Page 71 of Swerve
A very tall, very thin, twenty-something man stands behind the counter, piercings in an array on both ears, each nostril, and his lower lip. His name badge reads Jason. He gives Knox a once over and says, “Can I be of assistance? We have a very cool, gray leather jacket just in that I am imagining would look fabulous on you.”
He feels Emory’s smile but determines to focus on why they’re here. “Thanks,” he says, meeting the sales guy’s hopeful stare with a look that immediately squashes any visible hope of a sale. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Are you with the police?” he asks, fingering the loop in his lip and looking suddenly suspicious. “I told the two who were just in here what I knew, which is nothing really.”
“I’m not officially with the police,” Knox says, putting a hand on Emory’s shoulder to bring her into the conversation. “I’m doing some private work for Dr. Benson here. Her sister and a friend were abducted. I believe the man who murdered Madison Willard might have had something to do with their disappearance.”
“Well, that sucks, clearly,” Jason says, looking a little more sympathetic. “But after what he did to Madison, do you think it seems like a good idea for me to rat on the guy?”
“Did you ever meet him?” Knox asks.
“Once.”
“Here in the store?”
“Yes.”
“What was your impression of him?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“Ice, man.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something in those eyes. Like there was nobody home.”
“So what did Madison see in him?”
“She liked the flash, I guess. She said he would take her out to dinner and pay for a three hundred dollar meal with cash.”
“She didn’t find that suspicious?”
He shrugs a narrow-shouldered shrug. “Not as much as she found it appealing, I guess.”
“She tell you what he does for a living?”
“She didn’t know. I said, girl, you don’t think he’s with the mob, do you?” He angles Knox a wide-eyed look. “I mean, is there a Colombian mob in our country? He certainly fit the make.”
Knox ignores the assessment, saying, “Did she tell you anything about where he lives? A place he might have taken her.”
“She said he only wanted to go to her place. She was curious about what kind of place he might have, but she said he kept putting her off when she’d ask to see it.”
“Can you think of anything she might have told you that could help us find him?”
He’s silent for a few seconds, then slowly shakes his head. “I wish I could. But no. Nothing.”
Emory has been standing next to him the entire time, silent. She steps forward, her voice low and urgent when she says, “Jason, my sister and her friend are seventeen years old. I am praying they are still alive. To think otherwise is unbearable. I will take any lead, no matter how small it might seem, if it gives us even the slightest hope of finding them. Please. Can you go over the times you saw him in the store just one more time. Anything that stood out about him? Anything at all?”
Knox stays quiet, letting Emory’s plea stand on its own.
Jason studies her for a long moment, taps the stud in his left nostril with his index finger. And Knox can see there is something Jason is weighing the wisdom of divulging. It’s a risk. Knox won’t lie to him and say it isn’t. The guy they’re looking for is clearly a psychopath and intent on cleaning up loose ends. Knox can’t blame Jason for not wanting to be one.
But decency wins out. Knox can see the moment the decision to reveal what he knows crosses Jason’s face. Knox keeps silent, waiting for him to leap the chasm of reluctance on his own.
“There is one thing,” he says in a soft voice, as if the Colombian might be hiding in the dressing room behind them. Knox and Emory both wait, even as he knows her patience is as thin as his own.
