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An excerpt from Phoenix Fatale, a thriller by Nathan Goodman

Pearland, Texas, south of Houston
Late September

“Dammit! Where’s my blood type? She’s going to bleed
out,” said Dr. Ken Brantley — the attending E.R. physician at
the Pearland Medical Center — to a team of frantic medical
personnel. “Tell the lab to expedite. Let’s do a CVC, chem
panel, and tox screen to see if she’s on anything. Where the
hell did she come from anyway? If she didn’t get here by
ambulance, how did we get her?”
There was no answer.
“Doctor, her face,” a young nurse said. “My God, look at
her face.” She wrung her hands as she backed away.
“Animals,” came his reply. “The damage to her facial structure is the least of her problems right now. We’ve got to get her stable. Kelly, get back over here. She’s not going to hurt you.”
But the young nurse froze, her eyes wide.
Dr. Brantley quieted his tone and tried again. “Kelly,
she’s a person. She’s a human being with a mother and a
father and people who love her. She needs your help.”
The nurse complied.
“Doctor,” yelled a lab technician from across the room,
“she’s type O-positive. The chem panel and tox screen will
be out momentarily.”
“All right, let’s start her on two liters of O-positive with
lactated ringers. I don’t like the look of this,” he said. “Her
blood pressure is dropping, people. She’s losing blood somewhere.”
He glanced at the heart monitor. It painted a jagged
line across the screen. “She’s tacky. Shit, she’s going into Vfib!
Get the crash cart. Charge, three hundred.”
The fledgling nurse stared at him, again frozen.
“Kelly!” His thunderous voice awakened her from a state
of mental vapor-lock. Kelly spun around, grabbed the defibrillator
cart, and wheeled it into position. “Charging three
hundred,” she said across shaky vocal cords.
The doctor took the paddles, applied them to the young
female patient’s chest and yelled, “Clear!”
The body rocked upward as everyone studied the heart
monitor. “Thank God. Normal sinus rhythm. That
was close.”
“Chem panel toxicology results are back,” a technician
said
“Well, what is it?”

“No barbiturates or other illegal narcotics, but she drew a
positive test for Rohypnol.”
“Roofies. Son of a bitch, the date rape drug. Somebody
ought to find the thug that did this to her and kick his ass.”
“Looks like someone’s way ahead of you, doc,” said the
same lab tech. “Just saw a bunch of cops come in with the
medics. They’re bringing in four more, males, unconscious.
Pretty banged up from the looks of them. Ambulance driver
said he doesn’t know anything about our female patient
here, but he picked up the others at a biker bar.”
“Well maybe there is a little justice in the world,” Dr.
Brantley said. He took an ultrasound wand in his hand,
pressed it into the woman’s abdomen and rotated it from one
side to the next. “Call Surgery. Tell them we’re sending
one up.”
“What is it?” Kelly said.
“Here, learn something. See this?” he said as he pointed
at the ultrasound monitor. “That’s her spleen. See the cloudy
area here, on the edge? That’s a rupture. Tell the O.R. we’ve
got to expedite on this one. This young lady is going to be
lucky if she survives the night.”
As the staff wheeled the patient from the room, the
physician turned and said, “Now, let’s go take a look at
the thugs.”
Phoenix Fatale | 3
2
THE MYSTERIOUS DROP OFF
“I don’t know where she came from,” the hospital insurance
administrator said.
“So, at this point, we don’t even have an ID on her?” her
supervisor replied.
“No, nothing. She apparently had no ID on her person
when she arrived. And, no one seems to know how she got
into the hospital in the first place. It says on the report that
the patient is in critical condition. I hardly believe she
walked in here under her own power.”
“Great, another Jane Doe,” the supervisor said. “Like this
hospital can withstand another patient we can’t collect a
dime from. This is ridiculous. Call hospital security. Ask
them to find out how she got here. Somebody has to know.
Maybe we can reach her next of kin.”
An hour later, two hospital security officers walked into the
administrator’s office. “Strangest patient arrival I’ve ever
seen,” one said.
“It’s like this, Dr. Cook,” the other said. “As you know,
we’ve got security officers patrolling the hospital at regular
intervals. But we also have one or two others monitoring
security cameras at all times. That being said, with so many
cameras and so few officers, it’s hard to catch everything.”
“So, what happened?” the administrator said.
“Well, at 11:32 p.m. we get an alarm on port 266. That’s a
service door over on the west side of the hospital. You know,
it’s a door leading to the outside, down the alley? Anyway,
the alarm on that door sounded, so we dispatched an officer
to check it out.”
“And?”
“The officer radios back that he’s got a dead body lying
in the hallway just inside the door.”
“A dead body?”
“It turns out he just thought the person was dead. Think
about it; he responded to the door alarm and finds this
woman lying there, all bloodied up. But, it was your Jane
Doe. She was barely alive. Scared the shit out of him
though.”
“Yeah, I bet. So, what are you telling me? That she
walked in the door and collapsed? In her condition?”
“No, ma’am. There’s no way.”
The physician administrator, Dr. Elaine Cook, pursed her
lips and shifted in her seat. “And why not?”
