Free The Ranchers Son by RJ Scott

and Ethan checked it immediately,
disappointed that all it contained was a message from Jen saying they’d had no
hits on the artwork and there was still no missing person’s report that matched the vague descriptions of Adam . He guessed he’d need to take some new photos when
the swelling on his face subsided.
    Who were you
for the last twelve years? Why does no one know you’re missing?
    From here he had a
good view of Adam and the muscles he’d been talking about. Ethan shuffled the
chair a little closer, looking at Adam’s arms, at the definition there and the
rough skin of his hands. Carefully he moved the cover a little to see the
inside of Adam’s arms, checking for track marks or scars, even though he resented
that his cop brain even went there. The boy he’d known wouldn’t have touched
drugs, wouldn’t have become something so different to the person Ethan had loved.
    Surely that was
true?
    The blemish on Adam’s
neckline, a faint darkening of the skin, was definitely some kind of burn scar,
and the edge of the shoulder tattoo was stark against his throat.
    The same darker
skin was at Adam’s temples as well, disappearing up under his thick, near-black
hair.
    What happened
to you? Was this why you disappeared? Were you both hurt?
    His cop brain, having
searched for signs of drugs, switched to detective mode. Was it possible there
had been an accident, with Adam and Justin in a car or something? Had there
been a fire? Had Adam lost a first set of memories and not known to come back
home? But then, what about Justin?
    Ethan realized he
was going around in circles, and he picked up his cell, connecting to Jen.
    She answered on
the first ring, sounding out of breath. A quick look at his watch had him
realizing she was probably at her spin class, the one he covered her for on
this day and time unless they were actively out on a case.
    “Allens?”
    He could hear the
noise of the class behind her. “I’ll call back,” he said.
    “No, hang on.”
    The noise receded.
“I’m done. Is everything okay?”
    “I have a new
parameter in the JA case. Could you run fires on and around 10 March 2004?” He’d
shared the Justin-Adam disappearance with her on day two of their partnership,
after she called him out on his misery and general fucked-off-with-life crap.
He loved her for it.
    “That’s a mighty
big parameter. What kind of fire?”
    “House, car, I
don’t have a fucking clue.”
    “I’ll add it to
your search. Is that it? How’s he doing?”
    Ethan looked back
at Adam, at the gentle rise and fall of his chest. “It’s not easy for him,” he
said quietly.
    “Where are you?”
    “Wisconsin Dells.”
    “Where the fuck?”
    “Not far past where
we got to yesterday.”
    She snorted a
laugh. “You ever planning on getting back to Montana? Like, ever?”
    “Fuck off, Jen.”
    “Fuck you back,
Allens.”
    They ended the
call with goodbyes. Ethan tapped his cell rhythmically against his thigh,
finally deciding that he might as well do his own more limited searches on the
web.
    Adam slept six
hours, woke up grumpy, the crankiness wearing off as they ate at the burger joint
across the street from the hotel.
    They went back to
the hotel and Adam didn’t hesitate to take more pills.
    Within an hour the
room was in darkness, Adam was asleep and Ethan had selected a film from the pay-per-view
menu. Some mindless hero film, the kind of thing he loved, where the good guys
won and the bad guys ended up in prison or dead.
    He didn’t watch a
single bit of it, but the noise kept him company as he thought about the Adam
he’d known as a boy.
    And it always came
back to one thing.
    Was he still in
love with the man Adam had become? And what would it take to ever lose the fact
that Ethan had been Adam’s first crush, his first love, and that Ethan had
loved him back.
    I was only seventeen
what did I know about love? Hell, Adam was only fifteen when he vanished. We’d
only kissed once. What can that