Chapter 19
Nineteen
Kash
The office was tidy. Annoyingly so. There wasn’t anything out of place.
It smelled faintly of cologne, which was the only sign that someone had ever spent time in here.
Otherwise, it appeared ready for a photo op at any moment.
I picked up a pen from the container on his desk that held five of the same kind.
Nothing terribly expensive, but uniform.
Flipping it through my fingers, I looked over at Gathe, who was going through the bookshelf that was packed with self-help and business books.
He smirked at one of them and tossed it over onto the desk.
The title said Can’t Hurt Me.
“Ironic,” Gathe said with a chuckle.
Than stood over in the other corner of the room, texting.
We’d arrived in Little Rock a little after midnight. I’d decided on the four-hour drive that we were going to play a little psychological game with him first. Besides, it gave me more time to find out all I needed to know.
There was no one else in the building, but we had entered it around six this morning.
Arthur Howt rented this private office space and had no employees of his own.
He built websites for new businesses that couldn’t afford the larger firms. The balance of his bank accounts told me that he wasn’t very good at it.
He was behind on his rent here, his apartment rent, and his car payment.
Yet, last week, he’d gone on a cigar tasting trip with friends to Cuba. Money management was not his thing.
The sound of footsteps approached, and Than looked up from his phone, his eyes going from the door to me. I, too, turned my attention to the door.
Gathe held out another book and glanced at me. “Sounds like we got company,” he whispered, then grinned.
The key slid into the lock with a click; then the handle turned, and the door swung open. Arthur Howt came striding in while talking with the phone pressed to his ear.
“She exists. I paid you up front, more money than you are worth. Either find her or I’m going to—”
His words came to a halt just as his gaze landed on me sitting in the chair behind his desk. He swung his gaze to Than and then Gathe.
“I’m sorry, but who are you, and why are you in my office? If there is some kind of maintenance being done, I wasn’t informed, and I did not approve of you being in here,” he said sternly.
Than ducked his head, chuckling, as he ran his thumb under hit bottom lip.
“Please, finish your phone call,” I said.
His gaze was back to me. He ended it and started to slip it into his pocket.
“Ah, we’ll be taking that,” I told him, motioning at Gathe to get the phone.
His bravado showed its first crack as Gathe sauntered over to him and snatched his phone easily enough.
“You can’t take my phone!” he shouted, glancing back at the door, as if hoping someone might hear him.
“The building is closed today,” I informed him. “All others were notified that there was a rodent infestation found in the basement and it must be fumigated.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get that call.”
“We know,” Than replied.
Arthur narrowed his gaze, trying again to appear unafraid. But his eyes told another story.
“You’ve got shit taste in books,” Gathe said, tossing one onto the floor and picking up another one to pretend to look over.
“I’m going to call the police,” he threatened, stalking over to the desk and watching me closely as he jerked the landline up. When he realized I wasn’t going to stop him, he turned to the other two while pressing 911. “You all need to leave.”
The confusion in his expression would have been comical if I wasn’t barely containing myself from ripping him apart with my bare hands. He pressed the phone to his ear finally and started to open his mouth to speak when he was met with the silence.
“That infestation took out the phone lines in the building,” I told him.
His arm slowly lowered as he put the phone back down.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his eyes darting to each of us.
“I’ll be the one asking the questions,” I told him and let his pen fall from my knuckles to his desk. “Who are you looking for?” I asked him.
He appeared to not understand me.
“The phone call,” I reminded him. “You paid to find someone.”
He let out a nervous short laugh. “Oh, that is just family issues.”
I stood then. “What kind of family issues?”
He took a step toward the door. He was planning on running. The survival instinct that all humans had.
Gathe was faster though and dropped another book before stepping between the exit and Arthur.
Panic flashed across his face. “Look, if this is about money, I’m broke. I have nothing.”
“If it were only that simple,” Than said.
“What do you want then?” His voice trembled this time as he spoke.
“So many things,” Gathe said with a sigh. “I could go for a chicken biscuit, for starters.”
That almost made me smile.
“What?” Arthur asked, looking at Gathe, as if trying to decide if he was all there or not.
“You’ve never heard of a chicken biscuit? Are there no Chick-fil-A’s in Arkansas?”
Arthur looked from Gathe to me. “Is it drugs? Are you all looking for something so you can buy more?”
“I thought I told you I was going to ask the questions,” I replied as I walked around the desk and in his direction.
He moved toward the wall slightly but stopped.
“Who in your family are you looking for?”
He licked his lips nervously. “My, uh, niece.”
I took another step toward him.
“I’d say that’s a very loose description,” Than said, swinging his gaze from the window back to Arthur, who was now locked on him.
“What do you know about it?” he asked Than.