“Like you said. She was in no condition to open any
Phoenix Fatale | 5
door. Hell, she wasn’t even conscious. And, that door is
sealed. There’s no way to open it from the outside.”
“Why, because she didn’t have a key?”
“There’s no keyhole on the outside of that door anyway.
It doesn’t even have a door handle on that side. There’s no
way to open it. It has to be opened from the inside. But
somehow, someone did. Someone else got in that door, and
they did it from the alley.”
“How do you know someone on the inside didn’t
open it?”
“Inside the building, motion sensors on the hallway security
camera covering that door would have tripped. The
camera is way up the hallway from the door. If anyone
inside the hospital walked down that hall toward the door,
the camera would have recorded it. But there’s nothing.”
The security supervisor held up his hands. “I know, I know.
It’s not making any sense to me either. Here’s what I do
know. Somehow, someone opened that door from the
outside — a door that has no keylock and no door handle —
and dumped her inside without being detected. Hold on a
second, we’re pulling up security video from the camera
pointed at that alleyway outside the door. You got it yet,
Charlie?” he said to a uniformed man with a mustard stain
on his name badge.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t show much,” Charlie said. “See
here? It’s dark as hell out there, but there’s definitely somebody
in that alleyway, carrying something heavy over his
shoulder. But you can’t see nothin’. It’s just his silhouette.”
The administrator was incredulous. “So, some guy pops open an un-openable door and drops a critically wounded
patient inside our building, what, so the alarm would sound,
and we’d find her?”
“Sure would have been easier to use the Emergency
Room entrance,” the first security officer said.
“Unless you didn’t want anyone to know who you
were,” Charlie replied.
Phoenix Fatale | 7
3
MEDICAL CONDITION
“All right, let’s do some triage here, people,” Dr. Brantley
said. “The most critical go first. We have four victims?”
“I don’t think you’d want to call these members of a
biker gang ‘victims’ doc,” a man standing against the wall in
a rumpled business suit said. A badge hung from his jacket
pocket. “These are the attackers.”
“Whatever,” Dr. Brantley replied. “Okay, so what have we
got?” he said to a team of nurses and residents. “Come on,
call them out.”
“Multiple contusions on this one,” a medical resident
said. “His face looks crushed on this side. From the way he’s
wheezing, I’d say he’s got a collapsed lung.”
“This one’s unconscious,” another young doctor said.
“His left leg has a compound fracture at the knee, which is
totally inverted, by the way.”
“Same here. This one is unconscious as well, but both the
left knee and right elbow are compound fractured and
totally inverted.”
“What about that last one?” Brantley asked.
“Not a priority,” another resident said. “He’s DOA.”
“Start with number one,” Dr. Brantley ordered. “Let’s get
in a chest tube. You know the drill. Move, people.” The
doctor sat back and watched his team. This was the perfect
training scenario.
The detective stepped forward. “Doc, I don’t think I have
to tell you, but I’m investigating an attack on a female that
occurred at a biker bar on the east end of town. These look
like our perps. I know you’ve got to get them stabilized, but
I want them tested. I mean it, as soon as they’re stable, I
want their genital regions swabbed for DNA. Their bodies
are a crime scene. Got it?”
“No problem. The female victim came in just before they
did. As soon as she’s out of surgery, they’ll run a rape kit
on her.”
“Witnesses at the bar say there’s no doubt she was
attacked. How is the victim, by the way? I need to talk
to her.”
“You can talk to her if she survives.”
“It’s that bad?”
The doctor’s answer came in the form of a stern gaze.
“Hey, doc,” the detective said. “The witnesses also said
another individual, a male subject, got in a fight with these
four and saved the girl. Apparently, he’s the one who caused
all this damage. There’s no way he fought off all of these
guys without sustaining injuries himself. You got anybody
Phoenix Fatale | 9
else in here within the last forty-five minutes that might be
our guy?”
“No, but you can talk to hospital security. The hospital
admin was down here a while ago and told me an unidentified
male broke into a side entrance off the alley and
dropped your female victim off.”
“You’re kidding. Thanks, doc. And doc? Here’s my card.
Call me if you get anyone in here that might be our guy.”
Dr. Brantley nodded as he glanced at the card. The card
read ‘Lt. Dan T. Whelan, Detective. Special Victims Unit.’

4
LOYALTY TO WOMEN
Detective Dan Whelan stood in the hospital security office
and watched the video surveillance tape. And just as the
doctor had told him, he observed a male subject walk down
the alley, enter the locked door, then drop the female victim
inside.
She was officially known as ‘Jane Doe’ on the hospital
charts, and Whelan intended on finding out who she was,
and what had happened inside that bar.
He got in his car and headed back to Chopper Town,
Pearland, Texas’ most notorious biker bar. When he arrived,
police cruisers were everywhere. Throngs of the bar’s
patrons were divided into small groups, each being interviewed
by a uniformed officer or detective.
Whelan lifted a section of crime scene tape and walked
underneath. Inside, more crime scene tape separated the
back room of the club from the smoke-filled pool table area
in the front.
