by Jette Harris
“We’ve been investigating a serial killer known as the Phoenix for almost ten years, the man you know as Avery Rhodes.”
Her face fell. She opened her mouth, but closed it again. Rhodes had mentioned other murders—Detroit, Phoenix—but she had never known whether to believe him. She hadn’t wanted to. Her gaze shifted from Steyer to Remington.
“Four years for me,” Remington said.
“You are the Phoenix’s only surviving victim,” Steyer continued. “Only you can give us insight into what happens in those houses.”
Her chest tightened. She pressed a hand against it. “No… No pressure…” The corner of her mouth twitched, but she couldn’t quite manage a smirk.
“We’ll do everything within our power to keep you safe, in case he comes back to hurt you.” Remington raised his chin with a confidence Heather couldn’t grasp.
Rhodes hadn’t been planning on killing her, but taking her with him. At least, that’s the impression he had given her. But what if he had said that to others who had gone before? What if it had been another well-played trick?
Somehow, she couldn’t imagine his disintegration had been an act. His shift in behavior. His red-rimmed eyes and ragged breathing. Avery Rhodes would never have made such a sincere show of vulnerability. He made it clear he would do anything to keep her by his side, even endanger himself.
Now he’ll do anything to get you back. Maybe. Or maybe now you’ve tricked him, he’d do anything to kill you. Or worse.
She pulled the windbreaker closer around her body and pressed it over her mouth. She smelled her grandfather on it, causing a swell of conflicting comfort and fear. “Where… Where’s Grandpa? Is he OK?”
“He hasn’t left your side since you got out of surgery. We had Officer Byron take him to get a proper meal shortly before you… woke.”
“He’s not safe.”
“You believe your grandfather is in danger?”
“He is. If Avery’s still out there, he’ll go after Grandpa to get to me.”
Steyer leaned back, his expression equally surprised and skeptical. Remington pulled out his phone.
“I’ll let Officer Byron know.”
Heather blinked. Her brow furrowed slowly. “Grandpa’s with Jamal?” The idea felt absurd, but she couldn’t place why. Byron had been there just after they escaped the House—Just after Monica died…—But the memory felt choppy and distant. Like the House itself; It felt like a lifetime ago. Everything of her life before came in glimpses and impressions, like a book she had read as a child rather than something she had lived through.
Grandpa and Jamal don’t get along; Grandpa teases him too much, she reminded herself.
“Officer Byron’s assistance has been invaluable to our investigation.”
Gratitude rose in her chest, but an oppressive apprehension rose to meet it. She knew why Byron was so eager to help, and didn’t feel comfortable being indebted to him. She changed the subject.
“Did y’all come from DC?”
“Yes, we did,” Steyer replied.
“Welcome to Georgia.”
“Thank you. It’s been an adjustment, but we’re getting acclimated.”
“How long have you been here?”
“We arrived May sixth.”
That was fast. Rhodes had shown up on the second. He had been planning to leave today or…
“What day is it?” Her voice was barely a whisper. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.
“It’s Wednesday,” Remington said.
“May the thirty-first,” Steyer added.
Heather’s breath caught in her throat. The tightness in her chest twisted until it was crushing. “May…” She couldn’t get enough air to repeat the date. She had known it was a month; Rhodes had told her as much. But the reality of the time they had been trapped in that house barreled over her.
They were supposed to graduate May twenty-seventh. She had missed graduation. She had missed finals. You can’t graduate without finals. She stared at him with wide, unseeing eyes.
The others had missed them too. They missed walking at graduation. Z was going to be the first high school graduate in his family. He missed it. His mother missed seeing him walk. And now he’s dead. Their parents missed their graduation, and now everyone is dead. They’re dead and they didn’t gradu—
“Nurse!” Remington’s voice sounded distant.
“Breathe, Heather, breathe.” Steyer had crouched by her chair.
