Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Jax stood at one end of the freezing cold room. Colder than outside, even. Each of the round tables, with the attached plastic stools, was empty, and they would stay that way until the guard brought Gerald Rickshire in.
He reached for his phone, but of course, he’d given that to the desk sergeant before coming in here. Same with all his weapons.
A buzzer sounded, and the door opened. Gerald shuffled in, arms and legs shackled with a chain stretching between them.
An old man, a shell of who he had been. A piece of garbage, who kidnapped little girls and did horrific things to them.
Who tortured and murdered. He didn’t even look like the same man whom Jax had talked to in this very prison years ago.
Since then, so much had happened in Jax’s life. He’d fought fights he didn’t think he’d survive, convinced Kenna to marry him, and now they were about to have a baby. He was going to have a daughter.
Faced with a man who targeted girls, Jax found he wanted to walk out right now. Just turn and leave. Forget this whole thing.
But another girl, Ellayna Feathers, and her family were in danger.
He had to swallow his disgust and have this conversation, so he walked to the other side of the table where the guard left Rickshire.
The officer said, “I’ll be by the door.” To Gerald, he said, “No sudden movements.”
Gerald practically sneered. A man who thought he was above the law, who let his appetites dictate his actions and did whatever he wanted, destroying lives in the process.
That sneer was a flash of a guy who thought he had power over life and death.
The guy Gerald had been. But that wasn’t the man who sat and looked up at Jax.
Spending the past couple of years in prison had brought him to a low place.
“You remember me?”
The skin around Rickshire’s eyes constricted. “Mr. FBI.”
“Not anymore. Now I’m just Mr. Jaxton, but my role here hasn’t changed.”
Rickshire studied him, his thin frame hunched over in the orange jumpsuit. “You think I’m gonna confess to something. Like I seen the light, or what?”
“You can tell me anything you want, as long as it’s the truth.” Jax wasn’t going to be intimidated or baited. “But I have to ask you about Ellayna Feathers.”
His eyes flared at hearing her name. “What about her?”
“Have you had any contact with her or anyone in her family? Has anyone else contacted you to talk about her? Has her name come up at all since I saw you last?”
Silence echoed in the room.
“Say her name again.” Rickshire closed his eyes.
“No.” Jax didn’t want to admit she’d been taken by someone. Or that they suspected that’s what had happened. But he had to. “She’s disappeared. We think someone took her.”
Rickshire nearly jumped out of his skin. He flinched so hard the table would’ve moved if it wasn’t bolted to the floor.
“Inmate!” The officer didn’t move, but his voice pounded in the air as hard as a punch.
Rickshire stilled. Jax raised his hand, palm out, to the officer.
“Where is she?” Ellayna’s kidnapper spoke through clenched teeth. “Who took her?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me.” Jax had a hunch, and he played it. “After all, she’s yours, isn’t she? Ellayna Feathers belonged to you.”
He muttered something under his breath.
Jax leaned forward slightly. “What’s that?”
He had to get Gerald so angry about how someone else had the audacity to take Ellayna that he started talking.
“I guess someone else gets to play with her now.” Jax shrugged. “You lost your shot, thanks to Kenna, but someone else must have had their eye on her. They did what you couldn’t.”
Jax watched the tendons in his jaw flex as he chewed on the reality of what was happening.
“I guess, one day, you’ll get out of here. She’ll be older by then, so it won’t be the same.” Plus, by then, Rickshire would be ancient, if he didn’t die in prison. “Makes sense someone else gets a turn.”
“You came here to rub it in my face.”
Jax held his body steady. “I came to see if you know who might’ve taken her. That way, we can get her back.” He didn’t want to say that they were saving her for this piece of trash, but he would if he had to. Even if saying it made him want to throw up.
“Has anyone come here to ask you about her?”
Rickshire shook his head.
“You don’t have many visitors, but people do come to see you. Who are they? Friends and family…or fans?”
“We all have associates.”
“The names in the log are fake. We know the IDs are bogus. Tell me where to find James Longstreet. Or Stonewall Jackson.”
Rickshire’s lips curled up slightly.
“Clearly, they’re bogus, unless you have ghosts with Utah driver’s licenses coming to see you.” Jax flexed his fingers under the table. “One of them knows where Ellayna is. Don’t they owe it to you to give her back?”
“Maybe they’re doing me a favor.”
“Finishing what you started?” Jax shook his head. “I don’t think that’s how it works. Aren’t you the top dog? The one they all look up to. The legend who got away with it for years. Until Kenna Banbury came along and ruined everything.”
Now, this man was trying to cause her pain and suffering and hurt Ellayna in the process. Let alone whatever fate Crystal and Abe faced. That had to be why this was happening.
It should connect to Dominatus. Maybe it did, but how? All he knew was that it might somehow be linked to their activities. Whatever they had planned for Kenna.
Rickshire shifted in his seat. “Don’t say that name to me.”
