“And she’s your wife. I barely know Morgan. I’ve only fucked her a few times.”
“What you need is to have a few freak outs,” Hunter said. “Yeah, it worked for me. I mean, I wasn’t trying to do it, but she got the hint real quick and moved out.” He frowned slightly, shaking his head like he was baffled. “I had to really work my ass off to get her back, but it’s an option.”
I just stared at him stupidly. It was the worst fucking idea I’d heard, but just in case no one else had any better ideas, I’d keep it in the back of my mind. “Okay, any other ideas?”
“Amnesia worked pretty well for Jules,” Chris suggested.
“You could fake your death like Knight,” Alec said.
“Does anyone have any other ideas besides freaking out on her, getting myself seriously fucked in the head, or faking my death for a year? Seriously? Are these the only good ideas we have anymore? We’re just recycling what all you assholes have already tried?”
“Hey,” Ice said defensively. “This shit worked for us. I mean, it wasn’t intentional, but it worked. You just need to find a way to really piss her off accidentally on purpose.”
“That’s it!” Hunter exclaimed. “Bring another woman home and fuck her in your bed. Nothing says move on like having another woman around.”
This was what I was left with. For as smart as these guys all looked, they were giving me some fucking horrible ideas. “How is it possible that all of you managed to find and hang onto a woman?” I turned to Alec, who was still single. He had to have something that could help me. “What would you do if this was you?”
Alec looked over my shoulder, staring off in the distance. I turned, looking in the same direction, but all I saw was Florrie working with Knight. “I think you should go for it.”
“What? No, I said that I don’t want her to take over my space.”
“Look, life is short and there’s only so much pussy you can go through before you realize that one day, that pussy will be younger and stupider than what you’re willing to settle for. In another twenty years, you’re gonna want a woman that will still want to be with you, despite your shriveled dick.”
“Hey, I’ll only be fifty-five. My dick will be just fine.”
“My point is, you need to find someone that wants to be with you for you. If you’re always chasing someone that will leave in the morning, you’re going to be very lonely when all the guns and missions are gone.”
“I’m working until someone puts me in the ground,” I said.
“Fine, you’ll be lonely when you’re shuffling down the hallway of the nursing home with a gun strapped to your waist. Maybe there’ll be a jello fight you can break up. Only, it’s not gonna be hot women fighting in jello, it’s gonna be toothless grandmas fighting for the last cup. And I doubt you would shoot someone over that shit,” Alec said.
“So, what you’re saying,” Hunter interjected, “is that we need to have a retirement community on the property also. Kind of like the school and training center for the kids. That way, we can stay amongst our kind. I like that idea,” Hunter grinned. “And since I’m the medic, I get to hand out the medications.”
“Let’s put a plug in this fantastical idea for now. Let’s not put us in the grave prematurely,” Chris growled. “I still have plenty of working days left in me.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Ice shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“What’s wrong, old man? Are you feeling that ache in your bones already?” I jeered.
“You’re like five years younger than me. By the time you get married and have kids, you’ll be forty, if you’re lucky,” Ice shot back. “That makes you sixty when they go off to school and seventy or eighty by the time you see your first grandkid. Let that sink in for a minute.”
“Yeah, all those things you think you’re going to teach your kid are suddenly just a little too hard to do,” Chris pointed out.
“Wait.” I shook my head, trying to figure out how this got so off topic. “I’m trying to get a woman out of my house, not invite her to stay longer. There was never any conversation about kids or grandkids. It’s not happening, so just drop it!”
“That’s what we all said. Just keep that in mind while you’re making your escape plan,” Ice said just before Cap called and told me to get my ass upstairs for the meeting.
✯✯✯✯✯
“Where is everyone?” I asked when I entered Cap’s office. Nobody was in the conference room, so I assumed that we were meeting somewhere else.
“I thought you were getting everyone and we were meeting in the conference room,” Cap said in confusion.
“I took Morgan there, but she’s gone.”
Cap looked at me strangely and we both started searching the floor for Morgan. If she had wandered off, she might be having a hard time finding her way back. However, our suspicions faltered when we walked into the IT room and saw Becky holding Cap’s second born, Clara, and Caitlin, his first daughter, running around and pressing buttons.
“Where’s Maggie?” Cap asked as he caught Caitlin from pressing more buttons.
“She left with Morgan. Something about taking Morgan into the city to talk to a contact,” Becky shrugged.
“Shit.” Cap swore and Caitlin grabbed his face, looking at him sourly.
“Daddy, that’s a bad word.”
“Yes, but Mommy did something to make Daddy say it.”
“Mommy always does stuff to make you say bad words,” Caitlin said solemnly.
“Yes, she does. Now, you stay with Becky while Daddy finds out what Mommy’s up to this time.”
“I can go with you, Daddy. Knight taught me how to sudbue a man using just two fingers,” Caitlin said excitedly.
