CopyCat Read online

  I’d stayed there for three days before Andrea Jones finally got me released into her custody. After the hearing with the judge six weeks later, I was more than ready to go back home to the old house I lived in with my grandfather after my parents died. Built in the 1850s, it was a real beauty, though it had long since seen the last of its glory days. It was built in the antebellum style, a two-story home, with a wide front porch that wrapped around three sides, and two white columns that stretched up by the entrance, with shorter columns along the front and sides. It had another, smaller porch area up over the front door. A door at the end of the upper hallway led out to this small balcony, though it probably had rotten floorboards. That door had been boarded up years before and was never used.

  My grandfather had bought the home when he first took me in and had replaced the furnace and made a few updates to the plumbing, but other than that, the house was pretty much in its original condition. I’d tried to get him to repaint and remodel for years, but he always put it off until later. I’d been putting it off for a couple of years too, since his death, but while I was in the hospital I’d decided to finally get started as soon as I could.

  The moldings and fireplaces in each room were beautiful. I was in the process of painting the walls in each of the rooms and had finished most of the downstairs. The old plaster walls had been painted and repainted so many times I’d had to do a lot of prep work, but in the end the soft creamy color I used had begun to have an effect on the house, like an old woman who had fixed her hair and makeup and was able to call back an echo of her former beauty.

  I couldn’t afford to put down new hardwood floors, so I used an old trick of my grandfather’s, mixing wood stain and polyurethane to repaint the floors until they could be properly refinished. I thought the result wasn’t too bad, especially once they’d been covered with area rugs. I rubbed my bare toe across a black scuff mark that I didn’t remember being there by the edge of the rug.

  The two men in my living room glanced at each other again as the silence drew out, and some kind of unspoken message passed between them. Jim Allen got up and stood looking down at me. “I have some paperwork to finish in the car. Mr. Todd has a few more questions for you, so I’ll let myself out.”

  I started to get up anyway, but Connor Todd put a hand out to cover mine, and I looked up at him. We both listened to the sound of the front door closing, and he leaned in closer, peering into my eyes. “Gavin? Tell me the truth. Is this act of yours for real?”

  “Act? I don’t understand.”

  He ran a hand over his face and blew out a breath. “Shit.” He lifted his gaze to mine again. “The other night—at the bar in the hotel. I had no idea…I mean, I didn’t even get your name, and when I woke up you were gone. You have to believe, I would never…I wouldn’t take advantage of you, Gavin. I want you to know that.”

  “I know.” I gave him a little smile. “I couldn’t stay, but I enjoyed it very much. I was coming back to see if you were still in town.” He looked at me with a concerned little furrow between his eyes, and I suddenly understood. “Oh, I see. You’re worried because you think I might be...what did you call it just now? Incompetent?” I stood up. “You don’t have to worry. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

  His eyes sharpened as he rose to his feet along with me, and I saw him wondering precisely what I meant. Did I mean that I knew what I was doing at the bar, or that I knew about Miguel’s crimes all along and only pretended to the court to get myself out of trouble?

  I walked stiffly past him to the door and held it open. “Please excuse me, Connor Todd. I have to ask you to go now.”

  Sighing heavily, he came to the door, but he turned in the doorway to look down at me. “I’ll be back, Gavin. I have more questions and I think we have unfinished business between us.”

  I refused to look at him and he finally turned to leave. After I closed the door behind him, I went back to the sofa and leaned back, closing my eyes. Miguel was dead and was never coming back. I would have liked to have seen his body for myself, just to make sure, but I had to take their word for it.

  Contrary to popular belief, cremated remains are not ashes in the usual sense. After incineration the pieces of bone are swept out and pulverized by a machine to turn them into ashes. The weight of a human male is approximately four to five pounds. Miguel was gone, and his body had been cremated, pulverized, burned so completely, so utterly that nothing was left but bits of white bone and black ash. I hoped that it was true.