“She has a different name now, but nothing has changed. She’s going to rescue Ellayna because you’re going to tell me who took her.” Jax paused long enough to pray in his mind. Asking God for impossible things seemed commonplace these days.
Sometimes, those prayers were answered, and other times, they weren’t, but God’s goodness wasn’t predicated on whether or not Jax got what he wanted.
In a place like this, the goodness of God seemed far away. But it was something Jax carried with him everywhere. A small flicker of light in a dark world, chasing away the shadows.
“How should I know?” Rickshire spat out the words. “I’ve been in here since she caught me. If something happened to that child, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
That could be absolutely true, but Jax wasn’t ready to believe it.
“Who are your friends, Longstreet and Jackson?”
“Find them yourself.”
“Ellayna could be dead before that happens.”
Rickshire’s expression flinched for a second.
“I’ve got all day, but I don’t think you have so much time.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve got years here.”
“Are you going to last that long?” Jax asked. “Wouldn’t you rather know Ellayna is somewhere safe and that she could still be there if you ever get out of here?”
He clenched his jaw, nausea in his stomach threatening to come up. As an FBI agent, he’d needed that dividing line between good and evil. Between the law and those that enforced it, and whoever sat on Rickshire’s side of the table.
Lately good and evil had blurred. Lines were crossed, and they’d wound up in a place he’d never expected. Good and bad side by side in their lives.
Rickshire cleared his throat. “What do I care about one child?”
“Say that again, I might believe it.”
“There are a hundred criminals in here. Many of them are far worse than me.”
“So prison gave you perspective. Is that it?” Jax studied him. “You’re just a small fish in a big pond. A cog in the wheel.”
“The world is a big place. There are lots of Ellaynas. Why get hung up on the one that got away?”
“You’ve been going to therapy, or reading self-help books? Do I have that right?” Or the two men with their fake IDs had talked him through it.
“We all have our part to play.”
“What’s the grand scheme?” Jax decided then to take the leap. “An evil organization bent on world domination, controlling governments, and using people as pawns in their game let you know you’re just a foot soldier. So, you sit here, waiting for orders.”
Rickshire’s lips curled enough that Jax caught a glimpse of aging teeth in that aging face. “I already got my orders. It’s why I’m here.”
“This is all some grand plan?”
“You should know that by now, Not-So-Special Agent.” Rickshire seemed amused. “‘We’re all either kings or pawns.’”
“You added Napoleon to your reading list?”
“It passes the time.”
“So, you serve the time you were awarded for your crimes.” Jax didn’t want to write this conversation off as a total loss, but he probably wouldn’t get much more out of Rickshire.
The guy’s defeatist attitude wasn’t a surprise.
He’d only served a couple of years of his sentence and had many more still to go.
The likelihood was that he would die in here and never live life again as a free man.
That was what justice had demanded of him.
“It’s what we’re bred for,” Rickshire said. “To play our role.”
Jax stilled. “You’re one of them.”
“One of who?” Rickshire played innocent, but there was no way Jax was going to swallow that pill. No way.
“Why let yourself get caught? What purpose does that serve?” All he could think was that Kenna was going to flip a lid when she found out that Dominatus was connected to that case and the mission she’d been on the night she rescued Ellayna Feathers.
“It serves the will of Dominatus.”
“Who gives you orders? Do they have Ellayna?” Desperation rolled through Jax. He wanted to grab this guy and throttle him.
“If you want Ellayna, perhaps you should find Gerald Rickshire.” He tipped his head back and laughed.
“Explain.” Jax clenched his hands into fists on his knees, under the table. Aware he was going to look tense. But why would that be surprising?
“You’ve met us before. I read all about it in the reports and the newspaper. Saw it on the news, even. The double of Kenna Banbury killed in a bank in Colorado. Is it so astonishing that there would be more of us out there?”
“This is ridiculous. There’s no way you’re one of their clones, or doubles, or whatever you are. You’re Gerald Rickshire, the Seventh Day Killer.” Jax refused to believe Kenna had caught the wrong person or that Rickshire—the real one—was somehow out there.
No.
No way.
Rickshire leaned back, swaying on the stool. Looking amused in a way Jax didn’t like at all.
Rickshire said, “What if I’m not? What if I’m the guy they had on hand to face the charges and do the time?” He paused. “What if Rickshire is still out there?”
“I think I have ways to find out, and you’ll only be wasting people’s time.” Jax got up and stood behind the stool, facing Rickshire.
In the corner, the officer shifted, ready to take the inmate out of here because the conversation looked like it was about to be over.
“We can find out pretty easily if you’re telling the truth or not.”
Rickshire shrugged. “Unless my DNA was left at each scene because I was there. Not to mention how similar ours is. Maybe you can’t even tell the difference?” He laughed at that, as if his own joke was the most amusing one he’d ever heard.
“If she dies because you lied—”
“What will you do?” Rickshire spread his hands, and the chain clinked. “I’m already in prison for life.”