My eyes flutter open, but I’m still met with darkness. I know I’ve been drugged because my mind is sluggish as it tries to breathe life back into my senses. Moving slightly, I hear the clink of metal against metal and groan at the uncomfortable position I find myself in. I test my movements again and realize I’m lying at an odd angle with my left hand handcuffed to a pole.
Fucking amateurs should have handcuffed both my wrists.
My throat is dry as I let my tongue pad its way around the inside of my mouth, searching for some moisture. The rest of my body is facedown on a cold stone floor. Shivering, I start to pull myself up when a sharp hiss of pain has me rethinking this moving thing. Agony spears from my right foot.
I halt my movements and carefully feel for my foot—well, where it should be anyway. What the fuck is wrong with my foot? It’s facing the wrong way.
Some fucker’s clubbed my foot.
Taking a deep breath, I lock my jaw together, threatening to break all my teeth as I manoeuvre myself into a sitting position. I curse and grunt through my clenched jaw, “Motherfucking, cocksucker, shithead assholes.” It comes out unintelligible, but it sure helps me work through it until I can grasp the metal pole I’m chained to like it is a life preserver, vomit threatening to head north. The lack of movement and the vertical position help to settle my nausea, because it sure as hell was just about to blow.
I feel around my body and pockets. I’ve been searched and stripped of weapons, communication devices, and any personal items.
With my right hand, I pull at my left shoe, tearing it off my foot. I hold the heel part against my thigh, sliding a small, discreet switch, and then turn the heel counterclockwise until it opens Get Smart style. I feel around for the special-issue-handcuff-master-key that is held in place. I never leave home without a master key when I’m on a job, never knowing the situation I will find myself in.
Blimey, it’s pitch black in here.
I insert the key into the little hole and twist, freeing myself from the pole, being careful not to jar my leg. Placing the master key back inside my heel, I return the shoe to my foot, and tuck the handcuffs inside my jacket pocket.
Just call me fucking Houdini.
Nothing but silence surrounds me. I don’t need a light to work out I’m in an enclosed room. I move my sorry ass until I can locate a wall and prop myself up against it, panting from the agony of dragging my useless leg.
The last thing I remember is walking out of the Old Capitol Inn on State Street, Jackson, to stretch my legs around four o’clock. I’d cut down a quiet street.
Those wankers must have been light on their feet because the bloody knobs had a bag over my head pulled tightly, and I felt a sharp prick near my collarbone. Seconds later, I was no good to anybody. There had to at least been two of them to get me loaded into waiting transportation and here.
I’m no lightweight.
They must have been staking the Old Capitol, waiting for me to emerge. I just had no idea how they knew I would be there.
I may have let my guard slip a little because I was thinking about Whisper and this father-like need I had to call her up and check on her all the time, but I had been giving her space. As an adult, she doesn’t need me worrying that she wasn’t coping without me around. Whisper has Miss Catherine, and she would have notified me if there were anything up with Whisper since I had left for this job.
Running my hands through my hair, I tug on the strands in frustration at the predicament I find myself in. If I’d been paying attention, I would not be in this bloody situation. I would have heard the fucking blighters who snuck up on me.
I am better than this.
At least Miss Catherine is there for Whisper until I can get out of here. I’ve no fucking clue why I wound up here. There are no enemies I know of, and I can’t say I’ve pissed anybody off recently. Everything has been legit with all the jobs I’ve been on.
What if this has to do with Whisper?
How could it?
I search the darkness, looking for answers that can’t be found. “Fuucck!” I let out a low growl of irritation at my stupidity in winding up here.
Have I left myself too complacent after adjusting Whisper to the world she was deprived of? Has an enemy been lurking in the shadows?
Did I miss something?
I need to think this out.
I’d left Grady, a fortyish ex-detective who’s freelanced on occasion for me over the past year, up in our room waiting for the intel for us to proceed on the job we had been booked for. We’d been holed up playing this waiting game, and I needed a break from the monotony. He suggested I stretch my legs, which wasn’t unusual.
I took him up on the offer.
Now, I’m here.
Where is Grady? Am I the only one in this dark space?
I spend the next half hour or so in monstrous pain as I curse my way around the room. It’s about a regulation cell size, six-by-eight feet, and all brick walls. The door is metal, so I can’t break it down, and there is no handle on the inside, therefore, no lock to work on.
