Page 9 of Cruel Debts
I could hear her husband in the background, chatting noisily with someone else in the room. Perhaps it was a police officer, from the tone. Not that the cops were any good at finding people who went missing around here.
They weren’t worth shit on a sidewalk, to be honest.
“No, I’m telling you, she’s supposed to be in Nocturna Beach. She said she was staying with a friend there while she hunted for her brother.” A pause, some muttering, and then?—
“I don’t care how much money it takes, just do your damn jobs!”
And there it was. The crux of the matter. Money, when applied correctly, could solve pretty much everything. But the part he didn’t understand was that in Port Wylde, or towns and cities like it, money could only get you so far. It wasn’t about how much of it you could throw around; it was whether you could throw it at the right people to make results happen.
And the cops weren’t the people to throw money at if you wanted results.
“Tell your husband I’ll do it. But I’ll need a few things to get started.”
Mrs. McCoy breathed a sigh of relief, her voice trembling as she thanked me over and over.
It wasn’t the thanks I wanted.
What she—and maybe the others—didn’t know was that it was her daughter I wanted.
Trinity McCoy.
But she was the one person I couldn’t have.
I managedto gather a fair bit of detail about Trinity before she went missing. Last her mother heard, she was staying with a girl named Mary in Nocturna Beach, and she even had her contact information. But one quick call to Mary proved what I already suspected—Trinity had never gone there.
She’d never been in Nocturna Beach at all.
Mary, once she realized what was happening, was more than forthcoming. Trinity’s search for her brother had apparently led her here, to our city—the worst place in the world for her to have gone missing in. And there was no telling what the fuck kind of people she might’ve run into, or what trouble she might’ve found. According to her parents, she’d been supporting herself, which meant a job. And minimum wage wouldn’t cut it here.
She didn’t have many transferable skills.
Trinity had, for as long as I’d known her, been a very sheltered, stuck-up girl. She was spoiled, a little brat who always got her way, and it was all Keehn’s fault, too. If she said she wanted a pony, he’d pick up shifts after high school classes let out so he could buy it for her. If their parents wouldn’t entertain her demands and wishes, Keehn found a way around it, ensuringthe girl never wanted for a single thing in her life. Growing up in the lap of luxury wasn’t a hardship, but Keehn acted like being told no wasn’t something his little sister should ever have to deal with.
So when we’d promised him we’d watch out for her if anything ever happened to him, we just all sort of expected he’d always be around, and we’d never have to deal with it.
And then Keehn went missing a few years back. And we were scouted by a woman who was married to a cop wearing our dead brethren’s identity.
Now, that cop worked for us, and his ex-wife didn’t even know it.
Talk about a plot twist.
We had that bastard eating out of the palm of our hands, and it wasn’t even hard. Hell, he’d rolled over and played dead when he realized whose driver’s license and name he was wearing these days.
Keehn McCoy, detective with Port Wylde PD. What a joke.
More like Danny Mistwood, abused and molested runaway teen with a chip on his shoulder that weighed two tons.
Maybe three.
And the man owed us some favors. Maybe it was time to cash in on some new ones.
I flipped open my phone, dialing the burner number he’d given us for when we needed police intervention or some resources to help on a case.
Now, I had a case of my own I needed his help with. And that fucker was about to make good on his promise to me ten years ago.
I pulledinto the old warehouse parking lot, careful to kill the lights. There wasn’t another car in sight, which meant either I was the first one here, or Danny hadn’t driven here to the meeting.
When I walked into the empty, dark warehouse, I had my answer.
