A Leap in the Dark (Assassins of Youth MC Book 2) (20 page)

She looked. “I don’t recognize it. Local.”

I looked. “That’s a City Hall number.” Dialing it, a chipper assistant said, “Mayor Pratt’s office.” I hung up. “Why the fuck would he be calling Pratt’s office?”

Oaklyn shrugged. “If he’s as pissed as you say he is, he might’ve been telling him where to meet him.”

“So he could throw his phone into a field?”

My cell went off, a new text. I was so despondent I just half-heartedly looked at it.
Oh. A video.
It barely registered as I hit the
PLAY
button. I didn’t recognize the sender. Probably an animated alien telling me I was late with my cell payment.

I was shocked into attention when Pratt’s bulbous face appeared in my screen, almost filling it. “Hello, my dear slave,” he trilled. “You thought you could get the best of me. You were sadly mistaken. You can burn me, and poison me, and blow me up, but I’m
always
going to have the upper hand.”

“Oh
yeah
?” Oaklyn snorted cynically.

Pratt kept on. “As you can see, I’ve got your queer little buddy tied up at the moment. He just let his emotions get the best of him
as usual
, and look what happens when you do that?” He jiggled the phone so I could just barely make out Deloy naked from the waist up swinging from some kind of suspension cuffs, his head lolling forward, maybe even unconscious. I knew those cuffs weren’t made to actually
swing
from for extended periods. You’d dislocate your shoulder.

“Figure out where he is,” I told Oaklyn.

Pratt faced the camera back into selfie mode. He was immensely pleased with himself. One of the only saving graces was that he still wore his fucking bowtie around his shirt collar. So he hadn’t gotten that far with poor Deloy yet.

“If you value your little homo buddy you’ll make the exchange—your body for his. And oh, what an absolutely delightful body you have, Levon.”
Ugh
. It looked like he was paddling his own pickle as he thought of my body. “Oops! Sounds like he’s waking up now. Toodle-oo, my delicious slave. To give your dull brain a halfway even chance, I’ll give you one hint. Mrs. Kohlmeyer Presents Dinosaur Reader’s Theater.”

And his smarmy face was gone.

“Let’s get back home,” Oaklyn said right away, “and have Dingo analyze this video.”

I was already three steps ahead of her. I had to half-drag my love across the bean field.

OAKLYN

I
was sick
with worry by the time we got back to our house. I mean, I had to go into the bathroom and stick my finger down my throat. The only thing that came out was the watery remnants of an apple I’d had before heading out to the commercial shoot. Because nothing came out, I continued to feel nauseous.

When I staggered out, Dingo was already on top of the video.

“Let me get into his location settings,” said Dingo.

I clung weakly to the back of Dingo’s chair as he clicked around. It was all Greek to me.

“Now what was it the douchemonkey said in the video? I do not want to watch it if I do not have to.”

“Ah—” Levon looked at the ceiling. He was far more professional than me. I was puking, and he kept his shit together. Yet it was him Pratt was targeting. I was embarrassed to be so undone when I was a professional, registered nurse. But it was just the same as if I’d just seen my own son dangling from a pair of fucking handcuffs at the mercy of a perverted psycho. “‘Someone presents a theater’.”

I said, “Dinosaur Reader’s Theater.” I remembered that much, to my chagrin. “Mrs. Someone.”

“All right,” said Dingo. “He must have turned off geotagging. He was smart enough to do that. Shit. Now I’m forced to watch this damned thing.”

Levon wandered out to the back deck while Dingo hit the
play
button. He seemed to be answering some texts and phone calls. No doubt the whole world had reported in on their progress, or lack thereof, in finding Deloy. Unless someone else had received a video, which I doubted. Pratt wanted Levon.

Levon had never gone into detail about their history. I knew it had been Pratt’s niece Levon was dating when he’d been beaten by a crowd and kicked to the curb. Did Pratt still hold that against him? The Instagram video had raised many questions in my mind. The person doing the actual sucking of course had been edited out, although it looked from the hands that it was a man. Even if it wasn’t Pratt, how did he get ahold of it? These Cornucopians worked in such strange ways, any answer could have been right.

