Page 55 of Sticks and Stones
As soon as he was in, they got the hell out of there. Switching up seats, Gene drove.
As he did, Ethan turned in the passenger seat and put his hand on Corbin’s leg to soothe him.
He looked rattled, and so did Gene.
His lover was tense, and that told him all he needed to know. He was going to blow at some point, and that rage was best pointed at the bad guys.
Corbin’s assaulters.
There were five, and Gene was going to want to find all of them.
“Corby, are you okay? Do you need anything?” he asked. “Food? Water? A trip to anywhere butPhiladelphia?” Ethan suggested. “I’m partial to DC, personally.”
Yeah, Gene too.
Weakly, Corbin laughed sardonically.
“Now you offer that up? Where were you before I did something stupid like go to that bar?” he asked.
Gene said nothing, but Ethan knew that was likely because he’d already said it to Corbin.
He knew his man.
As for stopping Corbin last night…
Yeah, well, he couldn’t go back in time. God knew if he could, Ethan would change so many things that had spiraled out of control.
“What were you working on that led you down this rabbit hole and into trouble? Can you walk me through it with more detail?” Ethan asked as Gene navigated the Saturday morning traffic in the snow.
He knew they were going to have to retrace his path to figure out where this went south.
Corbin closed his eyes, and felt Ethan put his jacket over his body as he lay in the back seat.
The mingled scents of both men helped him focus enough to help them.
“Someone is trafficking men,” he stated. “We have three victims that we know of so far. They were found decomposed and dumped in a public park in some trees. I talked to theirfamilies, and the people who reported them missing. By all intents and purposes, they were all decent people. They were college kids. After sorting through that over the next week and a half, I got my lead, and the trail led toBull’s Biker Bar.”
Gene glanced over.
“There’s our way in,” he admitted to his partner. “Three deceased victims means that we’ll be able to get this pulled. The cops will want to work it for Corbin, but we have to get that case.”
Corbin panicked in the back seat.
“Please don’t let them have this case. They’ll know what happened to me. Going back will be hard enough as it is. If they all find out what happened to me...”
They got it.
Corbin didn’t want the rape pity party, or everyone he worked with gossiping about him.
Only, that made this even more difficult.
Ethan patted his leg to keep him calm.
“Don’t worry, Corbin.”
The bottom line was that now, they could pull the case and make it FBI jurisdiction. They were going to have to do the dance on this one but now, they had a fighting chance.
That was for sure.
