Page 94 of One Tough Love

“Talk.” The other man said gruffly.

“Jo please tell me where you put the footage? We know it was uploaded to two sources.” Jo could picture Nick right next to her. He was probably sweating and nervous. He wasn’t someone who would like seeing other people being hurt.

Jo remained quiet and Nick tried again. After a few minutes the man told Nick to go upstairs. Jo felt the gag as it was placed back in her mouth and she thought that perhaps they were going to leave her alone, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. The man sat astride her chest hindering her breathing, and using his hands pressed down on her shoulder with enough force to dislocate it. Jo howled in agony, the terrifying sound completely muffled by the gag, as a wave of nausea swept through her before she passed out.

Every couple of hours the man would return, wake Jo up, and inflict some other form of torture on her body. Her mind was hazy because of the pain she was in, but refused to give him the information they wanted. At one point she thought about saying she had sent it to Wes, but she didn’t think they'd believe her. Nick knew that if Wes had any inkling of what she had uncovered the police would be banging down their doors right now. Jo also knew once she did tell them what they wanted to know that she would be killed anyway. If she did die she wanted these bastards to pay for what they had done and the only way that would happen would be if someone found her iPhone and turned it in to the authorities. Jo kept praying that Nick would come to his senses, but she hadn’t heard him in a while so her hopes were slowly shredding.

Jo wasn’t sure how much time had passed but she knew it could have been days. She had gathered that they’d gone through her house and she took a moment of pleasure knowing they’d never find her phone there. She had hidden it in her ratty blanket under her tarp at Cardboard Corner. Jo knew the people who occupied the little corner may have been older, unstable, down trodden, or young run a ways, but they were also fiercely loyal to their kind and they wouldn’t let anyone near her tarp.

Jo couldn’t feel her left arm anymore and she was worried that the damage was going to be permanent. She then realized if she didn’t get out of there soon that that would be the least of her worries. She’d been given sparse amounts of water and no food. She thought she might be delirious because she could hear children's laughter once in a while.

A long time period passed and when Jo groggily emerged from being unconscious after her last torture session, she knew she was dying, slowly. She felt dried blood from where the man had sliced her body. She’d been tasered twice and she was pretty sure she was now naked. They hadn’t let her go to the bathroom again, and the revolting smell emanating from beneath her battered body attested to the fact that she had peed and defecated on herself. Whoever was her caregiver had placed her on newspapers and in the beginning after she peed, they had simply replace the sodden paper. The newspapers had not been exchanged in what felt like days. Jo was starting to hallucinate and she knew it was from lack of water, food, and all the pain her body had suffered. Her arms and legs were numb from immobility and her lips were cracked. The one saving grace was that the pillow case had been removed from her head. Her eyes were unfocused as they took in her bleak surroundings.

The last thing Jo thought she remembered was the man Marty, telling Nick to kill her. She was already not thinking clearly, but she thought she heard Nick crying next to her cot. Then Jo blacked out and she was positive that she would never wake again. She was so broken that she actually welcomed the blackness that engulfed her.

Chapter 28

Wes

Wes was riding shotgun in the front of the sleek limo as the family, which he was guarding, rode in the back. They were currently doing the whole museum tourist thing in Italy. The assignment hadn’t been difficult. The family was very down to earth considering how wealthy they were. The husband and wife were kind and outwardly affectionate with each other and he was impressed with how they handled their two young teens. They didn’t over indulge them and the kids were actually polite.

Wes had hired from the local Police Department called the Provincial Police to guard the family’s hotel floor at night so he could sleep when the family slept. Unlike when he had guarded Ginger, he wasn’t worried about anyone sneaking out.

He hadn’t been getting much sleep though; he just couldn’t get Jo off his mind. He kept wishing he had at least let her explain. It just didn’t add up. They had been so good together. She had even called it perfect. The argument they had about her disguising herself to hang out at the homeless street corner so she could stake out the construction site was actually ingenious, but he had been too upset to even tell her that.

Wes' phone rang. He hadn’t checked in to T.U.F.’s in a few days.

“Hey.” He answered he knew it would be either Andy or Jace.

“Hi.” It was Jace.

“Everything all right?” Wes asked.

“Maybe…maybe not.” Jace sounded off.

“Talk to me Jace, what’s the matter, is Andy okay?”

/> “Andy’s fine, he’s right here. You're on speaker.” Wes knew something was wrong and his gut told him it was Jo.

Andy took over the conversation. “Wes your cell phone here was ringing off the hook and we saw that it was Jo’s friend Auggie. We didn’t answer it because; well, because we’re your friends.”

Jace started talking. “Thing is he called the office and Betty put him through to me.”

“Yeah?” Wes did not like where this was going.

“Wes she’s missing.”

“She’s in Chicago.” Wes answered stoically.

“Wes she was never going to Chicago.”

Wes felt sick. “What do you mean?”

“She turned that job down. She just told her parents she was going to interview there just to get them off her back.”

“Shit.” Wes was really getting a bad feeling.

“Wes, Jo’s been missing for six days. Her parents went to her place and it’s been ransacked. They’re going out of their mind. Auggie was hoping you’d know where she was. He was actually praying you two had gone off somewhere. When I told him you were out of the country he wanted me to call you. He thought maybe she’d gone with you. He’s pretty torn up.”

---