by Gary Sapp
already.”
“What do you visualize when you see our people’s future?” A third voice asked
“I see a future filled with sadness and pain.” A group of people answered in return.
Angel spoke to the two men over the crowds whooping and hollering. “I remember reading that the authorities who first found that young man’s corpse they thought that it was a horrible murder, but an isolated case. The prominent media attention, at least what passed as media attention in those days, really didn’t jump on board until a couple years later when—“Angel found her friends gaze. She honestly didn’t know who or how many agents within the bureau knew about Christopher’s abduction by Louis Keaton in the other half of this story. “They really didn't hop on board until Keaton’s victims were taken.”
Christopher nodded curtly in Angel’s choice of discretion. He got back to his feet and brushed the dirt off of his trousers. “Do you think this is an isolated event, Doc, or do you believe that there will be more ‘scenes’ like this one to be discovered.”
Angel shrugged. “I guess are first order of business is to find out what it truly represents. Our answer lies in there somewhere—“
Angel was interrupted when the cries of the dissenting voices grew louder. It took a full unit of uniformed officers to move in to quiet the building ruckus. Two of the cops pulled out their batons and pushed their way on the other side of the dividing tape.
A young woman who Chris believed had been beautiful once, but the stress of adulthood had been most unkind to her face screamed at him. She was wearing the colors of a Peacekeeper. “You need to pick your side, brother. Either you are with us…or you’re with them. The Rooster if foul, the Rooster is no damned good.”
Christopher had seen and heard enough. “Sargent, get those people back right now. We cannot allow this crime scene to be contaminated.”
Angel watched as a mini melee occurred right before her big brown eyes. She couldn’t testify exactly who pushed whom and who punched the other first. But three uniformed APD officers had toppled five citizens and were striking them with their batons.
But the men lying on their backs weren’t going to have the APD have the last say in the manner. They punched at the officers. They scratched at their eye sockets. The largest of the cops was bitten on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood.
Christopher had lowered into a sprinters stance to intervene when the advantage shifted over to the crowd, but Angel caught him, planted her feet in the dirt, and used all of her strength to hold on to her friend to keep him from diving into the fray. “Don’t involve yourself in this, Christopher. It will stabilize itself.” Angel spoke loudly so he would hear her and suddenly she was right. “Look for yourself,”
And it had. At least for the time being, cooler heads had prevailed, along with the arrival of a new squadron of officers making their way around the curve from their cars.
“It’s all falling apart,” Angel said. “This situation is on the verge of exploding into something none of us may be able to pull back from.”
Christopher snatched his arm away from her and straightened his shirt and jacket. Angel hadn’t realized she still had him in her grasp. “And you seem to always be in tuned with those fools in Pandora’s thought processes. Where should we look for clues next, Doctor?”
“Like I said, Christopher, I have theories, nothing more.” Angel felt suddenly as if she had taken a defensive stance. “Most of what I feel is based on intuition. I worked with Pandora for a very short time. After you around Serena for a while you can’t help but understand some of her thought processes. She’s a complicated woman for sure, but she’s not impossible to read.”
A new voice called up from somewhere behind them. “That’s why Sheridan doesn’t completely trust you, Doctor, and either should you, Agent Prince.” Tabitha Blue said as a means of announcing her arrival.
Angel held her ground. “I’m not keeping anything from you that I’m conscious of, Christopher. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Christopher rubbed his jaw and looked as if he couldn’t make up his mind about anything at that moment. He caught his breath, introduced Collier to his partner and caught her up on the few things they had learned and theorized from this crime scene.
Blue said: “So this is the escalation…the rapture that Serena Tennyson kept hinting at. I’m not impressed.”
“You shouldn’t be impressed, Agent Blue.” Angel crossed her arms. “But don’t be a fool either. This is just the beginning. Of this I have no doubt.”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Blue asked her.
