Page 21 of Beaches

Now, they would hunt.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“What happened?” he calmly asked the police officer. He’d been on his payroll for almost twenty years now. He still looked like a kid to him, but he knew he was a grown man, probably with a family. Although he never asked those questions. In fact, he barely knew the man’s name. He didn’t care.

“We don’t know.”

They were on a video call, and yet he still couldn’t look directly at him. There was a piece of him that was so relieved that it was burned to the ground. He could barely contain his excitement. The girls were gone, nowhere to be found. The other piece of him worried that he wouldn’t be able to just walk away.

“You don’t know? I pay you to know.” The officer looked up at him.

“No, sir. You pay us to stay away from that side of the island. We’ve done that. We had no idea what was happening because we stayed away as told. There were no cameras there. There were no recording devices on any of the businesses near there. The girls are nowhere to be found. If they ran…”

“They wouldn’t run. They know better.”

“If they ran,” he continued, “someone picked them up. We haven’t found any in the area, and none of the other bars would allow them to take shelter. We know that.”

“They didn’t just disappear,” he said. “And what about my men? Who would be able to do that to my men?”

“We don’t know,” he said bravely. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve done all we can. The bodies will be buried in a mass grave.”

“Bodies? It should have been only the three men you showed me attached to the poles.”

“All of your men were killed, sir. All of them. More than two dozen and one young woman who was dead before the explosions.”

Calmly, he ended the call, staring at the photos of the scene in front of him. This was a professional job. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing. It wouldn’t stop him. He could start again, although it would take time to get the girls to where he needed them to be.

“Sir, do you want me to prepare things for the trip to the island?” asked his pilot.

“No. No, we’ll need to delay that a few days. I need to handle something else first.”

“Yes, sir.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The men were surprised when Damon, Calvin, and Vic showed up at breakfast the next morning. They assumed they would sleep in, relishing in their safe cottage and the warmth of their new beds. Instead, they were freshly showered, even wearing shoes.

“Good morning,” they said in unison.

“Good morning, y’all,” said George. “Let me fix you boys some breakfast plates and fill those bellies.”

“You don’t have to do that, George. I can fix it,” said Damon.

“You can. But you won’t. I said I’ll do it, now sit. Let a man thank a fellow vet. That’s what we do here.” They all smiled at the older man, taking their seats.

“How are you feeling?” asked Gaspar, pouring them each a cup of coffee.

“Better now that I have this every morning,” smiled Calvin. “We can’t thank y’all enough for what you’ve done. Your man, named Ace, right?”

“Yes, Ace is one of ours,” smiled Ghost.

“He checked on our families. Damon has a sister still alive, but we’ll give him time to connect with her once this is all settled.”

“What about you two?” he nodded to Vic and Calvin.

“I had a wife,” said Vic. “She moved on, as she should have. It wouldn’t do to let her know I was still alive. It would only make her feel terrible. She’s got a good life. Let her live it. She’s even got grandkids.”

“No one for me,” said Calvin. “I’m stuck with these two for now.”

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