Page 138 of Sticks and Stones
Is he bad?he mouthed as Ethan read his lips.
He slowly nodded.
He’s not doing well,he mouthed.
Yeah, Gene figured as much. Only, it was going to get worse before it got better. Once he found out his house had been ransacked, and that the people who hurt him had partied in his place and saw the picture…
They knew Corbin.
He’d be worried about Will.
They had to decide how much to tell Corbin, and how much to spare him from—and all on the fly. These were going to be tough decisions.
Can you get out from under him?he mouthed back.
When Ethan nodded, he slipped out of Corbin’s grasp, and headed toward Gene outside of the room. Closing the door slowly, he kept his voice low.
“He had a breakdown in the shower. I was able to talk him down, but I don’t know for how long.”
Gene knew what that meant.
“He washed the evidence away?”
Ethan sighed.
“Yeah, he did. That was his choice, and I wasn’t going to browbeat him into preserving it. We have what I swabbed from him at the hospital. It’ll have to be enough.”
Gene and Ethan were on the same page.
Corbin wasn’t going to testify, and he wasn’t going to let this go to court. It was going to slip away if Ethan and Gene didn’t handle it.
“Do you have the files?” he whispered.
Oh, he could say that.
“Yeah, but we have a few problems,” he admitted.
That surprised Ethan.
“What?” he asked, as they headed out to the living room.
Gene clued him in.
“When we arrived at Corbin’s to get him some clothing, they ransacked the place, used his couch, and his bed. They must have gotten Corbin’s wallet, and his keys. They know where he lives.”
Well, shit.
Ethan flushed from rage, and Gene saw it.
“I’m just as pissed,” he admitted. “We also found his clothing in the dumpster, along with a bloody mattress that we snipped out some of the blood and took pictures for any files we have to create.”
That was foul.
Ethan clued him in.
“Corbin told me that he thought he’d gotten a good lead on the trafficking when they offered to bring him in the back to see a room. He assumed it was to see a victim.”
Gene lifted a brow.
