Phoenix: A Hunter Novel

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Phoenix: A Hunter Novel Page 2

by J. V. Speyer


  “So things are still going well for the two of you?”

  Donovan couldn’t read Alex’s tone. He knew part of the barrier there was his own jealousy. Alex had been up-front about his own feelings regarding Luis back when he’d met Donovan. The term hero worship had come up a time or two, if Donovan remembered correctly. He didn’t need to sit there and try to read for hidden meanings in Alex’s tone or face. Luis loved him.

  “Yeah. I mean who’d have thought, right? We’ve both got a ton of hang-ups and issues, but we’re doing great. The house is in good shape; the family is doing well. Luis is actually coaching my nephew’s soccer team. How grossly suburban is that?”

  Alex burst out laughing. “That’s . . . wild. That’s just making my brain hurt. He goes from kicking the crap out of murderers all day to teaching kids to run around on a field.”

  “He’s good at it too. I mean really good at it.” Donovan found his whole mood softening as he remembered watching last night’s game. “I remember for years he said, ‘Oh, I don’t do kids.’ But yesterday, one of the boys got hurt, and you’ve never seen anyone be so gentle and soothing with a child before. The kid was even on the other team, and Luis was able to get him up and over to the sideline, got the knee wrapped, and even got him into the car so his parents could get him to the doctor. Kid didn’t cry once Luis got to him, and even I could see it was bad.”

  “He’s always had a way about him. You guys thinking about adopting?”

  Donovan shook his head. “We haven’t talked about it, but I don’t know if either of us would ever really be up for it. It’s one thing to be able to help a kid in an emergency. It’s something else to be around a kid every minute, all the time. And considering the backgrounds we both have—I mean I’m not sure either of us has healthy parenting models in front of us.”

  Alex acknowledged this with a nod. “Your mom seems like she’s got a pretty good head on her shoulders.”

  “She’s evolved.” Donovan kept his tone dry. “She’s been great about welcoming Luis and basically being a mom to him. And he’s not exactly alone. He’s gotten closer to Jose now. Camila, one of the witnesses who helped exonerate me, has basically adopted him. But I’m not sure actually adopting would be a great idea.

  “Plus, we’d probably have to be married first.”

  Alex smiled. “And that’s not something you think is on the table?”

  Donovan sighed. “We kind of talked about it, back in February when we worked on that human-trafficking case. Remember?”

  Alex shuddered. “How could I forget? I watched a ghost try to drown him. And he fucking fried it, dude.”

  A bit of bile rose in Donovan’s throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I missed that part. Probably for the best, even if I feel like crap about it. Anyway, the whole marriage . . . talk . . . didn’t go well.”

  Alex scoffed. “What, you mean a discussion held while undercover, during extremely stressful circumstances, while rebuilding after a shock to your relationship, didn’t turn out to be the most shining moment in your history? I’m shocked, man. Shocked.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “You’ve been living together for a while, and you stayed together through a pretty big challenge if I remember correctly. If it’s something you want . . .”

  Alex raised an eyebrow then. “Is it something you want?”

  Donovan reached into a drawer in his desk. If he remembered correctly, Captain Power used to keep a bottle of whiskey in this compartment back when it had been his desk. The only thing in there now was a small velvet-covered box. “Does that answer your question?”

  Alex opened the box. “Christ, Carey. This is gorgeous! He’s going to love it.”

  “Assuming I ever find the balls to give it to him.” Donovan took the box back and sighed. “It’s . . . I don’t know. I keep thinking, Oh, tonight. I’ll do it tonight. And then he winds up getting called to someplace weird, like Newport, to bust someone for something gross, and I’m like, This is literally the worst time to propose. There is nothing less romantic than proposing in the middle of a serial killer investigation. And so it sits there.”

  Alex grimaced. “I mean, yeah, dropping to one knee in a crime scene is a little gauche or whatever, but Luis is who and what he is. He’s never going to not be on a crime scene or working on something grisly or wrapping up from something grisly. And you fell in love with the guy who does all that. Twice.”

