Chapter 22 #2
“Uh… yeah… I just… missed seeing your tum.” He smacks my stomach for extra effect before I see him pull out the shirt he “packed for himself.” It’s a Christmas shirt he’d gotten last year that he was far too ecstatic about casually wearing around the house which says “Ho, Ho, Ho” and has a graphic of Sasquatch dressed as Santa bending over another Sasquatch.
I couldn’t fathom anyone willingly made that shirt and am still convinced he had it custom made just to fuck with me.
Even though it made Leland giggle, he wouldn’t wear it out and proud in public.
“So that’s the shirt you brought… on our investigation?” I ask.
He pulls out the purple and yellow striped pants that go with a Halloween outfit that, surprisingly enough, matches the one I’m currently holding up.
“I know this seems like maybe… I didn’t pack the clothes, and that maybe I just… I had to secure the house, so I had to have Tavish pack for me,” Leland explains.
“Secure… the house? With what? Your tower of guns and your blow-up doll?”
He merely smiles at me while he puts his shirt inside out so it at least looks semi-normal, like he wants to rub it in my face that I do not have that option with my shirt. Then he pretends like his smile will be enough to make me forget his blunders.
“Why were yesterday’s clothes normal and these ones so ridiculous?” I ask.
“Maybe he wanted to make us lower our defenses. And he probably knew that if we thought the clothes were normal, we’d take the bag with us someplace where we’d have no option but to wear what he packed.”
With a sigh, I scavenge around for yesterday’s clothes, knowing that I will not be waltzing out with my belly button and nipples on display.
“Jackson, come on, it’s fine. Everyone here has seen you naked,” Leland assures me.
“When? Why? How?”
“Remember that private naked photo shoot with The Fence we did?”
“NO! No, I sure don’t remember that.”
“Weird,” Leland says, and out the door he heads. I find my clothes from yesterday and pull them on before walking out to meet up with them. The second I’m through the door to Cassel’s room, Tavish cocks his head.
“How peculiar. I sure feel like you wore those clothes yesterday, Jackson. Where are the clothes Leland packed ya?” Tavish can’t even contain his grin.
“Tavish, what did you do?” Ellis asks.
Tavish looks shocked that Ellis would immediately blame him. “Not me, hon. I was being helpful.”
“He actually was, but Jackson’s feeling a bit shy,” Leland says as he looks in disgust at the shirt I’m wearing.
“When you all are done with your cryptic nonsense, we have shit happening,” Cassel says.
Leland waves him on. “Sorry, please, go ahead.”
Instead of Cassel piping up, Henry does. “One of my detectives has informed me that Patel is looking deeper into you after hearing about Raul’s death… and is trying to figure out where you currently are.”
“We all used IDs that weren’t our own to get here, but that doesn’t mean the cameras won’t flag something if she gets some higher-up help on this,” Cassel says.
“As for me, I haven’t found as much as I wanted.
The problem I’m running into is that the Barlow family has so much real estate that it’s hard to pinpoint what is essential or where the people who need help might be located.
The Barlow family acquired the real estate from desperate people borrowing money from them, thinking it would keep their business afloat until they realized that once you borrow from the Barlows, you’re not coming back from it.
The Barlows typically take over their business and then force them to work off the debt in whatever way they see fit. ”
“If you can find this much about them, why can’t the police do anything?” Ellis asks.
“Because they’re phenomenal at covering up their tracks,” Cassel explains.
“While the police might also know or assume the same things we do, they are forced by law to acquire everything in a legal manner. Obviously, they’re not breaking into a birthday party while donning discount bin Disney outfits and stealing what they want.
This is an organization that has made sure everything they’ve done looks extremely legitimate.
But don’t worry, I’m going to keep digging until I figure out exactly what’s happening. Now on to our final issue.”
“There’s more?” I grumble, really thinking this is plenty.
Cassel turns to Leland. “Our fun stalker has flown back, and this morning his GPS showed that he was wandering around your house.”
“He likely knows we’re still here and is looking for shit to use against me,” Leland says.
“Exactly. I’m afraid he’s looking for a way to gain control over you… or fuck you over or… who knows. I think we need to head home where you can deal with him as best as you can. And I’ll continue to dig into things to see where I can get with it.”
“What about the innocent people in their control, though?” Everly asks Cassel, who looks sympathetic.
“It’s not easy to leave people behind. And while I know Lucas was an absolute asshole, he did teach us that sometimes you have to ignore someone begging for help to save others from falling back into it.”
“He taught me that the hard way,” Micah says.
“When I was a teenager, there was a young woman who was being drugged and prostituted… he told me not to even interact with her, but I couldn’t stop.
Every night she was right there and was the only one offering me a kind word.
The longer I was around her, the more I wanted to do everything I could to save her…
so one night, I took her away. I pulled her from that hell…
I saved her. You should have heard her thanks…
but they knew something was up and got paranoid, so they moved away the others I could have saved and hid them somewhere I never found them.
And the woman? She couldn’t take the drug withdrawals…
she crawled back to them, and they shot her in the head.
If I’d listened to Lucas, I could have saved them all. ”
Leland winces, and I realize that he likely went through a similar experience.
Micah takes a deep breath. “And the whole time, Lucas just stood back and let me make that fuckup. Once it was all over and I was surrounded by the blood of those I failed to save, he looked down at me and went, ‘What did I tell you to do?’ I remember answering that he told me to ignore them… but I did the opposite. I thought I could at least save one… who I also failed to save. And when he asked me at what cost, I had to comprehend that even if I’d managed to save her, I would have only saved one at the cost of all of their lives… I never made that mistake again.”
“But with Raul dead… will we lose our leads?” Everly asks.
“We might, but I’ll find them again,” Cassel assures him. “I have a pretty good grasp on it, I promise.”
Everly nods. “Okay. Let’s go, then. Let’s head back and see what we can do.”