I pull out my knife. “You guys circumcise over there?”
“Get away from my dick,” he growls as he tries to protect the area with the laptop I need and the very reason I was planning on sitting down there.
I press the knife against his neck. “Hand it over.”
“Leland, threatening your friends is not healthy,” Jackson says.
“He’s my enemy, Jackson,enemy,” I retort as I grab the laptop before going over and sitting on Jackson’s lap while Everly leans against his desk.
“So even though Waylon is fine, and if I’m understanding right, Sophia is someone you aren’t quite fond of, you’re going to rush forward and save her child? What if it’s a setup?” Everly asks. “And how the hell do you ever get paid if you just run out and do things without compensation?”
“After escaping Lucas’s grasp, I decided to become a better person,” I explain. “I want to make up for my prior issues by helping others.”
“Helping them? Don’t you just cause people misery with your attitude?” Everly asks.
“That’s possible,” I admit. “But it brings me joy, so it’s fine. Hey, you didn’t have to hang around.”
“That’s true. I will be leaving, then,” Everly says, even though it’s quite apparent that if he planned on leaving, he wouldn’t have followed us to the detective agency.
I hesitate. “Everly, no. I really need you to stay. Please don’t go. What if Jackson tries climbing a fence later and I have no one to record it because Cassel is gone?”
“Thatis what you need me for?” he asks, almost like he disapproves of my reasoning.
“Everly, don’t you realize that to Leland, this is the most important task of all?” Tavish asks. “Watch.”
I hear the sound of a camera.
“Leland, I got a picture of your husband doing something very cute,” Tavish says.
My head snaps around. “Oh? You don’t say…”
“He is a disgusting sucker,” Tavish explains.
“Everly, we’d very much appreciate your help in finding Cam,” Jackson the Just says. He really is so very delicious.
I open up my laptop, unplug the mouse Jackson is currently using from his computer, and plug it into mine. It takes him far too long to realize that I’ve done this since I haven’t retrieved the mouse yet, just the USB end. He jiggles it around for quite some time until I set my hand on it. He seems to think I’m here to assist him with his sudden rogue mouse before he discovers that I’m now using it for my computer.
“Leland!”
“Yes, my sweets?”
“I was using that.”
“Was using what?”
“What do you want us to do?” Everly asks.
“So Sophia, as she now calls herself, used to work with the Barlow family. I’m not sure how she got involved with them, but they are a family that are very much ‘once you’re with us, you die with us.’ My guess is that they’re the ones who took Cam. Obviously, I can’t be sure of that. She could have made many enemies over the years and…” I look up as someone nears the door. “I guess we could ask her miserable face instead.”
She hurries inside, looking rather miserable indeed. “Did you tell the Barlow family that I’m here?”
“We would never do that,” Jackson assures her.
I huff. “I would never draw attention to myself, and I especially would never put my own child at risk. So how did you escape the Barlow family in the past?”
Sophia bites her lip. “I… exchanged some very important information about them with a police officer.”
“Wow, I bet they really don’t like you, then,” I say.
