Crossroads Revisited (9 page)

“If they’re after me, I won’t be safe at
home. He…they, could find me there, too.”

“He could, but you won’t be at home.
Your mother, Marlow, and you are moving to a hotel, an obscure, out-of-the-way
hotel until this settles down.”

“You said
he
.”

“Did I?”

“Who is it?”

“Rand, please, let it go for now. I’ll
take care of it, but I can’t if you’re there to distract me.”

“Tell me who it is or I’m camping
outside the townhouse. I don’t care if you beat me to death.”

Silence met him.

“Stop the car, let me out. I don’t want
to be with you anymore.”

“Billy Schumacher.”

Rand’s vision blurred and his heart fell
to the floorboards. “I’ll kill that son of a bitch. What’s he doing out of
prison?”

“He escaped, and he’s in Baltimore.”

“It isn’t enough he killed my dad, he
wants a piece of me now?”

Frank shook his head.

“Who then, who does he want now?” A
light went on in Rand’s head and a groan fell from his lips. “He wants you,
doesn’t he? Your testimony sent him to prison, and now he’s coming for you.”

Frank pushed the overhead garage door
opener and sped into the underground parking lot. He pulled into the reserved
spot, unfastened his seatbelt and looked at Rand. “You got five minutes to get
your suitcase packed. I’ll be waiting here.”

Rand unbuckled his seatbelt, pushed the
car door open and slammed it so hard the windows rattled. He packed his
suitcase in a blind rage, scooping the entire contents from two dresser drawers
into the luggage and cramming it shut. His stomach churned and for a minute he
wanted to stick his finger down his throat to relieve the nausea.

Frank would make him leave because he
knew a showdown loomed on the horizon and he didn’t Rand around in case things
went awry. Rand zipped the luggage shut, grabbed the handle and left the
townhouse. Right now he hated everyone, Billy Schumacher and Frank McGuire
equally.

Chapter Eight

Frank counted off the hours, and next
the days, and Schumacher didn’t show his face. What in hell did the man want, a
fucking invitation? He didn’t change his routine, went to work at the same time
every morning, came home to an empty townhouse every night and slept alone in
the big old bed, missing Rand more than he ever imagined he would.

He spoke to Rand every day on the phone,
but it didn’t pacify his hunger or squelch the hot flames licking through his
veins. The sound of his voice sent his cock into permanent state of aching need
and a perpetual hard-on. He wondered if Rand felt the same longing and desire.
He didn’t want to ask him. What would be the point? Until Schumacher made his
move, he couldn’t see Rand.

Anger and bitterness laced Rand’s words,
but he remained respectful. Frank couldn’t go down that road, either, but expound
on the necessity of keeping Emily, Marlow, and him away from whatever danger
lurked in phantom shadows. And they were phantom specters, unnamed,
unidentifiable enemies.

Frank realized Rand knew it too when he
broached the subject during one of their phone conversations. “There’s one
thing bothering me about all this.”

“What’s that?” Frank asked.

“I understand why Schumacher is after
you, but why would he kill five college students along the way to get to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do,” Rand countered quickly.
“Schumacher didn’t kill them, you just don’t know who did.”

“No, I don’t.”

A reel of film running through a
projector, images of Rand, naked and beneath him played over and over in his
mind.  He couldn’t remember a day in his life he denied his homosexuality, but
he remembered the day he cursed it. The day Rand looked at him with a longing
so deep, so utterly irrefutable, he would have given anything to wave a magic
wand and turn himself into a woman or, heaven forbid, a straight dude.
  

Quinn knew his son well, thank God, and
opened the door for Frank, unofficially. “I think Rand is a lot like you,” he’d
said.

Frank recalled how he’d shriveled in the
passenger seat and said, “Oh, yeah, in what way?”

Quinn had given him a sideways smirk
with a roll of his eyes.

“You don’t know for sure. He’s only in
his early teens, things could change.”

“McGuire, when did you first know?”

Frank recalled wondering at the time why
the man seemed so accepting of people, and so goddamn smart. “At a much earlier
age than Rand is now.”

“I see the way he looks at you, Frank.
It’s no longer big brother adoration.”

“You want me to leave, not come for
dinner anymore?”

“Rand is what he is, and so are you. I
can’t change that, and so I decided to love you both for as long as God’s
willing.”

“Hey, Frank,” Rand said, interrupting
his thoughts. “You wander off into one of your meditative states?”

“No, sorry, I’m still here. How’s it
going at the hotel?”

“Oh, Disneyworld all the way. I’m loving
it. We’re one big happy family in one big happy room.”

“I’m sorry about that. I thought it best
to find a ramshackle dump on the outskirts of the city.”

“Well, you succeeded.” Rand blew a long
breath. “At least we have cable here.”

“You shouldn’t be watching cable anyway.
How’s school going, you bringing your grades up?”

“Anatomy is a bitch. I have a hard time
being enthusiastic over
cervical sympathetic ganglia
or
intercondylar eminences
.”

“You lost me on cervical.”

“Yeah, I’m lost, too, and the professor follows a
strict Taliban doctrine when it comes to running his class.”

Frank laughed. “Oh, he can’t be all that bad.”

“Gotta run. Marlow is whining louder than a cat in
heat with hunger pangs, and they’re ready to head out to the restaurant.”

“All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Hayworth still around?”

“Stopped by the office yesterday. The final autopsy
reports came in and he’s meeting with the parents tomorrow night.”

“The ME still claims they died from drowning and
cardiac arrest?”

Frank reeled from the images crashing through his
brain and slumped into the lazy-boy. They rushed through at breakneck speed, so
fast he caught only brief glimpses of discombobulated body parts. No, not body
parts…bones.

