Phoenix Feather (9 page)

Her cell phone rang, and Aidan almost knocked over a lamp reaching for it. “Hello?”

“We’re here,” Phoebe said, her voice strained.

“Door’s unlocked.” Aidan tried to brace herself for bad news.

A moment later, Phoebe and Chris walked in. Phoebe went straight into the kitchen and grabbed a pint container of mint chip ice cream from the freezer. She grabbed a spoon, but not a bowl, came back into the living room, and threw herself onto the couch.

“That good, huh?” Aidan asked.

“He’s being stubborn.” Phoebe nearly tore open the ice cream lid in frustration.

Chris sat down on the opposite end of the couch, giving Phoebe space. “It’s stage four. It’s spread to my liver, pancreas, and lower lung.”

Aidan sank into the recliner. She knew what stage four meant: advanced, probably terminal. Chris seemed rather calm about the matter, though Aidan could tell he was distressed because of Phoebe.

“What...” Aidan tried to get words to form. “What do they do now?”

“Surgery next Monday,” he replied. “It won’t cure it, but it’ll help relieve the pain that’s coming.”

It was going to get worse.

“He’s giving up!” Phoebe shouted, and slammed the carton on the table. Her face reddened and her eyes began to water. Aidan could see she was doing her best to restrain those tears.

Chris sighed. “The doctor says chemo and radiation is an option, but that it likely won’t make much of a difference.”

It was a death sentence.

“You could still try.” Phoebe’s voice rose an octave.

“Why won’t you?” Aidan asked softly.

Chris leaned forward, rocking back and forth. “After Mom’s second remission, when the cancer came back a third time, she did the chemo because the doctor said it could give her more time with us.” He looked at Phoebe. “Near the end, she told me she wished she hadn’t. She said the amount of time wasn’t as important as the quality. She missed so much our senior year because of the treatments and being sick.”

“She made it to graduation,” Phoebe said.

“But not to your championship soccer game. Not to my birthday party. She said she would have rather done those things with us than sit at that clinic for five hours wondering how many extra days the treatment was going to give her. I don’t want that.”

Aidan hated to ask in front of Phoebe, but she needed to know. “How long?”

“Three to five months,” he said. “Closer to three.”

Aidan felt as though she were suffocating. Three months was too short, like a day in light of all the centuries she had lived. Her stomach clenched. She hated this, always outliving everyone she came to care about. First Ivar and Jenny were taken from her abruptly, and now Chris was going to leave just as suddenly. She would get to say goodbye this time, but that didn’t bring her the comfort she thought it would. At the moment, it made it harder. And Phoebe—Aidan couldn’t imagine the grief she was feeling. Chris was her other half; to lose him would be to lose part of herself. Aidan could never understand that, solitary as she was. Yet Phoebe would eventually get to see Chris again, across the threshold between this world and the next, while Aidan remained here, forever.

“I’m sorry this is so hard on you,” Chris spoke up, startling Aidan.

“Seems like it would be worse for you,” she said.

He gave her a smile. “Not really. I’m not afraid to die.” He looked at Phoebe. “Mom taught me that. I just wish it didn’t have to hurt you guys so much.”

He was so brave. To face death and leave behind everyone he loved. He had a strength Aidan could never know.

“Please don’t be mad, Phoebe,” he said.

Phoebe sat in silence for a moment. “I think I’ll be mad just a little longer,” she said, her tone softer. “But I understand.”

“Aidan? Do you?”

She nodded. “Yes. We better make these next few months count, right?” Her attempted optimism made her voice crack.

“Yes, but you’re not dropping out of school.”

“It takes up too much time,” Phoebe protested. “Time away from us.”

Chris shook his head firmly. “Your life does not end with me, so you’re not going to act like it does. If I have to sit and help you do your homework, I will. Got it?” He gave Phoebe and Aidan his best domineering look, which didn’t come across very intimidating.

