Chapter Sixteen #2
I’m a little hesitant as I climb the stairs because I don’t know what Lane is planning.
I don’t know if I should be helping. I don’t know anything that’s going on anymore.
Honestly, I’m a little worried that we are going too far, but I know we have to save James.
Even so, I feel like this is wrong. What makes it okay for us to do this, but wrong for the other guys?
It’s because Ryan is a “bad” guy, right?
I know he’s a bit obsessed with himself, but he doesn’t seem like that bad of a guy.
I take a deep breath because I know that I have to trust Lane and whatever he chooses to do.
I remember seeing a junk drawer in the kitchen when I had been looking for the Tupperware, so I head for it.
I pull open the drawer and pick up the hammer that is sitting on top.
It feels oddly heavy in my hand as I hold it.
Almost like it’s too heavy to take. Lane knows what’s best, right?
I just need to trust him. Using the light coming through the nearby window, I peer back into the drawer.
In the corner is a small box of nails. They look like wall nails that someone would use to hang decorations.
I grab the box, and as I head back for the basement, I grab a knife from the butcher block.
With my instruments of torture, I head down the stairs.
Lane has Ryan back in the chair and must have dragged the chipping table in front of him at some point.
The chair is flat against the wall with the table pinning Ryan in place.
Ryan looks up at me nervously, like I had betrayed him the moment I left to gather supplies.
“Here,” I say as I hold the supplies out to Lane.
“Set them on the table,” he says as he pats it gently.
Ryan jumps at the sound of the tools hitting the table.
“Alright, what do we want to start with?” Lane asks as I watch his fingers ghost over the objects on the table.
When his hand hits the container of nails, they rattle.
“You know what? The time I saw you interrogate a man, you did such a splendid job with nails.” He opens the package and pulls one out before setting them back on the table.
He holds one of the small nails between his thumb and index finger before putting the head of it between his lips.
Then he reaches down and grabs Ryan’s hands.
Ryan fights hard, flailing and kicking, but Lane is stronger and forces his hand up onto the table.
Ryan starts cussing and fighting as Lane places the tip of the nail against the back of Ryan’s hand. With his other hand, he picks the hammer up as Ryan and I watch him nervously.
“You were pretty good at this, though you definitely had bigger nails. First…you hammered the man’s hands to the table,” Lane says as he presses the nail against the duct-taped hand.
He sets the head of the hammer against the nail as Ryan yanks back hard.
Lane hits the hammer down just as he moves, and the man screams as he jerks his hands free.
“Fuck! Fuck you!” Ryan draws his hands to his chest as he rocks back and forth in his chair.
“Then…you drove a nail under his fingernails. Do you remember that? Of course you do,” Lane says.
“But man, that guy never said a word. Definitely wasn’t acting like you are now.
And all of this because he didn’t pay back a loan or something, right?
Or you suspected him of doing something with the money?
Huh…I just can’t remember. I do remember how much you enjoyed this though. ”
Ryan is desperately looking at me, but now that I’ve heard a bit of what he’s done to others, I don’t feel quite as bad. Just thinking about a nail being driven under one of my fingernails makes me cringe. I subconsciously clench my fists at the thought.
“Oh, but now I remember what it was. You suspected one of your guys of stealing the money they were supposed to be bringing in. You got him to tell you where it was after you threatened to cut off his testicles. Silly me. I had forgotten. Let’s try that one out.”
Lane kicks the table out of the way before grabbing Ryan and throwing him onto the ground.
Ryan starts letting out a shrill whining noise as he tries to crawl away, but with his ankles bound, he isn’t getting far fast. Lane picks the knife up off the table before walking over to Ryan.
He flips him onto his back and sits down on his legs as Ryan starts hitting Lane with his bound hands.
“Touch me again and I’ll gut you,” Lane growls as his other hand unbuttons Ryan’s pants. “You can live without your testicles. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll tell you what I know!” Ryan yells as he looks up at Lane with wide eyes filled with fear.
“I honestly don’t know about the detective…
but there was a disturbance at one of Red’s factories a few days ago…
probably about four or five days ago. I don’t know what the disturbance was.
I deal with the loans, I don’t deal with that side of his shit. ”
“Where’s the factory?” Lane asks.
“I don’t know. I think it’s about an hour or more from here. It’s a laundromat called Leenson and Sons. I don’t know the address. I swear that’s all I know…now what are you going to do to me?”
“I’ll make a deal with you. You don’t tell them about this, and I won’t tell them anything about you.
I’ll drop you off at the station, and they’ll hold you for a night or two as they try to figure out if you are related to the case.
When they can’t get any solid information on you, they’ll let you go. Alright?”
“Yes.”
“That also means that if the information you gave me is bullshit, I’ll know right where you’re at,” Lane says.
Ryan nods quickly. “I promise that I don’t know anything else.”
“Alright,” Lane says.
He pulls out the cellphone García had given us and makes a call. As he talks over by the stairs, I watch Ryan as he lies on the floor. He’s not looking at me now, instead, he’s curled up with his pants around his thighs.
Lane walks over to me as he slips the phone back into his pocket. “García is headed here.”
“Okay,” I say.
“We’ll let him deal with it,” he explains.
