Page 107 of Spooked

That soon changed when she lopped off a little toe with the cigar cutter. Brax’s stomach lurched, and Silvio screamed into his makeshift gag while Tulsa studied her handiwork. Blood trickled across the floor, or rather across the plastic sheeting. This kidnapping had been well planned, Brax had to concede. At least nobody needed to get out a mop.

“Removing digits with a cigar cutter is an art,” Jerry whispered. “The movies make it look so easy, but if you don’t position the blade right, it gets stuck in the bone.”

“I assume you’ve had practice?”

A shrug. Brax took that as an affirmative.

Now Silvio was sobbing, tears mingling with blood, words spilling from his lips like water from a faucet. A confession? Since Tulsa didn’t seem ready to chop off any more toes, Brax was inclined to think so.

“He has two daughters,” Jerry said, keeping her voice low. “He doesn’t want them to grow up without a father.”

“You speak Portuguese?”

“Nowhere near fluently, but enough to get by.” Her expression darkened as she listened. “Silvio is a middleman. He sold Meera.”

“Soldher?”

“Shhh. Keep your voice down. If he spotted a girl that fit certain criteria, he informed the buyer, and they picked her up. They paid him for the information.” A pause. “Ten thousand euros.”

Ten thousand euros? Hell, Nyx sold bottles of wine that cost more. That a man should broker any woman was vile, but for so little? That added another layer of obscenity.

“He’s at pains to point out that he never sold a woman if she was a mother.”

Did he expect thanks for that? Silvio’s voice rose as Tulsa crouched in front of him.

“Não, não, não!”

“Me diga!”

More rapid-fire Portuguese was followed by a calmer discussion, and finally, Tulsa nodded. Did they have what they needed?

“She said she’s going to check out his story, and if he lied, she’ll be back and he’ll regret it.”

“So we’re just leaving him here in the cellar?”

“What else are we meant to do with him? Offer him a spare bedroom? We have to work with the facilities available, and sadly, there’s no holding cell.”

“If we need more information, we could try wineboarding him,” Tulsa suggested.

“Wineboarding?”

“Waterboarding is so passé.” She nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s talk up there.”

* * *

This time, Alexa joined in the conversation, making a rare appearance on screen in person rather than substituting her cartoon avatar. She looked tired. Hardly surprising if she was working Meera’s disappearance as an extra job on the side. Not to mention the fact that the Portugal team had stolen her assistant and, therefore, her bringer of caffeine.

“Meera’s phone is on its way to me,” she said. “Priest put it on a plane earlier, but in light of the new information, I doubt we’ll find anything useful on there.”

Now that they knew Meera had been snatched, tactics would have to change. Dawson could stop tracking down friends from the list of names Alfie had provided. Quinta do Lago was a dead end. Silvio and his partner in crime were the focus.

The coffee pot was full, and they were ready for a long night.

Tulsa took over. “Silvio tried to downplay his involvement. If he identified a suitable candidate—a foreign woman no older than twenty-five, pretty and with no travelling companions, somebody no one would miss—he’d email his contact with a name and picture. If he received confirmation that his suggestion was acceptable, he’d drug the woman, and a courier would pick her up at the appointed time.”

“What was in it for him?”

“Ten thousand euros in cash, delivered by the courier.”

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