Unseen (27 page)

“We gonna have a problem?”

Will shook his head again.

The redneck stood up, groaning from the effort. He was a big guy, not muscular like the matching refrigerators but fat around the middle.

He walked over to the desk. His gait was slow, cumbersome. He picked up a file folder from the desk. “William Joseph Black.” Will waited.

The redneck picked up a pair of reading glasses. He didn’t put them on. Instead, he used them like a magnifying glass on the file.

He read, “Born in Milledgeville, Georgia. Sealed juvie record. Joined up at twenty-two. Got kicked out at twenty-five. Couple of assaults on some women. Beat down a mall cop. Served time in the Atlanta jail. Pissed off some feds in Kentucky. Wanted for
questioning on a stickup and a couple break-ins.” The redneck waited. “That about sum it up?” Will didn’t answer.

He tossed the file back on the desk. “You’re renting a room at the Star-Gazer Motel off the interstate. Number fifteen. You park your midnight-blue Triumph motorcycle in the space two doors down. You eat at the RaceTrac. You work at the hospital. You come here to get your dick hard. Your mother died while you were serving in Iraq. Your father is unknown. You have no siblings and no family to speak of.”

Will let his lips open a slit to take in some air. The only reason he’d chosen to ride a bike was to make sure no one followed him to Atlanta. To Sara. Will’s heart thumped as he waited for the redneck to tell him her address.

Instead, the redneck asked, “Zeb-deeks?”

This time, Will didn’t respond because he didn’t know what the hell the man was talking about.

“Zeb-deeks?” the redneck repeated. “You know him?”

It was a name. A man.

The redneck waited. His patience seemed in endless supply.

Will stumbled through Bill Black’s life. There was no high school or college, just Air Force and jail. The name sounded foreign, but his military file wouldn’t have those kinds of details. Zeb-deeks was probably a nickname, which normally wouldn’t help Will except that there was only one guy in Bill Black’s life whose name started with a Z.

Zebulon Deacon had been knifed at the Atlanta jail for ratting out his crew. Bill Black had been in the same cell block. He would know of the guy. He would certainly know the nickname.

More importantly, Black would also know you didn’t rat out anybody without a fight.

Instead of answering the redneck, Will shrugged.

“You don’t know him?”

Again, Will shrugged.

The redneck said, “Junior?”

One of the henchmen lumbered up from the couch. Junior was as big as his boss, but younger. Undoubtedly stronger.

There was no preamble. Junior punched Will so hard in the face that he saw flashes of light. His head snapped back. His neck cracked. The bridge of his nose felt like a hatchet had struck bone.

“Zeb Deeks,” the redneck said.

Will shook his head—not to disagree, but to get his senses back. He’d been punched in the nose more times than he could count. The worst part came when you sniffed and the chunk of blood sitting in the back rolled down your throat. Will struggled not to vomit as he swallowed it down.

For the fourth time, the redneck said the name. “Zeb Deeks?”

Junior pulled back his fist.

“All right,” Will said. “Yeah, I know him. Snitch got what he deserved.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“Quad.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“In the junk,” Will said. “They stabbed him with a broken toothbrush. He bled out in the yard.” Tony chuckled. “Bet that hurt.”

The redneck’s chest rose and fell. He studied Will for a moment, then nodded toward the last henchman on the couch. The third man stood up just as slowly as the others, his knees popping, his gut bulging. Contrary to physics, he and Junior worked fast. Before Will knew what was happening, his arms were pinned behind his back.

The redneck walked over to Will. He smelled of pizza and alcohol. He was a smoker. He breathed like a steam engine. He was big and he was white, but Tony had made it clear the redneck wasn’t Big Whitey. Will doubted he would ever meet the man who was in charge of this gang of violent hillbillies. He doubted he
would see anything other than the moldy back room of this club for what little time he had left in his life.

The redneck held up his hands so Will could watch what he was doing. The handle on his folding knife was pearl with gold accents. The light caught on the blade as he opened it. There was blood on the hinge, caked into the rivets, probably from carving X’s into the man tied to the chair. The redneck was a natural with the knife. He held the handle with a light grip, almost like another thumb or finger.