“What do we have, Bill?” Whelan said.
“The tape from the security camera in here sucks, but
you won’t believe what you do see on it.”
“Give me the annotated version. She was gang-raped?”
“No doubt. Beaten pretty badly. The strange thing is, she
doesn’t look like a girl you’d normally see in a place
like this.”
“How so?”
“The way she was dressed. High-class, for sure. No one
here had ever seen her before tonight. And other things, like
the hairstyle. Not to mention that she’s got all her teeth.
Well, she had all of them, anyway. Sorry, don’t mean to be so
crude. At any rate, they all say ‘city’ to me. Definitely not a
biker babe.”
“So, what is it you want me to see on the tape?”
“It’s the fight that ensued after a lone subject walked into
view to stop them,” Bill said.
“What about it?”
“Let me put it this way. You had four biker gang
members at the emergency room, right?”
“Yeah, and one of them was DOA.”
“Well, there’s three more DOA’s here.”
“What? No one told me there were three more bodies
here.”
“Yeah, and I shouldn’t call them ‘dead on arrivals;’ I’d
say they were more like ‘killed in action.’”

“I don’t follow,” Whelan said
“The difference is that our hero, if that’s what you want
to call him, would make Rambo look like a pussy. He’s exmilitary
for sure. From the way he mowed through these
guys, I’d say he’s special ops, maybe Navy SEALs, or Army
Delta Force. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Bill replied. “And the three dead guys in here?
They all look like someone smashed their heads in with a
sledgehammer. But the security camera shows he used no
weapons, other than his hands and feet, that is. All their
necks are broken too.”
They walked to the manager’s office and the two detectives
watched and re-watched the surveillance video. The
man, who had moved in to stop the attack on Jane Doe,
looked like something out of the movie The Terminator; a
mass of lean muscle covering bones of steel. It didn’t appear
as though he had an ounce of body-fat on him.
“My God,” Whelan said. “It’s not that he just went in to
stop these guys from raping her. He went in there with the
express purpose to kill them all, like he snapped or something.
If he doesn’t turn up at the hospital tonight, we’ll need
to build a psychological profile on him. He must have a
fierce sense of loyalty to women or something. I’d bet he
comes from a bad home, you know, somewhere where the
father beat the mother? All that shit.”
“Kind of rare these days.”
“No kidding,” Whelan replied.
Phoenix Fatale | 13
“You’re right,” Bill said. “Once he saw what they were
doing to her, he wasn’t going to let any of them escape. I
mean, look at how he grabbed this guy here who was trying
to get away.”
“The victim, Jane Doe, we need an identity on her. She
might not make it. The hospital is desperate to find any
family members. No one here’s ever seen her before? Maybe
you’re right,” he said as he looked at Bill. “Maybe she didn’t
frequent shit-holes like this.”
“But what would make a girl like that come in here in the
first place? I mean, it’s not safe, obviously. And look around.
It’s a dump. Why risk it?”
Whelan answered, “I don’t know. But then again, we’ve
seen this kind of behavior before, right? You know, sometimes
a perfectly normal woman gets a thing in her head and
decides she wants a biker dude. I don’t know, it’s the danger
or something that turns them on.”
A few hours later, as Whelan and the other officers gathered
evidence at the crime scene, Whelan’s cell phone rang.
“Whelan,” he said into the phone.
“Detective? This is Dr. Ken Brantley, Pearland Medical
Center. We spoke earlier this evening?”
“Yes, Dr. Brantley. Did my suspect make it into your
emergency room?”
“No. We didn’t see anyone that even remotely looked
like they’d just annihilated four gang members.”

“Seven.”
“Seven?” the doctor said.
“Yeah, there are three other DRT’s down here at the biker
bar, Rigg’s said, using the cop slang for Dead Right There.
“Anyway, what about Jane Doe? How’s she doing?”
“Still alive, anyway. She’s out of surgery. Lost her spleen,
severe concussion. Several bones are crushed in her facial
area. And yes, she drew a positive on the rape kit. All of the
bikers have been genitally swabbed to collect evidence, and
from the looks of it, I’d say these are definitely your guys.
The state forensic lab will have to confirm it, obviously.”
“Is she going to survive?” Whelan said.
“It’s too soon to tell,” the doctor answered.
“Is she conscious?”
“No, and if she does pull through, she won’t be conscious
for quite a while. She’s been placed in a medically-induced
coma. The surgeons were concerned about the swelling in
her brain. They’ll keep her sedated for a while to see if it
dissipates. She seems like a fighter though. If I were a betting
man, I’d say she’ll make it.”
“Doc?” Whelan said. “What about the bikers that came
into the ER? What’s their condition? They looked
pretty bad.”
“No kidding. I spoke to the orthopedic surgeon. He said
he’d only ever seen joint breakages that bad in car accidents.
Never as the result of a fight. It would take an awful lot of
skill and rage to smash a knee or elbow joint so hard that it
snapped backward.”
“Yeah, I watched it on surveillance tape. Thanks for call-
Phoenix Fatale | 15
ing, Doc. Let me know how our girl is doing, okay?