We don’t talk as we wait. Instead, Lane leans against the wall while facing Ryan. When García arrives, Lane talks to him, and then reaches out for me. I look down at his outstretched hand. A few of his knuckles are scuffed and red, probably from holding Ryan’s head down into the bucket.
I take his hand and interlock our fingers as I head to the stairs.
I look back once at Ryan and García, before leading Lane up the stairs.
The upstairs lights are on, and it makes it easy to find my way to the back door.
Together, we head out to the car where Copper is eagerly waiting.
I leave Lane at the passenger door before heading around to the driver’s door.
“Are you alright?” Lane asks as soon as I’m inside.
“Yes…you?” I ask as I put the key into the ignition.
He leans against the door of the car as he closes his eyes. “What does it mean to be alright? I mean…even if someone is not ‘alright’ they say they are.”
“We’ll find James,” I promise. “We’re doing…everything we can.”
“It’s not just that,” he says. “When you live a life where you lie all the time and you’re forced to become someone you are not, the line between who you are and who you have to pretend to be gets blurred.
You have to do shit you don’t want to do.
Act how you don’t want to act. And then, when you get put in situations like that one, you question when it became so easy to take on that role.
So easy to just hurt someone and not even care. ”
“You didn’t really hurt him,” I say. “And it sounds like he spent his fair share of time hurting people.”
“Yeah,” he says as he nods, but I can tell he doesn’t truly believe me.
“Lane?”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say as I reach out to him. I set my hand on his wrist and slowly pull it away from where it’d been tucked against his stomach.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Can I see your phone?”
He hands it to me, so I can research this cleaning service place. It takes me a moment, but I finally seem to find the right company. “Okay…so it looks like this company deals with uniforms and the rags that factories use. Looks like they pick up and clean them for companies each week.”
“Anything else on them?”
“No…I mean, I doubt it’ll have a tab that says, ‘bad guy section,’” I say.
“Don’t be a smartass, no one likes a smartass,” he says, but it pulls a small smile out of him. “I meant like, different locations…do they have different buildings in the area?”
“Um…looks like just the one location in this area. Apart from that, there isn’t really anything else of interest on here about the company.”
“Okay, let’s go,” he says.
I type the address into the car’s GPS and watch as it calculates. “Hour and forty minutes.”
“Alright, are you tired? Are you okay to drive?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say as I put the car in drive. “Just as long as you talk to me, I probably won’t get too sleepy.”
“What do you want me to talk about?”
“What your job is,” I decide.
“I have told you all that I can tell you,” he says stubbornly.
“You’re no fun. Alright…where’d you grow up?”
“Small town in California.”
“What about your family?”
“They’re still there.”
“Why didn’t you go to them after the accident?”
“I didn’t want to put them in danger,” he says.
“Oh, so you’d rather put me in danger. Thanks a lot,” I say sarcastically.
“I didn’t know you. And if you recall, I never wanted a babysitter,” he says.
“Tell me about your family,” I say as I merge out onto the highway that heads out of town.
“My dad has been a homicide detective for most of his life and was pretty much married to his work…but somehow it just worked for my parents. They’re still together if you can believe that,” he says.
“I didn’t think families stayed together anymore,” I joke.
“Yeah, I think my father is paying her. There’d be no other reason for her to stay otherwise,” he jokes.
“How did they handle your accident?” I ask.
“They don’t know,” he admits.
I look away from the road to stare at him in surprise. “ What? You never told them?” I ask.
“No, because I know that if I did, they would lose their minds and insist I be with them. I want them safe,” he says.
“Of course you do, but I’m sure they’d like to know,” I say. “Are you not close to them?”
“Yeah, I try to call them once a week,” he says.
“And when your mom is like ‘oh, how are you today?’ you are like ‘fantastic!’”
“Pretty much,” he says.
“You’re ridiculous,” I realize. “If I had a parent that would have cared, I would have told them everything,” I say.
“When you’re in a job like mine, secrets are what you learn to do best,” he says.
“I suppose,” I say even though I don’t really believe any of it. “You have siblings?”
“A sister. She’s married and just gave birth to her first child…a girl,” he says. “When she told me, all I could think about was how I’ll never be able to see the kid.”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “You still like me, and you can’t see me.”
“The only reason I like you is that I can’t see you,” he jokes, and I laugh.
“Hey, I wooed a man today, quite successfully if I might add,” I say. “To the point where he jumped into a trunk for me.”
“Just to break his heart,” he says.
“Yeah, he did look pretty betrayed when I opened that trunk,” I say. “Was it hard leaving your family for this job?”
“Yeah, it was…it definitely wasn’t the path I had planned to take, but I kind of fell into it and things just escalated from there.
I would like to dream that all this shit just…
goes away and I can go back home and not have to worry about endangering anyone I love.
It used to be that all I could think about was my job.
What I was doing, how I could look into the minds of these people and slowly tear them down as I built up their trust. It was like a high when I found out the truth that would help bring them down. ”
“I’m sure,” I say. “I’m not sure if this past week has exactly been a ‘high’ for me, but it’s definitely made me feel terror, excitement, and the on-coming of death.”
He laughs. “I’m not going to let you die,” he says.
“Uh huh…okay… sure… ”