Phoenix Feather

by Angela Wallace

  “Does Trent like it?”

  “He’s gone with me once or twice.”

  Aidan smiled. “I bet he’d go again. And I’d be up for a new challenge.”

  Bryan stared at her. What an image that brought to his mind: the three of them camping in the mountains, rock climbing. It didn’t look half bad. Then, unbidden, came the image of nieces and nephews. So ridiculous was the vision that Bryan laughed out loud.

  “What?” Aidan asked.

  He shook his head and tried to school his features. “Just wondering if you had a sister,” he covered.

  She smirked. “Sorry, no. But Phoebe would love it too.”

  Bryan lowered his eyebrows at her. “Not very subtle.”

  “Neither were you.” She grinned impishly.

  He laughed and conceded. “Trent’s a lucky guy.” He watched Aidan automatically look back to the kitchen where Trent was washing dishes.

  “I’m the lucky one,” she said softly. “So was it good or bad news that made you able to stay longer?”

  Bryan stiffened. “Good news that won’t take effect until tomorrow. But we’re close,” he said, feeling the strange need to reassure her of an end to a danger she knew nothing about.

  “Good.” She tied off the trash bag.

  He stood up and took it from her. “I’ll take it out.” Once outside, he could hear the laughter of Phoebe and the yips from the dog. They brought back so many memories of family gatherings growing up: grandparents cooking in the kitchen, children playing outside in the snow, his cousin’s dog running after squirrels. Memories that used to oppress him now made him smile. Once again, though he hadn’t planned it this way, he was glad of the way things turned out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bryan pulled up in front of the small apartment complex and killed the engine. Three marked police cars came in from the other side of the street.

  “Apartment Seven,” Jess said from the passenger seat.

  Bryan got out and unclipped the holster of his gun. Scott Copeland lived at this address, halfway to Lynnwood. The picture in his employee file at the Department of Social and Human Services looked like a good match to the police sketch. And today was his day off.

  Bryan and Jess waited at the bottom of the stairs until officers confirmed they had all the exits covered, and then they went up. Jess knocked on the door as Bryan stood off to the side and out of sight of the peephole. No one answered. He motioned for an officer to use the entry tool to pry the door open with a snap. They drew their weapons and charged in, shouting and announcing their identification as police.

  The one-bedroom apartment was easily cleared. Scott Copeland lay in his bed, completely wasted. The oppressive smell of alcohol hung in the air. Bryan surveyed the empty liquor bottles lining the dresser and night table and the condom wrappers that didn’t make it in the garbage can.

  “Someone had himself a little party,” he muttered.

  Jess snorted in disgust. “Get him back to the precinct to detox.”

  Two officers hauled Scott out and Bryan and Jess went about searching the apartment. They found drugs and a few hiding places for wads of cash, but nothing to prove he was the serial killer they were looking for.

  “No list,” Jess said hours later, bitterness lacing her tone. “An apartment is not the prime location to torture four women.”

  “No,” Bryan agreed, equally disappointed. At least they finally had the guy in custody. Trent and Aidan would be coming back the next day, and Bryan could relax a little. “We have the cars though. We’ll get a confession.”

  They drove back to the precinct and began gathering background information on their suspect. It would be a few more hours before he’d be sober enough to talk to them coherently.

  “College graduate,” Jess said. “Got high marks. Looks like he was busted for running a few money-making scams on campus, but was never expelled.”

  “Sounds like he got into social work for exploiting rather than helping people.” Bryan really wanted to find out what made this guy tick. Was it an ex-girlfriend who had spurned him, someone who had red hair and was adopted? Bryan couldn’t find any indication that Scott had known any of the previous victims, but many times serial killers saved their most precious victims for last. He grimaced at the thought, and as much as he wanted to protect Aidan, asking her about past relationships didn’t seem like a good way to go.

  “I wonder why he stopped.” Jess rocked back in her chair, the gears squeaking. “He’s been showing up for work as usual. He partied the night away last night with one can guess what kind of companions.” She shook her head in confusion.

  “We’ll just have to ask him.” Bryan glanced at the clock every so often, anxiously ticking away the hours until they could get that piece of scum into a room and finally get the answers they needed. Bryan checked himself. Sometimes there were no answers to the hardest questions, such as why.

  An officer eventually came to inform them that Scott had been transferred to interrogation, and that his attorney had also arrived. This news dampened their enthusiasm a bit. They gathered up their files and headed to the Interview Room.

  Scott’s lawyer stood as they entered. He wore a prim suit, but his wide comb-over dampened his attempt at looking serious. “I’m Mark Briggs, representing Mr. Copeland.”

  “Have fun with that,” Jess muttered.

  Bryan coughed lightly and they both took a seat across the table. “Your client is a suspect in four homicides.”

  “What?” Scott spoke up.

  “You didn’t inform my client at his arrest?” Briggs asked.

  “He was unconscious and drooling at the time,” Jess replied.

  “We have testimony that Mr. Copeland sold four stolen cars to a chop shop,” Bryan continued. “These four cars belonged to the four women kidnapped, tortured, and murdered over the past few months.” Bryan fixed Scott with a glare.