And Doc?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to nail these sons of bitches that attacked her.”

5
UNJUST
Whiskey Rock Bar, Hollister, California.
The pool stick drove the cue ball into the rack so hard that
pool balls shot in all directions and bounced off the
bumpers, several dropping into holes. Gang member Paul
Pliskin had been called ‘Gears’ for so long that none of the
members of the Lincoln Killers actually remembered his first
name anymore. Gears held a prestigious position in the
gang, an elected position known as “Enforcer.”
In a biker gang, enforcers are thought of as policemen,
although that term is never used. It’s the job of the enforcer
to ensure order at regular club meetings, which are
euphemistically referred to as “holding church.” The
enforcer is also in charge of security at gang events. But in
the case of the Lincoln Killers, Gears Pliskin had another
role, one not so commonly known. It was his job to do the
bidding of the president, Michael John Brewer.
Brewer had been the president for three years running,
and his power base continued to grow month after month.
Like most members of the gang, Brewer was never referred
to using his real name. He was known simply as “Grinder,” a
nickname he had earned in the early days. Back then, it was
rumored that, in order to collect on a debt, he had shoved a
man’s hand into an industrial coffee grinder. After that,
collecting past-due notes became easy. Grinder’s reputation
as a ruthless outlaw grew, and so did his popularity with
fellow gang members. He challenged the then-president to a
bare-knuckle fight — and won. The Lincoln Killers had a
new, de facto, president, and under his rule, the nationally
organized gang flourished.
“Damn, Gears,” Grinder said, “leave a man a few balls on
the table next time.”
A few other gang members, known as “patches,” stepped
back or to the side. They wanted to observe Grinder in
action but understood to keep their distance.
Gears looked up but knew better than to challenge the
boss. He leaned across the table and took his next shot.
When it missed, Grinder sneered.
Grinder turned the Budweiser Tall Boy up and drained
its contents. When the bottle was empty, he flung it across
the bar, and it smashed into the cinder block wall at the back.
The place was crowded at that time, but the occurrence of a
flying beer bottle was so common few people looked up.
Grinder lined up his pool cue and began to drop one pool
ball after another into the pockets. As he lined up his last
shot, he said, “So you’re telling me we’ve got trouble?”
“That’s right, boss,” Gears replied.
Grinder dropped the eight-ball into a pocket, then stood
tall. “And some sonofabitch killed three of our boys?”
“Not three,” Gears said. “Seven.”
Several patches, regular members of the club, and one
other, known as a hang around, a prospective gang member
still working off his initiation period, looked up.
“Seven?” Grinder said. “What the fuck do you
mean, seven?”
“It’s like this, boss. They were having a little fun with
some whore at a bar at a place called Pearland, Texas. Then
some big dude started a brawl with them. Four of our guys
died right there. Four others made it to the hospital, but
three went tits up as well.”
Grinder raised the pool cue over his head and smashed it
into the table. It snapped in half and splinters of wood flew
in all directions. “Goddamnit! You mean to tell me one man
killed seven of our brothers?”
Gears held still. It was his direct experience that when the
boss got like this, a person could end up knocked unconscious,
or worse. He nodded. “It looks that way.”
Grinder walked away from the others. Gears set down
his pool cue and followed. When the two of them were in a
dark corner of the biker bar, Grinder grabbed the edge of a
small wooden table and tipped it upright until the glasses
and bottles on it dumped onto the ground. He and Gears sat.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Eight of our boys get
Phoenix Fatale | 19
onto this slut, and some guy takes them on, and now seven
of them are dead? One guy, one whore, and what, one
surviving patch?”
“That about sums it up, boss,” Gears said.
Grinder slammed his fist onto the table. “And who is this
dead man that dared challenge the Lincoln Killers?”
“No one knows. The whole thing was caught on
surveillance tape though. Cops are looking for him too.”
“And the bitch?”
“Still alive. Though not by much.”
Grinder leaned forward and spoke through gritted teeth.
“Those dumbasses left a fucking whore to testify? What the
hell is wrong with our chapter in Pearland, Texas?” He stood
and began to storm off but stopped. “Send out a few scouts
to Pearland. I have a feeling we’re going to have to make a
road trip.”

6
ONE WEEK LATER
Pearland Medical Center.
“So, she’s lucid now?” a male nurse said in the intensive care
unit, staring at Jane Doe.
“Yes, they pulled her off the propofol this morning,”
another nurse replied. “She started regaining consciousness
around two a.m.”
“And is she talking?”
“Yes, but only in fits and starts. They’ve got her on a
morphine drip which keeps her pretty groggy. She keeps
saying ‘he saved me, he saved me.’ That’s all we’ve gotten
out of her so far.”
“Who? You mean the guy on the news they keep calling
‘The Terminator’?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.” Both nurses heard mumbling
sounds coming from the patient. “Shhh, she’s saying something.”
They leaned closer to her.
“He visits me, you know,” Jane Doe said, though her eyes
were still closed. “He visits me.” A smile peeled across her
bruised and swollen face. “Here in the hospital. He comes to
visit me.”
