Page 37 of Tat

“Thank you. We’ll be in touch if we find anything else.” With the officers gone, Imron stared at the men in the room.

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Brother, we know you didn’t. But someone did, and we think it’s the dude that paid you. We need to know what he looks like.”

“That’s just it. I never saw him face to face. I heard him over the phone, but the guy who delivered my money was young. Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He was wearing a Loyola sweatshirt.”

“Loyola?” frowned Vince. Imron nodded.

“Average-looking American college kid. Brown hair, brown eyes, about five-ten.”

“Did you get a name?” asked Whiskey.

“Honestly? I didn’t want to know his name. I didn’t want to know anything. I know that’s wrong, but I was scared and ashamed of myself. I tried to find those kids to redo the tattoos, but I didn’t even know their names. Most didn’t want to tell me, probably because they were all underage. I knew it, which was why I demanded my money and to stop.”

“We’re gonna find them all,” said Dex. Phones started pinging, and the Gray Wolf team looked down at their phone screens. “We just found four of them.”

Sitting in the middle of the road, the kids were tied together, back-to-back, hoods covering the faces. Code happened to catch the image on camera, just casually scanning around the property for anything suspicious.

By the time Ghost, Nine, and the others got out there, cars were stopped in the road, trying to help untie them. The names matched four of the missing kids, but all appeared shell-shocked. Two couldn’t even form words. The light of day nearly blinding them, they refused to open their eyes, looking down at their laps.

Each one of the men lifted a kid, taking them into the clinic. With the medical team going to work on them, they watched from a distance, notifying the authorities who would contact their parents.

“Does someone know where they’re dropping these fucking kids?” growled Ghost. “This is number six right on our doorstep.”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s random. They think it’s out of the way. But I do think it’s near something or somewhere that they’re keeping the kids.”

“I told you. I felt that it was close,” said Marcel from behind them. Gaspar looked at his ancestor, frowning.

“You said that, Marcel, but what does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. I just feel it. The first victim, I could sense that where he was being held was familiar to me.”

“A house?” asked Gaspar.

“No,” frowned Marcel, “it was not a home. Far from it.”

“Were you ever in jail, a prison perhaps?”

“No. Not prison. A fort. I was in many forts around here. That’s what I feel it was. I was in many forts delivering goods.”

“But I don’t think there are any that survived,” said Gaspar.

“We need to find one that is still standing,” said Nine.

“There are quite a few,” said Code. “Fort Livingston, Fort St. John, Fort Pike, Fort de la Boulaye, Fort St. Phillip, Fort Jackson, and several others, but they’re further out.”

“Were you at any of those?” asked Gaspar.

“I am afraid, mon frére, I was at all of them. I delivered goods to many by boat and by wagon.”

“Damn,” muttered Nine. “How do we get there?”

“Boat is the only way, and it will need to be a small boat,” said Gaspar. “Most of these are in the middle of bayous or near small islands. This is going to be a slow, painful process.”

Riley and Gabi came out, stopping in front of the group of men. Both women looked strained, tired, just not themselves.

“Everything okay?” asked Ghost.

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