The man sighed and scratched his head. Looking around, almost like he was making sure no one was watching, he said, “Come inside, please.”

Levi looked at Hunter and Hunter nodded at him. When the man turned his back, both Levi and Hunter moved their guns to the front of their waistbands for easy access…just in case. The man pushed open the door and the two men followed him into a massive foyer with thirty-foot ceilings made of thick wooden beams and glass. The floors were polished wood and so shiny and clean that Hunter was almost afraid to walk on them. He saw a camera move in the corner as they were led down the hall. The man must have watched them ride up, which meant if Robert was hiding here, he had a jump on them.

The man turned a corner and stepped down into a formal living room with a stone fireplace covering one wall and furniture that all looked antique. The floor was carpeted in this room, with thick, lush, white carpet. Hunter looked at Levi and almost laughed. The kid was practically tiptoeing across it. “Have a seat. My name is Eddie, by the way.”

“Oh, you’re not Quentin?”

“Quentin was my father. He’s been dead for over a decade. Can I offer you something to drink?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“No, thank you,” Levi said, still eyeing his surroundings like he was going to be arrested for being there any second.

“Can you tell us where Robert is?”

“First, I’d like to tell you about Richard.”

“Okay.”

“My sister-in-law was…disturbed. When my brother married her, she seemed quite normal. But after the twins were born, she started to go downhill. She refused to live here and insisted he buy her a house in town. She said if anything happened to the children, they’d be so far from a hospital that one of them might die. My brother was easygoing and in order to not rock the boat, he did as she asked. His commute daily to work was over three hours because of it. That put him away from home sometimes twelve, or even sixteen hours a day. Unfortunately, because of that, it took him a while to realize something wasn’t right. His first red flag was getting home one night and finding the two toddlers out on the lawn and their mother asleep inside with the doors locked. When he confronted her, she sobbed and told him that she was overwhelmed with them and needed help. My brother hired a nanny—instead of a divorce lawyer, unfortunately. Things were okay for a while, but when the kids were three, he came home to find Roberta’s hair had been cut off and styled like her brother’s, and she was in the same clothes as him. The nanny told him his wife had ‘made’ her do it. The child’s mother said that Roberta was…and this is a quote…‘Too big and ugly to be a girl.’ Sometimes I wonder about my brother’s sanity because he let her convince him she was doing it for the child’s own good. The nanny quit not long after that and then the neighbors started calling my brother at work, to report the abuse that was going on while he wasn’t there. He got one of those calls the day he died. He promised me before he left work that it was the last one. He was going to divorce her and take custody of the children. He never made it home; he turned in front of one of our own logging trucks and was killed instantly. Everything he had passed to that crazy woman. My family and I tried calling child services and getting our own attorney, but she would stay on her medications long enough to sway the courts in her favor. She raised Roberta as a boy. As far as I know, no one outside the family knew otherwise. He was confused and when he came to me at eighteen and asked for my help, I asked him what or who he wanted to be. He told me that Richard was the only identity he ever knew. So I hired a doctor to help him, give him testosterone to finish the transition. Richard is no longer, as you put it, a ‘biological female.’ He is a male, as much as you or I are now.”

“Wow…okay,” Hunter said. Richard Potter had a penis of his own now, and testosterone in his DNA. That could be a game-changer. “So, when he went into the army, he’d already had his surgery?”

“Yes. He lived here until the transition was complete and then he joined. He served honorably and he doesn’t deserve the negative press his brother’s problems have brought down on him over the years. Robert is too much like his mother, I’m afraid. By the time she was finally locked up and I had any influence over him at all, it was too late.”

“You know what Robert is wanted for?”

Eddie nodded and said, “And I have no problem believing he could strangle a woman to death. I also have no problem seeing him behind bars where he belongs. But I honestly don’t know where to find him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“It’s been several years. Like I said, I told the authorities all of this.”

“Did you talk to the F.B.I.?”

“Only the one agent, Richard’s friend. They assured me they would keep Richard’s name out of this. I am interested to know how you found out about him.”