Will flinched as he felt the sharp stainless-steel blade trace across his neck. Then up the side of his face. Then underneath his eye. The redneck pressed a little harder and the skin opened. Will was so terrified that it didn’t even hurt. He wouldn’t have even known he was cut but for the bead of blood that rolled down his cheek.

Will closed his eyes. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t in this room. Maybe talking to Cayla and Tony about the beach set him off. He could smell the salt in the air, feel the warm, gentle breeze rolling in off the ocean.

Three months ago, Sara had taught Will how to fly a kite. They were on the beach in Florida. The kite was yellow and blue and had a long white tail. Will had never taken a beach vacation before. All his knowledge about Florida came courtesy of Wikipedia and
Miami Vice
. Sara was a good teacher. Patient, kind. Sexy as hell in her bathing suit. Her father had taught her how to fly a kite when she was little. He’d been worried that Sara would feel pushed aside by her new baby sister, so he’d taken her on little day trips to make her feel special.

Will’s eyes shot open. The knife was in his ear—not the soft fleshy part, but the bit right at the inside where a thin layer of cartilage lay against the skull.

The redneck was smiling, enjoying the effect. The man had perfect white teeth. His gums looked almost blue against them.

Will didn’t move. The knife was needle sharp. The tip broke
through his skin, sliced open the cartilage. A drop of blood slid inside his ear. With excruciating slowness, it traveled down the canal. Will felt a shudder coming on. It started slow, like the rumble of an oncoming train. A slight tremble, then a shaking that built and built until the earth started to move and his teeth were rattling and the ground felt ripped out from under him.

The redneck jerked out the knife just in time.

“Fuck!” Will shook his head violently. The grip on his arms got tighter. He shook his head again. The blood was still moving inside his ear.

The redneck laughed as he folded the blade back into the handle. “Take off your clothes.”

Junior and number three released him. Will jammed his pinkie in his ear and moved it like a clapper in a bell.

“Take off your clothes,” the redneck repeated.

Will glared at him. “Go fuck yourself.” He headed toward the door, but Junior stopped him.

The redneck offered, “We can do this the hard way.”

Junior pushed Will into his partner, who in turn slammed Will into the wall.

The redneck asked, “Hard way, easy way?”

Will couldn’t think about the beach anymore. He couldn’t think about Sara or anything else but staying alive.

Bill Black could handle this. He had been in his share of back rooms. He had dealt with lowlifes and bad guys all of his life. According to his records, he’d
been
a lowlife and bad guy all of his life.

Will didn’t know what boot camp was like other than what he’d seen in the movies, but he was very familiar with the intake process at the Atlanta jail. Bill Black would’ve been one of at least a hundred new inmates the guards checked in that day. They’d stripped him, searched him, shaved him, deloused him, then thrown him into a five-by-nine cell with another man and an open sewage pit for a toilet. There were communal showers. There were occasional cavity searches. There was nowhere to hide.

Undressing for a bunch of violent hicks was not something that would faze a guy like Bill Black.

Will ripped open his shirt. Some of the buttons popped loose. His T-shirt came next, then his jeans. Will used the toe of one boot to brace the heel of the other as he stepped out of the shoes. He kicked off the jeans.

The room went silent but for the muffled beats of club music.

They stared at him like an exhibit at the zoo.

Will didn’t look at his body much. As grateful as he was to Sara, he didn’t know how she could stand it. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t tell some story of abuse—the cigarette burns around his ribs, the electrical burns that had seared a scattershot of black powder into his skin. The scars on his back where he’d been clawed by a woman who got high from huffing spray paint all morning and thought Will had bugs crawling underneath his flesh.

And that didn’t include the wounds that were self-inflicted.

Tony broke the silence. “Shit, Bud. What the hell happened to you?”

Will said nothing.

For once, the redneck seemed to view Will as a human being rather than a problem to be dealt with. He asked, “Iraq?”

Will considered his options. His scars were not part of his cover. The redneck had obviously managed to get his hands on Bill Black’s police record. He’d made some inquiries up the criminal food chain. Did the man have enough juice to get a military file? The GBI was good, but the United States government had offered only cursory support for Bill Black’s stint in the armed forces.

