Julie let out a high-pitched gasp as the gunshot rang out through the tinny laptop speakers. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as she watched Kevin hit the floor. She felt like she was watching a movie; a terrible, gut-wrenching film with an ending that was still impossible to predict. The tears prickled Julie’s eyes as Kevin’s blood began to stain the concrete. If this was a movie, she would have been screaming at the screen; berating the fictional police for not being able to prevent one of the leading characters from getting shot. Julie hated the fact that this was reality. She hated the fact that she was the law-enforcement official who hadn’t been able to put the pieces together fast enough in order to keep Kevin from getting hurt.
“Jesus Christ!” Nate rubbed at his droopy eyes and sat forward in his chair. He leaned in towards the laptop screen and banged his fist against the well-worn desk. “What the fuck were those idiots thinking?! Did they really think that they were going to be able to escape?!”
“They’re obviously getting desperate.” Julie kept her eyes trained on the screen as she spoke. She felt her stomach churn as she listened to the frantic screams echoing through the speakers. “You don’t think he’s ...”
“Dead?” Nate shook his head. “Nah, it looks like they got him in the shoulder. Lucky bastard. He should have never listened to the blonde one – what’s his name – Carter?”
Julie finally drew her eyes away from the screen and stared at the side of her partner’s face. She resisted the urge to make a snide remark about his “lucky bastard” comment. “Where are we in terms of the tracking?”
“Nowhere.” Nate picked up his darkened phone and dropped it back down onto the desk for emphasis. He leaned back in his chair and glanced towards the timeline that was laid out on the whiteboard. There were too many gaps; too many unknowns for them to be able to make any progress. They needed a lead and they needed one fast. “Did we get anything useable out of the tow-truck guy?”
Julie shook her head. “He couldn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know. He didn’t even want to bother with a sketch artist. Apparently, he barely recognized Howie’s photo when it was shown too him. He said that it had been snowing too heavily for him to be able to see anyone clearly.”
Nate let out a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a grunt of frustration. “Any hit on a security camera?”
Again, Julie shook her head. “We have some footage of them taking Nick – err Carter – down on the street, but we don’t have anything that clearly shows the vehicle or the licence plate.” She paused to return her eyes to the video feed; Nick was rolling along the floor with his hands over his head. “Don is still working to get the parking garage footage up and running, but he’s fairly certain that it’s a lost cause. If it hadn’t been for that small blip in the alternate footage that those guys were able to rig up, we probably still wouldn’t even know that Littrell and McLean were taken literally right out from under us.”
“This is impossible!” Nate could feel the frustration beginning to build in his chest. “They’re right there!” He jabbed his finger against the laptop screen. “I don’t think that we’ve ever worked a case like this. If we don’t produce some kind of a lead, we’re going to get lynched by their out-of-control fan base!”
“Did I just overhead that you’re still not making any progress? Please tell me that I heard wrong!”
Julie turned away from the image of Howie and AJ hurling themselves onto the cement floor and looked up into the face of the division captain. Captain Castelo was striding towards the two of them, and he looked significantly less than impressed. Her stomach lurched again. Forget the fans; Captain Castelo was going to lynch them himself.
“I’ve just finished informing two families that their loved ones will never be coming home.” Captain Castelo sank into the empty desk chair across from Nate and Julie and gave the two detectives a pointed look. “Who knew that protecting a couple of aging boy-band members could actually be deadly?”
Nate winced at the Captain’s words. He had almost forgotten about the two dead bodyguards. “Sorry, Captain. We wish that we had something new to tell you ...”
