“Have the bellends blessed you with water or a bucket to piss in?” I can hear Lincoln quietly chuckling to himself at the use of my British swear word. Humor is good for him at the moment.
“Nah, I haven’t had time to renovate the place yet, got no minibar either. Sure could do with a cold one about now.” I hear him hiss in a breath. I know he’s giving me the watered-down version of the condition he’s in. Lincoln is a tough guy, and I need him to stay strong.
“Maybe room service will oblige, mate.” I hear another soft chuckle from Lincoln. “Do you know if anybody else is here?” I’m thinking of Grady.
“Haven’t heard a peep since I was dumped in here… except from you.”
Questions bombard my brain with two of us in here. “Linc, where were you abducted?” This is far too coincidental and organized.
“I was getting picked up by a guy who I wasn’t familiar with. I was freelancing on another job. I got a call in from Grady the day before, asking me if I could take the job because he was with you. We’d stopped off around the halfway mark to Jackson for gas when I came out of the restroom and got jumped, and here I am. I put up a good fight, but can’t argue with a syringe full of knock-out juice.
“I’d been to lunch with Whisper earlier and got a call about Joel. He’s been hospitalized, beaten-up pretty bad. I haven’t seen him yet.” There is a lot of worry in his words. “Joel and I….”
“It’s okay, Lincoln. I suspected you and Joel were more than buddies. I’m sorry he’s been hurt, mate.”
“Yeah… I figured you would catch on.”
I can’t shake the feeling this may have something to do with Whisper. “How was Whisper when you saw her?”
“She was good. We had a nice chat, but she did have something on her mind. I could tell it was worrying her. She clammed up once I got my call, and sensed I was upset about something.”
Jesus. Sounds like I should’ve been there for her, which has my mind working over the facts surrounding the both of us being detained here.
Coincidence?
Could this really have anything to do with Whisper?
Could Grady have been compromised? The guy seemed solid enough when I did his background check a year ago. A friend of mine put a good word in for him, said he was looking to freelance. I have Whisper to look after now, and I only take on the big jobs that pay well because I have the bar’s income too, so I can afford to be choosy.
“Lincoln. What are your theories on us being detained here?”
“One person comes to mind. I wish she didn’t. I got no enemies.”
Christ, he’s thinking it too.
“Linc, let’s not jump to conclusions, but if we were to use her as our first common denominator, let’s think about this logically. You and I are the only two men Whisper is friends with and that she hangs around. She lives with me on and off. Joel has met Whisper and knows things. You watched over Whisper and Miss Catherine while I was cleaning William’s house with Joel and Ghost. I called Grady in to watch Miss Catherine’s house for any threats from the outside those first few days, as you know.”
I take a moment to mull over some thoughts about all the people associated with the first days of Whisper’s freedom.
Ghost knows things about Whisper. He only surfaces when I ask him to, and that’s pretty much when I need somebody I can trust and rely on for special assignments. I know how to get in touch with him, but he’s technically off the radar, and we go way back in the military. He’s truly one of my most trusted confidants. Grady doesn’t know what he looks like, and Ghost hasn’t officially met Whisper but knows Miss Catherine.
I think about what information Lincoln just gave me. “You said Whisper was upset about something when you arrived at lunch. I was taken in the late afternoon, and you were taken before me. You got the call about Joel, who has allegedly been beaten badly and hospitalized, at lunch. Who called you about Joel, Linc?”
“Grady.”
Fuck!
“Mate, you were on your way to a job in Jackson, separate to my job in Jackson. We were both on jobs that took us away from Whisper. Somebody wanted us both out of Louisiana.
“Joel’s role in all of this is more by association at this stage as he doesn’t hang out with Whisper, but somebody knew enough about you to know if you were told Joel had been beaten-up, it would be a mind-fuck for you. This knowledge would put you off your game.”
I trust Joel; he’s my computer hacker extraordinaire, and he’s solid ex-special intelligence. He is in high demand and paid well. He knew about William’s will, but none of this would make sense for him to be compromised. Why jump ship now? I refuse to believe he is part of this. He wouldn’t allow his boyfriend to be hurt.
“The persons of interest to both of us in this equation are Whisper and Grady.” I say his name with mixed feelings because shit is starting to stink. I know Lincoln would hear it in my voice. “Grady had previously put in a special request to be put on the next high paying job with me. He was renovating his place and wanted the money. I willingly obliged. He contacted you to offer you that job at short notice, coinciding with me being out of Louisiana.” I don’t like where my thoughts are heading.
“Have you spoken with Joel to confirm the beat down?”
“No. Grady was the one who contacted me and told me Joel was in surgery and to give it some time, which I never got as I wound up here.” Lincoln swears as the dots start to connect and realization sets in that the job was probably bogus, just a means to getting him here.
Has Joel actually been attacked?
As Miss Catherine would say, I can feel it in dem bones of mine, because something is royally bent here, and the more I talk aloud, the more Whisper’s life may be in grave danger. “They could have killed the two of us, but they didn’t. The opportunity was there. That wasn’t their orders.”
Suddenly, there is a loud, slow clap coming through the air vent.
What. The. Fuck?
Are we being applauded?
Some motherfucker was listening.
“Who the fuck are you?” I growl out.
My question is met with piercing silence.
“Fucking smart arse.”
And then he speaks. “Should I call you Sherlock? Come now. Are you going to ask the questions that are really playing on your mind?” The voice is southern, and at a rough guess, he sounds like he’s in his forties or older, and definitely educated.
I’ll play along. I need to know who I can no longer trust. “Where’s Grady?”
He takes his time answering.
I’m a patient man.
“Let’s just say he decided to get greedy. He became no longer useful. He sold you out for a price.” He sighs dramatically. “Everybody always has a price. Amazing how you can turn a man when you find out he has a huge gambling debt he owes to some very unsavory types. You wave the right number in his face that has the power to wipe the debt clean and all his financial problems could be put to bed. Word on the street was a hit was going to be put out on him if he didn’t come up with the money fast and he knew that. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“The offer was too inviting. He just had to make sure he was placed on the next assignment with you, which I orchestrated, and make a few calls, and then my guys would step in and do the rest. Of course, nobody was supposed to get hurt, according to Grady. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Unfortunately, he thought he would try to blackmail more funds out of me.”
Jesus Christ! He only had to come to me with his troubles and I would have helped the guy out. Fucking us over only got him dead.
I think about my next question carefully.
“Somebody must have wanted Whisper pretty badly to have gone to all this trouble. We both know William Dupré has something to do with this. He’s dead, and my guess is Whisper’s in a lot of trouble as we speak. You needed us out of the way for that trouble to catch up to her. Is she alive?”