AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m also not five,” she snaps, and I have to hide my snigger behind my hand, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job when it’s my turn to receive the death glare but from Kavanagh.
“What? She’s not a kid, Kavanagh.” He doesn’t look happy but that’s something else I don’t give a shit about.
Ignoring my snarky comment, he turns to Maddox and asks, “Have you checked the USB?”
“No, it was on my to-do-list for this morning,” he bites out, jaw clenched and tone hard. It’s clear that Maddox isn’t impressed with whatever Zak and I missed while we were outside.
“It’s got to be more evidence from whoever this inside guy is…” My words slow and trail off towards the end of my sentence because I suddenly have an unnerving thought. One I’m not ready to share yet.
I pick up some of the other pictures, and as with the names, there are several faces I recognise. And again, they are mostly linked in some way or other to the human trafficking bust I made before all this shit went down. It’s not at all surprising really because where there’s one sick fuck-up there are always more tagging along like fucking defective sheep.
Zak disappears down the hall and comes back a moment later carrying the USB and a laptop. Placing it on the table, he starts it up and plugs the USB in.
There are several folders: photos, documents, audio and video recordings. Some of the information is a duplicate of what we already have printed, but the rest is new.
Zak clicks on recordings and selects an audio file. After a minute and lots of static a phone rings before a man’s voice speaks.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“I did you a fucking favour. Nobody is going to give a shit about some spaced out whore and her bastard children. The older one wasn’t even there, but I’ll get her once those cunt Lawler brothers are out of the way.”
“And just as fucking well, Don, because that bastard child is my daughter, and you won’t lay one fucking finger on her.”
There’s a short silence, then Don says,“Oh, well, I kept the younger one for you though.”
“You mean you don’t want her?”His tone is probing with a hint of sarcasm, and I’m guessing he knows exactly who Star is to Rogers.
I watch Star pale as James Whitmore and Don Rogers talk about her, and I reach forward to switch it off, but her hand on mine stops me.
“No, Roxy,” she says, shaking her head, but her jaw clenches and her nostrils flare.
“Incest isn’t really my thing, Jimmy.”There’s a dark chuckle before he continues,“You have her. Fuck her, pass her around, sell her off… Now that’s a great fucking idea. Let’s auction her off to the highest bidder. She’s pure, so I bet she’ll bring in a tidy penny.”
Bile rises in my throat at Rogers’ words, and I can picture the gleeful look on his face as he talks. I close my eyes and let the very clear image of me cutting Rogers’s balls off and shoving them down his throat get me through as we listen to them discussing my sister like she’s a piece of meat.
The rest of the recording is of them discussing getting rid of the evidence and making Star disappear without people asking questions.
Zak turns the recording off and there’s silence in the room for several minutes.
“Guess that explains why you were never mentioned in the initial investigation into Mum’s murder and why they never filed my missing person’s report.”
“James wasn’t the only one with an interest in keeping her off the cops radar, Roxy,” Kavanagh states, raising an eyebrow.
“Great. Anyway, moving along. How the hell did Theo get a recording of their conversation?” I choose to ignore his comment about Star and the cops because I just spent ten years of my life chasing false leads. And, yeah, I’m a little fucked off about that.
Kavanagh shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you. The man was smart, secretive and ruthless.”
“Yeah, if all that’s true then why didn’t he stop this, huh? ‘Cause I don’t get it. If you have all of this”—I wave my hand to all the evidence on the table and the computer—“why the hell wouldn’t he use it?”
Nobody has an explanation for that, and I’m done sitting around here listening to half-truths and poor excuses. I need to be doing something and sitting here isn’t it.
It seems not only have I undergone some rebirth, but along the way I appear to have lost the virtue of patience. Now I have none, and all I can think about is getting justice and revenge. But I need to keep a smart head.
Zak continues to click through some of the documents, and I’m glad because if the rest of those audio and video recordings are anything like that last one, I’d rather they weren’t played in front of Star. She may have stopped me from turning it off, but I saw the fear in her eyes and the colour all but disappear from her as she listened to them talking about her.
She might not be ready right now, but one day I’ll find out exactly what they did to her, and if there are any of them left alive after this is over, I’ll hunt them down too.
I lean over and whisper to Zak, “Rogers left a note, right?” He nods but continues to scroll the page he’s looking at. “Okay, but does he mention me specifically?”