“Subdue, and I’m really glad that you know that, but we don’t need to subdue Mommy.” He set Caitlin down and then turned to me, jerking his head for the door. “At least not yet,” he grumbled as we headed for the elevator. He pulled out his phone and put it on speakerphone for me to hear.
“Hi, Sebastian!” Freckles was being too cheerful, which meant that she was doing something she shouldn’t.
“Don’t be all sweet with me. Where did you take Morgan?”
“Now, Sebastian-”
“No!” Cap barked. “She just barely escaped with her life and now you’re dragging her back to the city.”
“I didn’t drag her. She came willingly. Besides, we didn’t go alone.”
“Who’s with you, Freckles?”
“Sebastian, don’t be mad.”
“Who, Freckles?”
There was a sigh and then a shuffling sound.
“Yo, Cap. Your friendly, neighborhood Sinner here.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Sinner?”
“Cap, she was gonna go anyway.”
“You could have stopped her. You’re twice the size she is!”
“Not really. She’s pregnant. Her ass is already- ow!” There was a smack in the background, probably Maggie beating the shit out of Sinner. “Fuck, I was just saying that you could probably sit on me and-shit! Would you stop hitting me? I’m just trying to- Ow, ow, ow…”
There was more shuffling in the background, some squealing of tires, more moans of pain, and then finally Freckles came back on the line. “Sorry about that. As I was saying, we’re just meeting an old contact. I promise, it’s nothing dangerous.”
“How do you know that this contact won’t hurt Morgan?” I asked. “You don’t even know all the details of the case!”
“When have I ever done anything to put anyone in danger?” she asked.
“On your wedding day,” I said.
“When you ran off to New York City,” Cap added. “When you went into the warehouse when I told you not to.”
“And let’s not forget about you offering yourself up in place of Kate,” Sinner said. “That’s how she got me, Cap. She pulled the whole missing finger routine and then started crying and telling me that she needed to
feel alive.”
“She’s been pulling that for years now. You shouldn’t have fallen for it,” Cap hissed.
“I know, but…you know I can’t help it with Freckles. She’s good at manipulating me. But I’m telling you right now that if she goes into labor, I’m leaving her ass on the side of the road with Morgan. I can’t do that again.”
“I’m only six months pregnant!” Freckles shouted in the background.
“Could have fooled me,” Sinner muttered. “Ow! Damn, woman. Stop hitting me!”
“Sebastian, you could stand up for me here!”
“I’m too pissed at you right now. Besides, your lists only work if I’m actually in the same room as you.”
I heard her grunting in disapproval and some more shuffling around.
“Listen, Cap. I gotcha covered here. I’m not gonna let her go off and do anything crazy. She only has one gun on her.”
“Do you know how much trouble she can get into with one gun? Besides, Freckles never just has one gun. Did you check her purse?”
“Of course, I did,” Sinner said in exasperation.
“And her ankles?”
“No, but Cap, seriously? Have you seen her ankles lately? There’s no way she could hide an ankle holster down there with the size of those things.”
“Try to not talk about my wife like she’s a whale.”
“Ow!” Sinner’s voice screeched through the phone. “I didn’t say you looked like a whale. He did!”
This was going nowhere fast. If I had to keep listening to this shit, I would never find out where they were going or what they were doing.
“Freckles, tell me where Morgan is. I don’t like her going off on her own into the city.”
“She not alone,” Freckles snapped. “She’s got me and she’s got Sinner.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Give me the address where you’re going now or I’m gonna tell Cap your secret.”
“Ha! He knows all my secrets.”
“Does he really? Think hard Freckles.”
There was silence on the other end for a minute.
“We’re headed to Frick Park.”
Cap sighed, slamming his fist against the desk. “Freckles, that park is over six hundred acres. I need a specific location.”
“Frick Environmental Center, and that’s all I’m saying!”
The line went dead and Cap stared at me. “So, what’s she hiding from me?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s Freckles. I figured there was something. Come on, they have a good head start on us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Morgan
I WASN’T SURE if this was technically considered kidnapping. I had come along willingly for the most part, but I had no control over where we went. In fact, I was starting to think that Maggie was nothing but a troublemaker. Everyone seemed to think that she was always hiding something and would run off at a moment’s notice. Which she kind of proved the way she wrapped Sinner around her finger and got him to go along with her plan.
“So, you didn’t say who we’re meeting,” I said for the third time, hoping this time Maggie would say something to clue me in.
“It’s a contact of mine. I haven’t actually spoken to him in years, probably since my days working at The Pittsburgh Press. But he had his own column and every once in a while, he would write a piece on things that were going on in the city that he felt people needed to know about. It usually had something to do with illegal activities. He always knew the best people to go to for a story, but he never really shared any information.”
“Then why would he help us?”
