Captive Heart (Club Risqué Book 6)

Chapter 42

It was taking too long, Micah thought to himself forty minutes later as he tried his very best to remain patient and calm.

Was this how Jake had felt when Charlotte had disappeared? This panicked, clawing fear and frustration? And Charlotte hadn”t been tracked down for months.

Micah didn”t think he could remain sane if that happened to Melody.

Of course, Charlotte had taken off of her own free will and hadn”t been in any mortal danger like Melody might be. Micah couldn”t bear to think of what might happen to his sweet angel at the hand of the vicious and brutal ”V”.

Jesus, he hoped Andy and the other detective who had descended had some answers.

Right now, they were poring over the security footage of the car park. Micah couldn”t bring himself to watch it again. Couldn”t bear to see how Melody had been surprised, then overwhelmed, and then subdued with a violent punch to the face. One that had her falling to the ground and hitting her head, leaving a pool of blood on the rough stone and another trickling from her nose. He couldn”t bear to watch her unconscious form being dragged carelessly toward a waiting car by a guy wearing a ski mask to hide his face.

Micah fisted his hands. If he ever got his hands on that bastard, he was going to give the asshole a taste of his own medicine and relish doing so. The prospect didn”t even disturb his normally passive sensibilities which abhorred physical violence in the form of either abuse or brawling. His vision was filled with a red haze of rage and while he paced the crowded room, and clenched and unclenched his fists in an effort to control it, he was very well aware that he was a man on the edge.

Logan Thornton, co-owner and lawyer, clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed in an open show of support. Logan was the one of his four friends and bosses with the closest temperament to his own, whereas Joel, Jake, and Connor were all far more volatile characters, so maybe Logan was able to pick up on Micah”s uncharacteristic fury better than the rest.

All of them were here, along with their wives, even Desi, who had refused to be left behind, and Charlotte, who had brought baby Jacob along with her. Trinity was on her way, too, along with her fiancé, Christian, though they had a long way to travel, and although Xavier was working, he was also on standby in case they were able to find Melody quickly and she needed urgent medical intervention. As he remembered the video showing her bleeding and unconscious, it seemed unlikely that she wouldn”t. But just how bad would it be?

”We”ll find her,” Logan assured with quiet encouragement.

Micah nodded curtly. Yeah, he”d find her all right, because Micah wasn”t going to leave a single stone unturned until he found out where she was.

He just couldn”t help agonising over what sort of state she might be in when they did, and the longer this took, the more his anxiety grew.

”Okay, this is what we have so far,” Detective Storer addressed the room at large, swinging his wheelchair around as best he could in the cramped space and facing everyone who had crowded into Micah”s office. It had been turned into a makeshift hub since it housed the security monitors showing every bit of pertinent footage they had been able to piece together from the many cameras around the club.

”We’ve managed to get a partial number plate on the vehicle. If we can improve on that, given that we have the make, model, and colour of the vehicle, then that might be our quickest route to finding Melody.” He frowned and scratched at his dyed purple goatee beard, while he fiddled with the laptop, balanced on a useful tray which clipped to one of the arms of his wheelchair to serve as a table.

”On the positive side, the department hasn”t been sitting idle for the past few weeks since Melody was found.” He gestured to the other detective who had accompanied him. ”This is Jason Scott. I co-opted him into helping out with some of the research, so we could speed things up after the close shave Melody had with the dude in the nightclub the other week, but I”d like to reassure you all, right now, that you have his complete discretion over the nature of this club.”

A well-built man with dark, copper coloured hair and strikingly clear, green eyes nodded and raised his hand in salute, while Detective Storer brought up some information on the largest central wall screen.

”Jason did a lot of the work on this, so I”ll let him talk you through it.”

”Good afternoon, everyone,” Detective Scott acknowledged them all, getting a rumble of subdued greetings in return.

”I”ll get straight down to business. Andy asked me to help out with this because I”m attached to the records department and he knew I”d be… understanding of the lifestyle involved.” He looked around the many faces in the room, looking them all in the eye, gaining more than a few nods of appreciation.

”Now, the most pertinent piece of data we”ve been able to deduce from our records so far, from the information Melody was able to give us initially, is that Sutton, the surname she uses, is not actually her birth name. When we brought up records from the group children”s home where she spent her last few years, the name we derived was Melody Fox.”

There was a murmur of confusion around the room. It was Logan, typical lawyer that he was, who asked for clarification. ”Have you come up with an explanation for the name change?”

”We”ve been working on that,” Jason confirmed. ”Our investigations have led us to two further Suttons who are of interest to our investigation. The first is a Thomas Sutton…”

Andy tapped a button on his keypad and an image of an older man with grey hair, a weathered face, and a bit of a stoop filled the screen.

