Rafferty’s sneer evaporated.
Sadie filled the screen wearing dark blue scrubs that were blazoned with Beacon Hill Assisted Living and Memory Care and a nametag that read, ‘Kelly.’ She wore her hair in a ponytail, fine features pulled into a deceptively sweet smile that sharpened once she spotted Rafferty. “Afternoon, fellas.” She reached out and set the phone down before adjusting the angle and taking a step back so an older gentleman sitting in a hospital bed could be seen alongside her. She wrapped an arm loosely around his neck and pointed directly into the camera as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Say hello to your son, Mr. Rafferty.”
Mr. Rafferty offered a wide smile to the camera. “Michael? You’re far away. Can you come closer?”
Rafferty sighed out a curse, raked both hands through his hair, and leaned closer to the camera. “Hey Da, where’s Sheena today?”
Mr. Rafferty glanced hesitantly at Sadie. “She’s ehhh, where did you say she was?”
Sadie snapped her gum. “She’s taking a few days off, but we’re having a grand ol’ time here, aren’t we? We’ve played canasta, Uno, worked our way through some of the New York Times crossword, which is always a good reminder that my vocab sucks.”
“Oh, psht,” Mr. Rafferty tsked. “You got that one that stumped me. What was it? Torture device from the medieval era?”
“Iron Maiden.” Sadie smiled sweetly into the camera. “Vastly underutilized as a means of destruction, in my opinion, but super solid as far as eighties metal bands go.”
“That’s the one.” Mr. Rafferty beamed, then squinted at the camera again. “Is your mother feeding you, Michael? You look a wee bit thin. I think—”
“Yes, Da,” Rafferty interrupted with a surprisingly gentle tone. “I’m eating just fine. I’ve got some business to finish here. I’ll call you back in a bit, aye? When’s Sheena returning?”
“Tomorrow, maybe,” Sadie answered. “Kinda depends on you, sweetheart. Not gonna lie, I like it here. Food is decent and the company is far superior to the assholes I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with out of some misplaced emotion I’ve not yet completely succeeded in destroying. I wouldn’t mind staying a while. Be good boys.” She flashed the camera a vicious wink and ended the call.
“I don’t have your doc,” Rafferty growled as Madigan tucked the phone away. “And if that woman gives him so much as a mild case of diarrhea while he’s in her ‘care,’ I will devote the rest of my life to taking you and the rest of your crew out.”
“But you know Dr. Eastman is missing, and you obviously know something about it,” Soren said. “I’m all ears.”
“Your boyfriend, you mean.” Rafferty’s sneer was back.
“Potato, potatoh,” Soren said. “I prefer significant other because he’s very significant to me and I’ll be very upset if something happens to him because you’re jerking me around when I could be out there getting him back. Probably upset enough to talk to my friend watching over your dad.”
Rafferty’s face turned five shades of red that Soren could count before he blew out a long breath and sank back into his chair. “Yeah, we were watching him. Just to let him know we were there. You know the drill. He does, too. I didn’t have any plans to take him out. But I didn’t have any plans not to, either, if you know what I mean.” Rafferty cleared his throat. “So, my boys were tailing him the other day when he got snatched right beneath their noses.”
“By?”
Rafferty shrugged. “Guy running solo. No clue.”
“Bullshit.” Soren leaned forward. “You got something. Description of the guy. Make and model of a car.”
Silence stretched, then Rafferty picked up his deck of cards. “Call your dog off my dad, give me proof, and I’ll give you the guy’s plate number.
Madigan and Soren exchanged a look, then Soren nodded. “Deal.”
* * *
“Isthis not how most American horror movies start?” Azrael asked as they bumped down a deeply rutted dirt road in rural Vermont. “A cabin in the woods?”
“I don’t think that’s exclusive to the States.” Madigan considered for a moment. “Now, you’ve got me trying to think of how horror movies from other countries begin.”
Az’s smile gleamed. “I can show you later this evening,motek.”
“Promises, promises.”
“Christ. I feel like I’m stuck in an episode ofThe Addam’s Family,” Soren muttered. “You realizewe’rethe horror movie in most cases, yeah?” He pulled the van Ronin had hooked him up with off to the side of the road and parked it. “Straight up, a mile ahead. I’m gonna reiterate again that this is overkill on something I could easily handle myself. The guy sounds like an idiot.”
As soon as Soren had gotten the plate number off the guy’s car, he’d had Cas do a deep dive. It turned out Toby’s abductor was a former patient of his. Cas had grumbled something about Hannibal Lecter jokes and then rattled off information on the guy as he uncovered it. Most of it— phone numbers and addresses—led to dead ends except a cabin owned by Clyde Lee Allen’s brother that had been deeded over to him at one point, then returned, and then put on and taken off the market for years.
Soren couldn’t have asked for a better set up. A remote cabin where he could fire a submachine gun if he wanted to, and some dipshit lunatic playing house with his boyfriend? Soren wasn’t a stranger to taking out multiple targets at once. One poorly named dipshit who drove a Neon shouldn’t be a problem.
“Fuck that,” Madigan scowled. “I didn’t come all this way to sit this one out. You said make a weekend out of it, so I’m gonna.”
