Page 145 of Sticks and Stones
How did Corbin not see that?
Had they not told him after their stint there that theyBARELYgot out themselves?
Holy shit.
Gene was good at undercover, but even he was terrified of that place, and for good reason. What happened to Corbin was case in point.
As the young detective spoke, Ethan sat back in his seat, trying to decipher this giant mess. He was taking what he said and trying to put it into a decent profile.
It was early, but he knew time was not on their side with this.
Ethan was curious.
“Okay, so you heard the bar mentioned by the cops, and you did an internet search on your own, thanks to a passingcomment from the one interview? You said the name kept popping up. We need to know where you kept hearing it.”
Gene agreed.
“Did it, Corbin? Did you have any other connection to that bar?” he asked.
Ethan waited.
While he knew Gene would reinterview all of the people tomorrow, he wanted to make sure they had the full picture if they had to go back there.
God.
Ethan hoped and prayed they didn’t. What happened to Corbin didn’t bode well for them if they went in, and while it touched on the kink he liked, being assaulted by strangers wasNOThis fetish.
Oh.
Hell.
No.
Corbin thought about it, and come to think of it, he only heard it from the detectives and from the mention of a gay bar from the witness. Now, he realized where he’d gone wrong.
So, he shared what he knew.
“Not particularly. I was leaning heavily into the two detective’s prior investigation. My captain also said I could go in if I could connect it. You’ll find their notes in the files,” he admitted. “Only, my gut told me that they had to be connected.”
How was this getting worse and worse?
The more Corbin told them, the more Gene was stupefied at how the young cop had gone wrong. With him, had he been investigating it, there was no freaking way he would go to that place with what he had.
Some Vice detective’s opinion, a Google search, and one witness statement—a statement without an actual club name?
Oh.
Hell.
No.
Yeah, Gene was horrified. Corbin, clearly, had a lot to learn, and they needed to get him to see that.
You didn’t go wandering into a place like that on a gut instinct when you’d barely been a detective for a year. While Gene and Ethan weren’t that much older than Corbin, those five years working for the FBI had given them street cred.
And common sense, clearly.
Corbin looked like some kid from a corn field in Iowa, and there was no doubt the scum there picked him out immediately.