  “I know.” Donovan slumped in his chair. “I know it! I’d never dream of changing him. Well, that’s not true. I’d love to give him a little more self-love, for him to see himself the way I see him. But that’s different. He does what he does because he needs to do it, and he’s damn good at it, and I love him. I don’t want someone else in his body, you know? I want Luis. I wouldn’t be out for anyone else, I wouldn’t share my life this way with anyone else—the body is nice, but it’s secondary to him.”

  “Good. So propose.” Alex sat up straighter. “You love him, I know he adores you. You want to make all this official, right? You want to make sure there aren’t any complications if something happens to one of you? Then put a ring on it. Go home today. Don’t wait.”

  Donovan closed his eyes. If he let himself, he could picture himself doing just that. Luis would get home, Donovan would drop to one knee, and ask Luis to marry him. He’d be shocked, and he’d resist because it was Luis and he wouldn’t think Donovan was sincere. But then he’d agree. They’d settle on a date and they’d be married and they’d live happily ever after.

  “He starts testimony tomorrow in the Gelens case.” Donovan shook his head. “He’s a cloud of anxiety with legs right now. He’s worried he’ll flub his testimony and somehow that creep will get out on a technicality.”

  “That’s never happened once in his career.” Alex shook his head.

  “No, but he’s still worried about it. You know how he gets. I can’t distract him like that right now, even for a good reason. We’ve got time, you know? I have to respect his needs here. I can’t just trample all over how he does his job.”

  Alex grimaced. “I guess. You make a really good point, but I hate to think of something happening and you missing your window.”

  “I’ll do it as soon as his testimony is finished. It’s only a few days.” Donovan grinned and pulled up his file on the Southwick drug ring. “Let’s see what we can do about that drug ring in Southwick, shall we?”

  Chapter Two

  Luis sat quietly on the benches in Judge Sullivan’s courtroom. He didn’t stand out much from any of the other people crowding the benches in the admittedly vast room, except maybe in the color of his skin. Even that didn’t stand out as much as it often did. Gelens, unusual for his type, hadn’t been particular in his appetites.

  A wave of revulsion passed through Luis, and he fought to contain it. He’d testified before Judge Sullivan, more than once. He knew what he was dealing with. Sullivan had many strict rules, and more than one of them governed behavior that might prejudice the jury. Anyone convicted in his court would be convicted on the evidence alone, or there would be hell to pay.

  Just breathe, Luis. In and out. For once, the voice in his head was his own, and it was helpful.

  He glanced around the courtroom, both to assess the situation and to get control of himself. Gelens, the defendant, sat quietly at the defense table in the front of the room. He wore a suit and tie, like anyone else, and was not restrained while the jury was in the courtroom. The only outward sign of his guilt was the smug little sneer he turned toward every witness in the box, the jurors themselves, the prosecutor, and the press.

  The witness currently on the stand was a tiny white woman, not even five feet tall. Bianca was one of the analysts from Quantico. She specialized in image analysis. She had a doctorate in one of the hard sciences—geospatial analysis, if Luis remembered correctly. Out of all the FBI’s analysts, Bianca had turned out to have the strongest stomach for analyzing images in this type of case.

  Right now, Gelens’ attorn
ey, Andrew Morello, was cross-examining Bianca. Bianca was a New Yorker by origin, and not the Fifth Avenue type. Someone had to defend people accused of even the most heinous crimes, and Morello might as well be the one to do it. He didn’t know Bianca. He wasn’t prepared for what she was going to do to him. Luis had just enough professional distance to pity Morello.

  “Ms. Laterza—”

  “Doctor.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Doctor Laterza.” Bianca spoke slowly, as if to someone just learning English. “I have doctorates in planetary geology and physics.”

  Morello tried. He really did. “I see. And now you look at men’s sexual apparatus for a living.”