  I knew that Connor Todd thought I was aware of where Miguel had hidden the paintings he’d stolen. I was telling the truth when I said I had no idea. Miguel had never told me much about what he was doing. The two insurance detectives were partially right, though. It was true that if a person doesn’t realize what he’s doing is illegal, he can be found guilty only of a “mistake of fact,” as I was, and the court will usually dismiss the case. However, if he intentionally commits the act, it’s a “mistake of law” and those people are almost always found guilty and put in jail. I did the paintings for Miguel, and I knew I was creating perfect copies for him to replace the real art. Ergo…I was actually guilty.

  Two years before, when I first met Miguel, he’d been a successful art dealer and I was an artist, just starting out. My grandfather had arranged for me to show my work to a man who worked for Miguel, a man named Steven Oswald. He told my grandfather I was “brilliant” and “amazing” and a lot of other stuff I knew wasn’t true.

  The fact was that I had long ago realized that my only real talent lay in reproducing what I saw in someone else’s paintings. It was so simple, really. Art to me was an intricate pattern of colors. The reds, the blues, the yellows and greens, and all the secondary colors and the shades in between—I could literally see each one of them in a painting as a separate thing. All objects are made up of patterns of colors, and each color has its own unique shape. I could study a painting and look at it for hours, and I could distinguish each shape that went to make up the whole. Much like pixels in a photograph, I could see these patterns clearly in my head, so that, given a little time, it was simple enough for me to reproduce it.

  Original art, however, was beyond my capabilities. I enjoyed looking at a beautiful scene and painting it, but the work came out mediocre at best. The patterns didn’t reappear for me in nature, only in paintings.

  My ability to copy, though, that was another story, because it was just one of those weird Autism things. Some people said Asperger’s kids couldn’t see the forest for the trees, but I was very damn good at seeing the trees. When I was a little kid, I used to love letting sand from the sandbox run through my fingers. Each grain of sand looked like tiny, uniquely shaped rocks.

  Some people called it being a savant. A friend of mine in school, for example, was a genius at Math, but had trouble tying his shoes in a knot that would hold. Another could play the piano like a virtuoso, but couldn’t read or write. As Wikipedia put it, “Savant syndrome is a condition in which a person with a serious mental disability, such as an autism spectrum disorder, demonstrates profound and prodigious capacities or abilities far in excess of what would be considered normal.”

  Of course, not all savants are autistic, though about half of them are. Nor are all autistic people savants—actually only about ten percent of the millions of people who have been diagnosed. So there you have it. I was a fucking savant, I guess, and I didn’t know whether to be happy about it or feel kind of embarrassed. It made me a freak, you see, or that’s how it felt sometimes anyway. My grandfather told me I was looking at it all wrong. He told me I was a genius, and had remarkable focus, as he called it. He told me he was really proud of who I was.

  My art teachers had discovered my so-called talent in school and it gave my grandfather hope, I think, that this skill would provide me with some kind of vocation in life. He worried about me both because of the Asperger’s and because he was my only surviving relative since my parents’ dea
th.

  Like I said, when I was almost twenty-one, Grandfather found Steven Oswald, a local dealer in the arts, and convinced him to look at my work. Within a month Steven Oswald had sold my first painting, which he called a reproduction. I received several hundred dollars for it and after that I worked hard on various assignments Steven Oswald would give me. Like if someone wanted a high-end reproduction of a Gauguin or a Matisse or Renoir for their living rooms. I even made a little money, though my grandfather was more concerned that I had something to hold my interest.

  It was in October of that same year that my grandfather passed away. It hadn’t been unexpected. Grandfather had spent many hours talking to me after he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months before, explaining to me why I needed to stay focused and not descend into a depression after his death like I had when my parents were killed.

