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I moved and headed for my car.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did I.
But he did follow me all the way back home again.
He even waited until I was inside and my light was on before he left.
I would know when he left, too. Because when I got back up to my apartment and looked outside to check, I saw him smoking in the dark cab of his truck.
The moment he saw me look out, he started his truck up and left.
And I wondered if I’d ever see him again.
CHAPTER 8
Something’s telling me to punch you in the throat right now.
-Text from Winston to LaDerrick
WINSTON
“What else did you find in these books?” I asked LaDerrick.
I fingered the cigarette, rolling it back and forth between two fingers, and waited for LaDerrick’s reply. I hadn’t had a cigarette in two weeks, and that was all because of a certain someone who gave me the ‘you shouldn’t be smoking that’ face.
LaDerrick took so long that I finally looked up at him.
He was staring at me with a bit of reluctance in his eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
He scratched his head before saying, “The brother. He brought the dad’s old computer by.”
I nodded.
“Some of the numbers in that book lined up with files on the dad’s old computer,” he said. “Without them apart, you wouldn’t be able to make the connection. But with both of them together, and me being the smart man that I am, I was able to add two and two.”
I leaned back into the couch, tossed the unlit cigarette onto the coffee table in front of me and said, “Come on. Just fuckin’ say it.”
“Well, between all of the information I was given, I have names, dates, times, locations, and buyers,” he said.
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“I also have names of employees,” he said. “Last known addresses. Phone numbers. And which of those employees correlates to each time, date, and location.”
I threaded my fingers together at the back of my head and waited.
“Overall, I was able to find thirty-two employees over a twenty-one-year period. I was also able to correlate missing persons cases to the descriptions on the pages in this book.” He held it up.
The one that I thought was innocent enough didn’t turn out to be so innocent.
Damn. There was a reason I paid LaDerrick the big bucks.
When he’d come to me when he was nineteen years old and he’d shared what had happened to his sister at the age of eleven, I’d known he would be perfect for this job. His tenacity and anger at the planet, and how much he hated pedophiles for what one had done to his sister? That made him one hell of a motivated individual.
At first, he hadn’t even wanted to get paid.
But I’d told him he wouldn’t get far in life with that attitude and had paid him anyway.
Now he was in a very stable relationship with a woman he loved, had a passel of kids, and continued to work his ass off for me on a daily basis.
“What’s in that one?” I asked.
“Well, at first, it looked rather innocuous. It’s what appears to be a list of employees. Descriptions. Costume size. Inseams. Things like that. Except, when I compare this list of employees to the actual list of employees, none of them match,” he said. “And the list of all these employees are eerily similar to all of the missing children in each of the cities they’d visited between a time period of the year two thousand to the year twenty-twenty-two.”
“Son of a bitch.” I felt my stomach tighten in anticipation. “You got me a list of names?”
The file popped up on my phone seconds later. “Sent to you. I also sent it to your email.”
I clicked on the list of names.
He’d compiled me a great list of names, addresses, descriptions, last known locations. Hell, he’d even put in their driver’s license numbers, their bank account info, and so much more.
“Are there any employees on this list that still work with the company?” I questioned.
“The last four on the page,” he answered. “I highlighted them in yellow. There was one woman who used to work for them who was murdered not too long ago,” he said. “And also, there’s a woman on the end of the list. Her name is Idabell Lancaster.”
I looked at the name.
“She’s not an actual member of the circus anymore, at least as far as I can tell, but she’s drawn a paycheck since before there are records on the fucker’s computer,” he said.
I looked at the name.
Idabell Lancaster. Fifty-seven. Red hair. Gray eyes. Last known location: Huntington, West Virginia. Address: 18882 Stout Street. Education: high school diploma. Divorced. Children: Joseph Lancaster. Crimson Singh.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
“You’re sure she’s listed as a participator?” I asked.
Because if he wasn’t…
