“True enough.”
The guys arrived soon afterward. Mason walked in and took one look at the treats. His eyebrows shot up, and he hurried over to the pan to snag one of the bear claws. Just as he went to grab it, Axel reached down and swooped it out from under his hand. When he glared at his big friend, Axel just chuckled with laughter.
She smiled up at them. “Glad to see you guys got some sleep.”
“We both caught a couple hours,” Mason said. “What happened to you?”
“Yeah, ask Troy about that,” she said in disgust.
Troy explained what Jonesy had done.
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, so I think we should go back to the medical clinic,” Troy said. “I want to check for something else down there.”
“Go for it,” Mason said. “Go alone if you like. Berkley can hang out with us.”
“Perfect.”
“You want to tell us what you’re looking for?” Axel asked.
“A date-rape drug,” he said. He quickly disappeared out the door.
*
Back in the medical clinic, Troy was happy to see that at least power had been restored inside the room. With the lights on, and the door locked, he quickly went through all the cabinets. Not only were they devoid of any personal things from the doctor himself but he found no sign of the date-rape drug he was looking for. He went through every drawer and every cupboard.
It wasn’t until Troy got to the guy’s computer system that he finally hit pay dirt. In the little computer desk drawer, at the very back, he spied a bottle of it. He stared at it, realizing the bottle was half empty. He swore gently.
“Well, that explains that,” he said. He grabbed a pair of gloves, pulled out the bottle, and stuck it into a little baggie, which he stuffed into his pocket. They had searched the bodies last night, and there hadn’t been anything, but, once on the doctor’s computer system, Troy logged on and came to a password screen. He sat here and stared at it for a long moment, then typed in the name of the date-rape drug. Instantly the screen opened up.
He shook his head at that, wrote a text message, and sent it to Mason. And then he went through the photos. Photos and emails, all communications in and out. And his heart got sadder and sadder as he worked. The doctor was involved, and, according to this, he had given the women each a dose, though he hadn’t been the one taking the photos. As such, the one taking the photos hadn’t been administering the drugs. Then together, they had charged the men for access. When each woman woke up—broken, beaten, and bloody—of course she couldn’t remember anything.
But here the doc listed the three recent women, and unfortunately he listed two others from a couple years ago. The photos were here too, and the dates that they were raped, and then the dispersion of all the related photographs too. He quickly downloaded it all and sent everything in a file to Mason, copying himself too.
When a knock came on the door, he waited with the monitor off. The knock came again, but, when Troy heard somebody rattling the doorknob, he quickly raced to hide behind the door. He heard sounds of metal scraping metal, and then the door was pushed open. The light flicked on, and a man stepped in. The door was gently closed behind him, but he didn’t turn to see Troy standing there. He walked forward as Troy studied him from the back, unsure who it was.
But when he walked to the monitor and sat down at the computer to log in, Troy stepped forward and asked, “What are you looking for?”
The man turned and looked at him in shock.
Troy realized who it was. “Hello, Lionel.”
Lionel’s face flushed with anger. “What the fuck do you know?” he roared, standing upright.
Then the last of the tumblers clicked in Troy’s head. “I know that you were abused,” he said gently. “I know what they did to you.”
Lionel’s eyes filled with tears, and he angrily wiped them away. “You don’t know anything. You don’t fucking know anything.” He raised his fist, as if he would fight off Troy, which was highly unlikely since Troy was at least sixty pounds heavier and another six inches taller.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Lionel.”
“Everybody on this damn rig is here to hurt me,” he said.
“Did you have anything to do with sabotaging the rig?”
“No,” Lionel said.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Is that what this is about? Haven’t enough people died already?”
“Haven’t enough people been abused already?” Troy said instantly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and he sat back down at the computer. Realizing that Troy had gotten beyond the log-on screen, he turned to look at Troy, profoundly sad. “What did you find?”
“I found a lot, and all of it makes me sick.” Troy watched him intently but from the far side of the room. Lionel was a wild card, and he’d been through a lot. “Are you okay from the drugs?”
Lionel shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.
“Where is your brother?”
“He’s fine, sleeping off the drugs I gave him,” he said. “He’s in my room, under the bunk.”
“Why would you drug your brother?” And of course they hadn’t searched Lionel’s room. There hadn’t been any need to. They’d taken a cursory look but that was all.
“It was an easy way to prevent him from stopping me.”
“What are your plans?” Troy asked, leaning his back against the door, his arms over his chest.
Lionel glared at him. “You don’t know anything,” he said. “I have a plan. At least I will have.”
“So, explain it to me,” he said. “Try me. I’m here, and I’m listening.”
“So what if you are?” Lionel said, his voice suddenly weary. “Nobody gives a shit. Nobody gave a shit all this time, and I doubt you’ll give a shit either.”
“Why, because I work for the company?”
“The company is the worst,” he said. “They’re in on it, you know?”
At that, Troy straightened. “Are they?” He wanted to keep Lionel talking, but he also didn’t want to scare him away yet. He still needed information.
“Yes,” he said. “At least some of them, probably not all.”
“Did you have anything to do with all those deaths?”
“No,” he said, and then he gave a broken sigh. “But I’m not upset at all that they’re dead.”
“Were they the ones who abused you?”
Lionel stared at him, tears once again in the corner of his eyes. “How do you know?” he asked, in a broken whisper.
Troy had his own phone on, recording the video and the audio on this discussion. However, he held up the other phone he had in his pocket, one of the managers’ phones. “Because, after figuring out what they did to the women,” he said, “it wasn’t a far leap to figure out that maybe you were next.”
“Yeah, I was next,” he said. “I didn’t have a clue about what had happened. At least not the first time. And then, after the second time, I wondered.”
“Jesus.” Troy swore several times fluently. “I’m sorry, man. That really sucks.”