by Jette Harris
The piano was crowned with photos in mismatched frames. The finest frame held a wedding photo: A young, tattooed Asian woman, already in the advanced stages of pregnancy, stood next to an awkward-looking long-haired man, slightly older. Tex sat beside them, looking exasperated, but smiling. The next photo had the happy couple cuddling a newborn. Thi’s hair still matted her sweaty face, and Heath’s eyes were wide with wonder. Rhodes’s mouth twitched. The next frame looked like balsa wood, containing a grainy photo of six men in Army BDU’s. Tex’s laughing eyes were immediately recognizable. He wore the insignia of an EOD technician. Rhodes’s jaw dropped as he recognized the lieutenant standing next to Tex, barely old enough to be an officer, with his high forehead, fair features, and cool expression.
The sound of water turning on in the other room made Rhodes jump. He leaned closer for a better look, holding his breath in disbelief, then hurried back onto the landing. He pulled the door shut and leaned on the banister in time for Tex to emerge from his bedroom. His eyes were still watering as he pressed a handkerchief to his mouth.
“You OK?” Rhodes almost dropped a “Sarge” at the end of the question, but he bit it off.
Tex sniffled and cleared his throat, then shook his head. He reeked of vomit. Rhodes preferred the cheap Bourbon. “’S been a rough week.”
“Oh, I bet.” Rhodes put a hand on Tex’s shoulder, still brawny and solid, despite his age. He wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that arm.
“Did you find anything?” Tex asked as they descended the stairs.
“Nothin’ looks amiss. Of course, I wouldn’t notice anything unless it was obvious. I did check to make sure the windows were locked, though. I’ll leave it to you to check the rest of the house.” He touched his hat to bid Tex farewell.
The door was almost closed when Rhodes spoke again: “One more thing.”
Tex poked his head back out. Rhodes was gazing into the yard next door. A small child sat on the front porch with arms crossed over his legs.
“Is that Monica Shatterthwaith’s house?”
Tex nodded. “That there’s Xavier.”
Another boy, a few years younger, flew out of the house and jumped the stairs, landing on the lawn. He spread his arms like wings and rushed around the yard.
“And David,” the old man added.
“Thank you,” Rhodes said, tipping his hat in good-bye. His muscles were tight, as if Tex were watching as he walked down the driveway and across the Shatterthwaith’s lawn. David almost crashed into his legs, but pulled himself short. Broad, pale scars ran up his neck and marred his face, indicative of a dog attack.
“Are you a cop?”
“No, I’m just wearing the uniform.”
David laughed, revealing crooked teeth. Remembering himself, he squirmed, turning the scarred side of his face away.
Xavier bounded over. “Did you find my sister?”
Rhodes couldn’t think of a funny comeback for that one.
31
Deputy Moore was a large, bald black man with an impressive mustache. As he approached the front doors with Dr. Magee—slightly younger, slightly lighter-of-skin, and much shorter—he did not look like someone anyone would want to tangle with. But once they let the agents in and shook hands, Moore cracked a warm, welcoming smile that changed his entire demeanor. He was the ideal high school campus officer.
After their introductions, Dr. Magee checked his watch and clapped his hands. “You gentlemen have about forty-five minutes before after-school activities wrap up, which means these halls will be crawling with students for a good ten minutes before Deputy Moore and I herd them out, then we’re locking up.”
Steyer nodded. He and Remington exchanged a glance and came to a silent agreement.
Remington gestured to Moore. “Would you mind showing me the classroom the students all had in common?” He glanced at his notepad to double-check the names. “Dr. Creighton’s AP… A and P?” He pursed his lips as if the joke had not been intentional, but Moore’s smile broadened.
“This way.” Moore gestured through a hallway leading to a cafeteria.
Steyer turned to Dr. Magee and slipped his hands into his pockets. “You said you believed you had something that might be of interest to us?”
