“What’s…”
“Sir, we need help now. Lots of help.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ham stood at the small counter of Cape Fear Delivery, waiting for the manager to come out. He heard the young man telling him what they needed but the manager was just shaking his head.
“We don’t have fucking time for this,” said Wes. He hopped the counter and walked into the manager’s office. Ham just grinned. “Listen asshole, I don’t think you get it. We’ve got lives in danger because you delivered assignments to a bunch of college kids who didn’t have the first fucking clue what they were doing. Now a psycho is after them. Give me the fucking addresses or I will rip it out of you.”
“I-I can’t,” said the manager.
“You can’t? You don’t keep records of this shit?” asked Ham.
“Of course, we do. It’s just that we didn’t record these. Professor Shawn Mills was a regular customer.”
“When, where did he have you deliver the items?”
“Sir, I’m trying to explain this to you. He came in with everything in envelopes, sealed, pre-addressed. He paid extra for us to not record the deliveries. Our delivery drivers just took them to the addresses.”
“You understand that’s illegal, right?” frowned Ham.
“I-I, uh, yes. But he was a good customer and we had no reason to suspect a college professor.”
“Where are your delivery drivers? Right now, where are they? I need to talk to a few that would have made the deliveries.”
The young man who was at the front looked at his boss and he nodded.
“Alright. We have three working today. We’ll call them back here. Please have a seat out there.”
“No,” said Ham. “I’m comfortable right here. I’d like to make sure that you’re not notifying someone that we’re here or what we’re looking for.”
The man frowned at him but said nothing. The first driver showed up in only fifteen minutes. The next two arrived together thirty minutes later. They didn’t remember exact addresses but they remembered that all of the deliveries were to off-campus apartments and remembered the buildings.
“Do you remember the locations of the apartments in the buildings? Were they on a corner, in the middle, facing a pool or road?” asked Ham.
“One was for sure facing a road. Oh! One was facing a little stream at the back of the complex. I remember that because her name was Creek. You know, like a stream but a creek.”
“Yes. I get it,” frowned Wes.
“Oh. Right,” said the younger man realizing that this was not a man to piss off. Wes turned to the manager.
“If anyone else knows something, please send a message to this number. These kids might not know that they’re in danger,” he said.
“Danger? It was just homework assignments,” said the man.
“Homework? Let me ask you something, how many covert homework assignments did you get in school? Did you have delivery men arriving at all hours with sealed envelopesfilled with your algebra or English homework? You should have known something was wrong. Pay attention!”
Ham stormed out of the small office, slamming the door behind him. Wes just grinned at the shaken men, taking one of the hard candies in the dish on the counter and popping it into his mouth.
“My friend has anger issues,” he smiled. “You might want to remember that.”
Wes got into the truck and smiled at Ham.
“Nice bad guy routine,” he smirked.
“It wasn’t a routine. This is the shit that pisses me off. People knowing that something is unusual, strange but they don’t say anything.”
“Do you think he knew more than he let on?” asked Wes.
