Page 51 of Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind
When they reached the curb on the opposite side of the street, she released him.
“I must find Quintus.”
“I know you do,” she said grimly, “and I’m going to help you. Do you have the access codes for the security video?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“First, we’re going to stop by Betty’s and see if Q is over there. Then we’re going to use her computer to look at the security camera footage and see what it can tell us.”
He paused. When she turned to look up at him, she saw a smile ghost over his lips.
“You are helping me, possibly to your own detriment.”
“Yeah, well, don’t read too much into it,” she told him. “I still haven’t made up my mind about you yet.”
And wasn’t that the understatement of the year?
They made their way across the parking lot to Betty’s, where she was anxiously waiting. There was no mistaking the worry in her eyes.
“Ryan! Did you just come from Bait? Have you seen Q?”
“No, we were hoping he might have come here.”
“No.” Betty turned her gaze to Tiberius. “You must be T. Q talks about you all the time. Have you heard anything? Is he okay?”
Seeing her normally bubbly, sassy friend so upset was disconcerting, but Ryan wouldn’t sugarcoat the situation. “We don’t know.” When Betty’s eyes widened, she quickly added, “But he wasn’t among the injured, so that’s a positive sign. Can we use your computer to access the security footage?”
“Yeah, of course.” Betty led them through the kitchen to the back of the store where her office was located. The space was small but surprisingly neat and organized.
“There you go. Have at it. The password iscuntmuffin. I’ll be out front. I hope you find something useful.”
“Thanks, Betty.”
Tiberius took a seat at the desk and immediately began to peck at the keys. “The cameras run continuously. Every twenty-four hours, a new file is created, beginning around seven a.m.”
Long minutes stretched out to what felt like an eternity as she watched comings and goings at high-speed. Not many people came and went from Bait’s back entrance. A few waitresses briefly appeared to take a smoke break, and a bouncer brought out some trash and placed it in the dumpster, but nothing of importance until approximately ninety minutes earlier.
Ryan leaned forward in her chair, anticipation humming through her veins as she watched the screen. A lone figure came through the back door, head down, hoodie pulled over his head as he moved quickly across the alley. He paused, looked left then right, and then nodded to someone she couldn’t see. Something about the man’s build and the swagger of those steps looked familiar. It took a moment to recognize him, but she did.
Drew!
Drew disappeared out of the camera’s range, and then Quintus came out of the back door seconds later, obviously following.
Quintus hadn’t taken more than five steps when someone, not Drew, rushed toward him from off screen and tackled him hard to the ground. Quintus put up a valiant struggle, but a second, unidentified assailant joined the fray and put a stop to it with a solid baseball bat to Quintus’s head.
A string of unintelligible words spewed from Tiberius’s lips.
Horrified, Ryan watched as Quintus’s limp form was picked up and carried off in a fireman’s hold. Moments after that, the back of the club exploded.
“Wait. Go back a little ... That’s it ... Right there!”
Tiberius stopped the footage then rewound it to the sight of an unconscious Quintus hanging over the unknown man’s shoulder.
“Now zoom in.”
Her blood turned to ice when she caught sight of the edge of a wing, recognizing it for what it was—the eagle tat sported by Nez’s minions.
The good news was Quintus had not been in the club when it had exploded.
The bad news was he had been assaulted and kidnapped by Black Eagle’s men.