“Yes, Agent Steyer.” Unlike Deputy Moore, Dr. Magee’s manner was all-business. “The main office is just through here.”
****
“People don’t just walk into our school, Special Agent,” Dr. Magee said as he guided Steyer to his office door. “Dr. Creighton was sick. He texted me the night before he had gone to the ER with Salmonella. The man that showed up that morning wasn’t a familiar face, but that isn’t odd. We have a revolving door with substitutes. He had a district ID, the name in our system matched the name on his badge.” He passed Steyer a gallon-sized Ziploc bag containing a piece of paper with SUBSTITUTE SIGN-IN across the top and a pen. Dr. Creighton’s substitute signed in at 6:52 a.m. He signed in again at 7:50 a.m. the next morning. He signed his name both times in neat cursive: Avery Rhodes.
Although they had a few other aliases, Steyer’s pulse quickened. They had never had a name until after it was too late. Having one now felt like progress.
“Your website states school starts at 8:10. Is seven early for a sub?”
Dr. Magee shook his head. “It’s not unheard of, especially not for a nervous rookie.”
Steyer leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and twisted his wedding band. Why would he come in at 7 one morning, then 7:50 the next? He rubbed his brow and shook his head.
“Do you have cameras inside the school?”
“We have several cameras in strategic locations, but not in the classrooms, and not all of them work.” Dr. Magee leaned on his desk and laced his fingers together. “I’ll have Deputy Moore make you copies of those days and send them your way.”
****
Dr. Creighton’s classroom was through the cafeteria, down a hall, through an outdoor corridor, and in an entirely separate building from the rest of the school. The acrid smell of chemicals and smoke indicated that building was strictly used for the science classes.
The classroom they were looking for was near the center of the building. Moore leaned into the open door and beckoned toward the front. Remington leaned in behind him. Two female students sat on opposite ends of the front row, heads down, pencils moving furiously.
Dr. Creighton was a tall, sturdy man with a mane of silver hair and a bushy sable beard. He checked the clock on the wall at the front of the room as he crossed to the door.
“Two more minutes, ladies!”
One of the girls growled in frustration and scribbled more furiously.
“I take it you are one of the FBI agents I heard about on the news last night?”
Both girls twisted around in their chairs. Their eyes roved over Remington with interest. He groaned internally; If there was anything he hated more than small children, it was teen-aged girls, for that exact reason.
“Focus, ladies! One more minute!”
The growler returned to scribbling. The other tapped her paper a few times as if her pencil were a magic wand and flipped it over.
“The news?” Remington asked. “That was fast.”
“Small community, lots of money. News travels fast.” Creighton shook his hand. “I’m Bill Creighton, as I’m sure you’ve deduced. And these young ladies had the misfortune of missing their finals last Thursday.”
Remington nodded. He noted the sleeveless purple-and-white cheerleading tops, the same top Monica Shatterthwaith was wearing in her Missing Person’s photo. “They wouldn’t happen to be in your first period, would they?”
“Oh, yes.” Creighton smiled broadly. “Yes, they would. Your timing is impeccable. Serendipitous, one could say.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
A timer went off, and the growler growled again. She dropped her pencil with a clatter and flipped her paper over.
“The extra c
redit?” the magic girl asked her.
“My BS cannon wasn’t prepared for that,” the growler replied.
“Thank you, Lexa, I will keep that in mind.” Creighton confiscated her paper, then magic girl’s. “Thank you, Sydney.” He shuffled behind his desk and tucked the papers into a briefcase, which he snapped shut and locked with conspicuous deliberation.
The magic girl, Sydney, turned her full attention on Remington. “Are you here about the substitute?”
Remington attempted to conceal his curiosity. “That’s one possibility.”
“Sooooo dreamy,” Lexa said.
Sydney whipped around on her. “Whoever says ‘dreamy’ anymore?”
“I’m bringing it back.”
