Greg’s voice was shaking now. George reached out to him and patted his thigh. “Do you need a break?”
Greg shook his head. “No. I want to get this over with. Go on.”
George looked at Andi, who gave a small nod. “From the people who handled you, did anybody ever stand out? Do you think you ever met the boss of the organization?”
“You mean the Lion Man?” Greg’s voice was a mixture of fear and hatred.
The Lion Man—Rose and Mia had mentioned him too. A man wearing a lion mask who was sometimes there to oversee things. George hadn’t been sure he wasn’t an image their fear had conjured up, but if Greg and Kathy knew him as well, perhaps he was real.
“Who is the Lion Man?”
“I think he’s the asshole who’s responsible for everything we went through. I saw him several times, mostly at orgies, and yesterday when we were prepared for the transport to Charleston. He’s disgusting.” Greg made a face, and only the slight tremble in his hands betrayed how much he feared the Lion Man. George thought about how to phrase his next question, when Andi beat him to it.
“That man—was he somehow strange?” Andi sounded as if he wasn’t sure what exactly he was asking, which was odd. So far George had always seen him confident and in control.
“You mean apart from the fact that he was wearing a freaking lion head as a mask?” Greg asked snidely, overcoming his moment of insecurity quickly.
Andi raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Whoa. Calm down. I meant was there anything about his mannerism, about the way he moved…. Like did you notice a limp or something like that?”
“Now that you mention it.” Kathy tapped her lips with her right index finger. “For somebody who clearly wanted to intimidate, he moved kind of—” She struggled for the right word.
“Soft? Without much—I wouldn’t say confidence because that he had—emphasis, perhaps?” Greg offered slowly.
“As if he wasn’t all that strong?” Andi reminded George of a cougar, ready to pounce.
Greg and Kathy shared another look. They clearly took comfort from each other, just like George and Andi had assumed. “As I said, we were drugged most of the time and frightened, but yeah, he was definitely weaker than the guys watching us, even though he wasn’t that much smaller.” Greg beat a staccato rhythm on his blanket.
George did his best to neither stare openly nor intervene. Andi was obviously working his strange magic again, and George was equal parts pissed about being left out again and determined to uncover his partner’s secret, because this interview had just turned into something from theX-Files.
“He sometimes used a walking stick. Like you would see British nobles with on TV?” Kathy offered.
George perked up. This was something they could maybe actually use. “Do you remember what it looked like?”
The girl furrowed her brows. “It was very smooth. A dark brown. With a white horse head on the top. Funny I only remember the horse now. I would have expected him to have a walking stick with a lion….”
George looked at Greg for confirmation. “I don’t remember the horse, but the stick was as Kathy said. And he didn’t always use it. But yesterday, he had it with him. And the more I think about it, the surer I am his hands were trembling.”
George decided it was time to end the interview for this day. They had gotten quite a lot from Greg and Kathy, though he wasn’t sure if any of it would be useful. Those kids needed to rest and talk to a counselor. Andi seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he patted Kathy’s hand one last time before he rose from his chair.
“Thank you so much, Kathy, Greg. You’ve been a great help. If you need anything or if you remember something else you think could be of use for us, please call us.” He took two cards from one of his jeans pockets and handed them to Greg and Kathy.
“We will.” Greg smiled a bit sadly. “See you.”
George and Andi waved at the two before they left the room.
Chapter 16—Clouds in the Sky
THE WAYback to George’s car was accompanied by an ominous silence. A silence Andi knew had its roots in the questions he had asked. It was a risk he had taken knowing full well it could backfire spectacularly. Which it now was probably doing. George may think he was able to deal with Andi having a secret “instinct” that helped him solve cases, but theoretically accepting something and having to cope with it in reality were two very different things.
Andi rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen up the tight muscles in his nape a bit. He’d been up for too long, without a chance to meditate or otherwise drown out the battery of images from the arthropods. Perhaps his judgment was a bit off. Perhaps it would have been better to keep his questions about the Lion Man to himself, ask them when George wasn’t there. Then again, when would he have been able to do that? All he had about the Lion Man was the blurry image he’d gotten from the flea that had jumped from the lion mask to Mia. It was of a man with a blood deficiency, most probably anemia, which made the man unattractive for the flea, hence its jump to Mia, whose blood was—despite the drugs coursing through it—a lot more tempting to the little parasite.
Apart from the lion mask, this deficiency was their only solid lead on the mastermind behind the trafficking ring, and unfortunately, it was a lead they couldn’t openly pursue. If there was still a “they” when George was done with his current brooding about the situation. To his own surprise, Andi felt a twinge of disappointment at the thought of not working with George anymore. As much as he had always resented having a partner, being with George hadn’t been completely terrible. He was more attentive than the few previous partners he’d had, something Andi appreciated more than he would have thought possible. George also hadn’t let himself be deterred by Andi’s grumpiness; instead he had tried to cut through it and get to know Andi, which was also new. His previous partners all had known what they would be getting into and had used the fact that he had fulfilled all their worst assumptions about him as an excuse to get out of the partnership as fast as possible. Not that Andi hadn’t played into their expectations with that exact outcome in mind. George was also the first to admit he suspected Andi of something, just like the others had done but never said out loud. Talking about hisgeschenkwith somebody else, even if it was only in hints, had created the beginnings of a bond Andi would have never dared to hope for. Not being able to tell his partner the truth did put a strain on Andi and their partnership, of course, but so far George being there for him had been strangely comforting. Andi shuddered inwardly. There was no point in getting used to something he would only ever have for a short time and never to its full extent. Even if he let all his other barriers drop, there was always hisgeschenkstanding between him and a deep, meaningful relationship, be it with a partner at work or one in life. Andi had thought he’d gotten used to that idea, but the wave of resentment washing through his body told him otherwise. Perhaps it was something one could never truly accept. Which was probably the reason his grandmother had been such a hard, unrelenting woman. When he was younger, Andi had sworn to himself he would never become like her, would never become so bitter he kept everybody at arm’s length just out of principle. Working with George reminded him how similar he already was to his grandmother. It wasn’t a nice or comforting thought.
They reached the car and got inside. As soon as he had his seat belt on, Andi decided to grab the bull by the horns. There was no use letting the silence between them fester even more until it turned into something that couldn’t be healed. If it wasn’t too late already.
“You’re not happy with me,” Andi stated, perhaps a little more bluntly than intended.
George huffed. “What tipped you off?”
