Page 46 of Anders and the Girl Worth Fighting For
“Done. Now what?” I hoped the safe would simply unlock and the door would pop open. It did not.
“Now you put your own code in. It should flash again to show the code is reset.”
I counted out how many times I hit zero before I got the flash of light he promised. Six digits. The door didn’t unlock.
“Do I put the code in again?” I almost did that without asking first, but I couldn’t afford to mess up now. Grace depended on me, and I couldn’t waste time fucking around with a goddamn lock.
“Yep, and then it should open for you.” He sounded almost gleeful on the other line.
“You’re enjoying this,” I accused as I put the code in again. This time I got a beep and heard the faint click of the lock.
“Worked. Duke, come rifle through this with me.” A ripping sound accompanied my words. Duke had taken a knife to the cushions and tore into them. “What the fuck?”
He just shrugged and sheathed the knife, looking longingly at the cushions left intact, like he wanted to destroy something.
I handed him a stack of the papers I pulled out and started leafing through them.
“Put me on video and show me what you’re seeing,” Tink demanded.
“If you ever left that fucking cave of yours, you could be here now seeing this in person,” I joked, but did as he asked. He’d done a shit ton to help me from that cave. I had to remember to thank him with a new drink fridge or some shit.
“Wait, go back,” he said when I flipped a page over. It looked like a bill for something.
“That logo looks familiar. Hold on,” he said as I heard the speed of his typing increase. Maybe I could get him a stenographer’s keyboard so he could go even faster. I bet he would like that. “Got it. That’s a business here in Savannah that came up as a subsidiary of one of the shell corporations Bill was listed as owner of.”
“A strip club?” I said incredulously. “That fucker. Of course, he owns a fucking strip club.” I snatched the paper up. It was an invoice and at the top of the page was a local address. “Meanwhile, he spent all the time telling Grace she had to be the perfect Christian wife.”
“I know that place,” Duke said when he looked up from the pile he had been leafing through. He had divided them into two stacks, and God only knows why he did that. “It’s been closed for years, though.”
“Of course, you fucking do, you beautiful heathen,” I exclaimed. I wanted to kiss his forehead in joy that his debauchery was finally going to something good.
“Either it’s not closed anymore or something has happened there. There’s been a spike in power usage today,” Tink said.
“Fuck,” I said as I grabbed the paper and ran for the door. “He’s got her there.”
I knew it wasn’t enough evidence, and we still hadn’t found information about the inheritance I was sure was at the center of this, but it was more of a lead than we had yet and I wasn’t goingto waste it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My head throbbed.
Light and sound intruded on the void that had swallowed me, viciously stabbing into me, yanking me into consciousness with no remorse for my abused body.
My stomach contracted and bile rose in my throat, its acidic burn fueled by the overly sweet chemical smell that lingered in my nose. I was powerless to stop its journey. I whimpered as my stomach contracted again, adding to the bile I couldn’t hold back. I vomited, the hot liquid spilling from my mouth and onto my shirt.
“Ugh. Gross,” a vaguely familiar voice said from a distance. “Did they really have to chloroform her? Now we have to deal with the smell of vomit, and I just can’t do that right now.”
The more the voice talked, the more familiar it sounded. I started remembering snippets of what happened. The big guy with his arms around me. The little guy and his fist.
The cold, hard length of a pole dug into me from behind. My hands were still bound to it. I had slumped over until my shoulders were protesting the awkward angle against the cold floor.
I tried to open my eyes. I could just make out bright lights and shadows moving around before my eyes closed again.
“This was your plan,” another familiar voice said. This one was so familiar that I couldn’t help the whimper that escaped mymouth. Bill. Suddenly, everything came back to me.
The kidnapping.
The threats against me. Against my boss.