Remington focused on Creighton. The teacher appeared to sense Remington’s quiet desperation. “Last Monday evening,” he began, “my wife and I went to our usual restaurant—”
“Sera Sera,” Lexa said.
Creighton acknowledged her with a wave. “We sat at our usual table—”
“In the back next to the kitchen door,” Sydney said.
Remington raised a brow and glanced between them.
“—and we had our usual waiter—”
“It’s server, Dr. C,” Sydney chided. “Waiter is demeaning and sexist.”
“And his name is Alonso,” Lexa added, drawing the name out. Apparently she thought Alonso was “dreamy” as well.
“Enough, girls!” Creighton waved both arms as if trying to shoo off a bear. He cleared his throat and returned his attention to Remington. “Small community! What can you do? We had our usual server—Thank you, Sydney—but I came down with a very unusual case of salmonella.”
Remington’s brow went up farther. As far-fetched as the idea seemed, he would not put it beyond the Phoenix to somehow induce food poisoning.
“So I texted Dr. Magee from the hospital, and he arranged for a substitute. I had never heard his name before, but that’s not unusual.”
“Do you remember the name?” Remington asked, flipping his notebook open.
“N—”
“Avery Rhodes,” the girls said in unison. “So hot,” Lexa added in an undertone.
Taking a deep breath, Remington turned his attention to the girls. “Other than… ‘hot’ and ‘dreamy,’ what can you tell me about Mr… Rhodes?” He felt the name on his tongue, heard the voice, recalled his form, and the name clicked into place. Avery Rhodes. Remington’s heart hammered wildly.
Lexa propped her chin on her hands. “He was a little older than you, maybe an inch or so taller…”
“Brown hair,” Sydney added.
“A gray or two.”
“Dark eyes. Very dark.”
“His shoulders aren’t as broad as yours.”
“His shoes were bigger.”
Remington’s face burned. He kept his eyes on his notepad. “Clothes?”
Sydney tocked her head. “Blazer. Jeans. Button-up.”
“Carried a briefcase. Leather,” Lexa drew the word out slowly.
“Shoes, too. Leather… Money.”
The girls’ eyes met and they nodded at one another.
“Money?” Remington asked.
“Yeah,” Sydney said. “All of his clothes were really nice. You can tell he really cared about his appearance. Maybe not vain; He didn’t have any product in his hair or anything…”
Creighton cleared his throat loudly. “Ladies… I believe you had some comments on how he handled the assignment?”
“Oh, yeah…” Lexa said, dropping her hands.
Sydney bobbed her head. “He was really smart.”
“Smart…?” Remington repeated.
“Like, he knew a lot of answers off the top of his head, really tough things, like the difference between the descending vena cava and the inferior aorta—”
“It’s inferior vena cava and descending aorta,” Lexa said.
“Shit!”
“Sydney…” Creighton scolded.
“Sorry, Dr. C. Mr. Rhodes had it right, and helped us out without just telling us the answers.”
“And he was really funny.” Lexa giggled.
“Funny how?”
“Um…” Lexa looked at Sydney and narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember the details. “He told a dirty joke, but in a way you wouldn’t really catch it was dirty. I don’t remember the first one, but Witt was goofing off…”
“Oh, yeah, the D!” Sydney laughed.
“Witt said he wanted to be called ‘D,’ so the sub said—”
“‘I’ll give you the D’!”
Both girls laughed, but it faded quickly. “Yeah, it’s not so funny now…” Sydney cleared her throat. “But for the rest of the block, Mr. Rhodes called him D.”
Remington returned to scribbling in his notepad. “So, Chu—Witt had been making fun of the sub?”
“Eh…” Lexa wrinkled her nose. “Not really ‘making fun of’…”
“But giving him sh… Giving him crap all period, I mean. Playful.”
“What was that first joke?” Lexa drummed her lips.
Sydney searched the ceiling for the answer. Remington’s eyes followed her gaze. There was an array of scorch marks on the drop tiles, and a couple missing, but the answer wasn’t there.
