By Jillian

Chapter Twenty-One

Tanya wandered into her apartment unaware of the fact that her secret, which she’d tried so hard to hide from her family over the years, had been discovered. She undressed, removed her makeup and got herself ready for bed, all the while unable to shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

Once in bed she realized that sleep was still some time away, so she picked up a book and tried without much success to read. Each time she started to get into the story, her mind wandered back to Cynthia. The questions swirled around her mind so quickly that they left no room for any other thoughts.

Eventually she was able to stop thinking about Cynthia long enough to finish one page of her book, at which point she gave up on the idea of staying up and reading. As she turned out the light and drifted off to sleep that same momentary sense of concern for her friend she'd had ever since they parted company swept over her yet again, although she didn’t know why. After dismissing that feeling, sleep finally enveloped her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What a nice car!” She gently stroked the leather of the seats and practically purred with pleasure.
As they drove away from the club, Cynthia couldn’t help herself as she gushed,
“Like it?” he asked as he drove on.

“What’s not to like?” she replied. After a couple of minutes riding in silence, Cynthia asked, “Where we going?”

Charlie remained silent as he continued to drive on, an evil grin splashed across his face. If Cynthia had been able to see it, she might’ve been concerned. Unfortunately for her she could not, so she simply rode on in blissful ignorance.

They spent the next ten minutes or so chatting about nothing in particular while he calmly drove her further away from the part of town with which she was familiar. Unfortunately for her, it took her some time to realize this.

At one point she looked around as they drove on, trying to figure out where they were. She’d lost her way some time ago and was beginning to feel concerned that she had no idea where they were or where they were going.

Eventually the car pulled into an alley where Charlie parked and turned off the engine. He then turned toward Cynthia and began lightly caressing her cheek. As she began to think that her concerns were for naught, he reached behind her head and roughly grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward him.

“Ow!” she yelped as he yanked on her hair. “Not so rough!”

Without responding, he began pushing her head down toward his lap while his other hand began the task of unfastening his pants. Cynthia struggled to get away, to no avail.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he growled.

“Away from you!” she shouted back.

He redoubled his efforts to hold her by way of response, which after a moment subdued her struggling. As her mouth drew near his crotch he ordered, “Don’t even think about biting!”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Looks like last call, boss,” yawned the sergeant as he took pictures of the last of the patrons exiting the nightclub.

“Yeah, I think we can call it a night. If anything’s going to happen tonight, it isn’t gonna be here,” replied Bob. “What do ya say we get out of here and download the pics in the morning?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Bob started the car and drove back to the station, where he dropped off his associate. “Go get some sleep, okay Sarge?”

“Ya don’t have to tell me twice,” chuckled the sergeant. “I think I’m getting a little old for this crap.”

“You and me both,” Bob agreed.

“I’ll see ya at roll call in the morning,” the sergeant said before turning toward his car.

“Good night then,” Bob called to him as he watched his friend.

As he waited for his partner to get in his car and drive off, Bob found his mind immediately wandered back to seeing his brother earlier in the evening. He was somewhat repulsed, but upon reflection he had to admit that he wasn't all that surprised by Tommy's attire.

He remembered the first time he found his brother dressed in their mother's things. Tommy stood there as if there was nothing wrong while Bob freaked out completely. To his credit, rather than beat up his brother or verbally abuse him, he'd simply told him to change out of those things before they got ruined.

Unfortunately for Bob, that wasn't the only time he'd found his brother in attire more appropriate for a sister. As they made their way through their teen years it became a fairly regular occurrence, despite Bob's obvious discomfort with the situation. In truth, it wasn't the clothes that had surprised him as much as the fact that Tommy had actually gone out in public dressed like that.

Once Sergeant Parker was on his way, Bob decided that late or not it was time for a little brother to brother chat.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The patrolman was cruising his usual beat when he happened to see a set of taillights tearing down an alley much too fast. He backed up and turned to go down the alley himself when he happened upon the unmoving body of a young woman lying against a dumpster.

Jumping out of his patrol car, he ran to check on her. Finding that she still had a faint pulse, he immediately called for an ambulance and tried to stabilize her while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

He rushed back to his car and got a blanket and first aid kit out of the trunk, quickly covering the victim with the blanket in order to hopefully avoid shock. He then took some gauze from the kit and after using some distilled water to moisten the material he gently tried to clean away some of the blood in order to get a better idea of her injuries.

As he did his best to tend to the victim, the ambulance arrived. Once the attendants were on the scene they began working at warp speed trying to stabilize her before loading her into the back of their vehicle for the trip to the hospital.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The pounding on the door woke Tanya, followed by shouts of, “Come on Tommy. Let me in.”

Instantly recognizing the voice of her big brother, she quickly jumped out of bed and pulled on a big, fluffy bathrobe over her nightie. Finding her ‘Tommy’ voice she replied, “Be right there.” By the time he found his way to the door, Bobby was letting himself in with his key.

He was barely inside the door before beginning, “What the hell were you doing at that club dressed like that?”

