(After 'The Secret in the Siege')

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Lester thought the best place to start with his investigation was to look for Nathan Cross, the boy that Kyle Ross had helped get away from Brendon Riley. Both Kyle and Brendon hadn't been seen for the last eight years and it seemed to the agent that Nathan might be the key to the puzzle he was trying to solve.

After doing some research, he found that two years after Kyle Ross and Brendon Riley disappeared, Nathan joined the United States Army and had trained to become a Combat Medic and certified at the EMT-B level upon graduation. He'd served a tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq and was currently posted at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. After he let Charlie Burns know where he was going, he drove up to Fort Belvoir to interview Corporal Cross.

Nathan Cross didn't seem to be surprised nor did he seem to be nervous when Lester met with the Corporal. After showing Nathan his ID and badge, Lester pointed towards the chair across from the table from him and sat down. Lester was grateful Captain O'Conner had allowed him the use of a conference room since he didn't want anyone interrupting his conversation. "Nathan I'd say you've come a long way in the last eight years."

Shrugging his shoulders, Nathan couldn't disagree with the FBI Agent. "I had to get away from the streets and the Army allowed me to do that. They've trained me in a profession I can use in the civilian world and it's a job I can be proud of."

"Yes." Impressed with the younger man's confidence, Lester opened his notebook and placed it down on the table before him. "Eight years ago, Kyle Ross helped rescue you from Brendon Riley. You were transporting drugs for him and you wanted to stop. Kyle removed you from Brendon's reach . . . You do know that Brendon threatened Kyle and his family?"

"Yeah. I offered to go back to work for Brendon, but Kyle told me I couldn't do that. He'd worked too hard to get me away from Brendon and he was afraid Brendon would kill me." His face glum, Nathan folded his hands and rested them on the table. "Brendon was a dangerous man. I tried to tell Kyle that, but he wasn't afraid of Brendon. He didn't think Brendon had anything to gain by killing him . . . He should have listened to me . . . Kyle was a great guy. He wanted to be a social worker when he graduated from college. I wanted to help people too, so I trained to be an EMT. When I get out of the Army, I plan to continue to work as an EMT. I can help a lot of people that need it."

Cocking his head to the side, Lester knew that Nathan had told him something important. "He should have listened to you? What happened to Kyle, Nathan? Do you know what happened to him?"

Since he had known the truth would come out someday, Nathan inhaled deeply and slowly released his breathe before speaking. "I heard that Kyle had disappeared and the police were looking for him. I knew that Brendon had done something to Kyle, but I hoped I could save him. I talked to some kids I knew and they told me where they thought Brendon had taken Kyle . . . They didn't want to get involved, but Kyle had done a lot for us and I couldn't let it go. We owed Kyle and after we had a big argument, we decided to do something about it. We borrowed a car and drove it to an old abandoned store that Brendon used sometimes and waited for nightfall." His heart beating faster, Nathan placed his hand against his chest and took a deep breath. "Sorry . . . that night, we snuck into the building and found Kyle tied to a chair. He was dead and we decided to take his body with us. We didn't realize that Brendon was still in the building with one of his men. They heard us and came downstairs to see what was going on. Brendon laughed when he saw us and he said he was going to kill all four of us . . . I forgot to mention there were four of us. I won't tell you're their names . . . anyway, Brendon's man Butch came towards us and he pulled out a gun from a holster. Before he could shoot us, my friend Tim threw a rock he had brought with him and hit Butch in the middle his forehead. Butch fell to the floor and Brendon pulled a gun and shot at Tim. He missed thank God. The rest of us picked up whatever junk was around us and started to throw it at Brendon. While Brendon was threatening us, one of the kids dived for Butch's gun and shot Brendon . . . The bullet hit Brendon in the leg and he fell down. There was so much blood. I tried to stop it, but I guess it hit the femoral artery and he bled out pretty fast. I checked on Butch and he was dead too. The rock fractured his skull." Nathan stopped talking and rested his forehead on his clasped hands.

Aware that Nathan was crying, Lester let the man mourn and after awhile Nathan sat up straight, pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket, wiped his face dry and blew his nose. "I haven't thought about this for a long time. It still hurts to think about Kyle tied to the chair, his eyes staring at nothing. He didn't deserve to die. He was one of the good ones."