Captain Castelo pinched the bridge of his nose. He had been nursing the onset of a migraine for the past hour and the news that his two best detectives were making no headway in the most high-profile case to ever come across his desk certainly wasn’t helping the growing pain in his skull. “I have to address the media with something before the end of the day, and I do not want to look like a fool. So, I suggest that the two of you get your asses in gear and start going over ever single possible lead with a fine-toothed comb!” He nodded his head in the direction of the laptop; Brian was now being dragged from the room. “These guys are getting increasingly violent, and I do not want to be responsible for the death of a fucking Backstreet Boy!” Captain Castelo raised his eyebrows and peered intently at both Nate and Julie. “Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” Julie and Nate mumbled their response in unison as Captain Castelo hoisted himself to his feet and pointed himself in the direction of his office.
“I mean it.” Captain Castelo paused to give the detectives one last pointed look before he opened his office door. “I want at least one solid piece of information that’s going to help us solve this case on my desk before five o’clock tonight or else I’m gonna send the two of you out to that press conference to get torn apart by the media.”
“Yes, Sir.” Julie repeated her statement to the Captain’s closed office door. She absently twisted her hair up on top of her head and cast a sideways glance at the laptop screen. The footage had flipped to the secondary room; the one in which AJ had been forced to drink the vodka. Julie sighed and bit at her lower lip. She allowed her hair to fall back down over her shoulders as she watched the two men begin to tie Brian to a chair. To echo the Captain’s sentiment; she didn’t have any desire to be responsible for the death of a fucking Backstreet Boy.
“Ya’ll just shot my cousin ...” Brian trailed off as the two men dragged him into another cavernous space and shoved him down onto a wooden chair. He was loosely aware of the fact that he was being securely tied to the chair, and he was even more loosely aware of the fact that he should be fighting back. Still, his mind was focused on Kevin; on the image of his cousin hitting the floor and the concrete turning red with his blood. “Ya’ll just shot Kevin ...”
“Just be thankful that we didn’t shoot you.” The bigger of the two men grumbled. He roughly yanked Brian’s shirt up and over his head as he pulled at the ropes to fully secure Brian’s torso to the chair. “Of course, after you’re done with our little test, you might actually wish that we had just gone ahead and shot you.”
The man’s words, combined with the sudden feeling of the ropes cutting into the bare skin on his chest, jostled Brian’s brain back into the present. He flipped his eyes to his masked captors; silently cursing himself for not having even attempted to escape. He hadn’t used the chaotic situation to his advantage; Kevin had gotten shot for nothing.
“What kind of a game are we gonna play?” Brian took note of the tremor in his own voice as he struggled to stay calm. “Ya’ll think that I’m a liar?”
“Not us.” The big man laughed again as he pushed a small table into the centre of the room. He gestured towards the small polygraph machine that was laid out neatly on top of the table next to a laptop and quickly adhered two of the sensors to Brian’s chest. “It’s the voters who think that you have something to hide.”
Brian squirmed as the man grabbed at his left hand and pushed two sensory rings down onto his fingers; one onto his index finger and the second around his ring finger next to his wedding band. He watched silently as the man then moved to secure a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm. He was already starting to sweat and the ‘game’ hadn’t even started yet.
“You ready?” The bigger man called to his partner as he finished securing the blood pressure cuff. “I’m gonna pop out and get the other thing.”
“Yeah.” The slightly smaller man stood up from binding Brian’s feet to the chair. “I’m ready.” He stepped forward and plugged the polygraph machine into the laptop. “You want me to get things going?”
“Sure.” The bigger man smirked at Brian. “There’s no point in keeping everyone waiting.”
Brian licked his lips. He watched the bigger, angrier looking man exit the room through a heavy door before turning his full attention to the second man who was tapping away at the laptop’s keyboard. After a few seconds, the rhythmic beeping of the polygraph filled the room and the remaining man smiled in satisfaction. Brian’s stomach flipped. He squirmed against the ropes that were holding him to the chair, but his struggles were futile; the bindings were too tight for him to move.
“I’m assuming that you know how this works.” The man waved his hand over top of the polygraph. “This machine will measure your respiratory rate, elctro-dermal activity, and your blood pressure to determine if you’re telling the truth.” The man paused as he took in Brian’s blank expression. “Pretty much it’s gonna beep like crazy whenever you tell a lie.”
