“Like the truck,” Seb whispered, his voice barely carrying out of his blanket nest.
Jayce’s neck turned a ruddy purple color and his eyes practically snapped fire. “If we find this bloke, we can charge him with all sorts of crimes. You were a minor when you went missing and this started. You should have been protected. He exploited you. He doesn’t deserve anything more than your full cooperation with us.”
Seb stiffened and lifted the blankets around his shoulders until they were more of a hood, practically covering his head. We were losing him. I grasped Jayce’s hand to stop him from talking.
“Chances are the charges won’t stick without your testimony, Seb, and I know you still love him. I don’t really care about Xander.”
“You don’t?” His quiet question brought back my empathy from the other night. This kid reminded me so much of how I could be when I was stupid enough to let myself glom onto someone else. I took a step away from Jayce.
“No.” My heart raced. “I need to know, for sure, who wanted those pictures of me. The person who paid for them, that’s who I need. Xander mentioned Brickton, but I have to know if there was anyone else. I want names, not just the guesswork I’m going on.”
Seb shrugged. “Xan never told me important stuff. He… he fucked me and had me talk to guys and girls my age online. Sometimes in person. Sometimes we would fly them places, or we would go places and fly people here, to New Gothenburg.”
Slater’s breath gushed out of him, and he pivoted so he was staring directly at Seb. He took a step toward him. “How? You were on all the missing-lists!”
Seb sat up straighter and his blanket fell down around his back. “Oh! This might help. I… I’m sorry. My brain is sort of fuzzy right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve been myself.”
I wanted to snap at the kid, but Slater shocked me when he pulled out a sweet smile. “It’s okay. Go on.”
“Xander’s dad is a pilot. We flew standby a lot, and his dad also has a private plane. I mean, who doesn’t? But his was really nice, much bigger than my family’s.”
My heart leaped. An airplane would be easier to track. Those things were documented out the ass. Slater was my new favorite when he said, “Name for the pilot?”
“I don’t know.”
My momentary hopes were dashed. I only half listened as Seb told Slater how they’d nearly always been able to skip the TSA line. “I had a fake ID, too,” he finished, again glancing guiltily at Jayce.
“You have got to be shitting me. This is federal-level shit. Also, can we talk about how a kid is able to foil the TSA, when the rest of us have to take off our shoes and bend over just to get to our whiskey on ice?” I was ranting at this point, but I didn’t particularly care.
Jayce and Slater shared another look that didn’t include me, and I was fit to be tied, until Seb’s face crumpled and a few fat, shiny tears slipped down along his cheeks.Goddamn it.
“Promise me you won’t hurt him if you find him.”
Every cell in my body froze—and then came roaring back to life at double speed. My throat spasmed. “What do you imagine happened to all of those people you escorted around the country?” I stalked over to Seb and went to my knees beside him. His tears were large, like crystals floating down his soft cheeks. I could see the appeal. He looked innocent. Fuck, maybe he was telling the truth. He’d been hurt a fuck of a lot more than I had. I tried desperately to rein myself in. “Do you think those people who were bought and sold enjoyed what happened at their final destination? Were theyhappy? Is Dima even okay right now?”
He buried his face in his hands and his shoulders shook.
“That’s enough.” We all startled around. Behind us, Aurora stood with her knuckles pressed to her lips and her horrified eyes stuck on her brother.
“Seb,” I said softly. “You have to give us more. When does he fly? Is there a pattern?”
“Yes, that would help,” Jayce said encouragingly from much closer behind me than I’d realized he was standing. I glanced back and upward to where he was right next to me, being strong. My heart squeezed.
“Xander and me were supposed to pick up a woman. I don’t… I don’t remember… a few days from now, I think. Or maybe it was… what’s the date?”
There was a scramble for cell phones, and Jayce blurted the date to him first.
Seb moaned, a sad, frustrated sound. “I think… I don’t know. Sometime soon. Maybe today. Maybe this weekend. He was supposed to pick up a woman and she’s Russian. No English. So we were going to take Dima along too.”
“You can’t remember an exact date and time?” Slater pushed.
Seb glanced down at his hands and wound them tight in his blankets. “Usually it was dark when we flew. It was night a lot. Almost all the time, it seemed.” He shrugged, and his sister’s gentle sobs filled the room.
“No time?” Jayce asked.
“I was high a lot.”
“Did you ever see Xander talking to Brickton?” I asked, my final question almost burning like acid on my tongue as I spat it his direction.