The redneck pressed, “One a them ragheads get hold of you?”

Instead of answering the question, Will turned his head and looked at the wall. He figured Bill Black would feel the same way Will did. Someone had hurt him really badly, and he wasn’t proud of it.

“Never mind.” The redneck seemed resigned to never knowing, but he wasn’t finished with his search. “Take off the shorts, too.”

Will gave him a hard look.

The redneck seemed almost apologetic. “I knew a guy got caught by a cop with a wire taped to his balls.”

Will knew he didn’t have a choice. Either he’d undress himself or the two henchmen would. He pushed down his underwear.

The redneck glanced down, then took another look before saying, “Okay, then.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Damn, hoss.”

Will pulled his underwear back up. He reached for his jeans, but they were snatched out of his hand.

Junior searched the pockets. Bill Black’s wallet and phone were found. The wad of cash he’d taken off Tony this morning was tossed onto the desk.

“Let’s see what we got,” the redneck held out his hand. He started with the wallet. The Velcro ripped open. Cayla’s handwritten address was in the photo sleeve. He flipped past it, checking the pockets. He found four twenties, two credit cards, and the speeding ticket that passed for Bill Black’s license. “Fifty in a school zone.” The redneck tsked his tongue against his teeth.

Junior handed him the phone. Will grabbed his jeans.

The redneck asked, “What’s the password?”

Will said, “Four-three-two-one.” He yanked up his jeans as the man dialed in the code.

The redneck was more proficient than Will as he scrolled through the various screens. His lips moved when he read. “Who’s the woman in Tennessee?”

Will pulled on his T-shirt. The hole in the arm had torn, ripping out the side seam.

Tony provided, “He’s gotta baby by her.” He felt the need to ask Will, “She the one into topiary?”

Will put on his Oxford shirt. There were three buttons left on
the placket. He concentrated on closing them, though his fingers didn’t want to work.

The redneck seemed to be scrolling through every screen. Will had tested the phone himself when he first got it, trying to see if there was a way to accidentally reveal the cloaked apps. Each time, he was foiled, but every system had a flaw. Will had never tested the phone with the recorder turned on. Maybe there was a software glitch that would pop up the apps and make the redneck pull out his knife again.

“Where’s this?” He showed Will a photograph, one of the shots he’d taken from the highway.

“Off 16,” Will said. “Thought it looked nice.”

The man countered, “Geotag says it’s off 475.”

Will shrugged, but he felt his mouth go bone-dry. He’d forgotten about the geotags. They were part of the iPhone’s location service and showed the longitude and latitude of where the pictures were taken. He had no idea whether or not the GBI program cloaked them.

“You get these off the Internet?” He showed Will the naked women.

Will’s brief feeling of safety evaporated. He’d downloaded the photos from his computer in Atlanta. He didn’t know what the geotag would record—where Will was when he downloaded the photos or where they had originally been taken.

Will waited, watching the man’s finger swipe across the screen.

“Don’t like Asians myself.” The redneck kept scrolling.

Will buttoned the cuffs of his shirt, pretending like he hadn’t almost pissed himself. One of the buttons was dangling by a thread. It came off in his hands. Will didn’t know what to do with it. He put it in his pocket.

If he died, he wondered who would find the button in his pocket. Probably the medical examiner. Pete Hanson had retired a few months ago, but Amanda had brought in a new guy who was young and cocky and believed everything that came out of his
mouth. Will wondered what he would make of the button. He wondered if Sara would hear about it. Would she think about Will every time she put on a shirt?

He took the button out of his pocket and tossed it onto the floor.

Tony made a clicking sound with his tongue. Will looked at him. Tony winked, like they were in this together. Like he hadn’t delivered Will to these men for slaughter.

What had turned Tony against him? It had to be the dinner. The only way that Tony could know about the date was if Cayla told him. She must’ve known Tony would show up. Will could see she liked playing them off each other. Stepbrother or not, she’d obviously been stringing Tony along for years.

Or maybe it was something more dangerous. Maybe Tony still thought Will was a cop. Running into Lena’s house last night hadn’t been Will’s smartest move. No con in his right mind ran toward gunfire, even if he had a hundred pregnant girlfriends threatening to sue him.