  I’d known since I was very small that I could retreat into my mind when I wanted to and not be aware of the outside world—kind of like I did in the detectives’ office when they kept badgering me with questions I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t necessarily an Asperger’s thing—this was just a me thing, and it was what my grandfather worried about the most, my withdrawing into my own world. But I was fine after his death and for a long time after that—up until the thing with the police, actually. I missed my grandfather very much, but the depression after he was gone was manageable, and I felt like I was in control of it.

  And I was finally able to be myself in another way that I never could before too, at least not without totally freaking my grandfather out. I had always known I didn’t get excited by the way girls looked or smelled, though they smelled sweet and flowery when they tossed their hair and smiled at me. Boys, though—well, that was a different story.

  In school, I went to normal classes for the most part, and really enjoyed my science, and of course, my art classes. In those classes, the girls all wanted to sit near me and talk to me for some reason, but it was the other guys I most admired and felt drawn to in that way. Not that I ever did anything about it, of course. I was way too shy to ever approach anyone.

  But after my grandfather passed, I began to go out occasionally to a hotel bar known as a meeting place for gay men. I’d read about it online and I sometimes met men there at the bar for quick, casual hook-ups, which was all I was interested in—a nice-looking, hard body to satisfy my urges. Later on, after I met Miguel, the visits stopped.

  After the arrests and the hearing, and once I’d been home and on my own for a few weeks, I began to get restless again. It had been two days before, on my first visit back to the hotel bar in over two years, that I met Connor Todd.

  I dressed carefully that night, wearing my nicest dark jeans and a white t-shirt, with a navy blue sweater. I’d let my dark hair fall down to barely skim my shoulders, and I’d shaved carefully and used some of the expensive cologne Miguel bought for me. I knew I looked good, and a lot of heads turned when I walked into the room. I had taken a seat at the bar and right away the bartender, who was new to me since the old days when I used to visit, gave me a smile and came over to take my order. Self-consciously, I tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and ordered a beer.

  “Can I see your ID?” he asked, and I slid it from my shirt pocket to let him look at it.

  “Sorry,” he said, with a brilliant smile. “You do look young though. I haven’t seen you in here before—I would definitely have remembered.”

  I smiled at his flirting. He was about my size, with sandy hair and pretty hazel eyes. He was wearing a wedding ring, though, so I kept my tone polite and casual. “I used to come sometimes, but it’s been awhile,” I said and waited while he got my beer. He’d just set it down in front of me, and I hadn’t even had a chance to take a sip when someone slid onto the barstool next to me.

  I turned to look up into beautiful sea green eyes. “Hi. Mind if I sit here?”

  I took a good look at him and liked what I saw right away. He was very handsome—tall and muscular, with short blond hair and a tanned, rugged face. He looked a little like a cop. His accent wasn’t southern like mine—more like the way they talked on television, so maybe California. He was wearing a dark gray suit, with his red tie loosened at the throat. The most amazing thing about him was his beautiful green eyes that sparkled at me as he kept glancing in my direction.

  I smiled up at him. “No, I don’t mind at all.”

  He didn’t say anything to me for a couple of minutes, drinking his beer and pretending he hadn’t already checked me out when I knew he had. After all, the bar was pretty much empty, yet he sat down right next to me. He had broad shoulders and the bulge I’d glimpsed in his pants promised an interesting evening ahead. I finished my beer and signaled to the bartender and the big blond turned toward me. “I’ll pay for this round. Would you like another beer?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He ordered and then turned his attention back toward me. “I wasn’t sure you were old enough to be in here until I saw the bartender check your ID.”

  “I’m older than I look,” I said quietly. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes, deliberately flirting. “I’m almost twenty-three.”

  He quirked up an eyebrow and smiled down at me. “Really? So old?” he said teasingly.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you from around here, or staying at the hotel?”

  “I live here in town. I just came here tonight to get fucked by somebody. It might as well be you, I think.”

  He almost choked on his beer and set it quickly back down on the bar. “Goddamn…are you always so blunt?”