Heather’s breathing was thin and ragged, in quick gasps. She pressed a hand hard to her chest. She could feel the stitches through her hospital gown. She pressed on them until the pain felt like the knife was once again digging into her flesh. Her head was spinning. Her skin felt like fire.
“What did I tell you?” The RN jogged into the room.
“No, don’t!” Heather scrambled back in the chair, away from the syringe in her hand.
The orderly followed the RN, a chair under his arm. He dropped it in front of Remington with a clatter that made Heather cower. She froze, not wanting to give the large, loud man any reason to come closer. Tears streamed down her face. She began to feel light-headed.
The nurse jabbed the needle into Heather’s hip. A painful pressure welled up as the plunger slid down. When the nurse pulled the needle out, a few drops ran down Heather’s skin. She pressed a folded dressing over the site.
“Out,” she ordered sharply, following Heather’s panicked gaze. The orderly lumbered out.
Heather watched him leave with a growing relief. An odd sensation started in her chest and spread through her limbs, like being submerged in warm water. The muscles loosened and breathing began to work. The fire faded. She sank deep into the chair, very happy to stop moving.
Steyer fell back onto the window seat and ran a hand over his face.
“Now you may speak with her,” the RN said. “Please try not to kill her.”
The older agent scowled.
“That would be awesome,” Heather breathed. If this was what death felt like, it sounded really nice. Preferably to anything else she had felt recently.
Everyone turned to gape at her. There was a thud. Heather took her time to follow the sound. Tech leaned heavily against the door. He clutched the door handle with one hand and covered his mouth with the other.
Even Heather frowned.
Thatch was in over his head. His lungs were beginning to burn, but he was not afraid. They had been preparing for this for weeks. He took one hand from his plastic-wrapped gun to press over his breast pocket to feel the outline of the letter he had written his father. He had resisted sending it; It was bad luck to send letters before a mission.
The ground pitched. Thatch’s head gradually emerged from the brackish water. The river was narrower here, enclosed on either side by dense tropical jungle. The canopy blocked out most of the early-morning light. Were it not for the trees opening up on the town ahead of them, he would have believed it was twilight.
Five drab helmets bobbed in the water ahead of him. The six of them moved slowly, soundlessly. Thatch should have been concerned about crocodiles or piranhas, but he wasn’t. He kept his eyes on the first helmet with an inexplicable, mounting sense of dread.
Movement to the left drew Thatch’s attention. A child—he could not have been older than ten, maybe eight—peered at them from behind a tree. If the others had seen him, he would have been dead already. Thatch slowly raised a finger to his lips.
They reached their destination: a house near the river’s edge. The man up front, with captain’s bars on his helmet, gestured for the others to pass and approached Thatch. Thatch’s heart began to race as Captain Faustinelli’s green eyes locked with his. Faust pointed to all the boats moored on the bank, then gestured down river.
Thatch nodded. As the others slipped out of the river, tore the plastic from their guns, and up toward the house, he cut the boats loose and launched them downstream. He had just shoved the last one when the air
filled with shouting and gunfire.
Tearing the plastic off his own gun, Thatch sprinted toward the house. The gunfire subsided before he reached the open front door. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and stepped inside.
Chaos. The walls were covered in bullet holes and broken furniture scattered the ground. Everything was covered in splinters. The air was thick with dust motes. Several men lay on the floor, four of them dressed in the same uniform as Thatch. Three of them were not moving.
“Oh, God, Faust!”
His captain pulled himself up to sitting, a hand pressed to his chest. A deep brown stain spread across the front of his uniform. Thatch dove to his side, dropping his gun and swinging the pack off his back.
“Don’t die. Please, don’t die. I can fix this—”
Faust’s mouth moved, but words wouldn’t come out. His breaths were quick and shallow. Thatch tore his uniform open to expose two holes across his chest. He pressed his palm against the one over his captain’s heart. His other hand dug frantically into his pack. He looked down to find the dressing. When he looked back up, Faust had fallen still, green eyes unblinking.
