Page 85 of Petty's Crime

Though I hate to voice it, with a grimace I say, “We’ve gotta tell her folks sometime, Prez.”

He glances at me. “I’m well aware, Petty. You want to be the bearer of the news that their daughter, the person we’ve been protecting, has been snatched right under our noses? That we fucked up, thinking the danger was gone. Oh, and that you visited them under false pretences—”

“I got it,” I reply fast. “We’ll hold off.”

“We can hold off, as Petty puts it, but for how fuckin’ long?” Indian stares straight at Prez. “How the fuck do we get her back?”

Red sighs heavily. “I’m fuckin’ stumped, Brothers. We don’t even know the motive. Saul’s case was plain. He was a fucker who couldn’t leave well enough alone. He wanted vengeance.” He scrubs at his forehead again. “I fucked up. I assumed the danger was over and it was safe for her to go home.”

“It’s got to be this cop fucker who was helping him.” I raise my chin toward Crash, grateful others are doing the thinking for me. Just trying to get my brain to work makes me feel nauseous. “Utah said they were close to identifying him.”

“They haven’t gotten back with anything new,” Twister admits.

There are shakes of heads all around, and Red actually looks beaten. Once we had our hands on Saul, his accomplice had been ignored. Like them, I think that’s the most likely person who’s taken RoseLyn. I can’t see her having another stalker, or one that would go to such lengths of kidnapping her.

I swallow hard as bile rises.What’s happening to her right now?Without knowing why she was taken, there’s no way to tell.

“The fucker can’t know Saul is dead,” Indian muses aloud. “He might have taken her for him. As long as he thinks Saul’s in the wind, maybe he’ll keep her alive.”

“Or,” Crash grimaces, “maybe as he’s lost contact with Saul, he thinks RoseLyn might have information to help find him.”

I grit my teeth. In that circumstance, it’s imperative RoseLyn lies her head off and denies knowing what happened to Saul. From the brief period of silence and the grimaced expressions on my brothers’ faces, I’m not the only one thinking those thoughts.

“I’ll question Bart and Kylie again,” Crash offers. “Her manager or stylist might know more than they’re telling.”

I doubt it. Bart’s likely to go ape we have no leads to follow. He was the one who brought us in to keep her safe. He trusted us. I don’t relish Crash that conversation, and for once am pleased that my injuries give me an excuse to stay out of it.

“We should go to the cops.” Twister’s grimace shows what he thinks of his own suggestion. “This time they can’t dismiss it as a prank someone’s playing.”

“They’ll get no further forward than us,” Rope states. “They weren’t interested from the beginning.”

“And they’ll blame it on Saul and waste resources trying to find a dead man,” Red points out, looking carefully at us all. We won’t be able to tell the cops that that’s a literal dead end.

“Involve Utah?” Cuffs suggests. “Not just for info, but actual help. It’s right up their street.”

Red sighs heavily at that suggestion. “Much as it pains me, I don’t see we’ve got much choice. They’ve got more expertise. I’ll call Snatcher after this meeting.”

Utah’s business is preventing or rescuing kidnappees, but we’ve so little to go on, I think even they would be hard pressed. We don’t know why she was taken, which puts a thought in my head. “Do you think there’ll be a ransom demand?”

Red shrugs. “Maybe. But it won’t be to us.” Again he sighs heavily. “It will either be to her manager or her parents. Fuck, maybe we’re going to have to get in touch with them sooner rather than later. I’m going to leave that to you, Petty.”

Oh, fuck. I liked Martina and Rufus. I’m not relishing admitting I was acting a part when I went to meet them. That instead of her boyfriend, I was one of her ineffective bodyguards.

“And before any ransom demand,” Crash suggests.

I lurch to my feet, swaying and using the chair to hold me up.

It all comes back to Britney who forced me into this lie. If fucking Britney hadn’t played her tricks, I wouldn’t have been lying in my bed half-dead. I’d have been with RoseLyn, or at least gone after her when she’d left. And maybe, I would have been able to protect her.

“We’ve got to find her,” I hear myself wail. I can’t bear to think of the alternative, that she’s gone from my life. Though her initiation into what the Devils can do may mean she’d never be a part of it, I can’t bear the thought that I’ve let her down and she might not be alive. “Where’s fuckin’ Britney?” My injured body holds a wrath full of anger, and she’s my target. I might not have been able to hit a woman before, but I sure can now. I blame her for me not being there to prevent RoseLyn being taken.

“Sit, Brother.” Twister walks around and puts his hand on my shoulder. “You leave her to us.”

“She had nothing to do with it.” Hammer grimaces.

“Her machinations kept me from her side,” I cry out. “She—”

“Petty,” Red snaps. “Get your ass back on the seat. I know you’re frustrated, but taking it out on Britney won’t help. One thing for certain, she’s got nothing to do with this.”

---