Ellis Parker is a lucky man: he escaped his persecuting family, survived his tour of duty, and met Maxwell Clark in the city of New Amsterdam. Clark showed Ellis more than the ropes: Clark helped Ellis figure out who he is -- a gay submissive with a massive fixation on a beautiful, mysterious ballet dancer named Bryn Rothe. Ellis knows a Good Man when he sees one, and he wants nothing more than to score a first date with Bryn.<br><br>Little does Ellis know that Bryn has a violent past that is crawling out of shallow graves to haunt him. Even his hectic schedule and beloved stage aren’t enough to distract him. It’s impossible for Bryn to figure out how he feels about Ellis with his demons between them, but when Ellis saves Bryn not once but twice, Bryn is forced to admit that there’s something about Ellis that Bryn might not merely want but need.<br><br>Together, they journey to the scene of Bryn’s original crime -- Charles Towne, South Carolina. There they will dig up secrets that might explain Bryn’s tortured life but might also be his -- and Ellis’s -- undoing.

Earthquakes

“I didn’t know anything about this so-called rape,” Clark said. “As for the rest, Ellis, Bryn didn’t murder anyone. Jared Tuttle’s death was confirmed as a suicide.”


Ellis didn’t like the idea of Bryn being called a liar any more than he enjoyed the thought of Bryn the Rapist and Murderer. “How do they know it was suicide?”


“When they were sixteen. Right when Bryn was going off to the New Amsterdam School of Ballet.”


“Jared killed himself when he was eighteen.”


Relief shouldn’t have been so painful. “Are you sure?” Ellis asked.


“Yes. Jared and Bryn were the same age. Jared attended a different school of dance for six months. He dropped out for health reasons that were never documented or explained. He…committed the act shortly thereafter. I have the obituary if you want to see it. And the autopsy report.”


Chapter 56