The two nurses looked at each other.
“Who does, honey? Who visits you?” one of the nurses
said.
“He saved me. Those men, they were hurting me. But he
saved me. He came in and tore them off of me.”
“The man that saved you comes and visits you here in
the hospital?” The nurses exchanged glances again.
“Late at night. You’ll see. He doesn’t want me to tell
anybody though.” She giggled as a devious, drunken little
grin painted across her face.
As Jane Doe dozed back to sleep, the female nurse said,
“She’s out of it, all right. Ain’t nobody visiting her late at
night. Must be the morphine talking.”
An hour and a half later several other nurses were in the
middle of a shift change. A physician entered the floor while
reading a chart. He was draped in blue-green surgical scrubs
including cap and booties. He breezed past the patient
rooms and stopped at a nurse’s station with his head buried
in the clipboard. Without uttering a word, he walked up to
one of the hospital desktop computers and tapped the
keyboard several times. The chart on Jane Doe popped onto
the screen.
“Can I help you, doctor?” said an attractive blonde nurse
just starting her shift.
“Just checking in on our girl,” the physician replied as he
pointed through the glass toward Jane Doe.
He studied the computer monitor a moment, then rose
and walked into Jane Doe’s room. At her bedside, he placed
his hand in hers, then squeezed. His touch was warm, firm,
and reassuring.
“I knew you’d come,” Jane Doe whispered, though her
eyes remained closed.
“How are you feeling?”
“Stronger. Much stronger.”
“Good. I’m glad. But this is the last time I’m going to
visit you.”
“But . . .”
“No buts. The risk-reward ratio isn’t high enough,” he
said. “When you’re discharged, when you’re at home, I’ll
come. I’ll come to you, and we’ll start. It’s going to take a lot
of work, but if you listen to me and learn what I teach you,
nothing bad will ever happen to you again.”
He turned and walked out. After he was down the
hallway and had pushed through the heavy door into the
stairwell, the blonde nurse said to the other, “Who is that
physician? I’ve never seen him before.”
“Which one?”
“The one that visits Jane Doe sometimes.”
“Girl,” the other said with a little smirk, “you just want
Phoenix Fatale | 23
to meet him, don’t you? I can see you; yes, I can. I can see
you, and you want to get to know him just a little bit better.”
Her laughter was infectious.
“Oh, stop.” It was a playful response. “Did you see his
eyes? I could get lost in those eyes. And his hands. They look
so . . . firm. It’s like he’s all covered up, but you can just tell,
can’t you?”
“Tell what?”
“Oh, come on. Like you don’t notice his body. I bet he’s a
sculpted piece of man under there.”
They both laughed.

7
THE SEARCH
Pearland Police Department
“All right, we’ve finally identified our victim, the one we
been calling Jane Doe,” Detective Whelan said as he breezed
into the captain’s office. “She regained consciousness after
they took her off the meds. Her real name is Peyton
Phoenix.”
The captain looked up from the sea of paperwork piled
on his desk. His short-sleeved button-down was wrinkled,
and his comb-over had fallen to the side. He began speed
talking. “Victim? What victim? We have another victim?
Dammit, why wasn’t I notified? The next time I’m not notified
I’m going to kick somebody’s ass.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Captain McJump-
ToConclusions. Let’s just take a breather.” Whelan started
laughing. “I’m talking about the rape victim from Chopper
Town, that biker bar out on Dixie Farm Road by the airport.
The gang-rape case. Jesus, boss, you’d think you’d
remember that one. It’s been on the news every day since it
happened.”
“Oh, yeah. The one with the Terminator guy who annihilated
all the bikers. Got it. What’s the situation on the case?
Have you charged the bikers in the assault? How many were
still alive after the Terminator got ahold of them? Have any
leads? Do we know his ID? Dammit, man, I want answers.”
“Geez, boss. You need a vacation. Slow down, already.
All right, the answer to your first question is yes. I’ve
charged the surviving biker with felony rape and attempted
murder. He’s got multiple felony priors, and since the
surveillance video captured the entire event, I’d say it’s a
slam dunk. He won’t see the light of day from outside of
prison ever again. There was just the one survivor, by the
way. One survivor out of eight. And no, we don’t have an ID
on our Terminator. I don’t know, boss; it’s like tracking down
a ghost.”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap. How hard could it be? A
public bar, fingerprints, video surveillance, witnesses.
What’s the big deal? Bring him in already. The district
attorney wants to prosecute him.”
“Prosecute him for what? Saving a twenty-three-year-old
woman from being murdered after they finished
gang-raping her?”
“Don’t hand me that vigilante hero crap. It’s right there
on the video surveillance tape. He didn’t just stop these guys
from attacking her. He took them apart, piece by piece. And
once he’d knocked them half unconscious, he snapped their
necks like they were pretzels. It was systematic. That’s
murder in my book.”
“Heat of the moment, I say. Captain, I’m being serious
here. Does anyone besides you and the D.A. know that they
want to prosecute him?”
“No, why?”