Detective Scott continued. ”The second man is Vinny Sutton…”

A buzz of chatter erupted throughout the room and Micah moved closer to Andy. ”Is this the ”V” we”ve been looking for?” he demanded. “Is this the guy who took her? Jesus, don”t tell me she”s married to him or something!” A lead weight dropped into Micah”s stomach. Surely, Melody would have mentioned if the two of them had been married. He stared at Andy Storer in desperation, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

”We don”t believe that to be the case,” the detective reassured, tapping at some more buttons on the keyboard until another photo flashed up on the screen.

This man had a wide face and cold, mean eyes. He was broad and paunchy, and he had the look of a stereotypical thug.

A shudder rippled down Micah”s spine. This was the man who had Melody. He just knew it.

”So how does all this tie in then?” he asked impatiently.

Jason Scott resumed the account. ”We have established that Thomas Sutton is the man that Melody referred to as ”Daddy”. This is supported by the fact that Melody told Detective Storer, herself, that the man she went to live with when she left foster care had initially introduced himself as Thomas. This also appears to be true in more than the sense of the Daddy/little relationship that Sutton pursued with Melody. A bit more digging through the records has turned up legal documents showing that he officially adopted her and named her as his next of kin.”

”So where does Vinny Sutton come into this? Is he another family member?” Micah demanded.

Detective Scott huffed out a breath. ”That”s where things get a bit hazy,” he admitted. ”You see, Vinny Sutton doesn”t officially exist.”

”What do you mean?” interjected Logan. “If he doesn’t exist, how do you even know about him? The man was a lawyer to his core.

”What I mean is, we have anecdotal evidence that Vinny Sutton also aligned himself as Thomas” son, that he, too, adopted the man”s surname, but we have no official records, no actual proof this is the case, although we are certain he habitually uses the name as his own.”

”So where does this jerk live?” Micah wanted to know. ”Why aren”t we on our way there right now, instead of talking about it?”

”Because, unfortunately, that”s where things get even more ambiguous,” Andy Storer stated, shaking his close shaven head.

He put up another photo onto the screen, this time an expanded map of the local area with a large circle around it. ”We have a number of possible addresses but nothing concrete,” he explained. ”We”ve been using this map to try to pinpoint the most plausible location Melody escaped from, given the details she gave us about how she came to be here and the landmarks she used along the way, to narrow down the list.”

”Jesus,” Micah exploded in frustration. ”Can”t the police just visit every damn address?”

”We could visit the addresses,” Storer agreed. ”But right now, we don”t know for certain that it was Vinny Sutton who took her, and we can”t go demanding access into random houses without justifiable cause.”

”A vulnerable woman has been forcibly abducted!” Micah bellowed, fisting his hands into his long, wavy hair and pulling tight as he tried to maintain a modicum of control. ”Surely, that”s reason enough!” he claimed in disbelief.

”Except that he might not have anything to do with this,” the disabled detective argued. ”It might have been the guy she recognised from the club. In fact, there”s more weight to that argument since he already tried to grab her once, and he was the one who saw her here.”

Micah growled low in his throat and balled his hands into fists, his nails biting into his flesh as he fought to remain calm.

Jake came up next to him and patted him on the back reassuringly. ”I know it”s frustrating, man, but we”ll crack this. Don”t you worry.”

Micah dragged in a shuddering breath, willing himself to keep a handle on his unravelling composure while his thoughts raced and he formulated the seeds of a plan in the back of his mind. Because, even if Andy Storer was right, and V or Vinny or whatever the heck his name was, wasn”t the one who had taken her, the man would still be able to give them the identity of his old crony. And while the police might not be able to do so, Micah had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about finding a way to make the guy talk. It would be a little bit of payback for Melody.

He just needed to get hold of those addresses, because, once he had them, he could visit them himself and he”d know which was the right one from the description Melody had given on the day he found her.

He just needed to cool down, step back, and make himself a bit less prominent, so he could slip out as soon as the detectives revealed the information he needed.

Heading to the back of the room as if he were simply trying to walk off some of his frustrations, Micah paced slowly along the back wall near the door, his hands jammed in his pockets. When Andy started discussing locations and explaining how they”d used landmarks to narrow down the feasible distance which Melody might have covered, using information from Xavier about how fast she might have been able to walk, given her condition, Micah stopped behind his desk. It was opposite the bank of monitors everybody was scrutinising, so they all had their backs to him. As he placed his phone surreptitiously on the desktop, he tapped a couple of tabs to flick on the voice recorder app before he resumed his pacing.

Just a few more minutes, he told himself over and over as he willed himself to be patient… and he”d have all of the information he needed.

And then, Vinny Sutton was going to pay.