Can you understand now why I can’t tell which way is up?
“What did you find on Ian’s phone?”
With the smile of a man at the top of his game, Smith nudges his head to Roberto’s photo. I’m about to ask for further information, but within two keystrokes, Roberto’s blurred image zooms out until he’s nothing but a speckle in the background, and Roxanne’s big green eyes take up a majority of the screen. Because she cried off most of the gunk she had coating her lashes, the greenness of her eyes is mesmerizing.
“Who did he send that to?” The image is attached to an outgoing text message. I don’t give a fuck who may have seen Roberto in the background of this image, it’s the text attached I’m getting worked up about. He’s offering his daughter for sale, asking how much he can get for her since she’s reached prime breeding age. It appears as if Roxanne was only spared because his purchaser was too slow with his calculations. His offer of fifty thousand dollars was received two minutes after Roxanne’s teary exit.
I feel as if our search is going in circles when Smith replies, “It was a burner phone, but its last ping was off a cell tower a few miles out of Ravenshoe.”
“Did Ian receive a down payment for Roxanne? A contract? Anything we can seek similarities from?” The fact Ian said ‘breeding age’ has my interests immensely piqued. It could be a coincidence my wife was taken when she was eight months pregnant, but Roxanne’s constant thrust into my life the past two years has me looking at any angle.
Smith slumps low into his chair. “Not a thing. He either had an attack of the conscience or…” His words trail off as aware as me that Roxanne’s father would have only pulled out of negotiations if a better offer was placed on the table.
“Where’s Roxanne’s mother?”
Air hisses between Smith’s teeth as he shrugs. “If she’s still alive, she’s clever at hiding her tracks.”
“Or making tracks that don’t require a credit card.”
Smith jerks up his chin, agreeing with me.
After a beat, I shift the direction of his focus for the third time this week. Although it appears as if I’ve got him working on the ghosts of Roxanne’s past, this will benefit Fien as much as it will Roxanne, so I’m okay with it. “Find Sailor’s last movements. As much as we wish it were different, no one just disappears. Everyone leaves tracks. Center your focus around the time of Roxanne’s meeting with her father. I don’t care how much of a deadbeat she was, no mother would sit on the sidelines when her daughter pops up on the radar for the first time in almost a decade. She was either at that restaurant watching or fighting for the chance.”
Smith twists his lips, shocked he hadn’t considered that angle. I give his slip-up some leeway. He isn’t a parent, so he shouldn’t be expected to think like one.
“And him?” He once again nudges his head to Roxanne’s father, Ian. “Rocco made him shit his pants. If we don’t do something soon, the guests might start complaining. That’s the last thing we want. They already have their knickers in a twist from having the location of their ‘working holiday’ changed last minute.”
I take another moment to ponder. It does little to ease the tick of my jaw. “Send Clover down to pay him a visit. Tell him not to kill him. Just drive him to the brink of death. He hurt Roxanne, so, at the end of the day, it’s up to her whether she wants him dead or not.” I wasn’t supposed to articulate my last sentence, but I’m glad I couldn’t hold back. It felt good passing the responsible baton to another person even if it was for only a second.
“Before you go,” Smith says just before I dart through the door as fast as I barreled through it only minutes ago. Roxanne and Rocco are still in the bathroom. It has me super eager to leave, although not as eager as I am to pummel someone when Smith adds, “I know you want my focus on Roberto, but something in your father’s schedule deserves mentioning.”
I hadn’t meant for my quest to find Roberto to diminish his inquiries on my father. His shadiness deserves more than a once-over.
When I lift my chin encouraging Smith to continue, he hands me a sheet of paper. “A credit card scanned at Slice of Salt the night Audrey was taken was used to buy a ticket to an event your father is hosting. I didn’t think much of it until I noticed the recipient’s address. She’s originally from Ravenshoe.”
“She? The purchaser is a female?”
When an agreeing hum vibrates his lips, I scan the name of the person attached to the credit card search. Usually, we immediately discount any women who come up in our searches. However, Roxanne’s comment from days ago still rings in my ears. It’s right up where her begging moans will now be. “Because your daughter’s captor is a woman.”
“Get me tickets to this event.”
As his fingers tap on his keyboard, a smile tugs on Smith’s lips. The reasoning behind his smirk smacks into me like a wayward missile when he asks, “The event is a couples-only event. Would you like me to put Roxanne’s name down as your plus one?”
My eyes dart between the feed from Roxanne’s room, the dingy one holding her father captive, and the last still image I have of Fien before I shake my head. “I’ll call in a favor with a friend.” I can’t have Roxanne distracting me like she did tonight, so for that reason, and that reason alone, I have to pull back the reins of our ruse.
It could be my raging heart having me mishear Smith, but I swear he says, “It’s your funeral,” as I bolt out the door of his wired-up hot box.
My first thought is to race up to Roxanne’s room to see what the fuck she and Rocco have been doing in the bathroom the past ten minutes, but my blood is too hot to give that thought proper consideration. I’m seeking answers, and since only one person can give them to me, I take a left at the base of the stairs instead of climbing them.
Smith wasn’t lying when he said our guests would soon start complaining about the smell coming from the basement. The man bound to a chair in front of the boiler is in desperate need of a shower. He stinks like shit, piss, and vomit, and once I’m done with him, he’ll also smell like death.
I’ve paid millions of dollars to keep my daughter safe.
He tried to sell his for fifty-thousand.
That means we can’t be friends, and I’m more than happy to show him how I treat people I don’t class as friends.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roxanne
The zealous gleam in Rocco’s eyes catches the dimmed lights above our heads when he slants his to the side to get a better look at the sketch I’m undertaking. The shy bob of his head would have you convinced his arms aren’t double the width of an average man’s nor covered with a range of interesting tattoos.
He has everything you could think of when it comes to art. Popeye with a can of spinach. A seahorse. He even has a half-naked gypsy with one of her eyes gouged out. His array of body art has had me scratching pencil to paper nonstop for the past hour. I usually only sketch nudes when I’m drawing the human form, but I’ve mixed things up tonight. It’s nice focusing my attention on something other than the sting on my backside.