“I’m interested to know why the F.B.I. would protect Richard,” Hunter said. He was suddenly angry. If they knew about the twin all along, and if it had been in the file, then Hunter wouldn’t have wasted a lot of his time.

“I told you, he is a…”

“Yeah, yeah, highly decorated officer in the army. I get that. But how does that excuse him from an interview that could possibly result in locking up a serial killer and saving lives?”

“He wasn’t excused, as you put it. Richard gave his interview, but he did it privately. There wasn’t much for him to tell, however, as he hadn’t seen his brother in years either.” Hunter’s phone buzzed. He took it out and read the text from Chase that said:

“Richard Potter is semi-retired. He teaches at the Ranger Academy three months out of the year now and in his off time, he teaches wilderness survival classes…in Foulmouth.” Hunter slid the phone back into his pocket and looked at Eddie and said:

“I think he has. I also think he’s here, or at least in Foulmouth.”

The older man looked annoyed and stood up. “And I think it’s time for you to go.”

Hunter made a decision that could land him in jail…but he was finished playing games. As he and Levi stood up, Hunter took out his gun. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Levi had followed his lead. “I’m not leaving until I talk to Richard.”

“I told you…” The quiver in Eddie’s voice and the way he was looking at the gun in Hunter’s hands negated the brave front he was trying to put up. It was a moot point anyway. At that moment, Richard Potter stepped out from another room where he’d obviously been listening and hiding.

“It’s okay, Uncle. I’ll talk to them.”

* * *

“I’m afraid there’s not much more I can tell you than my uncle already has,” Richard Potter was saying. Hunter kept staring at him, wondering how he could be so identical to his brother when they weren’t even technically identical twins. Even the way he held his mouth to the side when he talked reminded Hunter of Robert.

“You haven’t seen him…in how long again?” Hunter asked.

“I came home on leave about three years ago and I ran into him. I came back again almost a year later and he was gone. He had been living in an apartment in Boston, but he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving, he just packed up and left. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“You weren’t concerned by that?”

“No. I knew he was on the run from the law. I was actually relieved that he wouldn’t be around, expecting me to help him. He wants to play the same games we played as kids, and we’re both too old for that.”

“The same game? You mean the one where you try and fool people into believing that he’s you and vice versa?”

“That’s one of Robert’s favorites, yes,”

“So, when was the last time he did that?”

“Pretended to be me?”

“Yes, or vice versa.”

Richard chuckled. “I haven’t taken part in that since we were kids. Robert did it a lot, usually for some kind of personal gain. He has taken money out of my bank account, fucked my girlfriends, and all kinds of other mischief. As we grew older, the game grew more than old to me.”

Hunter and Levi had been sitting with this man for twenty minutes. He was cool, calm, and collected, everything you might expect an army hero to be. He spoke articulately and politely and even when talking about his brother the serial killer, he kept it civil. Despite all of that, there was still something about him that was really bothering Hunter.

“Richard, do you know Jon Bridges?”

“Yes, of course. He’s a friend of mine. I taught him in Ranger School.”

“You know then that he’s been convicted of killing his sister…when he was only seventeen years old?”

“Yes,” he said, shaking his head. “Such a shame. Jon did try to go on and be a good man after that horrible incident. But I suppose he should still have to pay…”

“For taking the life of a fifteen-year-old girl? I should think so,” Hunter said. “You know what Jon told me you said when he admitted to you that he killed her?”

Richard cleared his throat. “No, what was that?”

“He said that you told him that there was nothing more satisfying than putting a bitch out of her misery.”

Richard cocked an eyebrow, but he still didn’t break a sweat. “I can assure you, I never said that. When was this?”

“The night the two of you hung out and talked at the alley bar in Boston. Two years ago.”

Richard threw his head back and laughed. “Oh dear, I’m afraid we’ve been taken by my brother once again. I wasn’t even in the country then. I’m sure my army records can prove it.”

“Hmm, …well then, I guess I don’t have anything else…oh, wait, Richard, do you visit your mother often?”

“I haven’t seen Mommy in years. The poor dear is crazy, you know.”

Hunter smiled. “Yeah,” he said as he leveled his gun at Robert’s face. “I do know.”