Page 127 of Brassy Bigwig

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

DIMITRIOS

Ijump out of the limo before it stops along the curb in front of Reed’s apartment building. A couple exits as I approach the front door, and I duck through the doorway before it shuts. Running up four flights of stairs, I stop in front of Unit 4F.

Without knocking, I kick the door open on my first try. I have so much adrenaline pumping through my veins right now, I think I could lift a city bus if I tried.

I listen for any sign of life inside. Ivan joins me a minute later, and the two of us quietly search the unit. No one is here, and I have a feeling Reed is smarter than I’d like him to be in order to pull off a successful abduction. There are two back bedrooms, and I enter the first one I come to.

“Check in that one, and let me know if you find anything of interest,” I direct Ivan.

The room I enter is messy. There are empty bags of chips and candy bar wrappers all over the place, littered in with empty twenty ounce bottles of Mountain Dew. The screensaver is floating around the computer screen. I give the mouse a little nudge, and the monitor comes to life once again. The Photoshop application is open, and there is a jumble of different sea creatures being placed onto a sand dune in the middle of outer space.

I click on the downloads folder and search through the images inside of it. There are several of Reed and Shelby. One where Shelby is tied to a chair, smiling seductively at the camera. There are more of her laughing. One of her pretending to cry, at least I think she’s pretending. Her face looks sad, but I don’t see any real tears. It was probably some weird sex game they were playing.

I also see pictures of Reed sitting in a chair with his hands behind his back. He’s bent over, and he looks like he may be sleeping. There are a few more in the series, but this is the only one where he isn’t looking at the camera.

After that, I sort through the pile of papers scattered over the desk, and my eye catches on a very disturbing image. It’s one of the images of Shelby I just saw in the downloads folder, only in this version, she’s tied to a chair with tape over her mouth. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she looks like she’s scared out of her mind.

Is it digitally enhanced, or did this actually happen?

Rifling through a few more papers, I find an identical image of Shelby crying in the chair, only this time the image of Reed with his head hanging down is next to her. But in this image, he has blood coming out of his ear and what appears to be duct tape on his mouth.

What the hell?

“Excuse me? Hey!”

The voice behind me belongs to a stocky kid with glasses wearing a backpack. He looks like he just got home from school. Ivan has him in a chokehold with no intention of letting him go.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” he questions.

I wave Ivan off.

“I’m looking for someone. Reed Baker. Do you know where I might find him?”

He rolls his shoulder once he’s out of Ivan’s grasp and shoots him a death stare. Then he looks back to me, but his eyes quickly shift to the images in my hands.

“No.”

“What do you know about these pictures?” I hold up the stack in my hands, showing him the one of Shelby. “This one here. Do you know if Reed hurt her before taking it? Or was it photoshopped?”

I point to the computer screen.

“I edited it.”

I breathe a small sigh of relief.

“Why?” I ask.

“Reed asked me to. What is this about?”

“How well do you know Reed?”

“I know him a little. We’ve only lived together for about six months.”

“I think he abducted someone very special to me. Do you happen to know where he might have taken her?”

He’s looking at me like he wants to ask a question, but he’s almost afraid of the answer he might get.

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