“No…” A sob tore from Thatch’s throat. “No, don’t… don’t…” He touched his captain’s face, leaving brilliant red handprints.
Movement and voices from a far room reminded Thatch why they were there. He took a few deep, ragged breaths and picked up his gun. Leaving his med pack where he had dropped it, he moved silently from room to room. A low laugh led him to a kitchen in the back of the house. Several men stood in a tight circle, whispering frantically. Some of them had rifles hanging from their shoulders or pistols in holsters, but none of them could raise their weapons fast enough. Thatch opened fire with a shout.
With a few pulls of the trigger, he brought most of them down. A few escaped out a side door into a small yard enclosed by a high wooden fence. Thatch gave chase. He shot two of them as they dove off the back porch. He pulled the trigger to shoot the third, but nothing happened: He was out of ammunition.
Thatch tossed the gun aside and grabbed his knife. The man clawed at the wooden slats, pulling himself up. Jumping on his back, Thatch dragged him back down to the ground. He punched him and pulled him up to his knees, blindly driving the blade where the neck met the shoulder. The sudden give of flesh felt good. He yanked the knife out and stabbed the man again. And again.
A high-pitched wail pulled Thatch from the mutilation. A child cowered in the corner of the yard. His face was covered with his hands, but Thatch recognized his clothes. The boy from the riverbank. Thatch let the body drop. Torn by rage and grief, Thatch stepped toward the child.
A burning pain tore through his abdomen, followed by the thunder of a gunshot. Thatch hit the ground, gasping. Pressure filled his chest, crushing him, making it impossible to breathe. He grappled with his clothes to press a hand over the wound.
Thatch rolled onto his back. A man stood in the doorway, raising his rifle to shoot again. Before he could brace it against his shoulder, he pitched forward, his face disappearing in a spray of blood and brain.
A black man in fatigues shoved the body out of the doorway and stepped over it. He fired once more into the corner of the yard. Two soldiers followed him out. The man holstered his gun and straddled Thatch, grabbing him by the collar. The lone bar of a lieutenant adorned his shoulder.
“Adams!”
Thatch rasped, trying to reply, but couldn’t.
“Adams!” He turned toward one of the other men. “Tell air support to hurry up, damnit! Our medic’s been shot!”
****
Rhodes jerked awake and reached for a gun that wasn’t there. He gulped air as if he had been suffocating. Wincing, he pressed a hand over the throbbing scar on his abdomen—thirty years old, but it still pained him sometimes. He never could tell if it was the pain that caused the nightmare, or the nightmare that caused the pain.
His knee throbbed as well. Sighing, Rhodes grabbed the ice pack that had fallen aside and set it back over his leg. It hadn’t melted much, telling him he hadn’t been asleep long. Soft, late-evening light filtered through the curtains.
(I need to go find the girls; I don’t have any time to waste.)
Grunting, he placed the ice pack on the bedside table and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. A grinding pain rippled through his body, taking his breath away.
“Fuck…” he panted. “Fuck… Fuck…”
He slowly pulled his legs back up and returned the ice pack. A remote sat on the bedside table. Rhodes took it and turned on the TV. He flipped through for the news.
“… authorities say the fire took so long to put out due to a combination of accelerants…”
“… similar events in Detroit and San Francisco…”
“… known so far only as The Phoenix…”
“… sole survivor…”
Rhodes flipped back and held his breath.
“… now identified as eighteen-year-old Cheatham Hill resident Heather Stokes.”
(I knew it. I knew I didn’t miss.)
A grainy, telescoped image showed a stretcher being rolled from an ambulance into the ER. Under the pile of sheets and blankets on it, a pair of pale, scabbed feet poked out. Heather’s feet.
“One other hostage had escaped, eighteen-year-old Monica Shatterthwaith, but was slain in the process. It is yet unknown what has become of the two male hostages, seventeen-year-old Zachariah Vlasov, and nineteen-year-old Charles Witt.”