“Something… about his name…”
“Did any of the others tease him?” Remington drew their attention back to him.
Lexa giggled again, but pulled her face back under control. “Monica really made fun of him. She claimed he had mispronounced her name, and demanded he call her Moné-sha.”
“Oh, and she said he called her that at the coffee shop, too!”
Remington’s pen stopped. “Coffee shop? Rhodes was at the coffee shop?”
“We didn’t see him, but Monica said he came in after. She called him, like, a tool or something in French, and then he called her over and spoke French to her.”
“French?” Goosebumps crawled up Remington’s skin.
“Yeah, he said, like… ‘Good luck on your finals.’ She said it was perfect.”
Remington cleared his throat and shook off the eerie feeling creeping up his spine. “Did Zach or Heather ever speak with him, that you could see?”
Lexa snorted. “It’s ‘Z.’”
“Yeah, and he didn’t really, but he would have taken his order at the coffee shop.”
“And Heather?”
The girls exchanged a look.
“Heather finished the assignment really early, and she was at the front of the class talking to him for a good ten minutes.” Sydney nodded at where they had been standing at the front.
“Then he gave her some extra work the next day,” Lexa added.
“Did you hear what they were talking about?”
“Smart stuff…”
“Of course,” Sydney said. “Like, he was trying to convince her to go to med school.”
“He… wait, what?” Remington furrowed his brow.
“She’s going to UGA to study foreign languages, and he’s like ‘You’re so smart, you know all this stuff, you should study medicine!’”
“Huh.”
“UGA has the best nursing school in the South,” Lexa said, frowning. “I didn’t—”
“Colossus!” Sydney slapped her desk. Remington started.
“Oh, yeah!” Lexa laughed again.
“What?” Remington demanded.
Sydney shrank under his gaze. “At the very beginning of class, he said his name was Avery Rhodes, and Witt was like, ‘Road that you drive on?’ and he said ‘No, Rhodes. As in, Colossus of.’” Her face grew somber. “And then… Monica laughed at him.”
“Oh.”
****
When Steyer caught sight of Remington returning from the far side of the school, he began to blink rapidly, most likely to avoid making a face. Remington wished he had paid attention enough to blink S-O-S in return. Lexa and Sydney had both laced their arms into his and refused to release him, despite his
repeated efforts to untangle himself. He could hear Deputy Moore snorting laughter close behind them.
Lexa practically leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m going to Emerson to study marketing and business management.”
“Where did you go to college, Agent Remington?” Sydney asked.
“Yeah, what did you major in? What does one study to become a big, bad FBI agent?”
“Anthropology at CUNY.” Remington once more attempted to extract himself. When that failed, he deflected: “Agent Steyer here is the ‘big bad’ senior agent. Ask him what he studied.”
The girls eyed the older agent. Lexa looked slightly disgusted, but Sydney released the younger agent and laced her arm into Steyer’s elbow. He turned to Moore.
“I did not consent to this.”
Moore raised his hands. “Hey, I’m here to protect the students. You’re on your own.”
“What did you study, Agent Steyer?” Sydney asked.
Steyer could not hide the blush spreading across his pale face. “Military intelligence.”
Sydney’s eyes grew wide.
“Ladies!” Dr. Magee called sharply as he pulled the office door shut and locked it.
Sydney and Lexa dropped their hostages with disappointed sighs. Steyer promptly cleared his throat and straightened his tie.
“I’m going to Tech for environmental engineering,” Sydney said. “I’m going to save the world.”
Remington suppressed a groan. Steyer gave her a soft smile. “That’s very impressive. If that doesn’t work, the FBI is always looking for impressive young women.” Sydney’s face lit up. Once more, Remington envied his partner’s ability to say the right thing at the right time. “Thank you, ladies, for delivering my partner safely, but we have an investigation we need to continue.”