Aidan couldn’t help but smile. “I won’t need such help, but thanks.”

“Okay,” Chris said. “Now, this Friday is the firehouse barbecue and our old high school’s Fall Festival. Phoebe’s team is helping with it, so we’re going to be there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Aidan said.

“You should go to the barbecue,” Phoebe said. “Trent’s a really nice guy. I like you with him.”

“What about that quality time you were just talking about?”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” Chris said. “I’m talking about you also not putting your life on hold. Go to the barbecue. After I’ve recovered from the surgery, we’ll all go dancing too.”

Aidan was torn. On the one hand, she wanted to cling to what she knew she would lose soon, and on the other, wanted to cling to something that promised to stay, at least for a little while longer. She could do both, couldn’t she?

“Okay,” she finally acceded.

Chris glanced at his sister. “Phoebe, your ice cream’s melting all over Aidan’s coffee table.” He gave her one of his roguish grins, and she smiled in spite of herself.

“Sor-ry,” she enunciated with childlike impudence.

Aidan retrieved a towel to wipe off the condensation, and the three of them talked of Chris’s upcoming surgery and how they were going to work around school to be there. They also agreed to meet up for dinner later. Chris planned to go by the school’s admissions building and talk to his teachers, and Aidan needed to call Trent as she had promised. She would have to depend on him in the coming months. It both comforted and frightened her.

Chapter Eight

Bryan was on his fourth cup of coffee, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the morning yet. He hadn’t been sleeping well. Seattle officially had a serial killer targeting women, and no evidence had turned up to help them catch the guy. The body count was up to three now. The third victim had gone missing late one night from a twenty-four-hour fitness center. Her body turned up five days later under an overpass three miles from where she was taken. Security footage from the gym had caught nothing due to an overgrown tree in the particular area of the parking lot where the victim’s car had been parked. The killer was either extremely lucky, or he had known about that beforehand. All that the camera caught was the back of her car as it drove away. Who was driving, though, couldn’t be determined.

Bryan, Jess, and now two more detectives had gone over every witness statement they could get. They had spent the past few weeks reviewing every receipt from the victims, tracing their movements. But when they found something in common—a restaurant receipt or movie tickets from the same theater—interviews came up with nothing. They retrieved security footage from the areas dating back a few months and had spent hours watching for their victims and waiting to see if the cameras had caught anyone following them. There was nothing. They knew the killer watched his victims, but he was so good at it that he blended in.

Bryan felt exhausted. There were other cases that needed to be solved: an apparent suicide, two gun homicides, and a rape-murder. The department was stretched trying to deal with the typical cases that plagued the city, while feeling the public’s growing panic and trying to put an end to it as quickly as possible.

Jess came in and put the last security footage tape on the stack. “Nothing. Back to square one.” She leaned against a desk and rubbed the back of her neck. “What’s this?” she asked, and picked up a new folder from the pile.

“Oh, CSU found hair from the second victim on the third victim’s clothes,” Bryan said. “All it means is they were kept in the same place, but it doesn’t tell us where.”

“It tells us he has a nest,” Jess said. “A comfort zone.”

“Yeah, but he’s already confident and smart enough to hunt away from it.” Bryan got up and looked at the map they had tacked up on their murder board to show the various crime scenes, abduction locations, and addresses of the victims. “This is a very large radius. It’s like how he dumps their possessions with the bodies; after he’s done with them, he wants the association to be as far away as possible.”

Jess put the folder down. “So we look outside the radius.”

Bryan stared at the map in despair. So many people, multiple possible victims, and one killer. He glanced up and saw his brother enter the squad room. How many days had it been since Bryan had seen or even talked to Trent? Or was it weeks?

“Hey, Trent,” Jess said. “How’s it going?”

“Good. How are the kids?”

“Can’t wait to go Trick-or-Treating tomorrow.”

Trent smiled. “What are you going to be?”

