by Laura Wylde
Serve
The Phoenix Night Shift
Laura Wylde
Contents
1. Tara
2. Adonis
3. Tara
4. Adrien
5. Tara
6. Tara
7. Thaddeus
8. Todd
9. Adrien
10. Tara
11. Adonis
12. Adrien
13. Tara
14. Adonis
15. Thaddeus
16. Tara
17. Adrien
Serve (The Phoenix Night Shift Book II)
Also by Laura Wylde
Afterword
Tara
When things aren’t going well, you feel it in your gut even before the first sign of trouble. I felt that nagging twist as soon as I was called into special agent, Lou Jenkin’s office. He folded his hands and steeple-chased them under his chin, the way he always did when he was about to pass on a sensitive assignment. “You’ve been monitoring the Central Park disappearances?” He asked, brushing aside any small talk I might have been thoughtlessly about to spill from my lips.
“Yes, sir,” I clipped back, standing rigidly as a soldier at attention. “There have been eleven official disappearances in the last six months. That’s not counting the number of unverified homeless disappearances. Drifters are hard to trace.”
He waved aside my report as so many extra words taking up space. “How well do you think the NYPD is handling it?”
“Well, sir, in six months, they haven’t come up with any leads.”
“Exactly.” He got up from his chair and circled around so he was sitting on the edge of his desk, a sure sign this case wasn’t going to be pleasant. “And now, a child has gone missing.” He said this in a low, significant voice.
“We’re stepping in?” It was more a statement than a question, but I added that upward tilt because Jenkin was my boss.
“We’re stepping in. We’ve managed to keep publicity to a minimum, but once the press gets hold of this, it’s going to throw the city into an outrage. We need to close this case rapidly before there’s a general riot.”
“I’ll put a team together,” I answered automatically.
“Wait,” he said quickly, and that gut twist feeling came to me again. “I want this low-key as long as possible. The NYPD has sent their own special unit. I want you to work directly with them, but I want you to take control of the situation. I want that kid found, and I want him found alive. I want answers.”
The NYPD didn’t have a real crime scene. They had flagged a general area with a view of Belvedere Castle and had begun hesitantly to look for evidence. They were focused on the area where they believed the boy disappeared, but this spot was very open. A seven-year-old boy, with a good set of legs, could have been anywhere within a quarter-mile circumference before disappearing. To disappear, he would have to have been where there were trees or have gone behind a hill.
I flashed my badge and began immediately directing the uniformed men to fan out into areas that would have hidden the boy. “If he had been grabbed in the open field, someone would have seen it. The security cameras would have picked it up. Go. Move it,” I added when a few of them hesitated.
“You should speak to the Captain,” one of them said. “He’s leading the investigation.”
“Wrong answer. I am. Two of the disappearances were out-of-state visitors. That crosses state lines. The latest is a child. It’s an FBI matter now.”
A young plainclothesman with short-cropped hair, an over-sized wristwatch and a pair of outspread wings tattooed to the side of his neck, sidled close to me and showed me his state-of-the-arts, electronic device. It was one of those geek-heaven cell phones that could do just about anything except shoot 3-D holographic images into the air, but he was geek only by technological standards. He was Star Wars geek terrific, with a dash of Hans Solo. In the image viewer, was a collection of dots and triangles superimposed over a map of Central Park. “I triangulated the areas in the park where the individuals were last seen. Also, the time of day, which has only an eight- hour variance. In nearly all the reports, the last reported time was between the hours of four in the afternoon until midnight.”
I cut him short. “Who are you?”
“Officer Adrien Beak. You can call me Adrien. And you?”
“Special Agent Tara Winslow. You can call me Agent Winslow. Have you created a profile of your perp? A list of suspects?”
A firm, deep voice with that unmistakable tone of authority spoke from behind me. “That’s what the time-line is for. There are common characteristics among those who attack within specific hours. This and the triangulation will help in determining our profile.”
I turned and tilted my head upward to stare at six feet of spectacular, tanned proportions topped by black, wavy hair and green eyes. I began to suspect they were called a Special Unit simply because of their strike-them-dead looks. However, I knew policemen like the back of my hand. My father was a sheriff. Both my brothers went into law enforcement. If I let someone who looked like an Olympian riding in on a lightening bolt, intimidate me, my whole family would kick my butt. Our motto was, if you give an inch, you lose a mile. “You are…?”
“Captain Adonis Anastos. You can call me Captain.”
He stood so solemnly and with such haughty dignity, I exploded with laughter. “Seriously? Adonis Anastos? Did you lose your chariot? I’m sorry, Captain Adonis. This isn’t a case for pretty boys pretending to be super-heroes. Do you see any cameras? No. We’re going to keep it that way. I don’t want anyone; not anyone; talking to the press.” I looked at the group of four men surrounding me. Yep. The Special Unit was all made up of hunks. Well, they would have to work a lot harder to get their five minutes of fame around me.
