Page 23 of Carlos: Trilogy: Part Two

Carlos could appreciate Keys’ foresight but was still annoyed that he didn’t check with him first. He put Keys’ laptop down on the hood of the cruiser. “What else do you have?”

“I am looking into all of the registered offenders in the area with…histories,” Keys practically spat out the word, “with boys that fit Kyle’s description.”

“I keep a list of them too,” Carlos informed him. “The closest offender doesn’t live within forty-five minutes of us. His name is Ferris Hogan, but he’s into boys older than Kyle. The next is up in Johnstown. There are two in that area, William Butters and Simon Olivier. Butters is still on parole, but he’s never gone after boys. Likes teen girls thirteen to sixteen. Olivier was convicted of raping his nephew but is still very vocal about his innocence. The nephew was ten at the time of the assault.”

Keys stared gobsmacked at him. “You have all of that memorized?”

“Of course, I do,” Carlos snapped. “You’re telling me that you don’t know that information?”

“Well, sure.” Keys held up his tablet. “But I don’t have it memorized.”

“My memory is not going to help us find Kyle. I’m going to contact Danny and have LEOs talk with the three offenders within in hour of us.” Carlos stepped away to speak into his radio. When he returned, he asked, “What about the bounty hunter Owen warned us about, Trapper?”

“Xzavier ‘Trapper’ Gallows.” Keys tapped twice on his tablet and then handed it over to Carlos. “Forty-three, dishonorably discharged from the Navy for repeated violent misconduct, endangerment of himself and others, and gambling.”

“What is that in civilian speak?” He didn’t have time to read the military rap sheet on the tablet in front of him.

“He started a secret fight club on the battleship,” Keys explained. “He’s hired himself out as a mercenary and recently took up bounty hunting.”

“He’s in our area. Why?”

Keys stretched his hand forward and scrolled on the tablet in Carlos’s hand. A surveillance picture appeared of two men leaving what could have been a restaurant or a store. One had a cigar in his mouth. The second was clearly armed.

“Santos Rivera. Escaped custody on the way to his courthouse appearance in Trenton, New Jersey. He’s rumored to be hiding out in Atlantic City and recently made his way down to Philly.”

“Philly’s five hours from us,” Carlos reminded him. “Is Trapper in Philly looking for Rivera?”

“Unconfirmed. I haven’t found evidence that he’s in Philly, though I can tell you that Rivera is.” Keys swiped the screen again. “This is the last known image of Trapper. It’s a couple of years old, but it’s the best I got.”

Carlos’s grip on the tablet tightened to the point where the screen moaned a protest. “This is Trapper?”

Keys nodded once. “Last image I have of him. Why?”

Carlos thrust the tablet forcefully back at Keys. “Take the beard off of him,” Carlos snapped. He started towards his cruiser.

“Where are you going?” Keys called after him.

“He’s been in Mount Grove!” Carlos shouted over his shoulder at him. “He was in the diner two booths away from Zoe and me when we had our first date!”

“What?” Keys snapped. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I notice strangers in my town.” He threw the door open to his cruiser, grateful he wasn’t blocked in by the other cars or cruisers. “Find him!” Carlos ordered Keys. “I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but he has Kyle!”

Carlos was in the back of the diner going through their surveillance when there was a commotion out front. He looked away from the computer screen in time to see Owen burst through the doorway.

Kelly the waitress, who had gotten Carlos onto their surveillance system, gasped at the sight of him. No doubt she was thinking similar thoughts to when Carlos had first seen him. Conner might have only been a prospect with the VDMC but he was still known in town. His death had labeled him a small-town hero as the club made it well known that he’d died saving Harper’s life and, by default, the life of her baby.

Anyone who came into the clubhouse immediately saw the In Memoriam placard on the wall behind the bar and the framed cut underneath.

Yet here stood the mirror image of the man many had helped bury.

Owen, though, ignored Kelly and turned his furious gaze on Carlos. “You let Kyle be taken?! I warned you!” He pointed an accusing figure at Carlos. “They were your responsibility and you failed!”

Carlos looked past the finger in his face towards Ghost and Ranger in the doorway then to Kelly next to him. “Leave us.”

His voice brooked no argument.

Ranger and Ghost waited for Kelly to exit first and then they closed the door to the backroom, leaving Carlos alone with Owen. He pulled off his wide-brimmed hat and tossed it on the desk next to the keyboard.

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