“Because if the public finds out, we’re going to have to
put on the riot gear. People will tear down the walls of this
place. You ever seen an angry mob of women? It’s scary. It’ll
be pandemonium.”
“The law is the law. And there won’t be any riots or
protests or any of that.”
“Oh, no?” Whelan continued. “The Terminator guy is so
popular in the press right now, he’s got a fan club page on
Facebook. Over seventeen thousand likes so far. The page is
raising money for women’s rights. It’s at about $110,000
right now. There hasn’t been anybody that has garnered this
much popularity in years.”
“Enough!” the captain barked. He pointed a sharp finger
at Whelan. “If I tell you to find him and arrest him, you’ll
do it.”
Whelan walked from the office and slammed the door
behind him. He was nobody’s slave and saw no justice in
arresting the savior of a female victim.
Phoenix Fatale | 27
8
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Alvin, Texas, south of Pearland
Late January
Twenty-three-year-old Peyton Phoenix, once known only as
Jane Doe, left the Pearland Medical Center and physical rehabilitation
facility four months and two days after she was
attacked, and went home. Her family hovered close by at all
times, and ‘Peyton’ did her best to accept it. She thought it
was cute but annoying. The apartment they set up for her
was spartan, to say the least, but it was safe, and safe was
enough.
“Mom, really, you don’t have to finish those dishes,”
Peyton said. “Really, I’ve got it.”
Peyton’s mom turned around, wiping her hands with a
dish towel. Her eyes were red; her cheeks, flushed.
“Oh, mom. I’m fine. I know you’re worried about me, but
I’ll be all right.”
“Promise me.” Her mother was on the verge of tears
again. “Promise me you’ll stay clear of bad places.”
“Mom, I was just living my life, and something bad
happened. I went into that bar because, well, I don’t know. I
was curious, I guess.” In reality, Peyton was more than
curious about bikers. “I’m not going to let it ruin the rest of
my life. I’m going to live it. I’m going to live my life.” After a
moment more of staring into her mother’s sad eyes, Peyton
said, “I promise,” though she didn’t know if she meant it.
Her mom took Peyton’s face in her hands and studied
her healing scars. “You know what I’m talking about,” her
mom said, still tilting Peyton’s head from side to side. But
Peyton just waited. “I’m talking about your outbursts.”
“Oh, mother,” Peyton said as she removed her mother’s
hands.
“No, I mean it. Peyton Phoenix, you listen to me.” Her
mother pointed a sharp finger at her. “You have a long way
to go in this recovery. And there’s anger brewing inside you.
Maybe you don’t see it, but I do. I’ve never seen such
sudden, hidden rage. It scares me, honey.” The South Texas
drawl oozed out at the corners of her words. “You’ve always
had a, well, a temper. But this. Honey, this is so unlike you.”
“Well, mom, they raped me. They held me down and
raped me. Sometimes it makes me so angry I don’t know
what I could do.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Honey, no one
knows what you’ve been through other than you. But that
Phoenix Fatale | 29
rage, it will eat you alive. You’ve got to keep going back to
the clinic for your appointments with the psychologist. She’s
there to help. Please let her. Do it for me?”
Peyton shook her head. She knew far more about her
internal rage toward her attackers than she let on.
And so it was. Peyton Phoenix was independent once again.
Peyton was a smart girl and not one easily fooled. She’d
done well in college. Well, she’d done well once she had
grown up a bit. But she hadn’t exactly started out on the
right foot. She’d had one semester at the University of Houston,
and was midway through her second before being
politely asked to leave. It wasn’t her behavior that was at
issue, they had said; it was her grades.
But Peyton knew better. It actually was her behavior that
had led to the first demise of her life. Being kicked out of a
prestigious university was a bitter disappointment, but she
had no one to blame but herself. At U of H, the partying was
good, but the frat boys were better.
Peyton didn’t like to admit it and would be horrified if
her mother ever found out, but back then Peyton had a wild
streak in her. It was different from the temper flares that
sometimes exploded out of her, seemingly out of nowhere.
The sexual promiscuity was the kind of thing that many
young coeds go through, but for Peyton, it had gone past the
point of normalcy.
She had wanted to immerse herself in collegiate life right
from the start. She’d joined a sorority, and two months later,
she knew she’d made a mistake. The girls were great, but the
access to social life on campus that it afforded her was too
much. Peyton was hooked on it.
She found out one thing about herself during that time—
she never knew exactly how far she’d go in a given situation. It
wasn’t that she was out of control and would go on wild
sexual binges. But within a week of being on campus, she
knew it was time to satisfy a writhing curiosity.
She didn’t even speak to the first guy she was with. They
both had kept quiet, and no one at the party saw a thing. The
rush, the danger, the thrill was intoxicating, and Peyton was
addicted.
At the end of the semester, however, her joyride ended
when her grades returned less than stellar results. She’d
made all D’s and one C. Her mother was in shock.
But, Peyton returned home to Alvin and decided to hold
her head high. She applied for the summer semester at Alvin
Community College, a school of around fifty-three hundred
students. The college had been more than happy to give her
a second chance at a degree.