“Blimey,” said the short one. He rubbed his shaggy, brown hair and shrugged heavily. “I’ve been practicing my penmanship for six weeks so I could sign autographs. It was all for nothing.”
I ignored him. I wasn’t going to start out the day with a battle of the wits, least of all, someone with a fake Irish brogue, and the look of a lucky charm. There were far more serious things to take into consideration. At the far end of the field, someone with a camera had broken through, and I dispatched one of my team to deal with her. “No cameras. No press. I don’t want to see one of your mugs on television tonight making a passionate plea for someone to step forward.”
“We’ll leave all the passion to you,” said the captain, nodding at his men, who snickered on cue.
They were a bunch of wise guys, although the one standing next to Anastos made that half-hearted sound people use when they don’t know what the joke is about. He looked at the reporter trying to argue her way past the yellow, plastic streamers, and scratched his arm as though invisible, nagging creatures were living under the skin. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead. “We can’t shut them out that easily. They know. They always know, and now there are all those kids on cell phones, taking videos. Everything goes bile.”
“Viral,” said the kid, barely looking up from his own device. “It goes viral. Here’s one of you taking a swing at Ready Freddy.”
The nervous one sputtered. He was a big guy, nearly as big as the captain, well-muscled, with dark brown eyes that flashed with conflicting emotions. “What? Now look. Freddy wanted me to release that drug-running vixen, Tina Silvertree, for information leading to the vampire worshippers.”
“Thaddeus!” whistled the Captain in a low voice.
“Yeah, Thad, take a look,” Adrien goaded. He was apparently delighted to see the Captain join them and scowl over the video. “She’s his girlfriend! You shouldn’t have picked a fight with Freddy. Now we need a mediator.”
Adonis pulled both in close to
him, their heads in a huddle like football players. The short Irish guy stared, then joined them just to ensure being included within the loop. It was easy to see why NYPD hadn’t found any leads. They were too busy pulling publicity stunts to make any progress.
I didn’t know Ready Freddy and I wasn’t interested. Nor did I care that the New York detectives behaved like the street thugs they chased. The city was a bizarre place, filled with all kinds of strange cults and groups. There were vampire worshippers. Satan worshippers. Witches covens, and anarchists conspiring the end of the world. If NYPD suspected a cult was involved, I did want to know about it.
“You know, I’m right here and I did here you say vampire worshippers. Are they part of your profile?”
“Vampires?” Asked the nervous one before the Captain could stop him. “Not in this case. The hours aren’t quite right. Although, with the castle…”
He finally stopped when the Captain’s voice over-rode his. “We won’t dismiss vampire – worshippers. We’re actually looking at a couple other theories, however.”
I cut him short. “Have you searched this lower slope yet?”
He shook his head. “No. The mother said she saw him running toward the trees. She looked away for a few minutes and when she looked up again, he was gone.”
I studied the trees the searchers were so patiently trudging toward, and the slope that ran down to the marshy run-off of Turtle Pond. The slope began as a wrinkle in the otherwise flat field that swung away from the trees and was deeper than could be perceived from a distance. I began jogging down it. The soil was soft and springy, the subtle incline adding extra momentum to my step.I addressed the Captain, who was jogging alongside me. “I want a team to start combing through these marshes. They are tall enough to hide a small boy, and if he was there, we could find tracks.”
“We do have a theory,” he said. “We believe there is more than one perpetrator and several abduction sites, all within the radius of Belvedere Castle. Our records reveal a pattern that started several years ago and has escalated over the last six months.”
“You’ve had disappearances in the same general area for several years and you’re just now beginning to investigate them?”
“It’s been an ongoing investigation. It just wasn’t handed over to our unit until recently. People go missing in Central Park for all kinds of reasons. It’s not always a murder or a kidnapping. Sometimes, it’s just people dropping off the grid because that’s what they wanted. We’re called in only under special circumstances.”
“What kind of circumstances?”
“Mysterious occurrences. I can’t really tell you more than that.”
“You’re obligated to tell me something. You think there is more than one perpetrator because the disappearances all occur within the vicinity of the castle and during specific hours. What do you have? If not vampire worshippers, human traffickers? A witches coven?”
“You have your research. What do you think?”
He was holding back, and it was pissing me off. “I think you don’t have a clue so you’re fabricating theories out of thin air. NYPD botched the investigation and needs its poster child to make the public feel good.”
“I think you’re doing just fine at fabricating theories all by yourself.”
I fumed, looking at the land layout. From here, you could dash inside a hilly chamber toward the nearby pond. “I want more people on the lower slope. Order your units to start searching downhill.”
“I want them to fan out toward the tree line,” said the captain testily. Over-riding my commands, he began ordering the local units to move toward the trees.
I turned on him angrily. “The trees are a waste of time. Look how far he would have to have run before he was out of sight. If you were the parent of a seven-year-old boy, wouldn’t you have called him back before he got that far? He took the lower slope. His mother said she took her eyes off him no more than five minutes. She thought he was headed toward the tree line, but he swung around and used the lower slope.”