Tanya ignored the question for a moment asking, “What time is it?”

“A little after three,” Bob responded. “Now answer my question.”

Trying to look and sound as innocent as possible, Tommy responded, “What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that crap, little brother. I saw you all decked out walking into that club with your ‘girlfriend’ earlier tonight. I swear, I thought you'd finally outgrown all that crap. Boy, I was wrong, wasn't I?”

Stunned by the revelation that he’d been found out, Tommy found it difficult to respond at first. When he finally was able to say something, he softly cried, “I never really did a very good job of hiding how I am, at least not from you. Not from Mom and Dad either, really. Apparently you haven't been paying enough attention lately to notice yourself, but I plan to transition. Now you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bob queried as irritation crept into his voice.

As tears rolled down Tommy’s face, he shouted, “What do you think it means?” Then he silently looked directly at his brother as he contemplated the answer to Bob’s question.

Eventually he let out a huge sigh before saying in the smallest voice he’d ever produced, “I’m Transgender. Whether you've wanted to accept it or not, you've always known. I'm going to go all the way. Have the surgery.”

Bob stared at his brother trying to determine just how to respond to what he’d just heard. As the seconds ticked by, the silence became ever more difficult to overcome. Before he’d said anything, the sound of his cell phone shattered the quiet that had enveloped them.

Taking out his phone, Bob flipped it open and said, “Taylor…Another one? At the ER…you mean this one’s still alive?” Looking at his ‘brother’, Bob’s facial expression went from one of disappointment to sadness as he continued his conversation, “You sure? Okay, I’ll see you there ASAP.”

Closing his flip phone, Bob again directed his attention to his sibling standing before him. Despite the knowledge that this was his brother, he had trouble seeing this person as anything other than a woman and that disturbed him.

Finally shaking loose of those thoughts for a moment, he regained a bit of professional detachment and said, “We have another victim, only this one seems to be hanging onto life, albeit by a thread. I have to go, but we’re going to get back to this.”

As Bob turned to leave, Tanya said, “Bobby, believe it or not I’m still the same person I’ve always been.”

Standing with his hand on the doorknob, Bob faced his sibling once again and replied, “That may be, but…” Unable to finish the thought, he just turned and headed out the door.

After staring at the door for a moment as a flood of tears began to fall in a vain attempt to wash away the ache in her heart, Tanya returned to bed even though sleep was not likely to be revisiting her for some time.

She sat there crying until exhaustion forced her to lay down, but still sleep would not return. Sobbing into her pillow, she realized exactly what her course of action should be.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cynthia was rushed to the operating room where the surgeon scrambled to repair her numerous injuries. Bob arrived at the hospital moments after they took her in and spent the next hour going over the details with the officer who had found her.

It was nearly three hours later when the doctor emerged from surgery. When Bob saw him, he immediately identified himself, “Hey Doc, I’m Detective Taylor. I understand your patient is likely the latest victim in a case I’m working on. What’s the word?”

“There was a lot of internal bleeding from the beating she sustained. We think we’ve repaired most of the damage. Now all we can do is wait to see if she regains consciousness.”

“Do you have an ID?”

“No, she didn’t have any on her. It seems the perpetrator took her purse and any ID documents with it.”

“Can I see him?”

Noticeably irked by the detective’s unwillingness to acknowledge his patient’s obvious gender of choice, the doctor somewhat testily responded, “Not for a couple of hours. Hopefully by then she’ll have come around and then you can ask all the questions you want.”

Once the doctor had returned to his duties, Bob turned to the patrolman who’d found the victim and asked, “Are you going to stick around here or do you need to get back to your beat?”

“I should probably get back to it, sir.”

“All right, have a good rest of shift. Don’t forget to complete your incident reports when you get back to the station. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Bob next turned his attention to the duty nurse in post op. Once he had her attention, he asked, “Could you let me know when the patient comes around? I have a few questions that need answers.”

“Yes sir, just let me make a note of your number.”

He handed her a card saying, “Here’s my desk line at the precinct as well as my personal cell number. Please let me know if anything changes?”

After looking at the card for a moment she wrote the contact information in the patient’s chart before moving on to the next patient.

Bob headed home, barely making it inside the door before collapsing from exhaustion on the couch.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

After less than an hour's sleep, Tanya awoke with a feeling of dread pressing down upon her chest. Worried that she'd not heard from Cynthia yet, she grabbed her cell phone and tried calling her friend only to have it roll to voice-mail.

She tried calling Cynthia’s cell phone over and over, hoping against hope yet still getting no answer. There in the middle of the night and knowing from her brother's departure that there had in fact been another attack, she couldn’t help but fear for her friend. Maybe it was irrational, she tried to tell herself, but she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d had earlier that something bad had happened to her dearest friend in the world.

Knowing that there was no way in the world she’d be able to sleep until she knew her friend was all right, Tanya decided to try to read while she waited for Cynthia to return her calls. After staring at the same paragraph for nearly an hour, she eventually nodded off.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Several hours later as the sun came up, Bob, having gone home for some much needed shut eye, was awakened by his cell phone ringing. He fumbled with it trying to open the flip phone as it continued to ring. Finally, he managed to answer it.