“So, what happens if it beeps?” Brian decided to try his luck. He could feel the contents of his stomach creeping up his throat. “What happens if I tell a lie?”
The man actually grimaced, but he quickly readopted a neutral expression. “You’ll see.” He glanced towards the door before looking down at the laptop. “Let’s get started. What’s your name?” The man raised his eyes to Brian when he didn’t respond. “You have to answer.”
Brian let out a long, ragged sigh. What would happen if he chose not to say anything? Was it a chance that he was willing to take? His mind flipped to his cousin, and he squeezed his eyes shut in a useless attempt to silence the memory of Kevin’s torturous cry of pain. He probably didn’t want to put these two men to the test.
“Brian. My name is Brian.”
“Good.” The man nodded in approval as the steady beeps continued to fill the room. “Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any children?”
“Yes.”
“How many children do you have?”
“Just one; a son, Baylee.”
“Do you wish that you had more children?”
Brian licked at his dry lips. He could sense that the questions were leading up to ones that he was not going to want to answer. “Yes.”
“If you could only save your wife or your son from a life-threatening situation, who would you save?”
Once again, Brian squeezed his eyes shut. The steady beep of the lie detector was pounding against the inside of his skull. “My son.”
“If it was guaranteed that nobody would ever find out, would you cheat on your wife?”
Brian took a deep breath. “No.”
The beeping immediately increased and Brian forced himself to open his eyes. The angrier sounding man had returned, and he was practically salivating at the lines that were now peaking and bouncing wildly across the steady stream of paper that was spilling out of the polygraph. He pulled a small blowtorch out from behind his back and turned it on so that a white-hot flame lit up the room. He picked up a long iron rod and held the torch out to the flattened end.
Brian’s eyes widened as he took in the iron rod. He could feel the sweat clinging to his eyebrows. It looked like a device that farmers used to brand cattle, except for the fact that this prod had been specially crafted with the word “LIAR”. Brian watched, almost hypnotized with fear, as the flame licked at the bottom of the ‘L’. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the man was going to do if he kept lying.
“We’re going to give you three strikes.” The bigger man laughed. “How does that sound, Brian?” Would you like to change your answer?”
Brian swallowed hard. He thought about all of the times that he had snuck a second glance at an extra pretty girl, about all of the times that he had “accidentally” kissed a fan on the mouth, about all of the times that he had let other woman run their hands all over him, about all of the bodies his own hands had touched over the years.
“Yeah.” Brian changed his answer. His voice sounded thick. Leighanne was going to kill him. “Yeah, I would cheat if it was a guarantee that nobody would ever find out.”
“Have you already cheated? Is that why your wife is always around; why she never seems to leave you alone?”
Brian nodded. He was crying now. “Yeah ... it was a long time ago though. It was a mistake. I made a mistake.”
“That’s what I thought.” The bigger man laughed as the machine settled back down. “Doesn’t it feel so much better to tell the truth?”
“Not really.” Brian watched as the machine maintained its neutral stance. His tear-streaked face curved up into a soft smirk; at least he knew that the machine was working.
“If you had to sleep with one of your friends’ wives, who would it be?” The other man quickly issued the next question.
“Like, one of the other fellas’ wives? From the group?” Brian licked his lips. His heart was definitely starting to beat faster.
“That’s right.” The smaller of the two men nodded his head. “Quit stalling.”
“Jesus.” Brian cursed softly under his breath. His eyes flicked to the man with the poker; he was busy heating up the ‘A’. He was going to get lynched. “Ro – Rochelle.”
“Do you like being a Backstreet Boy?” The man suddenly flipped to a simple question.
“Yeah.”
“Has your voice been sounding different lately?”
“Yeah.” Brian raised his eyebrows at the man who was asking the questions. The queasiness in his stomach had returned. He knew that the proper questions were coming. He just knew.