It feels too much like a dead man’s cell.
They aren’t as stupid as I would like.
Motherfuckers!
On a whim, I shout out to the darkness, “Anybody else here?” Good guy or bad guy, I hope for a response.
I give it another shot. “Hey! Any sons of bitches here?” I shout even louder.
“Boxer?”
Where did that voice come from? I already worked out there was only me, myself, and I in this room, but it sounded a hell of a lot like… “Lincoln?”
“Boxer?” There it is again. The voice is clear enough, close by, yet not. There’s an echo about it, but it definitely sounds like Lincoln.
“Lincoln? That you, mate?” I wait and get no reply. Maybe I’m hearing things, the residue of the drugs playing with my mind. “Lincoln?” I shout out a little louder.
“Boxer, is that really you?” I hear Lincoln’s confusion.
“Yeah, mate, it’s me.” Can’t say I’m pleased there are two of us in here. What the hell is going on?
“Christ.” He sounds deflated. “They got you too.” His voice grows softer the more he talks. “Thought I was here by myself. I must have dozed off again for a bit.” Lincoln sounds off. Then he moans like he’s in real pain.
“You hurt, buddy?”
“They fucked my leg up.” I curse under my breath. “Figured I was a loner in here, but you must have been brought in when I was all lights-out. I’ve been in and out of consciousness for a few hours I gather. Did they bust you up too?”
“Yeah, got a complimentary enjoy-your-stay clubbed foot, Misery-style. You know that movie?”
“Yeah, Boxer. I know the one. Must hurt a ton, huh?”
“I’ll live.” I work my left shoe off carefully, figuring it will alleviate some of the pain. Feels like I have a Shrek-sized foot. “I woke up cuffed to a pole, too.”
“Houdini?” Lincoln is asking me if I pulled my trick with the master key.
“Always,” I reply, a smile in my voice. “Are you cuffed?”
“Was.” This made me smile again because he was packing in his shoe like I taught him. “I think the brains behind this operation figured a bone sticking out of my leg wasn’t enough incentive not to move around, had to cuff me too.”
“Motherfucking assholes! You didn’t say your leg was snapped. Did you get a good look at who did this to you?”
“Negative. Two guys jumped me and I had a syringe to my neck, and then I woke up here with a black cloth bag over my head and incredible pain in my shin. Something like a sledgehammer must have been used on it for the bone to push through my jeans. I hate to say it, but it’s a fucking mess.” Pain laces his words.
Time for a change of topic. “I can’t see for shit in here because it’s pitch-black. “You got any light, man?”
I hear a soft, tired laugh. “Got it lit up like sunshine in here. If your cell’s like mine, it has no windows and a heavy-duty solid metal door with no handle, so we can’t attempt to open it from the inside, and we won’t be able to kick it down. Not that we could anyway.” Our captor is already playing mind games with us. One in darkness, one left in bright light. Oh goodie, let the games play out.
I keep on talking to keep his mind busy, because from where I’m sitting, it isn’t looking very good for us getting out of here. “How is it we can hear each other?”
“There’s an air vent along the back wall about ten inches long, four inches high, low to the ground. If you can get to it, I’ll be a lot clearer.”
I shuffle my way over to that wall until I can find the vent and lie down beside it. It’s not far from where I was cuffed. I missed it on my first investigation of the cell. “Is this better now?”
“Read you loud and clear, Boxer.”
“Have the bellends blessed you with water or a bucket to piss in?” I can hear Lincoln quietly chuckling to himself at the use of my British swear word. Humor is good for him at the moment.
“Nah, I haven’t had time to renovate the place yet, got no minibar either. Sure could do with a cold one about now.” I hear him hiss in a breath. I know he’s giving me the watered-down version of the condition he’s in. Lincoln is a tough guy, and I need him to stay strong.
“Maybe room service will oblige, mate.” I hear another soft chuckle from Lincoln. “Do you know if anybody else is here?” I’m thinking of Grady.
“Haven’t heard a peep since I was dumped in here… except from you.”
Questions bombard my brain with two of us in here. “Linc, where were you abducted?” This is far too coincidental and organized.
“I was getting picked up by a guy who I wasn’t familiar with. I was freelancing on another job. I got a call in from Grady the day before, asking me if I could take the job because he was with you. We’d stopped off around the halfway mark to Jackson for gas when I came out of the restroom and got jumped, and here I am. I put up a good fight, but can’t argue with a syringe full of knock-out juice.