When she left home for the second time, she thought the
smaller setting would do her good. It was still just far
enough away that Peyton could live in the dorm without
fear of any surprise visits from her mother. This time, she
had a better handle on what to expect, and how much work
it would take to earn her way through.
Since there was no local chapter of her sorority, Peyton
lived out those next college years as an ‘independent,’ a
Phoenix Fatale | 31
person without Greek affiliation. But that proved to be
advantageous since she had no sorority functions to attend.
For a girl who, at the time, was interested in conquests at
U of H, there had been another disadvantage. Pledging the
sorority meant that they tended to only hang out with a few
select fraternities on weekends. It wasn’t such a bad thing,
but there were so many other men out there, it seemed a
shame. At ACC, Peyton circulated with the college’s twentysix
hundred male students. Some were duds, of course, but
for the most part, these guys knew how to party.
Physically, Peyton never had difficulty attracting attention.
She had shiny, dark hair which framed eyes of deep
brown. Yet she possessed a strange combination of a sweetgirl
face, a petite frame, with a sneaking temper that brewed
just beneath the surface. Keeping a low profile was the hard
part. She didn’t want people to know how many men she’d
slept with. So, she’d go to class, study at the library for a few
hours, and by nightfall, she’d go looking for a challenge. The
easier ones were the guys she’d catch looking at her at a
party. But they rarely provided her the risk she was looking
for.
“What?” one boy with stark brown hair and thick
eyebrows had said. “You want to go where?”
Peyton knew her exploits would get her in trouble one
day, but the addiction was too strong. She persisted. “On the
roof. Come on, take me up to the roof. I want to look at
the stars.”
“Are you crazy? Somebody will walk up there for sure.
We go up to the roof of this library all the time.”
“That’s what makes it so dangerous,” Peyton had giggled.
Peyton had her way with him, as she did with most men
she wanted. And as time went by, the addiction increased.
But as it did, Peyton’s satisfaction with sneaking into someplace
they weren’t supposed to be became less satisfying.
The cycle was closing in on her.
By the time she graduated, she had fallen into a rut and
wanted out. She decided what she needed was fewer
encounters, but encounters with more danger, more daring,
and more risk.
And that’s when it happened. Peyton walked into
Chopper Town, a notoriously rough biker bar just ten miles
to the north of her home. That night she had thrills on her
mind. She had no idea that it could all go so wrong so fast.
The Lincoln Killers were a ruthless gang, every one a hardened
felon, and Peyton had become easy prey that night. If
she’d have known who they were, she would have never
gone in.
That night, Peyton had no intention, nor desire, to be
attacked. She provoked no one. She may have had men on
her brain when she went looking for a biker to hook up with,
but what happened was not her fault, and she knew it.
And now, months after the attack, the little flame of
underlying anger grew inside her. It was becoming a torrent
that even she might not be able to control.
Phoenix Fatale | 33
9
DREAMS
Bailey Bank and Trust, Alvin, Texas
Dreams came to Peyton in fits and starts. Some were nightmares,
nightmares of that terrible night. During her waking
hours, Peyton was blissfully unable to remember the details
of the attack. But at night, the demons came. She would see
herself in the back room of that cheap bar. The smell was
etched onto her mind, like carvings in a statue. The memories
were filled with the stench of bad body odor and stale
beer. Just walking through the door of that place had been
her only mistake. But then again, a woman should be able to
go wherever she damn well pleases without being attacked.
The rage grew inside her.
There were other dreams of the attack where she would
see flashes of the face of the man who saved her. The concussion
had removed most of her memory of the event, but his
face would not budge. She knew it was a face that would
forever dwell in the recesses of her mind. His jawline and
high cheekbones were square and solid, like something coldforged
out of molten steel. His eyes, a piercing blue. And his
hair, black, wavy and long. What stuck in her mind most
was his rage. Watching him break bones and take down each
biker one at a time was the most exhilarating thing she had
ever seen.
Peyton sometimes dreamt the same dream, only, in this
version, she was the one breaking the gang members into
little pieces. The face of her rescuer that night was as ragefilled
as she’d ever seen, yet there was a stoic control in it at
the same time—a paradox she could not quite reconcile.
And then, she had memories of his face when she was in
the hospital. It was the same face. He would visit her during
the night. But how could that be? Peyton thought. Maybe this is
all just my imagination. I’ve been watching the coverage of my
attack on the six o’clock news too much. But the face was there.
She was sure of it. What she remembered most about it from
the hospital was his warmth, his caring. He was so devilishly
good looking. This was not the face of a cold-blooded
killer like they talked about on the news. This was the face of
someone deeply committed to what he believed in.
Peyton stared at the computer monitor, then shook her
head, trying to rock free of the distractions. Her new job as a
loan officer at Bailey Bank and Trust was going well, and she
didn’t want to blow it.
“Miss Phoenix?” Mr. Lorrance, her boss, said. Lorrance
Phoenix Fatale | 35
was an older man, a proper banker, but his bottom shirt
button had broken loose under the strain of the spare tire it
attempted to conceal.