(Unknown to you…)
Slumping back with relief, Rhodes took two pill bottles from the bedside table and swallowed two Percocet and one Diazepam, chasing them with an entire bottle of water. He leaned back to continue watching, arm behind his head, as his body went numb and his thoughts slowly dissolved into nothing.
2
01 June 2006
Thursday
The hospital interview room looked much like the interview room at the precinct: brightly-lit, one wall dominated by a two-way mirror, a table riveted to the floor, and four chairs that were not. Two of the chairs were currently occupied: Heather sat on one side, a yellow legal pad before her. Steyer sat across from her with his own little notebook and her case file.
The initial interview had taken the entire previous evening and most of the morning. Steyer took the lead, as usual, with Remington moving in and out to run searches, fetch water, and a new box of tissues when Heather went through the original. Remington was out now. Heather and Steyer sat in silence, scribbling notes.
Heather fidgeted with increasing agitation: shifting in her chair, digging the ragged remains of her nails into the tips of her fingers. The first page of the legal pad was crowded with disconnected notes and doodles. Steyer glanced over it occasionally. Heather was currently working on a list:
“Stairway to Heaven”
Kant “post grad”
Can braid hair!
Stitches?
Diazapan
Not Southern
Runner?
Can cook
Scars on left side of torso (shooting or stabbing)
“I keep telling myself…” she said in a low voice. “I kept thinking, ‘Remember this. Don’t forget this. It might be useful.’” She shook her head and smacked the paper. “But this… this is worthless.”
“Nothing is worthless.”
“I spent a month with that man, and now… it’s all a blur. Disconnected, like a dream.”
“That’s normal. And often temporary. Your mind is trying to protect you until you’re in better condition to cope.”
“Not very helpful, is it?”
“It’s intended for survival, not investigation.”
Heather’s mouth twitched. Steyer smiled, trying to show it was OK to be amused. She gave in to a fleeting smirk.
“Have you read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Miss Stokes?”
Her expression soured and her hand tugged at the shirt over her chest. “Are you about to make a White Rabbit jok
e?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Her hand fell back to the table. “Yes, I’ve read it. A few times.”
“Do you recall what the King of Hearts says is the best way to tell a story?”
She leaned back, relaxing. “‘Begin at the beginning…’”
Steyer nodded. “Many witnesses report it is easier to recall details in conjunction with other events. In your case, recalling details in the context of chronological order. I could leave you to write a bit, to get—”
“I’m gonna need a lot more paper.”
He smiled. “I will bring you some.”
Heather flipped the first page over and wrote 02 May 2006 across the top of the next page. She slid a hand into her greasy hair and leaned on her elbow, but recoiled with a sharp intake of breath. She switched arms, leaning on the arm she would write with.
“Would you like a change of scenery?” Steyer stood and slid his chair under the table. “Perhaps back in your room?”
“I’m good here.”
He paused to allow the question to sink in. Her writing slowed.
“Safe here,” she whispered without looking up.
“Yes, it is.” He tapped the table. “I’ll be right back with a few more legal pads.”
The room on the other side of the mirror was dimly-lit by a wall of monitors displaying various locations in the hospital. A security officer sat before them, eyes flicking from one screen to another. Steyer instinctively found the entrances and exits, checking for a tall, lean man with a dark complexion. A composite artist had visited the evening before, but the various results had Heather on the verge of tears with frustration. The only one remotely resembling her description was Remington, leaning against the officer’s table with his arms crossed.
Tech straddled the back of a chair, resting his chin on his arms, nose so close to the glass, it almost touched. He didn’t take his eyes from his granddaughter as Steyer entered the room. He had started the day in the seat next to Heather’s, but Steyer sensed she was holding back for her grandfather’s sake. He reluctantly asked Tech to leave, but she must have known he could still hear her, because she continued to give what felt like an abridged account of her captivity.