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Entering the rundown warehouse, I spotted Merric, standing over an attractive, blonde-haired woman who was tied to a chair, screaming at him in hysterics. “If they find out I’m here with you they will kill my son! You have to let me go!” Tears with streaks of black mascara were streaming down her cheeks as she begged Merric for her release.
The moment I stepped into the light, both heads turned in my direction. “Is this the woman who bugged your place?”
“It is. Her real name is Veronica. At least that’s the name she’s giving me now.” He gave her a pissed off side glance. “When I questioned her about it, she told me that she was blackmailed with her son’s life in to doing it.”
I turned my attention to the woman, who was now shivering in the chair. “Who put you up to it?”
“Please. He will kill my son if I tell you who he is.”
Looking at Merric, he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, telling me he had no idea about any kid when he slept with her. Moving to the other side of the room, I grabbed another chair, raking the metal legs across the cement floor, stopping it in front of her, taking a seat. “If you want the chance to ever see your son again, youwilltell me what I want to know. Who put you up to it? I won’t ask again.”
The shivers that racked her body told me she was taking my threat seriously. After a few moments, she looked up at me. “I need you to promise me that if I tell you his name, you will make sure nothing happens to my son.”
Leaning forward in my chair, I took in a breath, and then informed her of the cold hard truth. “Your son’s safety is not of my concern. Whatismy concern, however, is that you found your way into my friend here’s house and bugged it for someone to spy on him.”
“Listen to me! I had no choice! They have my son and would have killed him if I didn’t do what I was told! I won’t help you unless you help me get him back! That is the only way I am telling you anything. Kill me if you have to, because if my son dies, there will be no reason for me to live.”
My time with Clarice had definitely made me soft because I was actually contemplating entertaining this woman’s demand. I looked down and shook my head, knowing I was lowering myself to total pussy status right now. “I’ll tell you what, if you give me a name, I will do my best to get your son back.”
“Not good enough. I want yourwordthat youwillreturn him back to me safely.”
It was becoming exceptionally difficult to keep Clarice off my mind when this woman was starting to remind me a lot of her with these bold demands she was making. I looked up at Merric in that moment, and the look I read on his face was telling me that there might be more going on here between the two of them than meets the eye. It was as if he looked concerned for the woman, and I needed to find out just where his head was with this whole thing right now. Getting up, I motioned for Merric to follow me. “We’ll be right back,” I told her as we made our way out of the room. Shutting the door behind us, I gave him a stern look. “Tell me about your relationship with this woman.”
“My relationship? She’s nothing. Just made the mistake of bringing the wrong bitch back to my place.”
I only stared at him. “Don’t you fucking shovel that bullshit down my throat. I’m not blind, asshole. I can see the obvious concern on your face for that woman.”
Running his hand through his hair in frustration, he let out a heavy breath. “Look, I’m notwithher. We’ve just been out a couple of times, and then I found out what she did. I had no idea she even had a son until I forced her to come here with me today.”
“So then, what’s your deal with her?”
“No deal. Just someone I was having some fun with, but now I know she was just using me so she could plant those bugs in my place to get her son back from whoever the fuck made her do it.”
I sat there for a moment, thinking about if it was Clarice in there right now in the same situation how I would feel in his shoes. I had no idea just how close or how muchfun, as he put it, they were having, but I recognized that protective look in his eyes. He was only doing what he had done, dragging her up here to this warehouse and tying her up, because of his loyalty to me. Something I wouldn’t have ever considered if the shoe were on the other foot where Clarice was concerned. Without another word, I walked past him, back into the room, and over to the chair, taking the seat in front of the woman once again. “I give you my word, I will get your son back to you safely, if you tell me who it is that made you plant those bugs.”
Her first reaction was to look over at Merric for confirmation that I was speaking the truth before she turned her attention back on to me. “His name is... Diego.”
Santiago’s right-hand man.
Somehow this information was of no surprise to me. Chewing on the revelation for a moment, I looked back up at her. “Did you happen to overhear anything behind his reason for bugging Merric’s place?”
She went silent for a moment. “I did actually.” She seemed to pause, thinking about what she’d just revealed as if she didn’t know if she should have, but then continued. “When he thought I’d went into the other room to see my son, I heard him tell someone else who was with him, a big guy about thirtyish with blond hair, that he had a lead on who Cannon Church’s real identity was. He wanted to use Merric as a way to possibly lead him straight to the guy. Said that he’d just hired a real bloodhound who called him a few days prior, informing him that they thought Cannon Church was residing in New York.”
Since Merric had blindfolded her on the trip here, the woman had no idea that’s exactly where she was sitting right now. This was probably a worst-case scenario if I’d ever heard one. Somehow, someway I’d messed up. As that thought ran through my head, so did my suspicions about Clarice again. I needed to ask this next question, but I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to, let alone be able to handle the answer to it if it was in fact a woman he had sent. “Did he happen to say if it was a woman or a man he’d hired?”
She shook her head. “No. But I did hear him say that whoever it was had only been on the job a few weeks. He couldn’t stop going on about how amazed he was at how fast they had worked to pin point Cannon’s possible location. He also said that he planned on making them an offer to become permanent and use them for other jobs in the future.”
Looking up at Merric, I saw the same concern in his eyes that I knew shown in my own. I’d known Clarice for just over three weeks now. The timeline was too close for me not to worry about if it was her or not. Getting up, I walked over behind the chair the woman sat in and began untying her. Once she was free of the binds, she quickly rose to her feet and moved over to where Merric stood, watching me with a glare in her eyes. “So, I did my part, helping you with the information I had. Are you going to keep your word and help me get my son back?”
“I will. I need you to give Merric the location he’s being kept in and then we can go from there.”
“But I-I don’t know exactly where he’s being kept. Like you guys, they blindfolded me when they took me there to see him. The only time I was able to see was after I was let into the house he was being held in.”
“Where were you when they picked you up to take you to him?”
“I was at the bar where they told me to meet them. Same one I met Merric at.”
“Ok, how long would you say the drive took?”