Dingo cringed back from the laptop screen with an exaggerated look of screwed-up disgust on his face. He even held a hand in front of it, peeking through his fingers when necessary.

“Here’s the important part about the dinosaur theater,” I said, wanting to puke myself.

Pratt’s stupid canned voice said, “Mrs. Kohlmeyer presents Dinosaur Reader’s Theater.”

Dingo hit the
pause
button with a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s just horrifying. Mrs. Kohlmeyer. Mrs. Kohlmeyer…” He wrote the name down and doodled around it. His revolted expression was replaced by a thoughtful one as he stared at a wall. “That
does
sound fucking familiar…”

Not wanting to disturb his thoughts, I wandered onto the deck. Whenever the sun went behind a dark raincloud bank like that, it was like Moses parting the Red Sea out there. Glorious flames licked the buttes as dramatic shadows raced across the desert. It gave the effect of pillars of vibrant, mystical light spouting from the earth. I loved that house and town, and I despised Pratt for ruining my serenity.

It was Levon he wanted. What was he going to do? Exposing Pratt to the town for who he was would be the best solution. But I had a feeling that when stalwart fundamentalist polygamists comprise half the town, this might not matter to them.

Pratt had wrought nothing but violence and abuse upon Levon. He was behind the poisoning of Lazarus and the attempt at destroying The Chop House. He’d smeared both Levon and Deloy’s name in print, and now had literally exposed Levon on social media.

I needed to know.

“What else does Pratt hold over you?” I asked softly. “Please tell me, Levon. I need to try and understand his motivation. Why does he hate you so much?”

Levon’s hand that held his phone fell to his side. He exhaled in defeat. “I don’t think it’s so much hate, Oaklyn.”

“Not hate? Then what—”

“It’s a strange, twisted, depraved form of lust. Right before I moved down here, he made an appointment with me. Only he used a different name, of course, and wanted to meet at a hotel. I went, not paying much attention. I mean, he’s the uncle of the girl I dated. Who would remember him fifteen years later? He wasn’t around Cornucopia much back then, having to be the mayor out here for a hundred thousand years.”

“So you met him in a hotel,” I prompted.

“Right. Thus the Instagram video.”

“Oh.” I shuddered. “Was he a frequent visitor to Liberty Temple?”

“I looked back in our records. The same fake name had visited Deloy several times. Apparently the younger, the better. That’s not uncommon in that business. Well, he claims to have a video—”

“That’s all right. You don’t need to tell me.”

“No. I want to. I want you to understand what’s going on. The video of Deloy is the last thing he’s holding over my head. That is, if my business license actually comes through—I haven’t seen it yet. The Deloy video is much worse. His dental school will be completely destroyed. Nobody wants a guy who has sucked a thousand dicks to put his fingers in their mouth.”

“Well, does the alleged video actually show—”

“
It doesn’t matter, Oaklyn!
”

Levon had never shouted at me before, and I literally backed away a couple of steps. I knew what a tough customer he could be. He had to be, to get where he was, starting from the gutter. I was justifiably afraid, and he probably sensed it.

He put his hands up in surrender and took on a much softer tone. “It doesn’t matter
what
the video is of. Cocksucking, butt-fucking, barebacking, strap-ons, ball gags, I don’t care. Whatever it is, and I don’t doubt its existence, it will be the downfall of Deloy.”

I nodded quickly. “I agree. But do you deal with terrorists?”

His soft tone evaporated. “What’s my option, Oaklyn? He’s literally got Deloy by the balls. From the looks of the video he either drugged him or beat him in some way. I can’t risk storming the Bastille and having him—”

I was glad when Dingo cut off Levon. “I got it!” He stood at the sliding glass door waving us inside. We came so eagerly we practically stomped on each other’s feet.

Dingo didn’t force us to look at the video he’d paused on Pratt’s bloated, shiny face. “Listen! Mrs. Kohlmeyer was a teacher at the Avalanche Elementary School where I lived for a couple of years. Your sister Mahalia used to bring me food out there.”