  Scott held both his palms up. “A guy asked me to take those cars off his hands. He said he needed them to disappear, and I could make some extra cash taking care of it for him.”

  Bryan and Jess exchanged a look.

  “That story’s already been used,” she said.

  “My client is telling you the truth,” Briggs insisted.

  “Well there’s also this matter of means.” Bryan pulled out the information they had gathered from Social Services. “We’ve discovered that all these women were adopted. Adoption records are sealed. Your client here has access to these records, and according to phone records dating back several months, he’s called every State Adoption Department in the country and made some nice formal requests for such records.”

  Briggs casually glanced at the papers. “You don’t have any physical evidence.”

  “I think a jury will find that compelling, considering the odds,” Jess put in.

  They had a calm staring contest with the lawyer for a few moments before Briggs leaned over and whispered into Scott’s ear.

  “He’ll cooperate fully and you agree not to charge him as an accessory.”

  “Is he?” Jess asked.

  “Of course not.”

  Bryan scrutinized Scott. He had been so sure this was the guy, and he was claiming it was someone else. It had to be a lie, but deep down Bryan knew it was probably the truth. This killer had been invisible, leaving no trace, dumping the bodies and everything with them so as to disconnect himself as much as possible. It made sense that he would do the same with the cars, even so far as to pass off the dumping on someone else. If he was that careful, there probably wasn’t much Scott would be able to tell them.

  “Talk,” Bryan said, but the overwhelming sense of defeat made it hard for him to care what Scott had to say.

  “This old man wanted to find his daughter that had been given up for adoption,” Scott began. “I referred him to the registry, but he said he didn’t have a lot of time and wanted to know if there was a quicker way. He hinted at money, so I offered to do it—for a fee.
But he didn’t have any specific information, not even a specific year the girl had been born, so I got everything from the state of Washington. Then he wanted more, so I did.”

  “For more money,” Jess suggested.

  Scott nodded. “He said he was looking for his daughter.”

  “Yeah, and you’re just big-hearted that way.”

  “What was his name?” Bryan didn’t expect to get one.

  Scott started to squirm. “He said it was Mr. Smith, but…he sounded Russian.”

  “That didn’t shoot off warning bells in that smart head of yours?” Jess snapped.

  “I object to this kind of treatment,” Briggs interjected.

  “What else?” Bryan said forcefully.

  “He came back a month later and said he had a car he needed to get rid of.” Scott shrugged. “I had offered him other ‘services’ after our first meeting, so he knew I had connections in that area. He brought me three more cars and that was it. I haven’t heard from him since then, I swear! And I didn’t know he was killing people.”

  “You said he was old?” Bryan asked. “How old?”

  “Sixties, maybe older. Gray hair and beard.”

  “Will you sit with a sketch artist?” Bryan’s heart was no longer in it. It had been another wrong turn, a lead that veered off into the ditch at the last second, leaving them stranded and the killer still miles ahead.

  He and Jess left the interview room.

  “Our guy is Russian,” she said.

  “We’ll have the sketch sent to Immigration and Interpol,” Bryan said, but he wasn’t hopeful.

  “Yeah,” Jess agreed. “It could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “We could have had more than four bodies by now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “How was Christmas?” Trent asked Sam. They were in the equipment bay checking all the gear. New Year’s Eve promised to hold many car accident scenes, fights with injuries, and fires caused by sparklers.

  “A few oven fires, car accidents, the usual,” he replied. “Oh, someone burned their Christmas tree in their front yard.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I heard pieces of an argument between the wife, husband, and wife’s sister. Not too hard to guess what it was about.” Sam shook his head. “And here I volunteered to work to get away from people like that.” He finished checking his SCBA gear. “You have a good holiday?”

  “The best,” Trent replied. Aidan was there. Bryan was there. It had been almost perfect. He knew it would be several years before the upcoming pain would lessen enough to allow them another Christmas close to the one they had just had. That day had also seemed to break the dam for Bryan. He now called often, asking about how things were, how Aidan was. It was nice having him so involved in Trent’s life again.

  “Trent, phone!” someone called.

  He jumped up and grabbed the receiver hanging on the wall next to the door. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” a very pleasant voice answered. “I’m looking at a flier for Comedy Sports hosting a fundraiser for a local college’s drama team,” Aidan said. “This Friday. Want to go?”

  Trent grinned. “Absolutely.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding rather pleased. “Have a good night at work, if you can.”

  “Have breakfast with me Friday morning,” he said on a whim. “After you get off work.” He didn’t plan to propose, but it was time he told her what his intentions were, how he felt about her, put it into words—at least three key ones.

  “Okay, where?”

  Trent held back a chuckle. “Not your restaurant?”

  “It just feels weird, being served where I usually serve.”

  Well he couldn’t have her feeling uncomfortable when he was going to bare his soul. “The tea shop on Skylark?”

  “Perfect. See you then.”

  They said goodbye and Trent went back to work. He went out on a call where some young kids had gotten impatient waiting to use their firecrackers and set the lawn on fire, leaving a nice scorch mark to remember the occasion by. Other than that, they bided their time until the influx of calls would begin when the partying did.