  Bianca raised an eyebrow at him. “I analyze images from a variety of sources to determine unique identifiers that would lead to a suspect. In cases where a sex crime is caught on camera, as discussed in my testimony for the prosecution, the penis is in fact a unique identifier.”

  “And how many penises have you seen in your lifetime?”

  Luis rolled his eyes. If he had a dollar for every time some defense attorney thought he was clever and asked that question, he’d be able to retire. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself, but he’d have the option.

  “In the course of investigating sex crimes for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I’ve seen over ten million unique penises.”

  “Out of how many in the world?”

  “Approximately three and a half billion. The vast majority of those men don’t show their faces on camera while committing crimes however.”

  “Objection.” Morello looked over at Sullivan. “Witness is engaging in speculation.”

  “Overruled.” Sullivan pursed his lips. “You walked into that one, Counsel.”

  Morello sighed, but picked himself up. “You’re familiar with software that could alter images? Software that could, say, put one man’s head over another’s body?”

  “Of course.” Bianca didn’t break a sweat.

  “So it’s possible someone digitally altered the films in which Mr. Gelens is said to have appeared to put his head on someone else’s body.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely.” Bianca gave him her nastiest smile. “Mr. Gelens was accused—and convicted—of a prior sexual offense. Photographs were taken of the offending organ and entered into evidence at the time. Those were entered into evidence in this trial and made available to defense counsel as well. So not only do we have the films from his current offenses, we have a photo of the specific offending organ itself. It is him, and his dick, and no one else’s.”

  Morello hunched his shoulders. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “I can send you more copies, if you want. I’ve got them on my phone.” Bianca pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Here.” She pushed a button, and Morello’s phone went off.

  The jury laughed.

  Morello gaped. “How did you get my phone number?”

  “It’s the FBI, Mr. Morello. We have all the phone numbers.”

  The whole courtroom erupted into laughter, with the exception of Morello and Gelens. Luis stifled his own chuckles and pinched the bridge of his nose. He foresaw several all-agency memos in his inbox about proper courtroom decorum in his future.

  After a few seconds, Sullivan banged his gavel. “All right, all right. Dr. Laterza, thank you for your testimony. For future reference, unsolicited dick pics are not appropriate during court. You’re dismissed. Do the People have any further witnesses?”

  The prosecutor, Catherine Fahey, rose. “We do, Your Honor. The People call Special Agent Luis Gomes to the stand.”

  Luis got up and made his way to the witness stand. He could feel Gelens’ cold gray eyes on him as he walked. He hated having his back to the predator. He knew he was far outside Gelens’ age group of interest, but he still disliked the feeling of vulnerability. He wanted Gelens where he could see him.

  The bailiff swore him in, Luis took his seat, and he got ready to testify. Fahey set the table by asking him about his credentials, which was pretty much par for the course. The jury needed to know why they should listen to him—to anyone in law enforcement, after everything that had gone on lately.

  And Luis’ career had given him a lot to be proud of.

  Once Luis had established his authority, Fahey got to the point—the reason they were here in the first place. “Agent Gomes, you were the lead agent on this case, is that correct?”

  Luis nodded. “That’s correct. Once the task force in Quantico had identified the epicenter of the ring, my partner Agent Rourke and I were assigned to track the suspect down and bring him in.”

  “So you were not assigned to identify the suspect.”

  “No, ma’am.” He glanced over at the listless jury, and almost cursed. They’d had them at the end of Bianca’s testimony. Now they were going to have to work twice as hard to bring them back. “When we find evidence of child pornography, we kick the case to the Child Pornography Task Force in Quantico. It’s specialized work, with a lot of fine details that are easy to miss if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. They kick it back into the field when the time comes to make an arrest.”

  “Fair enough.” Fahey gave him an encouraging smile. “But it happens that you were the one to kick the case to the task force in the first place, correct?”

  Luis nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Explain for the court how that happened, please.”