Chris had returned to a state of calm. “It means that the doctor believes that this doll is a representation of a child that has already or will be soon abducted off of the streets of Atlanta. I know Louis Keaton. He is a serial pedophile. And we will have more serial dancing to do to catch him.” He finally said. “That child will be left alive as long as Keaton doesn’t feel threatened in anyway.”
Angel nodded at her friend’s input but reserved her statements for the agents Collier and Blue. “And if I had to guess, I would say that he will be abducting at least a half a dozen children or more to join this boy soon.”
Christopher’s business cell rang.
“Agent Prince,” He said into the receiver.
After listening to the party on the other end he sighed long and deep. There is more trouble, Angel thought. What could have possibly gone wrong now? “Yea, thanks, Ricky. I’m glad you called me first.”
Blue shifted in her stance, impatient for the news. “What now, Chris? Did someone find another doll? Or is it worse did someone find a real body?”
“Hundreds of bodies have been found.” Christopher slapped at the ‘off’ button feature of his smart phone. He may it his business to lookout at the crowd, chanting and singing, but relatively peaceful for the time being. “We keep asking if things could possibly get worse in this city, well it has expeditiously.”
“What is it, Christopher?” Angel felt the need for her first drink of the day. “What has happened?”
“The House in Chains has sent the Peacekeepers to infiltrate the Carver Street Housing Project.” He looked to the heavens and then down below. “There are hundreds of casualties.”
Roxanne
She jerked out a dreamless sleep, disoriented, sweating, and pissed off that strangers saw her in a state like this.
And a little hungry, whatever was cooking in the kitchen had either a wondrous smell to it or she had indeed been starving to death.
Joseph Champion flipped some eggs from one side of the frying pan to another. He waited until she gave him a visual conformation to approach where she had been lying on the couch—
Wait. Something’s wrong here.
There had been no couch…no kitchenette…and little else where they were before.
Champion must have read her mind, handed her a biscuit as a peace offering and said, “No Roxanne, we’re not in the same apartment before your lights went out.” She took the biscuit. “I got some bacon in the stove as well. It will all be ready in a minute, but I’m sure you want some answers.”
“I do.”
He stepped back over to the stove, as his eggs were on the fringes of burning. “First of all, I should say good morning to you.”
She glanced up and quickly out of the window and then sat back on the couch and tried to get her thoughts together. Have I been out all of that time?
“To answer the first of your many questions—this is Andre’s place, the real one that he didn’t want either of us in. With the Choir Boy threat…neutralized…he no longer felt threatened by having other residents seeing you or me come out of here.”
And Roxanne believed it.
It had his style or lack thereof. There were pictures of his mom who Roxanne had remembered meeting or more than one occasion when she had to come down to the middle school for parent-teacher conferences. She had grayed considerably but it was her. A life
sized pinup of Beyonce graced one wall, while a Nicki Manji featuring her fake breast in a tight shirt stared at them from another.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wake you …you were sleeping so peacefully, well you were, at least at first.” He handed her a plate and a plastic cup with water in it. She reluctantly accepted it. “I wasn’t sure how you would react to being awakened by a virtual stranger.”
A new question rose to the surface of her brain.
“Where are my—“
Champion pointed to both her guns and the small amount of bullets she had remaining. She put the plate down on the table and gave each weapon a thorough examination until she was positive they hadn’t been tampered with.
“Where is Andre?” She asked
“He’s around the complex someplace.” Champion said between three forkfuls of eggs. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Are you alright, Roxanne? What, if anything, do you remember from last night?”
She flashed him a fake smile. “I’m fine…and not much actually.”
She leaned against the window trying to get it together, trying to gather her thoughts into something…anything nearing cohesion. Something was poking her in her pants pocket when she leaned on the wall.
She pulled a locket from inside of her pants.
She opened it and saw the face of two darling little girls.
And it all came back in a rush.
She’d charged around the corner in the apartment with her gun a blazing hitting The Admiral of the Peacekeepers with a shot to