“So he’s out there?” Levon asked.

“I think so!” Now Dingo pointed at the screen, so we had no choice but to look. “See this wall behind Deloy? These are hand-painted artworks by kids. And that Dinosaur Reader’s Theater I believe was a play they were putting on, before the school was abandoned twenty-five years ago. I saw an old poster for it.”

Levon was already slapping his pockets, looking around for tools or gadgets he might need. “Good call, Dingo. Excellent man.” He vanished into the fourth bedroom which he’d set up as a weight room. Crashing sounds emanated from there.

“Good call, Dingo.” I kissed the top of his head, then sighed deeply. “I have no idea what Levon plans to do. Shouldn’t he have backup?”

“He’s probably afraid of Pratt hurting Deloy. But you’re right. We could at least hide in the bushes or something.
Levon
!”

Levon appeared, hands held out from his sides. He seemed to have a few more items than normal dangling from his belt.

“Listen,” he said with authority. “No one’s following me. If Pratt sees anyone else at all he might go ballistic. We can’t risk him hurting Deloy until he’s out of his clutches. I’ll make a bargain—Deloy for me.”

“But”—I forced myself to utter the words no one wanted to hear—“what about
you?
Then how do we get him to release
you
?”

Levon strode on past us, into his bedroom. “You let me worry about that.”

“This is unacceptable,” said Dingo, furiously thumbing his cellphone. He was probably texting Gideon, Sledgehammer, his backup team.

“I agree.” I tried to look over his shoulder, but I couldn’t read the text. “He can’t just sacrifice himself. I know it’s useless to call the cops, but shit, you’ve got a whole MC at your back. Can’t they do
something
?”

“Indeed,” Dingo agreed distractedly, his thumbs flying over the keyboard. “You don’t worry your pretty head, Oaklyn. We got this.”

So why was I so afraid?

Levon appeared one last time. I walked slyly around his back to see if he’d stuck the usual pistol in his jeans, but his leather cut covered it. Of course Pratt would frisk him before letting him in the school.

“All right,” Levon said with a tone of finality. “This is it. No one’s to follow me. Do you hear me, Dingo? Let me see your fucking phone.”

“
No
.”

Levon went toward Dingo as if about to whip the phone from his hand. Dingo holstered it and held up his hands firmly. “
No, Prospect
.” That seemed to do the trick, calling Levon a Prospect. Both men froze. “I’m not giving up my phone to any Prospect. You’re supposed to take orders from
us
, grunt. And I say we’re going to be there, at a safe distance where Pratt can’t see.”

“You’re risking our lives.”

“We’ll take that asshole out if we have to.”

“If anyone’s taking him out, it’s me.”

“Let me see your back. Lift your cut.”

Levon turned obediently and lifted his cut, displaying that he had no piece in there. He bent and lifted both pants legs to show he had nothing in his boots. He finally looked at me, crooking a grin. “I’m a martial arts instructor, Oaklyn. You don’t think I can take that guy out with my bare hands?”

That made me feel a bit better. Still, I said, “We’ll be waiting at a safe distance. You’re still risking your life because I’m sure Pratt has at least one gun. But you’re forgetting you’ve got a whole club at your back.”

He looked sad. “Well, it’s basically a hostage situation. Two hundred guys outside can’t get to the guy with the gun to my head. Now. We’re wasting time. Oaklyn, tell Nana I’ll be there tomorrow. Watch out for Lazarus.”

And he turned. Was
that
the last thing he was going to say to me? He was heading to the stairs that led down to the driveway.

I flung myself after him like a lovestruck girl. Clinging to his shoulders, I practically sobbed into his arm. “Don’t forget I love you, you stupid bastard.”
Oh, man. What a dumb way to say it. Dragging off his arm like a kid kicking and screaming.

And he didn’t say it back. He just peeled me from his shoulder, looking down indulgently at me. “I’ll be back.” And he jumped down the stairs.

I ran to the front window where we could see the driveway. Dingo was instantly at my side.