Page 118 of Stabby Little

"People are valuable," Michael goes on. "You can train an honest man for twenty years and he still won't possess the tenacity to do your bidding. Khalid would've fucking gone to Abu Dhabi for me. He wouldn't have given me shit about moral hangups or trepidations around kidnapping a Saudi royal's son."

"That's an innocent boy. Jagger and I only hurt your enemies."

"That boy's fatherismy enemy. That's enough to kidnap his kid."

My teeth gnash together. "You know how I feel about kidnapping."

“Are you talking about Ollie again?”

“Yes.”

"Don't you fucking mention his name." Michael picks up his letter opener and jabs it in front of my face. "I swear to God, you won't walk out of this office alive."

"I won't bring him up."

“Ollie’s gone. Dead. I didn't want to kill your hopes, but that's the truth."

"How do you know that?" My blood turns to liquid magma.

"Use your fucking brain. Ollie's been missing for seven years. The cops don't even issue Amber Alerts for children who've been missing longer than seventy-two hours. The chances of finding a child alive after that time decrease exponentially. You won't be able to find him no matter how hard you search."

Something dark twists into my gut. Michael doesn't know Ollie's visited me. I thank God he doesn't have men watching my house. If I endangered Ollie's life yet again, I wouldn't forgive myself.

I narrow my eyes. "I could still find his body."

"Like hell." Michael throws his letter opener on his desk and pours himself another drink. "I'd bet you a million dollars you wouldn't. You don't know what happens to boys who disappear."

"If you care to inform me, I'll wait."

"Jeffrey Dahmer plunged his victims into acid baths to melt their bodies. The FBI needed a miracle to discover their identities."

A low growl claws out from between my gritted teeth. "Dental records. Bone scans. There are ways to determine a disintegrated corpse's ID."

"Not if his captor smashed his bones and teeth." A smirk forms on Michael's lips. "Didn't think of that, did you?"

"No, I didn't."

"The sick fuck who took your son's friend probably raped him and then pulverized his remains with a sledgehammer. They scattered the fragments over the ocean and the tide took him out. Bits of his corpse ended up in a shark. The NYPD can't examine every shark in the Atlantic Ocean to search for your missing boy."

"I don't know why you're telling me this, sir."

"You need to hear the fucking truth."

"You always helped me search for him. I'm not sure what changed."

"This is distracting you," Michael snarls.

"No, it's not. I did your bidding and tracked down Kobe Bailey. I can work on two things at once."

"Your lead on Kobe Bailey is shit." Michael picks up the photographs and thrusts them in my face. "I've seen better quality photos from a fucking Nokia flip phone."

"They don't manufacture those anymore."

"That's the goddamn point. There's no way to verify whether this boy is truly Kobe Bailey based on these photos. He could've donned a disguise before he came to this shop, for all I fucking know."

"This is the same boy who attended Tiffy's wedding. Everything adds up."

Michael lets out a growl. "My men are tracking Kobe Bailey down right now. We found his dorm at Columbia and they're positioned outside to bring him in for questioning."

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