Page 13 of Kidnapped

“Oh really,” I ask, intrigued because going after someone who murdered your family and returning the favor definitely sounds like something that we’d do.

“Yeah, I’ve spoken to him a couple of times; he’s a good guy; he’d be good to hang out with if he let anyone close. He’s got this air of sadness around him though and a violence that matches ours.” Jensen continues, the darkness in his eyes growing.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Trick replies, his eyebrow raising as he probably wonders, like me, why this is the first time that we’re hearing this.

“I thought so too, until I realized that he genuinely wanted to be left the fuck alone, so I left it. I’ll have a conversation with him if I see him, but that’s it.” There’s a warning in his tone; he’s seen something in Knox that has made him want to help him in any way he can, and in this instance, it's by leaving him the fuck alone.

Trick nods, his face serious, “Okay, dude, I hear you. We’ll leave him the fuck alone. Do you think he’d want to know that there’s a bad drug being sold at his parties?”

“I can go up there and let him know, but he most likely already does,” Jensen replies.

“Got it; let us know if you want someone to come up with you,” Trick replies, and Jensen just nods.

“I’ll need a lift, but if whoever gives me a lift could wait at the end of the drive or in the car, it would work better. Like I said, he doesn’t like people, so it’s probably best if I go by myself. It’s Saturday tomorrow so I can go up then,” he replies.

“Are we still heading to Ryan’s new town to stalk him,” Luc asks with a sharp smile.

Trick nods, but Jensen says, “We can still do that tomorrow. I’ll head up to the lake house in the morning, and then we can go after that.”

“Sounds good. I'll come and grab you and take you up there, and then we can swing by and get the others,” Trick replies as he pulls into his driveway. “Let’s get in and then we can get the conversation back to talking about Tomlinson.”

We all head inside and grab drinks before heading up to Trick’s room. There’s plenty of space for us to sit up here, and we don’t risk Rob and Jenny overhearing something that they shouldn’t when they get back from work.

“Okay, so Rachel said that she would be able to identify the guy if she saw him, but we can’t just traipse a load of guys from Tomlinson in front of her, one because I don’t imagine that they’d cooperate with that and two because it definitely wouldn’t be safe for them to see her and realize that she’s giving us information,” Luc says thinking out loud.

“She’d end up dead,” I say bluntly, and the others all nod in agreement.

“Exactly,” Luc agrees as he continues to speak, “so how do we get her to look over as many people as possible without giving it away that’s what she’s doing? Could we have her go to another party and hope he turns up again and that she can either snap a picture or tell one of us?”

I shake my head, “I doubt it. I think she’s been put off parties for life, and she was reluctant enough to help us in the first place, making her go to a party when she obviously doesn’t want to go and getting her to face the guy who had a hand in her friend overdosing probably won't go very well.”

“I agree; she was angry and surprisingly fiery. I wouldn’t put it past her to say something to the guy, and then he’d know that we’re on to him and trying to do something about it, and they could move their entire operation, or up their game, or fuck knows.” Jensen agrees.

“Okay, so that ideas out then,” Luc replies simply.

Rafe clears his throat, and we all look at him. Now that he has our attention, he starts to sign, “What about the class photos? We had ours done at the beginning of the year; Tomlinson would have as well. There should be a whole school one on their website. So unless he or his parents opted out of having his face seen in pictures, we should be able to see him on there, or at least narrow it down?”

We all just stare at him for a moment.

“Fucking genius, man,” Jensen compliments, breaking the silence first and clapping him on the back.

“Thank you,” Rafe signs in reply.

While the guys continue to talk, I go on the Tomlinson website and scroll through until I find the whole school photo, I then pull Rachel’s number out of my pocket and forward the photo to her asking her to look over it and let me know if she recognizes the guy as soon as she gets the chance to since I know that she’s at the hospital checking in with Aurora and her family.

I’ll be surprised if she even checks her phone. I know I don’t when one of my family is in the hospital, which happens more than I’d like.

Chapter Ten

Cash

“I’ve sent her a message with the photo in,” I say, interrupting the conversation, “I don’t know how long it will be until she replies though since she’s at the hospital and waiting for news about Aurora.”

Trick nods, “Thanks, man. That’s understandable. Hopefully, she’ll get back to us reasonably quickly, though. We need to get this dealt with as soon as possible.”

I nod, “Yeah. We do. Once she’s identified him, what’s the next step?”

“We follow him, see if he can lead us to his supplier, and then we get as much evidence as possible, videos, pictures, the whole works, and we send it off to our guy at the police station.” Trick replies.

---