  I lifted one shoulder. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be?”

  He leaned closer, and I could smell his clean masculine scent and a hint of aftershave. “No,” he said. “No reason at all.”

  I drained the beer left in my glass in one long gulp. I could feel his gaze on my throat and I liked the way he watched me. I put the glass back down on the bar and stood up. “Are you ready?”

  He looked almost confused at how quickly things were going, but he gulped down another sip and put his glass on the bar too. “Uh...yeah, I’m ready, babe. Do you want to go to my room?”

  “Yes,” I said and moved up closer to him. He put his hands on my shoulders to steady me, or maybe to keep me away and glanced nervously around the bar.

  “Let’s go,” he said, threw down some bills and took my elbow to steer me close to his side as we left the room. We walked quickly to the nearby elevators, and he let go of my arm as we waited with a group of other people for the car to come down. I stayed carefully next to him, not touching him, since public displays of affection obviously made him nervous.

  When the doors opened I stepped inside and moved all the way to the back. He got in behind me, along with an elderly couple and another businessman who was juggling his briefcase and his luggage. Since my blond stood in front of me, I reached down and gently cupped a hand on one ass cheek just to watch him jump. He angled a stern look over his shoulder at me and brushed away my hand as we reached the businessman’s stop. We watched him get off awkwardly with his suitcases. Ours was the next stop and my blond stepped off smartly at his floor, not even glancing back to see if I followed.

  When he heard the doors close, however, he turned around and glared at me so severely I couldn’t help laughing. He shook his head and smiled then too, and took my hand to draw me down the hall to his room. He fumbled a little with the key, and I wondered if he was nervous. It was kind of nice if he was.

  I followed him inside and kicked the door closed behind me. When he turned around in surprise, I grabbed his tie and backed him up against the door. He had four or five inches on me, so I knew he could pick me up and fuck me up against the wall if he wanted to, but I liked the idea of pretending to be the aggressor for a while. I unbuckled his belt and he watched me, his hands on my shoulders, his breath coming a little faster. I slipped his pants and his underwear down a
t the same time, exposing his very impressive cock, and I slid down to my knees in front of him, giving his twitching cock a little kiss on the tip as I went—a promise of things to come.

  My lips touched his scrotum and he made a soft sound deep in his throat. His hard cock bobbed at my face and I wrapped my lips around it. He put his hands on my head, not forcing me, but simply carding his fingers through my hair. I licked the head of his pretty, dark pink cock, all around the glans, tasting it. It was salty and musky and smelled clean with just a hint of masculine sweat. He thrust his hips forward a little and his dick slid into the back of my mouth. I swallowed around it, and he bucked so hard I had to ease up a little. He was breathing hard and making little moaning sounds that I liked a lot. I teased the vein underneath his shaft, following it all the way down and then back up to lap around the head again.

  His hands were tightening in my hair and he was moaning low words of encouragement. I cupped his balls and teased his perineum, raking my nails gently, gently across it. He cried out and thrust harder into my throat. I took him all, my gag reflex being nearly non-existent. Continuing to suck him up and down in a hard rhythm, I stuck a finger up to his soft, tight hole and he jerked, a low growl coming from his throat. Pre-cum spilled across my tongue, but before I knew it, he was pulling at my shoulders, easing me up and off him.

  He gathered me in his arms and kissed me hungrily as he walked me back toward the bed. The backs of my knees hit the edge, and then he was lifting me up and tossing me gently down on my back. He smiled down at me as he shucked off his clothes. “You said you wanted to get fucked. I aim to please, baby.”

  I smiled up at him languidly and began to push down my jeans. He helped by pulling off my shoes and then tugging on my pants legs. Soon I was naked from the waist down and I saw him looking with appreciation at my own cock. It wasn’t as large as his, but it was a decent size and fairly thick. I was hard as a rock and sat up to pull my shirt and sweater over my head. I wanted no barriers between us.