“I don’t! He told me to find some place where the cops wouldn’t find me. I can’t believe my friend ratted me out.” Billy folded his arms, indicating he was being closed off from the investigators.
“But you have no idea where Younger is.”
“No.”
“What about the person who hired him to kidnap the girls? Who is he? Where is he? How did he contact Younger?” Rowland asked.
Billy squirmed in his seat. “You’re talking about someone who would kill us if he knew we ratted him out.”
“Remember the plea deal?” Rowland let that sink in for a moment. “You haven’t given us anything. We can go to trial, and you can take your chances with the witnesses whom you helped kidnap. They all identified your mugshot and your stepdad’s. They know just who you are, and they’re ready to testify. The only reason they’re agreeing to allow you to have a plea deal is to get your stepdad and the man in charge behind bars. You’ll have a sentence too, but it will be a hell of a lot longer if you don’t get your plea deal.”
Billy hunched into his chair and stared at the floor.
“Fine. We’re done here,” Rowland said.
“No, wait.”
Kendra hoped Rowland would get a different result when he questioned him this time.
“Okay, so let’s try this again. Where is your stepdad?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure he didn’t trust me not to tell a cop if I got arrested.”
“What about the man in charge of this operation?”
Billy scrubbed his face and looked down at the floor. “I…I don’t know his name. He goes by JE. But I don’t know if it stands for anything or if it’s just made up.”
“Okay. Do you have any idea where he lives?”
“I wasn’t supposed to know where he lived. But I stowed away in the backseat of my dad’s pickup truck the other day. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe to feel more in power. Dad is always telling me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And I’m sick of it.”
“You thought you could work for this JE yourself?” Rowland asked. “Cut out your dad? Do you think JE’s going to believe a kid like you could do this on your own?”
“I was the one getting the girls,” Billy countered. “If the girls had seen what my stepdad looked like, they wouldn’t have gone near him. But I kept thinking that my stepdad would get arrested and be taken to jail. So I would need to know who my stepdad was dealing with so I could…” He quit talking as if he was afraid that he’d said too much.
“So you could do what, Billy?” Rowland asked.
“Well, you know. Have a job still.”
Kendra was so disgusted with the teen. He was just as rotten as the stepdad, and he didn’t show any remorse for what he had done. Instead, he was ready to cut out the middleman!
Grayson took her hand and squeezed to comfort her. She was so tense, she loved how he made her relax a bit.
“What is your dad’s pickup truck’s color, model, and age?”
“It’s a 2024 red Chevy pickup truck.”
“It’s his? Not stolen?”
“It’s his.”
“So your stepdad left the pickup, and then what happened?” Rowland asked.
The boy gave the address to the huge mansion, as he called it. “I don’t know why he was making so much money off us when we were doing all the work and taking all the risks.”
“That’s always the way, isn’t it? The guy in charge gets away with the criminal enterprise, and you’re left holding the bag.”
“Yeah, but this time I kind of know who he is.”