Than raised his brows slightly and cut his eyes to me.
“We know that you don’t have a niece. Your sister has no children of her own.”
Arthur paused. “She has a stepdaughter. Problem child. What business is that of yours, and how do you know this about my sister?”
I laughed then, hearing the sinister lilt to it as I did. “Child? Oh, Cressida hasn’t been a child in a long time. And she was never a problem.”
Arthur’s eyes widened then, and his bravado was raising its head again at the sound of her name. “You know Cressida?”
“I’d be careful with your tone,” I warned him.
“Listen, if she’s done something, I can fix it. Just tell me where she is. My sister and brother-in-law are worried sick.”
The blatant lies and dark flicker in his eyes pushed me too far. He was slammed against the wall with my hand around his throat before he could finish the sentence.
Now that he was unable to speak now from the lack of oxygen, I bared my teeth as I got in his face. “Lie, and you’ll pay for it. I came for the truth.”
He shook his head, his eyes no longer hiding his terror as he stared at me. I eased up on my grip just enough so he could speak.
“Why are you looking for her?”
I felt his throat bob under my palm as he swallowed. “Worried,” he choked out, and I gripped his neck tighter and slammed the back of his head against the wall again.
“I said, NO LIES!” I snarled.
His eyes were watering, and he was getting the blue hue from not being able to breathe. I gave him enough to keep him from passing out, but dug my fingers into the sides of his neck, needing to cause him pain.
“Try again,” I urged.
“Sh-sh-she was mine.”
Those words were a mistake on his part. His head hit the wall so hard this time that I heard a crash from the other side of it. He went limp, his head falling to the side.
“You’re gonna give him an easy death if you keep that up,” Than pointed out.
“It’ll be an easier cleanup,” Gathe said. “I mean, unless you do it hard enough that his brains start coming out his fucking ears.”
I let go of his neck, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes slumping over to the side.
I then held my hand out to Gathe. “Give me his phone.”
Gathe handed it to me, and I broke through the password, then went to his text messages, scrolling for any mention of her.
Cressida’s name wasn’t mentioned, but it was one of the text threads.
Although it had been six months since he’d last texted her.
I began reading from the most recent. He was demanding that that she tell him where she went, threatening to have her tossed out on her ass, that he’d turn her father against her.
Then, in the next text, he’d apologize, saying he didn’t mean it and that he loved her. She never responded to any of it.
Finally, something from her.
Arthur: If you don’t come tonight and treat me with respect at dinner with our family, I’ll make you live to regret it. Your attitude has been unacceptable. All we have done for you, all I have done for you. You get to live in that house because of me. Lucy would have kicked you out years ago.
Cressida: You can’t hurt me.
Arthur: You know I can. And I will do it again just to remind you since you seem to have forgotten.
Cressida: Bruises and broken bones heal.
Arthur: Then perhaps I’ll do something more permanent. If you can’t obey me and be a good girl, then you’re of no use to me. A problem. Clearing you out of our lives might be exactly what we need.
I spun back around to the unconscious man on the floor and went to grab him again. Wanting to see him suffer, scream out in agony.
“You’ll regret it if you snap his neck. Clearly, whatever you’re reading means he deserves a more brutal exit,” Than said through the fog of rage that had taken over me.
I let go of his neck, but not before I threw him onto the floor.
He groaned.
“Oh good, he’s not dead yet.” Gathe sounded truly relieved.
I glared down at the phone. “We might need to string him up before I read more. Go ahead and move on with the torture part before I kill him right here.”
“Slap him until he is alert enough to stand,” Than told Gathe. “I’ll go get the Escalade and bring it up to the back door.”
I stayed back, keeping my distance. If I got too close, I wasn’t sure what I’d do to him. And he wasn’t worthy of a quick death.
“There he is,” Gathe said after the third slap. “We have open eyes, but the condition of his brain function is still iffy.”
I watched as Gathe stood back up, dragging Arthur up, too, by one arm. When Arthur saw me, his eyes went wide, and he began to struggle against Gathe’s hold.
“Go ahead and pull your arm out of the socket,” Gathe told him. “If you haven’t figured it out, we don’t give a fuck.”
“Don-don-don’t,” he stammered out, then began to whimper.
“Ah shit,” Gathe said. “He pissed his pants. I don’t want piss on the seats. They’ll stink the entire ride home.”
“I’ll grab a bag out of one of the trash cans out front. He can sit on that,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
I went on ahead of them while Gathe taunted Arthur’s struggle to walk and scolded him like a child when he stumbled. The man wailed just before we reached the door, and I glanced back to see Gathe dragging him by the hair of his head. His legs sliding across the floor.
“He’s a bad seed,” Gathe said, exasperated. “Doesn’t fucking know how to listen.”