Yawning, Bob grumbled, “Yeah, Taylor here…”

The voice on the other end said, “Bob, it’s Parker.”

“Sarge, what’re you doin’ up at this ungodly hour?”

“Looks like the victim is coming around.”

Suddenly feeling much more awake, Bob said, “Oh, really? I’ll be right there.” After closing his phone, he quickly dressed and headed for the hospital.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Charlie was pacing back and forth in the living room of his dingy apartment, mumbling, “Idiot! Idiot!...” repeatedly as he struck his forehead with his hand. “Careless! How could I almost let myself get caught like that?”

As he started to calm down he began thinking out loud, “Have to be more careful. Can’t get caught. The work is too important…”

Once done berating himself for his carelessness, Charlie logged onto his computer and went straight to Open magazine’s online personals section where he browsed the ads to see if there were any new ‘girls’ for him to contact. Spying one new ad, he clicked ‘respond’ and typed a note:

Hey! Just saw your ad and wanted to know if you’d like to get together. If so, call 867-5309.

Later, Charlie

Clicking ‘send’ he then shut down his computer and wandered into his bedroom where he flopped down on the bed without bothering to take off his clothes.

Chapter Thirty

Bob made his way to the ICU nurses’ station just as Sergeant Parker was coming out from beside one of the beds on the ward. Turning his attention to the Sarge, he asked, “Anything?”

“Nah, she just woke up. I haven’t had a chance to ask anything yet.”

Bob followed his colleague to the bed in question and instantly recognized the person lying there, despite the substantial swelling and bruising that was doing its best to disguise her identity. Without even saying a word to the patient, he turned around and went to the waiting room where he took out his phone and dialed his sibling.

After two rings, a groggy voice answered, “Yes?”

Without identifying himself, Bob said, “Tommy, your friend from last night is in the ICU.”

Still not completely awake, Tanya asked, “Bobby?”

“I’m guessing you’ll want to get down here.”

Finally clicking into gear, Tanya replied, “Yeah, I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

Bob then flipped his phone closed without even saying goodbye and then returned to the patient just as she was beginning to respond to the nurse’s attempts to communicate. “Any chance we can talk to him?”

The nurse testily barked back, “Give me a few minutes with HER, then maybe.” She then returned her attention to her patient, checking her vitals and noting them on the chart.

Then she asked her patient, “Do you feel like talking to the police?”

Cynthia croaked, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Here's your call button if you need anything,” the nurse told her as she pointed to a panel built into the bed's side rail. “I'll be back in a bit to see how you're doing.”

Not even addressing the detective, the nurse then left Cynthia’s bedside and returned to the nurse’s station. Bob watched the nurse leave before turning to Sarge and shooting him a ‘What the…’ look.

He then faced Cynthia and asked, “Can you tell us what happened?”

She tried to sit up so she could face the officers, but the pain prevented her from doing so. After exhaling a breath she didn’t know she was holding, she said, “Well, I met this guy last night at the ‘Slipper’ and we really seemed to hit it off. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to go to his place, which I was all for at the time.”

She paused a moment so she could lay back down and said as she began to close her eyes, “Can we continue in a little bit?”

Sergeant Parker replied, “Sure. We’ll be back in a while.”

Before the officers had turned to leave, the doctor entered the room and said, “I think you should come back later so my patient can get some rest.”

Bob responded, “We were just leaving. Do you have any more information for us?”

“Come with me,” said the doctor as he left the room.

“I should probably get back to the precinct,” said the Sarge.

“Yeah, I’ll stick around here to see if I can find anything else out,” replied Bob as he watched his colleague leave. He then followed the doctor to the nurse’s station where he asked, “Do we know anything more?”

The doctor looked in the chart and said, “Her name is Cynthia Henderson, she’s…”

Bob interrupted him asking, “But what’s his real name?”

Looking sternly at the officer the doctor continued, “That is her real, legal name. She’s 24 years old and has been undergoing treatment for gender dysphoria for the last six years.”

Appearing somewhat chastised, Bob responded, “Okay, sorry. Can you tell me anything new about the attack?”

“Not really. While it seems the attacker’s ultimate intent was to kill her, he appears to have been interrupted by the patrolman who found her before he could finish the job.”

“Has she said anything about being able to identify him?”

“Not as of yet,” the doctor replied. “She’s been in and out of it ever since she was brought in. He beat her up pretty thoroughly, what with the internal bleeding we had to go in to stop, plus the broken ribs, fractured cheekbone and nose, not to mention the severe bruising around her neck where he was choking her.”

Somewhat disappointed, Bob said, “Well, thanks, doc. If you don’t mind, I’d like to come back when she wakes up again so I can ask a few questions.”

“Not a problem,” said the doctor as he turned his attention to another patient.

Bob then headed toward the elevators on his way back to the precinct to look through the photos from the previous night’s stakeout.

To Be Continued...