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“That’s Gerald for you though, he’s been looking out for me since my mother and I first arrived here. I was incredibly confused and entirely unsure about my link to this place or the woman that died because my mother went entirely mute on the subject and refused to answer any questions that I presented her with. I think she was more pissed off that she had to find a new dealer, than anything else.” I frown as I explain, more words than I intended flowing from my mouth.
“I’m glad you had him,” Rip replies, the others all voicing similar sentiments.
That’s something that I will always appreciate about my men. They don’t ask thousands of questions; they accept that the information that I’ve shared is all I’m willing to share, and there are no hurt feelings or angst because I haven’t shared everything with them. I suppose that because they still have things that they haven’t shared with me, they understand that I don’t necessarily want to share everything with them.
“Me too,” I reply and then add, “so what’s the plan for today?”
“We’re going to go over all of the footage that we got from Mona and see if we can find anyone suspicious hanging around Rylie and hopefully identify them as well. If we can’t find anything, then we need to head over to Mona’s place and take a look at where they think she was taken from, and then hope that there’s something there that will point us in the right direction, or we’re going to have to get a bit more inventive with how we go about this.” Mason starts to explain.
“Yes, especially because the longer it is that she’s left missing, the more likely it is that she’s going to be in bad shape when we find her. Despite the fact that Mona said that she’s been highly trained,” Malachi adds, concern lacing his tone.
“There may also be some past trauma trying to fight its way forward from the last time that she was kidnapped. Which means her mental state could be compromised, and when we do find her, we’re going to have to be really careful how we approach her.” I explain, the thought only just having occurred to me.
“That’s a really good point, I hadn’t thought of that.” Rome frowns.
“If everyone is finished with their breakfasts, I’m going to make some more coffee. I feel like this morning is going to be a long one.” Ace grins as he hops up and starts gathering everyone’s coffee mugs.
“I’ll do that,” Rip replies standing up himself, “why don’t you go and set up all the computer stuff? None of us know how that works.”
Ace grins, “Good point, thanks man.”
While everyone else gets up to take their plates to the other side of the kitchen and loads them into the dishwasher, I stuff my face with the last few bites of food on my plate. Either I ate really slowly, or they practically inhaled their food because I would’ve happily stayed here for ten more minutes enjoying my breakfast. Usually, I’d point this out to them so that I can have some more time; however, this time, I really want to get on with this job and hopefully find Rylie. I’m worrying about how she’s going to cope with this mentally; I have no idea what happened while we were kidnapped together, I didn’t talk about the things that happened there with her, and she didn’t discuss her experiences with me, but it was a brutal place.
As soon as I’ve finished, I load my plate into the dishwasher and then grab a couple of drinks that Rip is just finishing off in order to take them into the others.
“Just in time,” Mase smiles as I enter, and I hand him one of the drinks. The twins and I all take our coffees the same, so I figured to save accidentally getting them mixed up, I’d just bring two of those. Before I can give Mal the other cup and then go to grab mine, Rip brings his in, handing it to him and a different one to Rome.
He smiles at me, on his way past his hand brushing against the bottom of my back and somehow that simple touch makes butterflies take flight in my stomach. I love how they affect me, and considering that it wasn’t that long ago that any sort of feelings made me want to run for the hills, I think that’s a pretty impressive feat.
I take a seat between Mase and Rome as we all look up at the giant TV that we’re using to watch the surveillance videos. It’s a vast improvement over trying to watch grainy videos on an ancient laptop like I used to do and along those same lines I am so fucking glad that Mona has top-notch security and we don’t have to wade our way through shit quality tapes. I can’t even remember the number of times that I’ve ended up with a migraine while I’ve been on surveillance just from watching poor quality tapes.
Once everyone is settled down, Rome suggests, “Why don’t we start the tapes ten minutes before Mona thinks that she was taken? Hopefully, we’ll find a sign of who took her, and then we can go back over the tapes and find the same person either before or after the incident. It might make the whole process quicker.”
“Good idea. Although, we are pretty certain that it’s someone who works for Mona and is close enough they’ve been trusted with knowledge of Rylie. That suggests that they’re also going to know where all of the security cameras are and what all the security protocols are, so the chances of them being caught on the security cameras is reasonably slim.” Mason points out.
“If it was my place, and I had dangerous people coming and going I’d have cameras set up that only I knew about for a reason just like this,” I reply. I’m met by impressed, raised eyebrow looks before I add, “Mona’s smart; if we can’t find anything on these tapes, then we could always double-check with her that she gave us all of the footage from all of the cameras, just in case.”
Rip nods in agreement, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, although I think you might be giving her more credit than she deserves, not everyone thinks things through as thoroughly as you do.”
I smile at the compliment but don’t reply because Ace has already found where we need to start the security footage from, and he brings up several angles of the area where Mona said Rylie was taken and where the blood splatter was found. He plays it twenty minutes before Rylie sends the alarm and then speeds the footage up, just a small amount so we can see what’s going on, but we don’t have to watch twenty minutes of footage. There’s no need for any of us to say that we see something because the guy who approaches Rylie is not trying to conceal himself in any way whatsoever. The first thing that I notice is that it's definitely the same Rylie, slightly older but not by much and still with the same fire in her that she had back then. It makes me happy to see that she didn’t lose that.
I feel my eyebrows raise as I watch the scene unfold. Rylie clearly doesn’t feel threatened by the guy and stands toe to toe with the big fucker arguing with him like he’s not twice the size of her and angry as hell. It makes it even more apparent that it’s someone who works for Mona and someone who Rylie is used to seeing around.
Chapter Thirteen
“Is there any way to hear what they’re saying?” I ask curiously.
Ace shakes his head, “No, these cameras don’t have that function, unfortunately, and I’m not nearly proficient enough in lip reading to confidently be able to tell you what they’re saying.”
“I know that it’s pretty obvious that Rylie knows the guy, but do we know who he is?” Rome asks, and then adds, “are we sure that he works for Mona and isn’t like a friend of Rylie’s or a business colleague that Rylie is used to seeing around because he works with Mona?”
I share a look with Mason since it was he and I that went through the files of employees last night and answer Rome, “We didn’t get through all of them; I didn’t see him in my half, did you?”
Mase nods, “Yeah, at least I think I did. I was so tired while we were looking through them last night, but I definitely recognise him. Hang on, and I’ll have a quick look through the ones I’ve already checked.”
“Alright man, I’ll just pause the feed,” Ace replies.
It doesn’t take Mase very long at all to find the guy in his files, and he reads out loud, “Okay, found him. His name is Fredrick Ruesso, and he’s not got particularly high clearance although he does work in the house and helps do security on the grounds, which will be how Rylie knows him. He’s got an exemplary record, there’s no disciplinary action against him, by all appearances he’s been the perfect employee.”