He chuckled and folded his arms. “That’s very funny. You’re an expert on little boys.”
I flashed back, “As a matter of fact, I am. Real ones. Rough and tumble boys who hide in the grass, fill their pockets up with spiders and frogs and play in the mud. Someone like you wouldn’t understand that. You should be content with being the precinct’s poster boy, or better yet, return to Greece and pose for the tourists.”
“If you want the police department to cooperate with you, I think you should start being a little nicer. Quit ordering around my people. Take things up with me first and I’ll work with you.”
“I don’t need you to work with me. I need you to work for me.” I pointed into the deep marshes that fed on the nearby creek.“I want a full search of the downward slope.”
“You can take as many uniforms and fancy federals as you want to poke around in that bog, but my men aren’t going there. Not the ones under my jurisdiction.”
I looked up from the notes I was filling in to my tablet. “Are you afraid of a little mud and water? Maybe it’s the creepy-crawling bugs living among the plants.”
“We’ll question the witnesses. I want to compare them with the statements from the last two disappearances.”
I shook my head. “You can give the statements to me. I also want your suspect profile, motivations and list of suspects. I’ll compare them with the FBI data.”
He was suddenly looming over me, his Greek god muscles chording and jumping at the neck and collarbone, and probably all the way inside that just-a-little-too-tight at the shoulders, pinstriped, linen shirt. “Our notes are classified!”
“I’m classified.”
We were interrupted by someone who called close to the run-off creek for Turtle Pond. He was waving and pointing into the bog. Within seconds, forensics was scooping up what appeared from where I stood, to be bone fragments. I moved closer, praying in my heart they were not a child’s bones. Water sloshing over her boots, my forensic expert held up a jagged piece of a femur. “It’s human but belonged to an adult. The rate of decomposition suggests the specimen expired four to six months ago. The meat has been eaten away, probably by fishes, but there are bite marks on the bone, itself.”
That’s all she could say without conducting tests. With the discovery of the bone, the entire squadron of police officers were concentrating their search around the bog. I didn’t want them bottle-necking. I ordered them to spread out and test the creek, the bridge and the surrounding area. I turned back to the Captain, who was still glowering, his green eyes flashing frozen fire. “We’ve found our first piece of evidence while your people were scuttling through the trees. I don’t need you. Any of you. You’re relieved of duty from this case.”
They all began clamoring at once, declaring they would drag the entire police force back with them, but I cut them short. “You can’t and you won’t.” I looked at the three federal agents I had chosen to accompany me. They had all taken a few steps toward the crime scene, and now stood like hunting dogs poised for the kill. Their eyes rolled toward me. I pointed to the Captain and his team. “Becca, Samuels, Clarke, escort these men from the premises.”
I watched them stalk away, resisting any touch by the federal agents, four incredibly gorgeous hunks that any woman in her right mind would melt like a popsicle in the Nevada Desert over, but I wasn’t any woman. I learned a long time ago, the only way to handle men was to be tougher than they were. Otherwise, they didn’t respect you. It worked in establishing my career. I didn’t get into the Bureau by being anyone’s princess. I did it through sheer hard work.
I stayed at the site for several more hours, watching the search party comb through the bog. As the sun began to set, they wrapped up for the night, using guide sticks as place reminders. Only a few more bone fragments had been found, the last two, close to the bridge. I logged in their locations and made plans for the next day’s search.
There was one major drawback wi
th being a tough girl. I scared men away. I knew this. My best friend, Eddie Menko, told me this. I never scared Eddie away, because he was gay. He was like having a best girlfriend I could watch football with, then afterward talk about our failed romances. That is, Eddie talked about failed romances. I talked about having no romances at all. That’s when he told me I scared men.
“C’mon girl,” he had told me. “You’re an alpha. You’re the lioness in the jungle. Men have become accustomed to a much more domesticated variety of cats.”
He was saying it was my fault, but there was probably nothing I could do about it. There was. I could keep them at arm’s length before I had a chance to fantasize about them and long for something impossible; a romantic relationship. I air-popped a large bowl of popcorn and flicked through the movies, looking for something classical but not filled with star-crossed lovers. On a whimsy, I chose Marylin Monroe’s, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. It was fresh and delightful, radical for her time, naïve for ours. Marylin had been soft, but I believed there had been a lioness inside her, until someone defeated her. Someone tamed her. It was because of women like Marylin, there needed to be women like me. I finished the movie, feeling better about my day.
Adonis
We hit the precinct as deliberately loud as humanly possible. Todd let go with a string of curses that would make a satyr blush and Thaddeus thumped a few walls to make sure everyone was paying attention. “She kicked us off the case,” I said to the general audience that poked their heads above their stalls or paused in the hallway. “She kicked us off our case!” I said the words louder and more forcefully. The desk clerk twiddled one lock of her hair and appeared very busy with her files. A newly recruited rookie asked if we’d like coffee.
