by Gary Sapp
with you. I know I usually call first before I come over here. I need you…to…I need you to open up…please.”
Denise stared at the door for an extended time before she finally said, “Just a minute, Chris. I’m just getting out of the shower…let me put something on.”
She sprang into action—which included ushering Seth unceremoniously into her bedroom’s walk in closet. “Seth…Doctor, I need you to stay in here for a minute. Don’t say a word.”
Seth tried to make sense of all of this. One moment this woman is all over him, the next minute she is calling and treating him as if he were her ex-husband…and now she was trying to hide his presence from that same man. The right side of his brain tells him that he should walk out there and let the man see that he’d been alone with his nearly naked ex-wife. Hadn’t he accused him and Angel of consorting in the past? The other side, the rational one tells him to calm the hell down and not get stupid in here. Christopher Prince is a highly trained, highly skilled Special Agent of the FBI. And not to mention the man is probably armed none the less.
The coffee cups are still in there, Seth shuddered with his new thought. Both of those cups are still on that table. Prince is also an investigator for God sakes, and an investigator is curious by nature and suspicious by career choice. The longer he hangs around the more likely he would realize that someone had been here. Or is still here, I’ve got to go—
Denise cried out with a fierceness that made her first scream before her ex-husband arrived pale in comparison. Now he could make out what she was saying. “No, Chris, I don’t believe you…nooooooooooo.” A new round of cries rushed to greet the first ones. “Oh my God, Chris, not my baby…nonononono,” She said until Seth’s ears could no longer process the incoherent words falling from Denise’s lips.
The muscles in Dr. Seth Dupree’s neck grew tense. He’d never know the privileges of parenthood and likely never would.
Buy Seth’s Seven year old brother Todd had died in a boating accident when was but five himself.
And he recognized the agonizing cry of a grieving parent when he heard it.
Chris
They arrived at the second ‘murder’ scene in a wooded area off of Red Wine Road, two and a half miles from where the first one had displayed itself to them.
It looked to Special Agent Christopher Prince that although Agent Sheridan was on the site already himself, that the authorities in general, and the FBI specifically hadn’t got the tip first.
Two dozen reporters had lined up and leaned over the barricades that separated the vultures from another doll’s body. He saw his partner, Tabitha Blue, parked with her arms folded next to Sheridan. Both were standing in the shadow of a huge uniformed cop whose red cheeks looked as if someone had just pinched them.
The day was picturesque, warmer and the shifting wind had blown the smoky haze due west of the city. And here’s another good portent…The APD had learned from the near fiasco the other day and had dozens of off duty police officers mingling amongst the gathered crowd on onlookers.
He slammed the passenger side door of Angel’s rental and his childhood friend rushing to match his pace from the other side despite her limp. They quickly passed the reporters who were all asking the same type of annoying questions that reporters always asked for which he and Angel both were answering “no comment” until one of them matched them movement for movement behind the barricade with a query that he did not escapade.
“Agent Prince…Agent Prince, would it be fair to question your competency in leading this investigation considering your personal stake in what happened yesterday?” Lucy Burgess, of the Times asked him in her heavily South African accent.
Chris stopped his forward advancement long enough to acknowledge the woman’s question and her huge overbite but so far had remained silent.
“After all, the rapid firing events that happened at the Carver Housing Projects were a mixed bag for you: Your half-brother Xavier launches a devastating attack that nets him 61 confirmed Choir Boys although the Bishop and his deacon managed to escape…the executions. Eight Peacekeepers died as well” Lucy said pushing a recorder towards his face. “And yet, your step daughter is one of a hand full of civilians who were also found deceased when the authorities arrived. And although her the certainty behind her death has yet to be determined—“
“No comment,” He waved his hand at her and her device.
Angel must have felt his pulse racing in his neck and his ear. She put her small hand in his side and nudged him back in the direction that he had intended to reach before the other woman had distracted him.