Jess shook her head and held up a hand. “No.”

“Oh, come on.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” she emphasized, and grimaced. “Glinda.”

“Glinda?” Bryan asked, finally pulling his attention away from the case. He didn’t know Jess dressed up for Halloween.

She gave him a sardonic look. “
The Wizard of Oz
. Or, actually,
Wicked
. My sister is going to be Elphaba.”

Trent grinned. “Could be worse. She could have made you wear the green makeup.”

“I do draw the line.”

“Not if she got the kids on her side.”

Jess laughed. “What brings you down?”

Trent looked at Bryan. “Tomorrow’s the community barbecue at the firehouse.”

Bryan had forgotten that Trent’s company did that every year. Now he knew what Trent was going to say: he had come down in the hopes that a face-to-face conversation would be more persuasive than one over the phone. Bryan had work to do though, and did not feel in the socializing mood. When had he last been in the mood?

He shook his head. “Look, now’s not a good time.”

“I’ve been following the papers,” Trent said. “Do you have any leads?”

Bryan didn’t say anything, so Jess stepped in.

“No. We’re not likely to get any in the next few days either.”

“You look like you could use a break,” Trent said to Bryan.

“I’ve got three bodies, with no indication that this guy is going to take a break, so I’m not going to either.” He had lost slight rein on his temper and become snippy. He watched Trent hold his tongue so he wouldn’t respond in kind. Bryan used to have such control, he realized with regret.

“Well,” Trent said slowly. “Let him wear himself down while you keep yourself in good straights, and that’s how you’ll catch him. Do you honestly think you’ll miss a colossal lead if you take a day off?” Trent’s eyes swept over the piles of papers and reports.

It was true, and Bryan knew it. Jess was taking the day off. He could too. “I don’t think I’d be pleasant company.”

Trent crossed his arms and gave him a scrutinizing look. “Well try. Someone’s going to be there tomorrow I want you to meet.”

Bryan shook his head, still unsure.

“A girl?” Jess asked.

A girl? Why hadn’t Bryan thought of that? He called himself a detective.

“Yes,” Trent said with a sly grin. “She’s going to be there, and I want you to meet her.”

That meant it was serious. Bryan remembered a few casual dates on Trent’s arm in the past, but no one he had ever wanted Bryan to meet. Maybe he should…

“I’ll try,” he said.

Trent shook his head and dropped his arms. “That’s not good enough this time, Bryan. You know, I’ve tried to be supportive in the past, tried to keep you from digging yourself into this pit, and gave you space when you clearly showed me it was what you wanted. Well, now it’s my turn. This woman’s important to me, so be there.” He turned, said goodbye to Jess, and left.

Bryan was silent. Trent hadn’t talked to him like that since high school when Bryan had made the very bad decision to date a very bad girl. She might have pulled him into a very deep pit had Trent not taken a stand. Bryan had listened then, despite the fact that he was older. The two of them used to be very close, but Bryan knew it was his fault that had changed.

Jess was staring at him.

“You think I’m a jerk?” he asked.

“I think you need to figure out what it means to love your brother and whether you want to be a part of his life, or just some guy he used to know.” She shrugged, and sat down at her desk, ready to continue the endless poring over useless information.

Bryan sat down too. For once though, his mind was not consumed by his cases.

***

Friday October 31
^st
saw the sun shining in an otherwise empty sky, and experienced a brisk temperature of fifty-five degrees. Station 25 had cleared out its parking lot on the side of the firehouse and set up picnic tables, chairs, and grills. In the back they had set up a flatbed loaded with pumpkins waiting to be carved, and a booth for face painting. The bay doors stood open and kids played on the fire trucks while firefighters gave short presentations on the job and safety lectures for when the kids went Trick-or-Treating later that evening. A large picket sign advertised a costume contest, and steady streams of smoke rose from the grills. It looked as though the entire neighborhood had come out for the event.