Page 83 of Blackmail
In spite of my denial, Lehman wouldn’t lie to me. I’m so damn furious I can barely think straight. “I didn’t see it. Tony, I mean.”
“To be fair, I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t seen the video.” Lehman seems to hesitate before continuing. “There’s something else kind of strange.”
“Stranger than someone I thought I trusted showing up at a goddamned kidnapping? Let me guess. Dragons? Werewolves?”
Lehman shrugs. “I suppose anything’s possible, but no. They couldn’t see the driver of the van through the tinted windows, but they did run the plates, and it’s registered to a local farm. Some sort of religious community out near Beacon Hill. I don’t know what the connection is, but it sounds like Tony was working with someone out there. Has to be one of the farms the guy we questioned talked about.”
Lehman might not know the connection, but I think I do. I sit up straight, blood boiling. “Simon told me he grew up on some kind of a religious commune not far from here. He said it was a farm. I don’t know what Tony would be doing involved with these people, but I don’t believe for a second this is a coincidence. That motherfucker.”
“Gotta take some deep breaths, bro,” Brennan pipes up. “Going off half-cocked isn’t going to help us find Simon.”
I open my laptop to start searching. “Fuck off, Brennan. He didn’t tell me the name of it, but I think I can find it on a map. He said it’s near the restaurant where we had dinner reservations, about half an hour outside of town.”
“You’re obviously too pissed off for your brain cells to work properly, or you wouldn’t be telling me to fuck off. I just told you Simon’s brother is sitting right in front of me. Besides, I know where the place is. I’ve been there.”
“How the hell do you know where Simon grew up?” It’s a stupid, stupid thing to get jealous over, but someone’s childhood home is personal. And I remember Simon saying the place was insular. So how has Brennan been there?
“Cool your jets, big man. I know where it is because I’m the one who found him on the road after they almost killed him.”
All the breath leaves my lungs in a rush. Brennan saved my life. That’s what he meant. Shit, I really wanted to hate the guy.
There’s a murmur on the other end of the phone. Simon’s brother, I guess.
“Gabe says he thinks he knows where Simon would be if they took him there. We can’t go in guns blazing, though, not now. Florida’s got stand your ground laws, and those assholes are definitely armed.”
“It’s a farm.”
“Tell me you haven’t spent any time on a farm without telling me.”
“Fuck you. We need to do something. If Tony’s involved with these people who got sold overseas to the highest bidder and he also was somehow involved in taking Simon, then we need to find him and we need to find him now.”
Before Simon becomes one of the people sold overseas. I don’t need to say it out loud. I don’t even think I can.
“We’ll find him. I’ve got some bodies, but we might need more. You have any?”
I glance up at Lehman, who’s texting on his phone. He nods.
“Tell us where and when.”
Wherever he is, Simon had better be okay. Or whoever took him won’t be.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
SIMON
I’m so freaking dehydrated. And my head is fuzzy. The worst part, though? Those limp dicks ripped my favorite fluffy puppy scrubs. After I finally got the grilled cheese stain out. I’m so mad I could bite a dick.
It’s dark, but I’m almost positive I’m in the same barn where Elijah and I used to meet when we were teenagers. Where my father died. Given the gaping asshole Elijah turned out to be, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Then again, I’m not sure of anything right now. When we arrived at the farm, a couple of guys I didn’t recognize and one I did—the police guy from that party—all grabbed me out of the back.
It was too many people to fight. I did try. Someone jabbed a needle in my arm, and I was out pretty fast. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, only that it’s got to be late, because if it were daytime there’d be at least a little bit of light seeping in from outside.
Footsteps and a creak sound behind me. “It’s been way too long since I’ve had you tied up in here.”
Elijah. Jesus. Gross.
“You’re a sick piece of shit, you know that?” I’m almost groggy enough not to feel ashamed that I thought I loved this guy once. But not quite.
