Free Crossroads Revisited by Keta Diablo Page A

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