Two Guns

by Jette Harris

  Xavier crossed his arms over his chest and slumped back.

  Sterling crossed her arms too and cocked her head. “You talk to his daddy yet?”

  Remington nodded hesitantly.

  “He called—”

  “Sterling,” Sean warned.

  “—my daddy a nigger-lover.” She glared at Remington as if he were the perpetrator. Lauri sighed and covered her red face with a hand.

  Remington’s pen paused. He blinked. “Why?”

  “Because he’s an—”

  Lauri dropped her hand. “A-hem.”

  “—a racist.”

  “Witt or his father?” Remington asked.

  “Both.”

  “Witt might not be, but dude’s an idiot,” Xavier said, then added under his breath, “Monica is too, for liking him.” He turned to stare bitterly at the window. “Probably went out after him, and dragged Heather along. Used her, ’cause she’s gotta car.”

  Everyone donned expressions of bitterness and sadness. Remington’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead as he observed them. Byron pursed his lips.

  “She’ll protect her from the dogs.”

  Byron looked around, unable to determine who spoke in such a soft voice. Kondorf closed his eyes with a sigh. Remington stared at the children, waiting for one to betray the other. Sterling’s lips trembled. She got up and left the room. David raised his eyes and stared at Remington. The scar tissue on his face and neck glistened.

  Remington swallowed. “You wanna… tell me about the dog?”

  David dropped his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  Xavier swallowed hard. Byron heard a whimper behind him. Lauri leaned her face into Sean’s shoulder.

  “Monica will protect Heather, or Heather will protect Monica?” Remington asked.

  “Heather…” Xavier’s lips began to tremble as well. He ran out of the room after his sister.

  Kondorf cleared his throat and nodded toward the kitchen. Sean sat down next to David and Devin, Lauri hurried after Sterling and Xavier. The investigators stepped inside the kitchen.

  “A few years ago,” Kondorf whispered, “Monica was watchin’ the kids, and they were all playin’ outside. This big ol’ chow-dog ran up on David, grabbed his throat and wouldn’t let go. I don’t know all the details, but apparently Heather ran up with a baseball bat or a—uh—a tire iron, and beat the dog until it ran off, then drove ’em all to the hospital. David almost didn’t make it. It was really touch-and-go for… for weeks, it seems.”

  Remington glanced out at the kids and scratched his cheek. “Do we know anything about the owner of the dog?”

  Kondorf shrugged. “We killed the dog when we found it. Collins shot it, actually. We never found the owner, if it had one.”

  Remington began to scribble onto his notepad again. Sean, pale and drawn, stepped into the kitchen. “I think that’s enough.” Remington nodded absently. Sean licked his lips and raised his voice, “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shatterthwaith,” Remington replied, flipping his notebook closed.

  Sean appeared to shrink under the agent’s gaze. He looked away and cleared his throat. “It’s just… it’s hard. It’s been rough.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Sean looked him in the eye.

  It was Remington’s turn to look down, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine.”

  Sean swallowed hard. He twisted around to glance at his sons. David was holding Devin like a teddy bear. Sean turned back, looking ashamed. “I haven’t wanted a cigarette this bad since…” He shrugged and scratched his red hair. “Since I quit, probably. Since the dog, I guess.”

  Kondorf put a reassuring hand on Sean’s arm and shook it. “We’re doing everything we can, Sean. We’ll find her.” He cleared his throat and nodded toward the door. “Give Lauri my best.”

  Byron patted his arm as he passed toward the front door. Remington paused to shake his hand. “We’ll call to arrange a time for a more detailed interview, if that’s alright.”

  Sean dipped his head and scoffed. “Well, I can’t really refuse, can I?”

  Remington just pursed his lips and imitated the gesture. Kondorf and Byron paused on the porch, but Remington continued across the lawn. They followed him to the cars.

  “Lieutenant Kondorf, it’s best you not tell them we’re going to find their children.” Remington looked at the Shatterthwaith house, then at Kondorf. He spread his hands. “What if we don’t?”

  Byron’s heart sank. He shook his head. “That’s not an option.”

