Title: Scars and Secrets
Author: Thomas Grant Bruso
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 12/17/2024
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 67685
Genre: Contemporary Thriller, Lit/genre, contemporary, crime/thriller, family-drama, disappearance, murder, cancer, therapist
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Description
Ralph Ashton gets more than he bargained for when police question him about the death of his ex-boyfriend Elijah Ray, whose body is discovered at the edge of the Saranac River.
When the local police visit Ralph and ask him about a critical piece of case evidence, Ralph becomes a prime suspect. He sets out to learn what happened to Eli the night he left his apartment and is startled to learn about his former boyfriend’s shady past.
As Ralph pursues a dangerous investigation, he discovers things about Eli he did not know while they were together.
Ralph’s life starts to unravel when he loses more people close to him as his mother lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Is learning about the truth of Eli’s death worth jeopardizing his safety?
Scars and Secrets
Thomas Grant Bruso © 2024
All Rights Reserved
We climb the fire escape to my apartment on the fifth floor and crawl in through an unlocked window.
“Why didn’t we use the door?” Elijah asks, out of breath, a deep phlegmy cough brewing in his chest.
I turn on the light built into the stove and look at him. His eyes are buggy, bloodshot, and beseeching. He looks me up and down.
“Because you embarrass me,” I tell him, half joshing, half honest.
“That was last month.”
“Some of that month we were together, I’d like to forget.”
“I’ve been trying to call you,” he says again.
“Something to drink?” I ask.
“Beer if you’ve got it.”
I open the fridge. Eli is in luck. I take two bottles of beer from the door and hand him one. I twist the cap off mine and take a swig before tossing the cap into the sink. He follows, although he has trouble getting his cap off.
“When did you get weak?” I ask.
He ignores me.
I help him, thrusting the bottle back into his hand and throwing the cap over my shoulder into the sink. He removes his leather jacket and hangs it over the back of the kitchenette chair.
“What’s crawled up your ass?” he asks, tilting the bottle back and gulping most of the pale brew in one long swallow.
“You,” I say, picking up a small pillow off the chair and throwing it on the floor so I can sit down. I moan, satisfied, settling in, lifting my feet on the ottoman and stretching. It feels good to be home. “Where’ve you been anyway? You leave one day, and I never hear from you. No goodbye. No phone call. Then, out of the fucking blue, you show up like a bad omen.”
“Business.” He empties his beer and slams the bottle on the coffee table.
“Business?” I almost foam at the mouth with sarcasm.
“A month’s changed you.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Elijah.” I pause and sip my drink.
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You don’t have the guts to pick up a phone and call me? I was worried. Coming here was a bad idea. You should go.” I stand and gesture for him to leave the way he came in, through the window.
“Hold your horses.”
“What do you want? Why are you here?” I hope he can hear the annoyance in my gravelly, hurt voice.
“I wanted to see you.”
“It’s been a fucking month.”
“Who’s counting?”
“Me. How dare you treat my feelings like a fishing expedition, like it means nothing to you.”
He stands and shuffles across the room like he did when we were together; he couldn’t be bothered when the going got tough. Something is on his mind. “I care about you, Ralph. Always have.”
I notice his worn-out shoes are caked with dirt as he walks around my apartment without a care. My anxiety rises. My shoulders tense and I sit upright. “Can you take your shoes off? You’re tracking mud on the carpet.”
He saunters to the fridge, swings the door open, reaches inside for a cream soda because the beer is all gone, pulls the tag off, and guzzles it. Foam sprays his face and the tiny, unkempt bristles of his scraggly goatee.
I roar with laughter, throwing my head back.
A deep guttural burp erupts from the bottomless gut.
He wipes his face with the back of his hand, and when he turns, I notice a tattoo in the shape of a triangle on his wrist. Three green eyes are inked in red on every corner of the triangle. I’m sure I never saw that tattoo before today. From the one beer, I imagine those eyes blinking back at me, warning me of Elijah’s unexpected presence.
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Thomas Grant Bruso knew at an early age he wanted to be a writer. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since he was a kid.
His literary inspirations are Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ellen Hart, Jim Grimsley, Karin Fossum, Sam J. Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Connolly.
Bruso loves animals, book-reading, writing fiction, prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles.
In another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. In college, he was a winner for the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes book reviews for his hometown newspaper, The Press Republican.
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