Casually, Mike picked up the phone next to him and dangled it by its cord slowly, letting the dial tone ring through the air. He grinned sheepishly at Xander, letting the thought linger. Then he pulled a business card from his jeans pocket and chucked it to his friend. The breeze from the open window caught it and forced it to veer left, but Drew snatched it out of the air with inhumanly quick reflexes. Mike regarded this with some degree of amazement, remembering that the Alexander Drew of less than a year ago that couldn’t catch a baseball to save his life.
But Xander had winced from the effort, still not healing the way he should. Far faster than Mike would heal, but still not fast enough for his liking. A spot of blood appeared on the card from his swollen knuckles. He tried desperately to hide it as he flipped the piece of cardboard over. In standard newsletter print was the simple, all-American name of Tim White, FBI. Xander stared blankly at the card for a moment, flicking the corner with one finger until it was dog-eared. “No,” he said dryly, calmly placing the card face down onto the table between them and sliding it across.
Mike nearly dropped the phone, along with his jaw. “What? Why?” he asked in astonishment. “It’s kind of his department more so then ours.”
“I can do this on my own,” he responded, his pride visibly wounded.
“No, you can’t,” Mike replied matter-of-factly, picking up the card as he leered his eyes at his friend.
“Give me one good reason why not,” Xander reasoned, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice as he began to rise.
Mike tossed the card at him again, this time putting a backspin on it. It shot high, making Xander reach to get it. Xander cringed as he felt the movement rip the tender, scabbed flesh across his abdomen. Bits of blood stained his shirt, expanding in circular motions. “I don’t know,” Mike shrugged. “You’ve done a bang-up job so far.”
“Like you’re doing so great,” Xander retorted, finally letting the charade fall away to childish name calling, as it always eventually did between the two.
“Which is why we need help,” Mike emphasized, pointing to the card again.
Xander grunted, passing the small paper square back and forth from one hand to the other. He sighed once or twice, each time looking to give in to Mike’s inarguable logic, but did not. Finally, the third time, he handed the card back to Mike. “Make the call,” he said quickly and without looking up, shamed at being defeated.
Mike smiled, dialing the seven digits into the off-white phone, its fluorescent numbers glowing back at him and reflecting off his eyes. It made him look sinister. Evil, even. Especially with that victorious smile across his lips, the one slowly fading with each number he dialed.
The phone rang three times before someone picked up, and the voice on the other end sounded tired despite the fact that it was four-thirty in the afternoon. “Hello?” There were the sounds of traffic and car horns outside. The sounds of many people walking on concrete. The sounds were of downtown Coral Beach, where most of the cops would be anyway. The noise muffled the sound of Tim’s voice, making him even harder to understand.
“Hello,” Mike responded, fighting to keep his tone even.
“Hello?” Suddenly, there was the sound of shuffling as White seemed to realize where he was. “Tim White’s office, Agent White speaking,” he said suddenly, wishing he could have taken back the previous thirty seconds.
“Catch you at a bad time?” Mike asked, cocking an eyebrow at Xander.
Xander smiled wryly, picturing Tim asleep at his desk with papers stuck to his face. Then he thought about how those papers would contain the word rape, and that smile disappeared.
“No, no of course not...” Tim trailed off, snapping his fingers and trying desperately to place the voice. Finally, he simply scrambled for his caller I.D. “... Brian Drew?”
“No,” Mike responded without humor, balking at being compared to Xander’s adoptive father. “No, this would be Mike Harris.”
“Harris,” White breathed. Mike could almost hear his lips curl in embarrassment. “What do you have?”
Mike careened his head, checking up over the stairs to make sure that Cathy had not made her way out of bed to listen. Taking the cue, Xander got up from the chair and walked to the bottom of the stairs, playing lookout. “Don’t quote me, but we have a fourth rape. Attempted rape, I should say.”
“Who was the third?” Tim asked, audibly confused.
“Roxanne didn’t check in with you?” Mike asked, clicking his tongue against his mouth. “Well, you may want to get some info out of her. Allan did it; I was there. Tried to stop it, even.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. She’s The Factory waitress? Not the first time she called in about some drunken patron forcing her into things. We couldn’t pin anything, and eventually she stopped wasting her time calling.”
Mike didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just didn’t. “Well, the new-and-attempted victim happens to be Cathy Kennessy, and she actually got a very good look at the third rapist.”
“Who is?”
“Dr. Phillips, school Guidance Counsellor at Coral Beach High School,” Mike said triumphantly.
Tim sighed.
“What?” Mike asked, the colour draining from his face. “What is it?”
“What did I tell you today?” Tim asked him impatiently. “Haven’t you been paying any attention at all? That isn’t your information to give. It isn’t, I’m sorry. You have another third-hand story that