  Luis had to take a breath for that one. Cases involving children were always the hardest, for anyone in law enforcement. He hated having to think about them or remember them after the fact. He knew he’d never forget them.

  “On April fourth, Agent Rourke and I were assigned to a missing child case with suspected foul play in Watertown. Nine-year-old Veronica Torosian and a friend were approached by someone dressed as an animal control officer under the guise of an issue with licensing for Veronica’s dog, Casper. The ‘officer’ led her around a corner, with the dog. When the dog ran up to the friend a few minutes later, with the leash but alone, the friend sought help.

  “It was too late. Veronica and the ‘officer’ were gone. Dog walkers found her body the next day in the Middlesex Fells Reservation.” He glanced over at the jurors and winced. “I’ll try not to be graphic.

  “Her body was still on the warm side when she was found, indicating that she had been kept alive for several hours.” He tugged at his collar as words failed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gelens laughing quietly.

  He wouldn’t lose his cool. He was more professional than that. Too much was riding on this case for him to let his anger get the better of him.

  Fahey gave him a moment. “And that’s when you kicked it to the task force?”

  “No, ma’am. We suspected, of course, but that’s part of the job.” He managed a wry grin for the jurors and the press he saw at the back of the room. “After a while, your mind always goes to the worst-case scenario. You’re not going to kick it to the task force until you have something for them to investigate though.”

  Fahey knew all of this. She’d prosecuted several of Luis’ cases. These words were mostly for the jury. “And you got that something fairly quickly.”

  “We did. A film showed up within a week.” He swallowed hard. “An informant was sufficiently disturbed that he didn’t care about charges for his own stash of films. In his words, ‘Porn is one thing, and I know it’s disgusting and wrong. Snuff is something else.’ ”

  Luis had to fight bile. He wasn’t the only one. He couldn’t make himself look at Gelens. To settle himself, he cast his gaze through the crowd again. Bianca’s eyes blazed from next to the seat he’d vacated. She’d had to actually watch the whole video, so he didn’t blame her for her rage.

  Most of the jury looked green. The reporters had all worked disturbing cases before, but the informant’s words made even them tu
rn pale. Some witnesses shuddered visibly. Luis recognized Veronica’s parents, weeping silently, and wished he could do something to soothe their pain. It must have been like being traumatized all over again.

  Most people in the crowd showed some sign of being affected by the news, but everyone processed emotions differently. Luis knew that—he had a master’s degree in that stuff. He was living proof. Hell, he’d spent most of his adult life “processing” his emotions with sex. He was in no position to judge how others coped.

  The stone faces of a few other victims’ parents weren’t a surprise. Luis couldn’t say how he’d react under similar circumstances, but he didn’t think he’d want to display his grief or horror for the world to see. Some people were just private.

  One woman, a white woman with a facial scar and peroxide-blonde hair, was grinning. Luis couldn’t help but think of a hyena.

  He snapped his gaze back to Fahey. He couldn’t control the hyena lady. Maybe she was some kind of sick vulture. Maybe she was writing a true crime book and had just gotten the perfect quote. Maybe she’d had bad plastic surgery and couldn’t move her face from that position. He couldn’t focus on her right now. He had a job to do.

  Fahey caught his eyes, rooting him in the present. “And that’s when you kicked it upstairs.”

  “That’s when we referred that aspect of the investigation to the task force, and it’s a good thing we did. The assailant knew what he was doing. He left no useable evidence on the remains that we could use to trace him. We pursued him on our end and found the fake animal control van abandoned in Wilmington, but he’d cleaned himself out of it well.”

  Hyena Lady’s expression hadn’t changed. Luis again forced himself to ignore her.

  “Agent Gomes, it took them six months to give you a suspect. Why is that?”

  Luis focused on Fahey again. He had a ready answer. He’d prepped for this, spent ages going over his notes and the case timeline. The ground was solid beneath him here. He explained how thorough the task force had been, and how long it had taken him and Kevin to track Gelens down. “But we’re positive we have our man, ma’am.”

 

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