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48 Amber Green
Chapter Seven
The phone rang. Joe groaned, and realized he must be half-suffocating Brian under his
weight. He rolled to the side, peeling his skin off Brian s where the drying sweat had glued
them together.
The phone rang again, directly below him at the downstairs landing. Just a plain
beeping ring. Not the shrill double ring of a call from the dispatcher or the captain, nor any
of the personal rings from Mom or the guys. Most likely a sales call.
Brian moaned, and reached for him. Joe caught his hand and brushed a thumb over the
thickened knuckles, the calluses. Those weren t a workingman s battered hands, though.
Some kind of serious martial arts practice had shaped that hand, and no doubt the wiry body
it was attached to. Yet he d had the sense to run when outgunned and outnumbered. If
Tina d had that much sense, you d both be alive.
The bruises on his face were already fading, green and violet. Swelling remained only
at the eye. You are a remarkably fast healer, Brian Thomas Gardner. I guess there s nothing
in the world like being twenty to get you past the effects of a brawl.
The phone rang a third time. Joe waited where he was, admiring Brian s tightly curled
black lashes. Salespeople gave up on the third ring. Answering machine picked up on the
fourth. He could hear any message from here. For now he was content to drape a cum-
smeared leg over Brian, and hold him close.
Joe? Hey, it s Roy. Listen, your counterpart over in Lakeland is giving me a runaround.
Summer s sister has disappeared.
He sat up. Brian went tense, and Joe raised a hand to keep him quiet.
She hasn t answered her phone or email since last night. And she s missed this
morning s shoot.
The Huntsmen: Bareback 49
Nevada wouldn t do that. The electric hum started up in the back of his skull.
Something bad is going down.
As he raced down the stairs, Roy s voice went on. You know she worked too hard to
get her own show to blow it by not showing up, no matter what else was going on. But
because she s an adult, and because she s not married, and because she s not cognition-
impaired, and because her condo hasn t been ransacked --
Joe punched the talk button. The police department won t take a missing person
report, except from a spouse, until an adult has been missing for three days. I know. But
there s ways around that. I just have to be dialing from an official phone to make most of
them work. Have Summer meet me at my desk in ten minutes. You drive her. Don t leave
her alone anywhere!
He hung up without a goodbye. Roy could waste more time explaining a situation than
any situation demanded. He d been like that when they were kids, and now he was worse.
Nevada bragged about having to be at work before 5 a.m. She d been missing at least 10
hours, then.
The Red Diamonds worked their atrocities at night.
Stop there! The flood of new residents in the last several years had brought an influx of
crime -- including gang activity -- long before the Dies had become a factor. He couldn t
compromise an investigation by assuming his personal nemesis was behind every vanishing
act.
He heard the shower, but by the time he got back up the stairs and to the bathroom,
Bri was toweling off.
Brian stepped out of his way and tipped his head toward the still-running water. I
figured you d be in a hurry.
Thanks. He waved at the towel shelves. You found your other uniform there?
Yeah. Nobody s going to get mad if I show up an hour early for work, right?
Joe snorted, and slid the shower door shut. Hey! he called over the water-noise. Go
downstairs and hit autodial eleven, would you? Tell TJ they ll have to start the ramp without
me.
Autodial eleven. Start without you. Got it. If he asks why?
TJ always asks: Hey, hey! How come? Called to the station. Nevada Wells has gone
AWOL.
Nevada and Summer were the most identical twins he d ever met, outside of his own
frankly creepy family, and the only female identical twins he d ever come to know well. In
any gathering they drew attention: Two short, curvy brunettes, one noticeably thinner now
to suit the camera s eye, but with identical mischievous grins and eyes that would eventually
draw all but the horniest lech s gaze out of their cleavage.
50 Amber Green
As he reached for the towel, he saw two Guatemalan boys. One screamed for help as he
beat his bloody fists on the windshield of a police cruiser. The other lay torn apart, chewed,
half-flayed, his remains handcuffed to the bumper of a derelict truck. But their faces had
looked so much alike. Twins?
DNA analysis had shown that two of the other unidentified men, #2 and #5, were
brothers. Were the Dies specifically going after twins?
He jerked on his clothes and ran down the stairs like he always told Kellie not to. Bri,
hanging up, looked quizzically at him but went toward the kitchen without a word.
Speed dial three. Hello.
Bunny!
You have reached the extension of --
He slammed down the phone, checked the dialing chart, and punched in her home
number. Bunny!
Mommy! It s for you! It s a ma-a-a-an! But he sounds mee-e-an!
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If she had the kids with her, she couldn t
rush to the station to work her cybermiracles. But she had home computers. Whatever she
had at hand right now probably could run circles around the department s dinosaurs.
H lo?
Bunny, it s me.
Qué pasa, LT?
He brushed off her question. One: In the past year, how many twins have disappeared
within a hundred-fifty miles of here? Two: How many of them were identical twins? Three:
How many of the Diamond vics were twins?
I ll let you know.
Thanks.
No prob. She hung up on him, or maybe her daughter did.
Didn t matter.
He ducked through the kitchen archway to find Brian running water into the sauce
pot. Never mind the rest. Let s go.
They still had at least an hour before the afternoon monsoon started. Barely time to get
movement started in all the right places.
Half an hour later, he had Lakeland s finest and the county deputies looking for a
reportedly suicidal TV personality, had a promise from the highway patrol to watch for her
stolen car, and had simply told his own blues to bring her in on sight. Summer and Roy
were on the road to Roy s brother s condo on Singer Island, while a pair of hotel-room-style
burglar alarms had been set on their houseboat.
The Huntsmen: Bareback 51
The hum in his head gradually subsided to a manageable level, and he began working
through his in-box. Verification that the security cameras had gone out yesterday at the First
National Bank and at the main branch of City National; they noticed only because TJ had
alerted them. TJ s list of other banks he d advised to double-check their recorded footage for
that afternoon. We ducked a bullet there. Probably.
The reconstructed records of the missing guns didn t look like a ducked bullet. He
emailed TJ a reminder to fax the required notice to the FDLE and to the feds.
Bunny came in, a burp-towel still draped over her shoulder. Hey, LT! Did you know
Nevada Wells didn t show up at her studio this morning?
Yes. What do you have?
She dropped a printout on his inbox stack. Second page is temporary disappearances.
Wasn t sure you wanted those.
No. He leaned forward and twitched the cloth off her shoulder. Short answers?
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