a city. Even with the splashes of puddle mud picked up along the way, the BMW looked out of place. Strange. You'd think a pretty afternoon like this would invite more daytrippers.
Well. Being alone with a view wasn't a bad place to be. Smiling, I slipped an arm around Darke's waist, and he slipped an arm around mine, and we dared a quick selfie in front of the endless mountains.
“Love you,” he breathed into my ear.
“Love you back.”
After a while, we drifted into the rock shop. An old boy in a cowboy hat and a bolo tie snoozed behind the counter. The get-up suggested he was a displaced person from out West or maybe Texas, but he could just as easily be a local who watched too many Westerns in his long-vanished youth.
“Show him what we found,” Darke said.
I put the arrowhead on the counter.
The old boy jerked awake under his hat. Squinted a moment. “Chert.”
“I know what it is,” Darke said. “What I was wondering was if you had a way to set it in a pendant. You know, to make a souvenir.”
A dark-spotted hand picked up the pink-spotted stone. “Could wire-wrap it.” He dipped his chin at a display of arrowheads already caged in silver wire. “I did all them.”
“That'll work,” Darke said. “How long?”
“About an hour.” The old man hesitated. “That's sterling silver wire. Not cheap. Cost you twenty bucks.”
“I imagine we can dig that deep.”
Darke and I headed over to the diner. Looked like your typical tourist trap. Silly to feel as if all eyes turned to stare when we walked in.
We sat at the counter. A girl with her hair twisted up in little blonde and pink braids hurried over. “Menu's on the whiteboard.” She gestured. It was dim inside but not so dim you couldn't read the red scrawl on the gleaming white surface.
“Coffee,” I said. “Two coffees.”
“And two slices of apple pie,” Darke said.
“Scoop of vanilla ice cream?” she asked. “It's French vanilla.”
“Hell, yeah.” Darke was a bad influence.
She went away, came back. “So I guess the road's open now.”
I saw no need to comment, and neither did Darke.
We'd almost finished the pie when the door pushed open behind us. Three uniformed officers tramped in. Darke stayed quiet, and so did I.
They talked louder than they realized. Something about a missing body. Something about canine officers.
Dogs.
“Let's get out of here.” Darke dropped a twenty on the counter. Got up. I dropped my fork and got up too.
We almost made it.
“Hey, hey.” The oldest of the three men—a big man with an old-fashioned star on his shirt—blocked the door. The old boy in the rock shop wasn't the only one in costume. His large hand went up palm-out to make a stop sign. “Hey. I want to talk to you.”
Darke wore absolutely no expression on his face. His arms folded across his chest. He waited.
“Where you boys come from?”
We didn't have to tell him that. On the other hand, I didn't feel like getting into the whole head-butting thing of how we'd once been law enforcement ourselves.