“I’d been to lunch with Whisper earlier and got a call about Joel. He’s been hospitalized, beaten-up pretty bad. I haven’t seen him yet.” There is a lot of worry in his words. “Joel and I….”
“It’s okay, Lincoln. I suspected you and Joel were more than buddies. I’m sorry he’s been hurt, mate.”
“Yeah… I figured you would catch on.”
I can’t shake the feeling this may have something to do with Whisper. “How was Whisper when you saw her?”
“She was good. We had a nice chat, but she did have something on her mind. I could tell it was worrying her. She clammed up once I got my call, and sensed I was upset about something.”
Jesus. Sounds like I should’ve been there for her, which has my mind working over the facts surrounding the both of us being detained here.
Coincidence?
Could this really have anything to do with Whisper?
Could Grady have been compromised? The guy seemed solid enough when I did his background check a year ago. A friend of mine put a good word in for him, said he was looking to freelance. I have Whisper to look after now, and I only take on the big jobs that pay well because I have the bar’s income too, so I can afford to be choosy.
“Lincoln. What are your theories on us being detained here?”
“One person comes to mind. I wish she didn’t. I got no enemies.”
Christ, he’s thinking it too.
“Linc, let’s not jump to conclusions, but if we were to use her as our first common denominator, let’s think about this logically. You and I are the only two men Whisper is friends with and that she hangs around. She lives with me on and off. Joel has met Whisper and knows things. You watched over Whisper and Miss Catherine while I was cleaning William’s house with Joel and Ghost. I called Grady in to watch Miss Catherine’s house for any threats from the outside those first few days, as you know.”
I take a moment to mull over some thoughts about all the people associated with the first days of Whisper’s freedom.
Ghost knows things about Whisper. He only surfaces when I ask him to, and that’s pretty much when I need somebody I can trust and rely on for special assignments. I know how to get in touch with him, but he’s technically off the radar, and we go way back in the military. He’s truly one of my most trusted confidants. Grady doesn’t know what he looks like, and Ghost hasn’t officially met Whisper but knows Miss Catherine.
I think about what information Lincoln just gave me. “You said Whisper was upset about something when you arrived at lunch. I was taken in the late afternoon, and you were taken before me. You got the call about Joel, who has allegedly been beaten badly and hospitalized, at lunch. Who called you about Joel, Linc?”
“Grady.”
Fuck!
“Mate, you were on your way to a job in Jackson, separate to my job in Jackson. We were both on jobs that took us away from Whisper. Somebody wanted us both out of Louisiana.
“Joel’s role in all of this is more by association at this stage as he doesn’t hang out with Whisper, but somebody knew enough about you to know if you were told Joel had been beaten-up, it would be a mind-fuck for you. This knowledge would put you off your game.”
I trust Joel; he’s my computer hacker extraordinaire, and he’s solid ex-special intelligence. He is in high demand and paid well. He knew about William’s will, but none of this would make sense for him to be compromised. Why jump ship now? I refuse to believe he is part of this. He wouldn’t allow his boyfriend to be hurt.
“The persons of interest to both of us in this equation are Whisper and Grady.” I say his name with mixed feelings because shit is starting to stink. I know Lincoln would hear it in my voice. “Grady had previously put in a special request to be put on the next high paying job with me. He was renovating his place and wanted the money. I willingly obliged. He contacted you to offer you that job at short notice, coinciding with me being out of Louisiana.” I don’t like where my thoughts are heading.
“Have you spoken with Joel to confirm the beat down?”
“No. Grady was the one who contacted me and told me Joel was in surgery and to give it some time, which I never got as I wound up here.” Lincoln swears as the dots start to connect and realization sets in that the job was probably bogus, just a means to getting him here.
Has Joel actually been attacked?
As Miss Catherine would say, I can feel it in dem bones of mine, because something is royally bent here, and the more I talk aloud, the more Whisper’s life may be in grave danger. “They could have killed the two of us, but they didn’t. The opportunity was there. That wasn’t their orders.”
Suddenly, there is a loud, slow clap coming through the air vent.
What. The. Fuck?
Are we being applauded?
Some motherfucker was listening.
“Who the fuck are you?” I growl out.
My question is met with piercing silence.
“Fucking smart arse.”