  “That may be beyond our control.” Remington popped open the door to the FBI fleet vehicle. “They could already be dead.” He ducked in, then stood back up and shrugged. “Then again, they could be on a beach somewhere.”

  19

  Rhodes needed a cop. Not in the way he had needed one in Detroit; He had more mischief in mind.

  Worst-case scenarios raced through his imagination. He had only ever visited prison, never been a prisoner (not legally, anyway). Hoping that was not about to change, he took a deep breath and crossed the parking lot, leaving his Jeep parked inconspicuously next to the dumpster. His heart was racing. Sweat formed on his neck and ran down his back, tickling his naked ass.

  A neon light in the window read “Hot now!” Two patrol cars with Cobb County Sheriff’s Department across their sides sat front and center. All three of the deputies inside roughly fit Rhodes’s requirements: About six foot, not too heavy, with large feet. He was mostly concerned with the feet; He could adjust everything else.

  Swallowing hard, Rhodes walked to the front of the building. A minivan turned into the parking lot and promptly pulled back out, the driver looking mortified. Choosing the spot right next to the “Hot now!” sign, Rhodes leaned his back against the window. (I hope they cleaned these recently.) The glass was uncomfortably warm against his bare skin, despite the overcast sky. Lifting his bare foot to perch on the windowsill, he watched the passing cars and waited.

  (This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be—)

  ****

  “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Sergeant Duley mumbled, staring at the naked man as he crossed the parking lot and leaned against the window.

  “Language,” Sergeant Kline replied.

  Deputy Beaumont said nothing as he stared at the man’s bare back. He popped the remainder of a doughnut into his mouth and sucked the glaze off his fingers. The naked man waited, looking around, as casually as a man waiting for a bus. Beaumont eyed the large white pock of an old bullet wound on his back and fresh red scratches on his shoulders.

  Duley sighed. Turning to Kline, he held out his fist. “Two outta three.”

  “There are kids out there.” Kline brushed crumbs from his fingers and made a fist. “First call.”

  They bounced their fists. Before they could throw, Beaumont pushed back his chair and stood.

  “I got him,” he sighed, pushing his hat onto his head. Kline and Duley exchanged surprised glances. They turned in their seats and sipped their iced coffees, watching as Beaumont crossed to the front.

  “I’ll bet you a dozen he’s gonna taze ’im,” Duley said in a low voice.

  “I bet he’s gonna run,” Kline countered. They shook hands as Beaumont pushed the door open.

  “Sir,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to put some clothes on.”

  “He’s not gonna do it,” Duley hissed.

  The man turned to Beaumont with a dazzling smile. Beaumont sighed and stepped out into the hot evening air. When the naked man ran, the deputy ran after him, hand on his Tazer.

  ****

  Rhodes ended up hand-cuffed in the back of a patrol car, with his naked ass sticking to the vinyl seat. His heart pounded, unsure as to whether Deputy Beaumont was driving him to the police station for processing or to a more intimate locale.

  When the patrol car stopped on a path in the middle of the woods, Rhodes had his answer. Beaumont was a lanky
man, leaner than Rhodes, but around the right height (and shoe size, hopefully). He grabbed the naked man and yanked him from the back of the cruiser, banging his head against the doorframe. He wore a surly expression as he pushed Rhodes to his knees.

  Rhodes grinned up at Deputy Beaumont, but the deputy turned away. Wearing the same scowl, Beaumont investigated the surrounding area. When he returned, he dumped his duty belt on the trunk of the cruiser, stood before Rhodes, and pushed his pants down around his hips.

  “I knew the moment I saw you, this was what you wanted.” Beaumont grabbed his penis and massaged it to attention.

  “Are you sure you don’t want my hands free for this?”

  “Don’t talk.” Beaumont looked around. “And can you not look at me?”

  Rhodes snorted and shook his head. Smiling, he opened his mouth and closed his eyes. He worked hard to compensate for his lack of hands, Beaumont’s arrhythmic thrusting, and the pungent smell of sweat, but the deputy heaved a pleasurable sigh. As soon as his breath quickened, Rhodes stopped and stood.