“Yes,” he said, biting back a question he wanted to
ask Rand, but didn’t have the nerve. Would he come back when this blew over?

“Ask Frank if he wants to join us?” he heard Emily
ask.

“Tell your mother I’ll take a rain check, and you
best get going before Marlow ends up in a faint.”

Rand hung up the phone and Frank remained in the
chair, dizzy from the subconscious messages, his cock harder than a shepherd’s
staff.

*
* * *

The grandfather clock stroked midnight and woke
Frank with a start. He jackknifed up and cocked an ear. The rhythmic tripping
of his heart warned him of peril, like it always had. Someone had snuck into
the townhouse. A mental picture of Schumacher sitting on the witness stand
rushed forth. The same height as Frank, the man didn’t pack much muscle, but the
man’s wiles and street-smarts made up for it.

Frank rolled from the La-Z-Boy. He snatched the
Glock from the back of his waistband. Billy would be armed, no doubt about it.
Quinn’s blue lips and his blood-siphoned face rose before Frank as he held his
dying partner in his arms that fateful day at the bank―a routine burglary
gone awry because Schumacher needed drug money.

A red hot rage surged up Frank’s throat. It would
end, here, now. Another messy problem wiped from the slate. Christ, what would
he do about the other one—the serial killer stalking college kids? Seized by a
powerful momentum to force Schumacher into the open, he fired the Glock in the
direction of hallway. The ploy worked.

Schumacher came out gun blazing, his face twisted in
fury. A bullet whirred by Frank’s ear, so close he felt its heat. Frank aimed
for his chest and fired one shot. Schumacher jerked back, hit the wall with a
resounding thud, and toppled to the carpet in limp noodle form. Frank looked at
the ribbons of crimson running down his wall and then down at Billy. The con
smiled and pink froth oozed from the corner of his mouth. Frank kicked the
man’s gun across the room and knelt beside him.

“Ah, it’s over,” Billy rasped, still smiling.
“Finally.”

“Anything you want me to tell your family?”

“Yeah.” He coughed pink bubbles. “Tell that
wife-beating father of mine I’ll see him in Hell.” Another gurgling cough. “And
tell my mother I love her.”

Frank closed his eyes, hoping Billy would be gone
when he opened them.

A finger touched his thigh. “The boy…I didn’t mean
to kill his pa.”

Frank’s blood ran cold. “What boy?”

“Your boy,” Billy said with another smile. “He’s got
’em now.” He groaned. “Took him-took him from that rattrap hotel you set him up
in.”

A gut-wrenching fear unlike any he’d never known
clawed at his gut. “Billy, tell me. Who’s got him?”

He shook his head. “Must be the man who kidnapped
those other queers, you think, Frank?”

“Now is the time to redeem your soul, make up for
killing his father.”

His eyes rolled in the sockets. “Fuck you, McGuire.”

“Don’t you die yet, you son of a bitch,” he said,
grabbing his shirt. “Tell me who took Rand.”

“Do you get off on riddles, McGuire?”

“Riddles? Don’t fuck with me, man. He’ll kill him
like he killed the others, shoot him up with heroin and dump him alive in the
river.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I love riddles.” Frank shook him again. “Tell
me a riddle, Billy, whisper it to me.”

“Oh, my God, it hurts. What-what did the doctor say
to the tonsil?”

“I don’t know. What did he say?” Frank didn’t know
if he choked on the blood or the sick laugh. “Tell me, Billy, what did he say?”

“You’re cute, I think I’d like to take you out.”

Billy’s last breath escaped in a rush and his head
rolled to the side. His eyes were open, the same as his mouth. Frank shook him
again. “Billy, Billy, tell me who’s got Rand.” Frank ran his hands through his
hair and swore. For good measure he cursed again. “Fuck!”

Frank bolted for the coffee table and flipped open
his cell.
Answer, Emily, goddamn it, please pick up.

It went to voice mail. “This is Emily. I’m sorry I
can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message, and I’ll call you
back as soon as possible.”

“Em, pick up the phone. God, please, he’s got Rand.”

Frank took the stairs to the underground level two
at a time, jumped behind the wheel of the Denali and barely cleared the garage
door speeding out. He dialed Hayworth’s number, driving ninety miles an hour
toward the hotel.

The agent’s voice loomed groggy on the other end.
“Hayworth.”

“He’s got Rand.”

“McGuire?”

“Meet me at the hotel. Emily Brennan’s not picking
up her cell.”

“Right, I’m on my way.”

Adrenaline pumped through his veins, pitching his
heart into a frenetic rhythm. A mishmash of impressions crept from the recesses
of his brain, the bones again and another object, shiny, long and sharp. “Come
on, tell me, what is it? Flash one more time, please just one more time.” Frank
took the corner on two wheels and the snapshot blinked on the screen. He cried
out, “A saw, okay, I see it. A crosscut saw.”

Hayworth made it to the Inntowner before Frank.
Emily rushed into his arms the moment he stepped from his vehicle. “Rand’s not
with you?” She grabbed Frank by the front of his shirt and shook him, her
high-pitched hysterics echoing through the air. “He’s not with you? Oh, God.
No!”

“Slow down, Em. Back up. Where’s the car, did he go
somewhere?”

She shook her head, and when Frank glanced at
Marlow, a dazed look shone in her eyes. “Mom and I went into the room after
dinner, and Rand said he’d move the car to the back parking lot. He thought it
would be less noticeable.” Marlow doubled over and clutched her stomach. “He
never came back.”

Frank looked at Hayworth. “It’s not here. I drove
through the back lot and the front on my way in.”

A high-pitched wail fell from Em’s lips as she
collapsed against Frank’s chest. “He’s got him, oh my God, he took him!”

Frank pushed her from him gently. “Em, listen to me
now. This is very important.”