Merry stared in his eyes then he nodded.
Vera approached. “Parents are coming over now,” she whispered.
Layne nodded to his mother and wrapped an arm around her.
“I don’t think I want to be your receptionist anymore, honey,” she said when she rested her weight into his side.
“Didn’t think so,” Layne murmured, giving her a squeeze then going alert when Rocky stood, she rested a hand on the side of Giselle’s head then slid it down to cup her cheek. Then she bent low, said something, turned and walked out of the room.
“Vera, would you –?” Rocky didn’t finish, Layne’s mother hustled into the room toward Giselle.
Rocky’s eyes went to Layne then to her brother then she walked down the stairs.
Layne and Merry followed her.
She was in the kitchen and they barely got close to her before she started whispering.
“He came after her last night, when she was walking to the game. Gaines. Said he’d give her a ride. She said no. He stopped and got out of the car. She said no again. He made a grab for her and she took off. At first she hid. Then she waited. Then she came here thinking he might go to her house. She broke in through a window.”
“Why didn’t she call her parents?” Layne asked and Rocky locked eyes with him.
“They took pictures of her.”
Layne’s stomach pitched and Merry jerked away, probably looking for something to throw and Rocky moved forward, her hand curling around her brother’s bicep and he stilled.
“Not like that but it still wasn’t good and she didn’t like it,” Rocky whispered quickly then her eyes went back to Layne. “She said they were pictures with her clothes on. She says they told her they were recruiting models, she’d go to New York City, she’d be in magazine ads. She did it with Alexis and another girl. Tiffany Emmerson. She didn’t say anything about the pictures because Alexis and Tiffany were excited about it, talked her into keeping quiet but she still didn’t like it. But him being alone, making a grab for her, that’s what freaked her out. She said even a Youth Minister should know not to offer a ride to a girl alone and definitely not push it when she declines.”
Smart girl, thank fuck.
“Tiffany Emmerson sixteen, long, dark hair?” Layne asked and Rocky’s eyes got wide.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Drive a red Ford Focus?” Layne went on.
“I don’t know. Why?” Rocky answered.
“Hunch,” Layne muttered, knowing exactly who Tiffany Emmerson was, too old but up for it except she didn’t know what “it” was. Fuck. He looked at Merry. “That’s a blonde, a redhead and a brunette.”
“Collecting types,” Merry murmured and Layne nodded.
Layne looked back at Rocky. “She place the woman there?”
Rocky nodded to Layne. “Yes. Said she was touchy.”
Layne bet she was.
Jesus.
“Said she gave her the creeps,” Rocky continued and got closer to Layne. “She said she didn’t have a problem with Gaines until he took her to that woman and she definitely has a problem with him after last night. He was just the Youth Minister and she didn’t really think much of him, except he was the Youth Minister and he was cute. But she didn’t like that woman.”
“Was the touching inappropriate?” Layne asked and Rocky shook her head.
“No, just familiar and frequent. She played with their hair, positioned their bodies for the photos, put makeup on them but it was all normal photo shoot stuff as far as Giselle knew. Except Giselle said it was a lot of makeup and Giselle didn’t like the poses.”
Christ.
“So why didn’t she call her parents to come and get her?” Layne asked and Rocky shook her head again.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. She’s fourteen and she was freaked. She said if her parents knew she did the photo shoot, they’d be angry. They’re overprotective, especially after her sister got sick. That’s why she didn’t phone them. She thought she’d be in trouble if they found out. She wasn’t thinking straight, just got scared and hid. Tripp called and texted and her parents called and texted and the more they called, the more scared she got. But she got my call and she thought she could trust me so she called me back.” She paused, Layne nodded and Rocky continued. “The photo shoot was about a month ago but nothing after that even though Gaines offered it, Giselle wouldn’t do it and she doesn’t think Alexis or Tiffany did either but they were trying to talk her into it. They’d made a girl pact, it was an all or nothing thing. Then she said Gaines spent a lot of time with her after that, talked to her a lot, tried to make friends and she felt weird about it because he was pushing another shoot. She said she’d swear she’d sometimes see him, when she left school, in his car outside her house but she’d look again and he wasn’t there so she thought she was seeing things. But last night, she wasn’t seeing things.”
No, she wasn’t seeing things.
Ryker needed this intel, if they were doing it to Giselle, they could be doing it to Alexis.
“This happened last night, why’d she cut Tripp out at school yesterday?” Layne asked.
Rocky’s expression cleared and her lips twitched. “Alexis’s advice. Told her she was making it too easy on Tripp. Told her to play hard to get. That was nothing to do with Gaines or any of this. She’s almost more worried that Tripp is going to be mad at her than she is about her parents or Gaines.”
Jesus, teenagers playing games. Starting young. It felt like Layne had a lifetime of that and he sure as fuck was glad that shit was over.
“They change clothes?” Layne asked and Rocky’s face grew confused.
“Change clothes?” she repeated and Layne moved close to her, putting his hand to her neck.
“Change clothes, Roc, at the photo shoot. Even alone, if they did it, they could have had cameras on them,” Layne explained and Rocky swallowed.
“I didn’t ask,” Rocky whispered.
Layne jerked his head toward the ceiling and whispered back, “Ask baby, hurry, before her folks get here.”
“Shit,” she muttered, looked at her brother then walked out of the room.
Merry moved to Layne.
“So, what’s the play, brother?”
“He’s out,” Layne stated instantly, looking at Merry. “I outed him to the reverend as exactly what he is. He doesn’t know it yet but he doesn’t have a job anymore. Pastor Knox would not let him work undercover and we’re not workin’ that angle with that perv. No more recruiting. This model business is out too. We tell the Speakmons, we tell Ryker, who’s seein’ Alexis McGraw’s mother and we tell the Emmersons.”
“Then they’ll flee, they’re outed and got no way to recruit.”
“Maybe and maybe not. We turn Gaines, we may be able to get him to talk them into trying to play it another way. They’re dug in, set up, they spent a lot of time on this and they were goin’ in for the kill. They got a lot invested and, because of that, there’s a lot to keep them here. They need to dismantle the operation, they lose big. We turn Gaines, we get him to get them to cool it, convince them he’s still got the girls, he leads us to them and we take them all down.”
“Rutledge?”
“We don’t get what she’s got on him, we find him, you’re gonna hafta flip Rutledge in the interrogation room.”
Merry smiled.
Layne didn’t return his smile. He pulled out his phone and called Ryker.
“Yo,” Ryker answered on the first ring.
“Alexis safe?” Layne asked.
“Yeah,” Ryker answered.
“How sure are you of that?” Layne asked.
“Sure enough, since I been callin’ my babe probably every fifteen minutes since I heard that girl was missin’. Alexis is at home. Ticked. She’s grounded because she mouthed off bad when Lissa cut her off from Youth Group.”