“Are you upset that you don’t get to sing as much as you used to?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you feel as though the others want you out of the group?”
Brian took a deep breath. The bigger man was touching the flame to the ‘R’. “Sometimes ...yeah.”
“Who do you think is responsible for trying to push you out of the group?”
“Nick ...” Brian hurried to finish his answer as the machine started to beep faster. “... and Howie. Nick and Howie.”
“Do you think that you’re better than Nick?”
“No.”
“Do you think that you‘re better than Howie?”
Brian pressed his eyes shut. “No.”
The machine spiked as soon as the single word left Brian’s mouth. He forced himself to open his eyes. The bigger man was still brandishing the blowtorch against the iron rod. He wasn’t looking at Brian, but he was smiling.
“That’s strike two, B-Rok.”
Fuck. The sweat was running down Brian’s chest; pooling around the monitors that were stuck to his skin. What was wrong with him? Why had he lied? He should have known better. Now, he only had one strike left.
“Does it upset you that Howie is being given more opportunities to sing?” The man asking the questions pressed forward.
“Yeah; a little bit.”
“Would you be upset if Howie left the group?”
Brian sighed. “Yeah. Of course I would be upset. I don’t hate Howie. I just don’t want him to sing the parts that should be mine.” Brian wasn’t quite sure why he was still talking, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. “I know what you guys are trying to do, and it’s not gonna work! If you think that getting me to spill my guts is going to turn us against each other, you’re wrong! The guys already know how I feel. They can read me like an open book even though I pretend that they can’t.”
“So why do you bother to pretend?”
“It makes me feel better.” Brian shrugged. “It’s easier to pretend that everything is fine.”
“What’s your biggest fear, Brian?”
“Becoming irrelevant.” Brian stared hard at the monitor; the beeps stayed steady just as he knew they would. “Of losing everything and everyone because I can no longer be the person I used to be.”
“It’s not dying?” The bigger man looked up from the blowtorch flame. “You do know that you’re going to die, right?”
“Yeah.” Brian could barely get the words out. “I know.”
“Who’s the one person in the world that you would save? If you were standing in a room with everyone that you love and they were all going to die, who would you choose to protect? It can’t be your son; you already picked him over your wife earlier.” The beefy man took a step forward and put down the blowtorch. “Who means more to you than anyone else?”
“I couldn’t pick.” Brian listened as the beeping became faster; watched as the glowing ‘LIAR’ moved towards his chest. “I don’t know who I would pick.”
“That’s strike three, Brian.” The bigger man was coming closer. “Why would you lie?”
“My wife.” Brian squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the pain that he knew was about to come. “I would save Leighanne.”
He would take the scar; he would only make himself more vulnerable if he told the truth. He knew what the men were trying to find out, and he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. Brian wasn’t stupid. He could see that the men were planning on pitting them all against each other. If he told them the real answer, they would only use it against him later. He could handle the pain. He couldn’t handle watching the one person who he cared about more than anyone else be killed right in front of him.
The monitor was beeping like crazy. Brian could feel the heat getting closer through the layer of sweat that was coating his body. He clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists. He wasn’t going to let these men win.
“So, so, stupid.” Angelo shook his head as he aimed the white hot piece of iron at Brian’s chest. He carefully selected the area just above his heart; right next to the scar that already marred the southerner’s skin. “You’re nothing but a pathetic, useless, LIAR!” He jabbed his arm forward with his final word, grinning in satisfaction as the heat from the iron seared Brian’s skin; forever branding the aging boy-bander with, what Angelo considered to be, his proper title – ‘LIAR’.
Chapter End Notes:
Wow. Sorry for the intense delay. What can I say? Life is crazy, work is crazy, family responsibilities are crazy; basically, everything is crazy for me at the moment!! I feel as though I have no time to do anything, so the updates are definitely going to be pretty irregular from here on out. Hopefully, people are still reading this! :)