  Trent joined the other guys in the Rec room to watch a game on TV.

  Sam slapped him on the arm and nodded to the hall. “You’re popular today.”

  Bryan waved from the entryway.

  Trent got up to meet him. “Hey. So what’s this visit about? It’s a little early to think about Christmas shopping for next year,” he joked.

  Bryan did not look happy. “I need to talk to you.”

  Trent frowned, but followed Bryan down the hall and to the front, where Bryan asked Frank if they could borrow the office for a few minutes. Frank left, and Bryan shut the door.

  “What’s going on?” Trent asked.

  “I don’t know what else to do at this point.” Bryan ran a hand over his hair. “I’ve tried everything to make this better so you’d never have to know, but it’s driving me crazy.”

  Trent did not like the way Bryan had started his explanation. “Spit it out.”

  “Did you know Aidan’s adopted?”

  “Yes...” Trent certainly didn’t have a problem with it, and he couldn’t understand why it would ever be a problem for his brother. “So what?”

  “So that guy who’s been killing women in Seattle has been killing women with red hair who have been adopted.”

  Trent’s expression morphed into confusion.

  Bryan sighed in frustration. “I’ve been following leads and they’ve all ended up nowhere. I haven’t caught the guy, Trent. And Aidan’s exactly the type of woman this guy likes to hunt.”

  “You’re serious?” Trent’s assumptions about the conversation took a drastic turn. Bryan didn’t have a problem with Aidan; he was afraid for her. Whether this intense fear was irrational or not scared Trent though, because either way it seemed something to be alarmed about. “How long have you known about this?”

  Bryan avoided eye contact. “Long enough to try to solve it without coming to this.”

  “The cabin,” Trent said, and Bryan nodded. “Am I supposed to tell Aidan?”

  “No,” he said urgently. “If you could just check up on her—frequently. I’ve…I’ve been doing the same, but I still have to work to find this guy.”

  “You said all your leads ended up nowhere.”

  “We know he’s Russian and we have a rough sketch. We’re checking with international authorities. I just want to make sure. I can see how important she is to you, and I will do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t touch her.”

  Trent didn’t know what to say. Aidan could be the next target of a serial killer. It was almost too wild to imagine, and yet, none of the families of the other victims had ever anticipated it happening to them.

  “I need her schedule,” Bryan said.

  “What?”

  “Her schedule. When she works, if she has other routines, especially places she’d be going to alone. I can ask for favors from officers on the streets—”

  “Bryan,” Trent interrupted. “There’s no chance you might be overreacting?”

  His brother looked grim. “I’ve seen too much to care if I am or not.”

  Trent accepted that. “Okay.” He told Bryan all he knew about Aidan’s schedule and plans. Most of them revolved around Chris and Phoebe, which Bryan said was a good thing. Trent felt numb by the time Bryan left. The fear was contagious. How was he going to act around Aidan when he saw her? Would he be stiff, nervous, wanting to tell her what he was hiding, but afraid to? Fear gave birth to anger. He had been planning to tell Aidan he loved her. How would he get the words out now? They’d be tainted with this knowledge. Would it be worth it if he could keep her safe until Bryan caught the guy? He couldn’t stand the tension building inside him, so he went to the gym to try and work it out. When dispatch tones sounded, he poured himself into his work, trying to keep the image of Aidan’s face off the bodies he saw.
<
br />   ***

  Aidan sat on the floor across from Phoebe, rolling a ball back and forth between them while Gypsy chased it. Chris was sound asleep in his room, as he was a lot of the time now, worn out by an invisible battle he had no hope of winning.

  “I think he did it so I wouldn’t be lonely,” Phoebe said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Gypsy.”

  Aidan looked down at the puppy that had captured both their hearts. Phoebe was probably right. It had been a sweet and thoughtful thing to do. Phoebe had never been alone her whole life. Chris was always at her side, the two inseparable—until now. It was hard, but Chris had started bringing up discussions about what Phoebe was going to do in the future. After the talk they’d had at the cabin, they were much more open about things, especially the hard stuff. Sometimes it was difficult to listen to, even though Aidan acknowledged the necessity.

  “I’m only going to take half a load next semester,” Phoebe continued. “I talked to my professors and they approved it. I don’t want it to be too hard to keep up.”

  Aidan nodded. “That’s wise.” Gypsy pawed at the ball in her hand, and she sent it rolling back to Phoebe.

  “Chris asked me if I would move in with you.”

  Aidan looked up. “Of course.”

  “At least until you get married.”

  She smirked. “You expecting that soon?”

  Phoebe shrugged. “We could start planning it anyway.”

  Aidan laughed and tossed the ball through the air.

  Phoebe reached up and caught it. “Seriously, we could make a scrapbook of your dream wedding and that way most of the details would already be taken care of when the time comes, and you won’t have to stress about it.”

  Aidan shook her head in dismay. “If we make one for me, we’re making one for you.”

  Phoebe rolled her eyes, but smiled. They passed the ball back and forth in silence until Gypsy intercepted it, managed to get her tiny mouth around a section, and took off running.

  “He’s trying everything he can to make it easier on me.” Phoebe shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready though.”