  “For my next trick,” he said, “I’m going to need my hands… at least in front of me.”

  Beaumont, his surly expression returned, shook his head. “Not until I’m done, you worthless faggot.” He clapped a hand on Rhodes’s shoulder and shoved him down to one knee. “Finish what you started.”

  Rhodes forced himself to smile. “Play nice, deputy. No one will know. Not a soul. You’re running this show… and you know you want it.”

  Beaumont huffed, looking away. Rhodes spread his knees wide and rolled his shoulders back, putting his best features on display. The deputy slipped a hand under his arm and dragged him back to the car.

  (Fuck. I went too far. Fuck, fuck, fuck.) He was going to have to think of something before Beaumont got him into the backseat, or he was going to end up in jail, and all of his hard work and money would come to nothing. He didn’t know the sentence handed down in Cobb County for public indecency, but he was pretty sure he would be returning to four dead bodies and a very angry boss when it was served.

  But Beaumont didn’t shove Rhodes into the back of the cruiser. He threw him against the trunk, knocking the wind out of him, and slammed his head down. Rhodes resisted the urge to fight back as Beaumont positioned himself behind him. He paused to run his fingers over the scar on Rhodes’s back, then spit on him and spread it with the head of his penis.

  Rhodes cringed at how sloppy the man was, but he turned his head to find his face inches from the duty belt. As he suffered through Beaumont’s clumsy fumbling, Rhodes imagined the ways he could get his revenge with the tools before his eyes. As soon as Beaumont finished grunting and quivering, he shoved Rhodes back to the ground. Despite the indignity, it was exactly where he needed to be.

  “Mother fucker,” Beaumont muttered, looking down. He pulled his duty belt off the back of the car, dropped it on the ground, and popped the trunk. Grabbing a towel, he used it to wipe the feces off his penis.

  “Yeah, that’s one reason you use a condom,” Rhodes said.

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep your fucking mouth shut?” Beaumont spun toward him.

  Rhodes’s hands were no longer behind his back. He shoved a shoulder into the deputy’s chest and barreled him into the trunk of a tree. He pressed the gun into Beaumont’s mouth.

  “Unlock these handcuffs and strip.”

  Raising his hands, Beaumont surrendered. Rhodes made sure his uniform was a safe distance away before handcuffing him and gagging him with the filthy towel. The deputy heaved and fell to his knees. His eyes begged. He gestured bargains, but Rhodes ignored him. He picked through the deputy’s clothes, tossed away Beaumont’s boxers, and donned his slacks. They hugged his hips snugly. Retrieving the duty belt from where it had fallen, Rhodes perused his options and pulled out the pepper spray, grinning like a mischievous kid.

  Rhodes pulled Beaumont to his feet and shoved him back against the tree. The deputy whimpered. Rhodes hacked, spat on Beaumont’s genitals, and massaged it in. Tears streamed down the deputy’s face. He wailed in vain.

  “I’ve seen this before…” Rhodes twisted the safety off the canister. “It didn’t look very pleasant.”

  He pointed the pepper spray at the man’s penis and pressed down.

  “Fuck!” Rhodes jerked away and dropped the canister. His eyes watered, and what started as a mild irritation became increasingly more painful. Behind him, Beaumont screamed in agony.

  “Fuck me!” Rhodes’s nose began to run. His throat and mouth burned, the fire spreading down into his lungs. He collected himself enough to stop touching his face. Leaning against the car, he took a few deep breaths. He found a case of bottled water in the trunk. He poured three bottles over his head to flush his eyes. The pain gradually subsided. “Well, that was embarrassing.”

  Behind him, Beaumont echoed his thoughts. Hysterical with pain, he emitted a muffled, squealing laugh.

  Tempted to spray him again—from a safe distance this time—Rhodes looked for the canister. His eyes found the duty belt first. Sniffling, he picked up the flashlight. It was the heavy, metal type with several different settings. He played through them with a child-like curiosity as he returned to where Beaumont sat against the tree.