And then he speaks. “Should I call you Sherlock? Come now. Are you going to ask the questions that are really playing on your mind?” The voice is southern, and at a rough guess, he sounds like he’s in his forties or older, and definitely educated.
I’ll play along. I need to know who I can no longer trust. “Where’s Grady?”
He takes his time answering.
I’m a patient man.
“Let’s just say he decided to get greedy. He became no longer useful. He sold you out for a price.” He sighs dramatically. “Everybody always has a price. Amazing how you can turn a man when you find out he has a huge gambling debt he owes to some very unsavory types. You wave the right number in his face that has the power to wipe the debt clean and all his financial problems could be put to bed. Word on the street was a hit was going to be put out on him if he didn’t come up with the money fast and he knew that. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“The offer was too inviting. He just had to make sure he was placed on the next assignment with you, which I orchestrated, and make a few calls, and then my guys would step in and do the rest. Of course, nobody was supposed to get hurt, according to Grady. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Unfortunately, he thought he would try to blackmail more funds out of me.”
Jesus Christ! He only had to come to me with his troubles and I would have helped the guy out. Fucking us over only got him dead.
I think about my next question carefully.
“Somebody must have wanted Whisper pretty badly to have gone to all this trouble. We both know William Dupré has something to do with this. He’s dead, and my guess is Whisper’s in a lot of trouble as we speak. You needed us out of the way for that trouble to catch up to her. Is she alive?”
My heart pounds as I wait for him to answer. Will he answer me? Lincoln is silent. He needs to hear as desperately as I do that it’s not about Whisper. But we both know it will be.
Naturally, this fucker is all about the drama and suspense.
I’ve time on my hands.
There is a son out there alive, and there’s that will we saw in William’s files. Narrowing the field down to the non-friendlies who would have known about that will, I have to add the son in as he was mentioned, and William’s lawyer.
And then there is Joel and Ghost. I trust them both to keep their mouths shut on everything they saw in that house; that’s why I brought them in. They are solid.
Lincoln didn’t know about the will. He was only told what he needed to know about Whisper because her past was her business. He knew enough to know she had led a life as a victim.
Grady didn’t know about the will.
I don’t trust the son, and the lawyer is worth a thought. The son’s name was cleverly left off the will I saw on William’s computer. He had nothing to lose; he was the sole heir. What would his interest in Whisper be?
“Is it to do with the will?” I throw that one in there to flush out a rat.
This leaves the lawyer, Jonathan Boothe from memory. It would make sense somebody like William would need a lawyer he could have in his confidence, who was willing to take on some nefarious deeds. It’s not that far a leap to make a presumption knowing the players on the chessboard, or to at least narrow it down to suspects. That will wasn’t meant for our eyes, and nobody interested in it would know we had seen the original. I have a copy of it.
I decide to push the envelope some more. “What does William’s son have to do with Whisper and the other person of interest… Jonathan Boothe, of Boothe & Brown Lawyers?” My mind starts trying to fit any piece it can together to make a bigger picture.
I hope the rotter bites this time.
And then he finally speaks, choosing to ignore my questions. No doubt afraid he will give me some answers without knowing it, now he knows I know about the son and will.
“You know, I tried calling the girl earlier on your phone just to see if she was available to answer it. Alas,”—he sighs dramatically—“she didn’t answer her phone, and I did let it ring out. I see she’s not a fan of voicemail. Makes sense, considering her dirty little secrets.”
The fucker has my phone!
What dirty little secrets?
What does this arsehole know?
I want to claw at these walls and bring them down so I can get to this cocksucker. Lincoln and I both curse the motherfucker to hell. He’s playing with us, wants us to choke on our fear for Whisper’s safety.
“Sounds like Whisper might be having trouble getting to her phone, Mr. Boxer. Let me try and text the young lady and see if she responds. What would you like me to say on your behalf? Oh, I know. Let me type, ‘Where are you?’ Keep it nice and simple, shall we? Now if she doesn’t reply, the chances are… she may have been….”
May have been what? He deliberately trails off.
Lincoln and I roar out another round of curses, shouting at this cowardly bastard. I’ve pawed my way over to the door pounding on it, hoping to God I can break the fucking thing down, shred it from its hinges.
“Enjoy your stay, boys.”
And then no more. All that is left is our empty threats in the air.
I make a promise as I slump against the wall. This motherfucking arsehole has a death wish, and I aim to grant it.