“Well, I figure that if we tell him about your daughter, he might be able to shed some light on other things that are going on. He’s kind of a conspiracy theorist, but there’s usually some truth to what he says.”
“Wait, if there’s only some truth, won’t that possibly lead us on a wild goose chase?”
Sinner looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Most conspiracy theorists have about fifty to seventy-five percent of the information correct. Plus, since they’re usually pretty paranoid, they really dig until they have the last scrap of information.”
He pulled into the parking lot and put the SUV in park. “Where is the Environmental Center?”
Maggie shrugged. “It’s over there,” she pointed to a stone structure. ”But we’re not meeting him there. We’re headed for one of the trails.”
“Of course we are,” Sinner muttered.
“Hey, do you want to hear what this guy has to say or do you want him to run off? I’m gonna have a hard enough time getting him to talk with Morgan around.”
“And me,” Sinner added with a meaningful look.
“No,” Maggie said firmly. “There’s no way he’ll meet me with a guy like you around. He’ll just turn and run in the other direction.”
“I’ll be there. You tell me the trail and I’ll hide in the trees, but there’s no fucking way that I’m letting the two of you meet with this guy without any backup.”
“Fine.”
They got out of the SUV, so I followed suit and trailed behind them to the entrance. Maggie grabbed a map and pointed something out to Sinner.
“Right here.”
Sinner gave a curt nod and took off in another direction. I followed behind Maggie, curious as to what I had actually gotten myself into. We walked for a good mile before we came to another side trail that was darker and seemed to be alive with demons down the darkened path.
“Are you sure we should be coming down here without Sinner? This doesn’t look very safe.”
“Don’t worry. Sinner’s in the trees. I just hope we can get what we need before Sebastian and Chance show up. I figure we had a fifteen minute head start, but I know Sinner was driving slower to allow them to catch up. We have ten minutes at best.”
“Who is this guy we’re meeting?”
“He’s just what I said earlier, a conspiracy theorist. He’s one of the most accurate conspiracy theorists I’ve ever come across though. If there’s anyone that can help us, it’s him. He blends in with everyone and finds ways to spy on the most careful, watchful people. He has so much dirt on the politicians of this state.”
“Why doesn’t he expose them?”
“Some of them he has. Others, he’s digging for the bigger story. He knows he’ll never get the big fish if he goes after the smaller ones first. See, with these guys, there are so many players involved and they all have their fingers in a separate piece of pie. If you go after one of the smaller fish and hope to extract information, all you end up with is a dead fish.”
We walked for a few more minutes as I let that sink in. I felt way out of my league here, even more so than when I was working at the club. It might have been because Maggie seemed so on top of her game, so knowledgeable. It made me realize that I really didn’t stand a chance on my own of finding out who was behind all this.
We stopped and sank back into the shadows of the trees, leaning up against the trunk of a rather large tree and waited. Ten minutes passed before we saw someone walking in the opposite direction that we came from. The man wore a trench coat and a fedora, looking like a spy out of the fifties.
Maggie took a step forward, motioning for me to stay back. The two of them spoke for a few seconds and then he followed her back to the tree I was resting against.
“This is Arnold. He’s my contact.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Arnold. I’m Morgan.”
“Yes, I know who you are,” he said shrewdly.
I looked at him in confusion, as did Maggie. “Um, how do you know who I am?”
“You’re the one that tried to get in with The Broker. The news of your death was greatly exaggerated. I guess you weren’t actually supposed to be killed. The Broker never leaves someone alive unless he means to.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly-”
“Trust me, my dear. If he had wanted you dead, nobody would have even
found your body. He doesn’t waste time with torturing people or drawing out deaths for his own satisfaction. No, if he wants you dead, a bullet is put right between your eyes and then you disappear before anyone even knows you’re missing.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I was nervous now that he was making it sound like there was a reason I was alive. What did this mean for me? What did he want from me?
“It means that he still has plans for you.”
The man stepped closer and I could now see that he had a greying beard, neatly trimmed, across his roughened face. But his eyes were what really caught my attention. He looked like he had all the knowledge in the world inside those eyes.
“Maggie, my dear, why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re looking for,” Arnold said as if he hadn’t just told me that The Broker was still after something from me.
“We’re looking for information on a little girl that went missing about six months ago. The little girl was Morgan’s daughter, Payton James. She was snatched by a white van from a playground and there were no leads on the case. It’s like she just vanished.”
Arnold’s posture had stiffened as soon as he heard my daughter’s name and he took a step back, looking around wildly as if someone would pop out of the trees at any moment. I started mimicking his movements, nervous now that I had made a mistake coming along and would be dead before the end of the day.
“You shouldn’t have brought this to me. Let it go and accept that your daughter is gone. You’ll never see her again.”
“What?” I asked in shock. “What do you know? Tell me!” I said frantically. I started forward, but he stepped back. “Please, she was only four. I have to find her.”
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