"Can you tell me what happened to the bodies?" Lester needed to know what had happened to Kyle and Brendon. He needed to know about Butch too, but his interest lay in the other two.

"We were sure the cops would think we'd murdered Brendon and Butch when it was just self defense, so we knew we had to dump the bodies where they wouldn't be found." Nathan closed his eyes for a moment then reopened them. "Tim knew about an incinerator that got rid of medical waste and that's what we did with Brendon and Butch. Their bodies are ashes in a dump somewhere. The building they died in was torn down a year after they died and it's an apartment building now."

That meant there was no proof that those two men had been murdered. No bodies, no crime scene. "Okay, but what happened to Kyle's body?"

Wiping his eyes once more, Nathan stared at Lester with a grim look on his face. "I wanted to give his body to his family, but Kyle had been murdered and his murderers were dead. We were all afraid that we would be blamed for Kyle's death, so we waited until the next night and buried his body in Oak Hill Cemetery. We found a grave that had been opened and we buried him there. The next day the cemetery people placed a coffin in it after a funeral and closed the grave."

"Wow, okay . . . do you remember which grave?" Lester hoped to recover Kyle's body and was counting on Nathan to tell him where the grave was.

"Sure, I checked on it a few weeks later, I brought flowers." Nathan sighed. "The gravestone says Richard Goldshine. It's a pretty headstone. It's got chrysanthemum's carved in the stone. I visit it when I'm in town and I bring flowers. I've run into some of Mr. Goldshine's relatives, but they never ask who I am. I bring chrysanthemums since Mr. Goldshine seemed to like them. His family appreciates the flowers."

This case had become truly bizarre and now he had the unpleasant task of upsetting the Goldshine family so he could get access to Kyle Ross' body. "Well, thanks for being honest with me Nathan. You made my job easier than I thought it would be."

He hesitated before responding, but Nathan knew he had to ask. "I won't tell you who was with me that night. Am I going to be charged with Brendon and Butch's deaths? Or Kyle's."

"Well, that won't be up to me. Get a lawyer that specializes in criminal defense and talk to him." Before he left, Lester placed his notebook in his jacket pocket and leaned forward on the table. He appreciated Nathan's honesty and cooperation so he decided to point out the obvious. "We don't have Brendon or Butch's bodies. We don't have a crime scene and this was an informal meeting, done without representation . . . As for Kyle, you might be charged with improper disposal of a body, but that won't be up to me. We'll have an autopsy done on the body of course, but you didn't kill him and you don't have a motive, so it would be hard to prove you did anything other than bury him illegally in someone else's grave. You know you shouldn't have done that. You could have called in an anonymous tip about Kyle's body."

Nathan nodded his head. "The guy that killed Butch is dead. He died of leukemia two years ago and the guy who killed Brendon joined the army with me. He's served his country and I won't rat him out."

"Understood." Lester stood up and offered his hand to Nathan. The corporal stood and shook the FBI Agent's hand.

"Are you going to make sure Kyle gets a proper burial?" Nathan had felt guilty about Kyle's burial for years.

Walking over to the door, Lester paused before opening it. "Yes and the Ross family will be informed that his body has been found. It will give Mrs. Ross and her daughter closure." Opening the door, he paused again and looked back at Nathan. "I don't know what's going to happen from here. Get a lawyer, tell him or her the truth about what happened and if this goes further, you'll have representation. Like I said, I don't think anyone will bother you, but if they do, we don't have anything we can use to charge you with murder or your friends either. Brendon or Butch killed Kyle and that's probably what the prosecutor will go with. I'll probably be back to get a written statement from you. Talk to a lawyer as soon as you can and when you see me again, you make sure he's with you for your interview."

"I'll do what you suggest." Nathan watched Lester leave and he knew that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He remembered calling Kyles' sister with the intention of telling her where Kyle's body was, but at the last second he had chickened out. Now he wished he'd gone through with it. At least now, Kyle would get the funeral he deserved.

Back at his SUV, Lester wrote a few notes into his notebook, closed it and placed it in his jacket pocket. "This has been some bizarre shit."

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