  Pulling the towel free from Beaumont’s mouth, Rhodes dabbed at his still-watering eyes with a clean corner. Beaumont’s laughter became a frightened huff. Rhodes dropped the towel onto the ground and stared down at the naked deputy. He watched Rhodes’s grip on the flashlight tighten and loosen. Too late, Beaumont opened his mouth to scream. He was cut short with a powerful blow across the face. With a few more blows, Rhodes made damn sure the deputy would never wear that surly expression again.

  20

  Byron collapsed into his chair. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this emotionally exhausted. Kondorf didn’t say anything, which conveyed he was feeling the same. He paced around, picked up the coffee pot, put it back down a little too hard. He stood by Byron’s desk with his hands on his hips and watched as two custodians carried desks out of the small glass-walled conference room Collins had been showing Steyer earlier.

  “I need coffee,” he announced. Byron leaned forward, but Kondorf was already heading toward the door. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  The office fell quiet, except a couple of deputies snickering about a call they had earlier. Byron glanced at them, but didn’t feel like joining in on the joke. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. His eyes fell on a stack of manila folders on Kondorf’s desk. The one on top was marked PHOENIX, SFO—2002.

  Byron held his breath and rose slowly. The other folders were marked PHOENIX, DTW—1997 and PHOENIX, ATL—2006. He looked around, but no one was in the office but the deputies, and they weren’t concerned with the other side of the office.

  Taking a deep breath, Byron scooped the folders up and headed toward the copier.

  21

  That night, Steyer lay across his bed, a pillow covering his eyes. The heat had worn him down, and his knees ached from the humidity. Even more exhausting was the churning spring of emotions stirred up by discovering someone he believed long dead was alive and well—or as well as the situation merited.

  Steyer and Tech had hated one another with a passion until they were the only men left standing. After forty years of picking apart and slowly processing that traumatic experience, this relic of his past, this living memory, stirred an intimacy as if they had been close friends for all those years. Steyer began to feel an urgency for this case that threatened to pull him into recklessness.

  In the bathroom, the shower cut off. Remington emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist. He had another towel in his hand, drying his hair. Taps emitted from one of the two cell phones on the dresser.

  Steyer tugged the pillow off his face. “Answer that, please.”

  Remington pointed as he crossed to the phone. “Is that Sam?”

  “You gonna answer it?” Steyer pushed himself up on h
is elbows and cleared his throat. His Boston accent seeped through whenever he was tired, or frustrated, or both.

  “Why is she callin’ you?” Despite the question, he answered and turned on the speakerphone. “Hey!”

  There was a pause before Wickes replied. “Did I call the wrong number?”

  “No, Ritchie was just too lazy to get up and answer… But I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

  Another pause. “I need to talk to you… both of you. Our data specialists found something that could potentially upset the Phoenix theory.”

  “Say what?” Remington balked. Steyer sat up and slid to the end of the bed.

  “Yep. Apparently one of our victims has a net worth of almost eight-hundred thousand dollars.”

  Remington’s jaw dropped. “One of the kids?”

  “Affirmative. Heather Stokes is the beneficiary of a trust fund, released to her when she turned eighteen last month. A Russell Brewer was the trustee.”

  “Her grandfather,” Steyer said.

  “I transferred all the necessary documentation to you. Local PD will have the police report, if you think it might be relevant.”

  “Why might that be relevant?” Remington looked from the phone to Steyer.

  “You don’t think that raises some questions concerning motive?” Wickes asked. “Has the Phoenix ever appeared to have a financial motive?”

  “No, never,” Steyer said.

  “Beyond the fact two young men disappeared a day before two young women were abducted… beyond the genders and numbers, is there any reason to believe this is the Phoenix?”

  “The 9-1-1 call,” Remington said.

  “Can you ID his voice as the Phoenix?”

  “Possibly…” Remington glanced at him. Steyer closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face.

  “Is that really all you’ve got?”

  Steyer cringed. Remington shook his head.

  “Get me more,” Wickes said. “Or they’ll pull you and send a kidnapping-for-ransom specialist.”