The detective looks at the paper once again and reads off the name. “Everett. Everett Sinclair.”
Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.
Haynes goes on, “But she was cleared. Her story checked out. It was just a wrong-place-wrong-time sort of thing.”
Bullshit. My girl goes there every night. At least she had been since I started following her.
“Who the fuck is in an abandoned cemetery that belongs to the Lords?” Saint demands. “Doesn’t seem like ‘wrong place wrong time’ to me.”
I look over at Haidyn to see if he’s catching on. He gives me a soft nod, and my teeth grind. He’s thinking exactly what I already know. About five ten, green eyes, bleached blond, and likes to play with a torch. “I’ll look into it,” I tell everyone.
All eyes are on me now. “What do you mean, you’ll look into it?”
I’m surprised Sin is speaking directly to me, but the way he rises to his feet and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans tells me he thinks I’m up to something. Like I said, he no longer trusts me. “I mean I’ll look into it,” I repeat. That’s all anyone in this room is getting out of me.
Saint and Haidyn don’t know who the woman was that stapled the threat to my back, and now I’m glad I kept that to myself.
“Sorry if that doesn’t give me any reassurance. We recently find out there’s a fucking sex trafficking ring that involves the Lords, and some of us in here have wives with children on the way.” He steps closer to me.
“Sin—”
He lifts his hand to cut off Haidyn, then continues to speak to me. “I don’t know about the others, but when it comes to my pregnant wife, I don’t trust anyone to do what’s best for her. And when it comes down to it, you sure as fuck can’t protect her.” With that, his cold stare moves to Haidyn. Then he rips the door open and storms out of Tyson’s office.
A silence falls over the room before it’s interrupted when a member ofthe Blackout staff comes over Tyson’s speaker from the phone on his desk. “Fight. Three guys.”
“Go,” Tyson orders, pointing to the door, and his four men jump up and rush out of the room.
“Well, I’ll keep you updated.” The detective picks up his backpack and nods to Ty, who does the same.
Once he leaves, Haidyn pushes off the wall. “Off the record?” he asks.
Tyson sits back in his chair. “Of course.” His eyes going to each of us.
“I don’t think these women were at Dollhouse,” Haidyn states.
Ty frowns. “What makes you say that?”
I plop down on the couch opposite Saint, in the spot Sin just vacated, and pick up the photos scattered across the table. “We recently found out some information…” I trail off, looking over the seven girls. Each one had their fair share of torture and I’m sure were raped. Who knows what they endured or for how long.
One is lying by a creek bed, her throat slashed. My stomach tightens at how familiar it looks. Some might think that’s a quick death, but the bruising to her sunburned skin tells a different story. They strung her up outside for days, leaving her to rot. By the cuts on her chest and stomach, they probably cut her enough to bleed but not die. The blood would attract animals to feed off her. Until someone came along and decided her life was over and ended it.
“I’m listening,” Ty says.
I pick up a few pictures and drop them on his desk. He lowers his eyes to scan them once again.
“What am I looking for, exactly?”
“No barcodes.”
He frowns. Looking back up at me. “What do you mean barcodes?”
“We recently found out that Adam’s chosen was a victim at Dollhouse. She had a barcode on her inner thigh. None of these women have them. Nowhere on their bodies that I can see, anyway.”
“Is it a tattoo or like something they can actually scan?”
I tilt my head to the side and Haidyn runs a hand down his face. “I…we don’t know,” he responds.
“What does it matter?” Saint growls. “It’s definitely a mark of some kind.”
