by Jette Harris
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 his 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.”
“They’ll pull us, or you’ll pull us?” Remington’s voice had a bitter edge.
Wickes exhaled slowly. “Get more.”
“Wait, Sam, don’t hang—” Remington was interrupted by a click and dead air. He curled his hand into a fist.
“Whatever it is sour between you two,” Steyer said, “fix it, or this case isn’t getting solved.”
Shaking his head, Remington picked up his own cell and shut himself in the bathroom.
22
Byron envied how awake Steyer looked when the agents walked into the precinct just before six o’clock the next morning. Remington not so much, but he was in the process of chugging an energy drink. Despite the hour and that they had travelled over eight hundred miles to get there, they still looked well put-together: Their suits were pressed and creased in all the right places. Their shoes shined.
Byron looked down at his wrinkled uniform and scuffed boots and sighed. It can’t be helped. He gave his hair a few quick swipes with a brush and smiled as if he didn’t feel like the walking dead.
“Mornin’, Agent Steyer, Agent Remington.”
“Officer Byron,” Steyer greeted him. He even sounded awake.
“We didn’t expect y’all back ’til nine or ten!” Kondorf said, emerging from the men’s room. He balled-up the paper towel in his hands and shot it into the toy basketball hoop over the trashcan. It hit the rim and bounced off. He grunted as he scooped it up and tossed it in properly.
Byron’s face tinged, wondering what level of unprofessional the feds would consider that spectacle. Steyer watched, unperturbed.
“Time is precious, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Come in early, go home late,” Remington added. He tossed his can at the hoop. Nothin’ but net.
Kondorf cleared his throat and nodded at the Recycling bin. Remington pursed his lips and retrieved the can.
“Mornin’, all.” Young walked in, also looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She nodded, tapping the bill of her ball cap. Byron envied her ability to wake up in the dark of the morning, walk her dogs, hit the gym, and show up to work wide-awake. All without coffee.
“Good morning, detective,” Steyer greeted her.
“What’s on the menu today?”
As they spoke, Remington wandered over to the glass-walled conference room, which had been cleared the night before. Byron followed and glanced inside the door with him. Two desks and two chairs now occupied the middle of the room, accompanied but two trash bins and a coat rack.
“So, this is HQ?” Byron asked.
“Usually they just sit us at a desk.” Remington didn’t quite smile, but he looked satisfied. “In San Fran, it was a large storage closet.”
“Wow.” Byron eyed the desks. “Want some help setting up?”
Remington studied him. “Aren’t you off shift in…” He checked his watch. “Three minutes ago?”
Byron shrugged. Remington shrugged back and stepped inside. He rubbed his face, looking from the desks to the window in the back corner. He lifted the coat rack and placed it to the right of the door. He pulled his suit jacket off and hung it with care. His shirt, tailored as perfectly as his suit, pulled taut over the hard muscles of his back and shoulders.
Byron recalled the conversation with the stranger the previous day and nodded toward the jacket. “Who made your suit?”
“I did.” Remington rolled up his sleeves.
Byron gaped.
“My people are tailors, going back four or five generations.”
“Wow. Convenient.”
Remington shrugged. “It keeps my mind off work when I’m home.” He positioned himself at the end of one of the desks and pointed to where it should go near the far wall. Byron took the other end and lifted.
“That’s gotta be tough, given the types of cases you have.”
“You think kidnapping and murder is tough? I used to be Organized Crime.”
“Shit.”
Remington glanced between the two chairs, and rolled the newer-looking one between the desk and the wall. They moved the second desk perpendicular to it, with a gap in-between wide enough for a man to walk through.
“We’re going to need a whiteboard or something, unless they want holes in that wall…” Remington leaned against the front of the desk and nodded at the wall opposite. He stared, then turned to Byron. “Hey, thanks for the help.” He offered the officer his hand.
“Anytime,” Byron said, shaking it. “What’re your plans for the day? Get settled in?”
Remington chuckled dryly. “I wish. No, we have to hit the ground running. We’re going to try to cement the connection between these disappearances and the Phoenix, eliminate any possibility this might be a financially-motivated kidnapping—”
Byron scoffed. Remington glared at him flatly.
“Sorry, man. Just… the thought of them running away or being held for ransom… it’s…” Byron shook his head. “It would make for a pretty funny movie.”
Remington nodded. “Well, that funny movie is preferable to the theory we’re pursuing, so I hope that’s the case.”
Byron sighed. “Yeah, man, I’m sorry. It’s just… unreal.”
“You don’t wanta imagine your friends in pain, I understand, and I hope they’re not. But…” Remington looked away, nodding slowly. “The circumstances—the vehicles, the call—they send shivers down my spine; They’re that familiar.”
Byron stilled, swallowing hard. “If…” He rubbed his hands as he formulated his idea. “If it’s a ransom, there should be a call pretty soon, right?”
“Mm-hm. Or suspicious transactions. Warrants for those records came in last night, and we have a specialist reviewing them.” He raised his eyebrows. “And that’s assuming they didn’t run away.”
Byron shook his head. “Heather wouldn’t do that.”
“How sure are you about that?”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent,” Byron shot. Remington eyed him thoughtfully. Byron’s face flushed. He looked down at his feet. “If it is the Phoenix, it should be pretty easy to bait him.”
“Come again?”
Byron wished he had a cup of coffee he could hide behind, to hide he had been reading confidential case files. He shrugged. “I mean, he popped up in Detroit when… when Agent Feingold found the cigarette butt, and he popped up a few times in San Francisco to mess with your shit…” He sniffed. “I was just thinkin’… maybe we could bait him. Draw him out. Make him think we have something, or even make him think we think it’s not him, or like he’s nothin’.”
Remington stared at him blankly.
“Out of the question.” They jerked their heads toward the door. Steyer stood with his hands in his pockets, studying them. “What you’re proposing could get people killed, even if it’s not the Phoenix; You could be poking a sleeping dragon.”
Byron shrunk under the agent’s gaze. He realized what Remington had said about Steyer making him feel two foot small. A heavy silence fell.
“Thank you for helping set-up, Officer Byron,” Steyer finally said.
“Thank you, Agent Steyer, Agent Remington.” Byron nodded and stood, adjusting his belt. “I’ll see you gentlemen this evening.” He wanted to say “Good luck” or “I hope you find something,” but everything sounded either demeaning or pretentious. He pursed his lips and gave another nod instead.
Leaving the office, he felt ten times more drained than he had when the agents had arrived. But he could have sworn he heard a low voice say, “You know, he has a point.”