“Christopher, calm down,” She said barely loud enough above the noise of the crowd. She cut him off so that once again he couldn’t get to the actual crime scene until he had. He stopped again, this time resting his hands on his hips and caught his breath. There was an untimely pang in his gut but he dared not reach to soothe it with all of these journalists present. He refused to throw more speculative wood for their fires.
Angel was saying: “Your step daughter’s death isn’t some nosy reporter’s death, I don’t care where the body was found—“
“I don’t think she was alone.” Chris answered an unasked question instead. “I can’t shake the feeling that someone else was inside Denise’s apartment when I arrived.”
Angel cocked a brow in confusion. Chris had tried not to think about the personal implications or Erica’s death on him or his ex-wife just now but Lucy Burgess had made that task damn near impossible now. He wanted to drop his professional demeanor and get angry. He wanted to punch something…or somebody for how rough this entire episode was going to be on Denise. He didn’t love her now…that time had passed, but he had no desire to see her suffering the way the woman had suffered over the past 24 hours. And yet, I can’t help but to feel as if you were hiding something from me the other night.
But there was more than one reason that this case needed him to get his act together and refocus.
At least a second child, 13 year old Mathew Clifton, had joined Moses Jackson in the missing category. He had been outside playing a game of pickup basketball at a local park and had been raptured on his walk back home.
Angel seemed to get his reference was about his ex-wife and not his dead step daughter at last. “Alright, Christopher,” She said shrugging her shoulders. She got in his wake so no one else would hear her. “You told me last night that Denise has engaged in a sexual relationship with another woman before. Even though she had come out of that particular closet with you doesn’t make her immune from the potential embarrassment about being caught red handed; especially, with her ex-husband calling on her with the worst news imaginable.”
“I considered that.” He matched her tone and flashed his index finger at Sheridan who looked to be growing impatient with their delay. “Denise told me that it happened about six months after our divorce. And that it was an isolated onetime event and a one sided deal that satisfied her curiosity and another woman’s aggressive posturing.” I’m likely to have believed that scenario was reversed though, knowing Denise like I do.
“Did you consider that Denise could have been bedding a man that you know?” Angel asked. “Maybe he is a mutual friend of yours and she was trying to save all three of you from embarrassment.”
Chris stared off into the bright afternoon sunlight. “I considered that too. I don’t know, Doc, but there is something more going on here.”
Angel massaged his arm and raised her voice back to a normal pitch. “Alright, enough speculation about Denise’s motives for right now. How is she doing?”
“She’s doing as well as any woman who’s lost her only child could be.”
Angel locked her gaze on him and he had known no other choice but to be mesmerized by her big brown eyes. “Would you mind taking some professional advice from an old friend, Christopher?”
“Shoot,”
“Spend some time with her. Regardless to everything that’s happened in the pa
st, through all of the muck, the three of you shared a bond. That bond doesn’t snap just because you two aren’t together anymore. You were family.” A smile played on her enhanced lips. “Look, I know that my relationships define the term ‘complex’, but you may be the only one who can help her through this. She’s very vulnerable right now. Don’t let anything push her over the edge.”
Chris laughed and turned away. “You can’t begin to understand the complexity…the volatility of this situation, Doc.” He said looked back to where Lucy Burgess and her flock were still standing and he let out a low whistle. “If those reporters ever got wind of what Erica did…”
He turned back to Angel. “In speaking of complex, how’s Seth? You’ve barely mentioned his name since we started working together again.”
“What’s to mention?” Angel looked uncomfortable…and used the opportunity to get the head start on the final few strides if would take to reach Sheridan and the others. “My husband is an excellent surgeon and an even more caring sensitive man.”
“Angel, did your coming here throw some type of wedge between you two?” Chris rubbed at the day old stubble on the top of his head. “Hey, look, now it’s my turn to apologize for dipping my nose where it doesn’t belong. But you have told me before that Seth was a lot like Denise in that aspect, that he believed