Page 397 of Sticks and Stones
“We came back here, talked, and I made calls for him. He had a few meetings at the courthouse, and the city council building. He’d procured himself a nice internship with the mayor’s office. I was proud of him.”
Gene went there.
Honestly, he was rattled. They didn’t come in expecting this, and now, he was backtracking in his head. The man certainly wasn’t lying.
Gene detected no bullshit.
His fight or flight, on the other hand, was going off loudly in his brain.
“Then, you’re aware that they were found dead,” Gene said. “Since you checked in with them as often as you did.”
He nodded.
“At first, I assumed they had left school. Do you know the dropout rate? I was surprised by Graham, since he was ambitious, but the other two? Not really.”
Ethan was making notes. This man was something. He was definitely a character.
“Elliot was a nervous nellie. He tended to be scared of his grades dropping. When I got the report from the university, I saw he had failed a class because he had stopped showing up for class. I assumed he bailed. I didn’t know he had died.”
Gene was watching him.
He wasn’t focused on Ethan, but instead his drink. Someone was getting sloshed. He was starting to slur a little, and Gene was going to use that to his advantage.
“So you didn’t kidnap the three men, drug them, and pass them off to bikers to use as they wanted before peddling them off to the sex trafficking market?”
He stared at him.
The look said he was thinking about the question. When he laughed, it made them feel unsettled.
Like he was disappointed that he’d not thought of doing that.
Oh, this dude was way off.
“I’m many things, Agent, but I’m definitely not that. I liked all three of them. We had mutual sex, and dinner together. Do you drug and rape every person you have an evening with?”
He didn’t bite.
There was no way he was going to go there.
Yeah, no.
Gene had been kicked in the balls by that mistake before. Instead, he kept going.
“Do you have connections to Colombia?” Gene asked taking a different route.
He nodded.
“Yes. We have had some business with the Colombian government. Sometimes, they need soldiers, and I’m sure you know what my company does. BlackStone Group has employees that can and has filled those needs.”
Gene glanced over at Ethan, and he was genuinely at a loss. The man was being forthright and open, but it was hella creepy.
Yeah, again, he hadn’t been ready for this.
Ethan saw his partner pausing, so he jumped in to help. This man was a threat to college kids, not agents. He wasn’t even focused on him.
“Have you ever been to a gay biker bar by the name ofBull’s?” Blackhawk asked.
He shook his head.
