James Swain - The King Tides

He’d had enough of Daniels and tossed her the keys. A reflection caught his eye. It was coming from the lifeguard chair, and he stepped forward for a better look. The lifeguard had a cell phone in his hand, and alternated looking at its screen and the kids playing in the water. In one of the Cassandra videos, the girl was wearing a hot-pink bikini. Talk about baiting a trap, he thought.

Daniels edged up beside him. “What are you looking at?”

“I thought you’d left,” he said.

“Would you like me to go?”

“No, I’d like you to help.”

“How so?”

“I found another stalker. I want you to arrest him.”

“The lifeguard? Why? Everyone looks at their cell phones.”

“Two people drowned last weekend from a rip tide. The lifeguard should be watching the people swimming in the water. Instead, he’s looking at the Cassandra videos on his cell phone and thinking the kid in the pink bikini is the same girl.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“I’ve already encountered a handful of these guys. They’re all the same. Once they spot Nicki, they whip out their cell phone and watch the videos they think are of her. They’re obsessed with her. Wait. There he goes.”

The lifeguard climbed down from his chair. He had sun-bleached hair and sunblock smeared across his nose, and his legs were nut brown and hairless. He was pushing fifty and very fit. He went toward the water holding his cell phone in front of him so he could look at the screen while he walked. None of the bodyguards nor Nicki’s parents noticed. He was a lifeguard, entrusted with keeping people safe, the perfect disguise.

“Care to join me?” Lancaster asked.

“Let me handle him. Watch my back.”

“Now you’re talking.”

They took off down the beach. Daniels had invisible wings on her feet, and he struggled to keep up with her. The lifeguard didn’t see them until it was too late. He dropped the cell phone to his side, his thumb nervously punching the screen.

Daniels whipped out a wallet and flipped it open. She shoved her badge into his face. “FBI. Give me your cell phone. Do it nice and slow.”

The lifeguard didn’t move, his thumb still jabbing the screen.

“I won’t tell you again,” she said.

His thumb was working overtime trying to exit the app he’d been using. Daniels had seen enough; she drew her gun and pointed it at the lifeguard’s chest.

“Get it from him,” she said.

Lancaster stepped forward and tried to take the cell phone out of the lifeguard’s hand. The lifeguard’s leg twitched. Sand flew in the air. Lancaster ducked and it missed him. Daniels wasn’t as fortunate and got hit in the eyes. The lifeguard went for the gun, and they wrestled for its possession. It went off, the barrel pointing at the sky. Lancaster jumped in. A man never stopped being a SEAL. His commander at basic training had said that. The lessons a SEAL learned became part of their DNA and could never be erased. He grabbed the lifeguard’s wrist and bent it back, the bones ready to break. The gun slipped out of the lifeguard’s hand, and he crumpled to the sand.

Lancaster retrieved the gun and the lifeguard’s cell phone. Daniels was trying to right the ship and get her vision back. He glanced at the cell phone’s screen. A Cassandra video was playing. The app was VideoVault, the same app that Zack Kenny had used to watch the Cassandra videos, and he wondered if that played into the FBI’s sting. He held the cell phone up to Daniels’s face so the video was the first thing she saw.

“Guilty as charged,” he said.

Discharging a firearm was a great way to break up a party. Every person on the beach or swimming in the water took off running, including Carlo and his partners, who whisked the Pearls away to safety. That left just Daniels, the lifeguard, and Lancaster.

The lifeguard’s cell phone was a treasure trove of sleaze and contained hundreds of videos of underage girls performing lewd acts. If presented at trial, it was enough evidence for a jury to find him guilty and send him away for many years. Daniels snapped the silver bracelets on and led him to the rental parked across the street.

“Do you want to talk to me?” Daniels asked.

The lifeguard stared at the ground and did not reply.

“If you play ball, I’ll see about reducing the charges,” she said.

The lifeguard’s head snapped. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your partner.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. Roll on your partner, and I’ll get you sent to a country club prison with a bunch of white-collar criminals where you won’t have to be afraid of getting a shiv stuck in your back every time you take a shower.”

“Can I think about this?”

“You can think about it all the way to the police station.”

She opened the rental and shoved her prisoner in the back seat. She slammed the door and came around to the front of the car. Lancaster joined her. They turned their backs on the lifeguard so he couldn’t read their lips while they spoke.

“We make a good team,” she said.

“Is that supposed to be an apology?” he asked.

“You still angry with me? Get over it.”

“Only if you help me solve Nicki’s problem.”

“We’ll get that fixed. But first I need to put this asshole’s feet to the fire and find out what he knows. Care to join me?”

“You haven’t said what you’re looking for. Why do you think he has a partner?”

Daniels gave him a long look. He thought back to the question he’d posed to her earlier. How many sickos had downloaded the Cassandra videos? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? The number had to be huge, way too many for the FBI to track down every single person who’d done so. Something else was in play here, and he realized that Daniels was chasing a much bigger monster.

“I’m in,” he said.

She flashed a smile. It was the first time she’d done that. It made her look even prettier, and he broke into a grin. It was the wrong thing to do. Her smile vanished, and she turned and got in the car.

Lancaster told Daniels to drive to the sheriff’s office on Eller Drive. He’d worked out of this office for several years and was on a first-name basis with the staff. Business was booming, and there was a wait to get their suspect booked.

Being an FBI agent had its privileges. Daniels found the desk sergeant and got the lifeguard moved to the head of the line, where he was fingerprinted, had a mug shot taken, and had his arrest report filled out. The lifeguard’s name was Richard “Rusty” Newman and he was forty-nine years old. Rusty sat in a chair with his wrist handcuffed to its leg and answered the desk sergeant’s questions. When asked if he’d like to call a lawyer, he declined. This was significant, for it meant Rusty might be willing to share information with Daniels and perhaps strike a deal.

Interrogations were done in a cramped room on the second floor that reeked of cigarettes. Smoking in the building was forbidden, but suspects were sometimes allowed to light up in the hopes it would lead to their cooperation. His handcuffs removed, Rusty sat with his back to the wall and stared into space. He’d been treated with contempt by every cop he’d encountered, and had to know that it was only going to get worse. Adults who abused children were not treated well by the system. This was especially true in prison, where they were often forced to live in solitary confinement for their own safety.

Daniels and Lancaster stood on the other side of the room. Daniels had reviewed the library of porn stored on Rusty’s cell phone and told Lancaster there was enough sick stuff to send the lifeguard away for twenty years.