“Huh? Oh, sorry, Mr. Lorrance. Yes, how can I help you?”
“This is Mr. Jenkins,” Lorrance said. “He and his wife are
looking at buying their first home. Can you walk him
through our thirty-year fixed and variable rate mortgage
products, please?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Nice to meet you Mr. Jenkins.” Peyton rose
to shake the man’s hand.
Peyton had been caught daydreaming on the job again,
and she knew it. Lorrance gave her a look of slight disapproval,
but then smiled curtly and walked on.
Peyton talked for several minutes to the customer about
the particulars of what types of loans were available. “And
we also have a fifteen-year variable rate, it’s tied to the
LIBOR, but I won’t bore you with the details of that. . .”
Peyton’s eyes drifted across the bank floor and out the tenfoot
tall glass windows. Then, the expression on her face
went blank.
“Miss Phoenix?” the customer said.
Peyton’s eyes locked on a man walking on the sidewalk,
and she followed him until he was just about to disappear
from sight. It’s him! she thought. Oh, my God, it’s him. And I
thought it was all my imagination.
“Miss Phoenix? Hello.”
Peyton didn’t hear any of it. The man walking on the
sidewalk stopped, turned his head to look through the glass,
and looked right at her. Peyton’s mouth dropped open. Her vision became blurry, and when she looked again, he
was gone.
“Are you okay?” the man at her desk said. “You look like
you just saw a ghost.”
“What? Oh, I think I did.” She pasted a polite smile on
her face, yet her heart raced. Suddenly, she became selfconscious
that she was blushing.
Phoenix Fatale | 37
10
WHELAN ON THE HUNT
Pearland Police Department
“Well, no, it’s not going well at all,” Lt. Whelan said as he
stood in the captain’s office doorway.
“And why not? I said I wanted this vigilante tracked
down. Are you stalling?” the captain replied.
“Stalling? Are you out of your mind?” Whelan crossed
his arms. “No, I’m not stalling.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“It’s just that I keep hitting brick walls. None of the
witnesses at the bar that night had ever seen him before.
And apparently, he didn’t talk to anyone, not even the
bartender.”
“Oh, bullshit. He talked. Did you interview all the
women in there?”
“Of course, I did. Several of them have distinct memories
of him.”
“What do they say?”
“Rough types, mostly. They said he was eye-candy, but
kind of brooding, like somebody with a dark side. They
wanted to get to know him better, a lot better if you know
what I mean.”
“And what about fingerprints? You know good and well
he left prints all over that place.”
Whelan stared at the captain a moment. “He did.”
“And? What’s the problem? Did you run the prints?”
“Of course, I ran the prints. What do you think I am,
an idiot?”
“Watch it, jackass,” the captain belted out as he pointed
an angry finger at Whelan.
“Yes, I ran the prints, but when they came back—”
“No hit?”
“Oh, there was a hit all right. But they belonged to a
dead guy.”
“Come again?”
“I’m saying that our vigilante, the hero to women everywhere,
is a ghost. Not literally, of course. These are definitely
his fingerprints, but the identity tied to the fingerprints
belong to a man named William Borders, deceased. Died two
years ago this December. Chicago, Illinois, in a car accident.”
“You mean to tell me he’s stolen someone’s identity?
Dammit! But . . . even if he did steal an identity, stolen identities
aren’t tied to fingerprints. A stolen identity is tied to a
Social Security number, then they get the credit cards, write
Phoenix Fatale | 39
a bunch of bad checks, take out a big fat loan and all that.
There’s no way his fingerprints would be changed in the
system.”
“There’s one way they could be,” Whelan said with a
certain air of authority.
“Is that so?” the captain said with a smirk on his face.
“Since you know so much, why don’t you share your extensive
knowledge with the rest of us?”
“He could be a spook.”
“A spy? Bullshit.”
“Think about it. We’re talking ex-military, someone
trained in close combat. Covert ops, CIA, or something like
that. Did you see how he annihilated those bikers? And both
you and I know that only the government would have access
to change a person’s fingerprints in the FBI’s Automated
Fingerprint Identification System.
“Whoever he is, he’s highly trained. That much was
obvious on the surveillance tapes. He’s someone who’s done
this before, many times I’d say.”
“Done what? Saved a woman from being attacked?”
“Killing. He’s no virgin when it comes to killing people.”
“And you’re telling me that some ex-assassin, paramilitary
guy, who kills for a living, has also got a soft spot in
his heart for women? You’re full of shit.”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Whelan said. “And
that’s exactly what I put in my report to the Bureau.”
“You sent a request for a psychological profile to the FBI?
That kind of thing goes through my office first! You are out
of line.”
An awkward silence ensued.
The captain railed on. “And you told them he likely had a
heart for women’s rights, didn’t you? You must be insane.”
Whelan walked out but turned back. “And the FBI told
me they’ve been looking for him for a long time. He’s no
ghost, captain. He’s real.” Whelan stormed out. He knew he
had won the argument, but wondered if that was such a
good idea in the first place. One thing was certain though.
He knew he had better find this vigilante, and fast. His job
depended on it…..

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