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  Elliott’s mouth watered, and he set down the menu. When the server came over, they both ordered the sandwich, with a salad on the side.

  Salvatore’s phone chimed, and he snatched it up, then handed it to Elliott.

  “Elliott, Bull. Officer Tom just called. Roderick’s attorneys persuaded the judge that he wasn’t going to go anywhere, and they posted bail. He’s out as of a few minutes ago.”

  “Crap….”

  “That’s both good and bad. Tom told me that the judge specified that he wasn’t to come anywhere near the club or any of its employees. Tom sent over a copy of the order, so we can have him arrested immediately if he shows anywhere near you. But he is out of jail.”

  “Oh….” Elliott’s appetite suddenly flew out the window. Maybe he should have gotten the hell out of town. But then again, he knew Salvatore was probably right. If he ran, he’d keep running, and he wanted to have a life of his own.

  “Where are you now?”

  “Salvatore and I are having lunch.” He couldn’t help looking around for anyone familiar.

  “When you’re finished, come on down to the club. We can talk there and figure out what’s the best thing to do.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell him. Thanks.” Elliott ended the call and handed the phone back to Salvatore, relaying what Bull had told him. “Let’s finish up and then we can go to the club.” He sat back in his chair. “I’m tired of feeling like a fucking scared rabbit all the time.” It had been nice to not have to watch over his shoulder, even if it was for just a day.

  “You shouldn’t have to be.”

  Their drinks arrived, and a few minutes later, their food. Elliott refused to let Roderick or his stepfather take away his appetite, and he ate heartily. The food was as good as promised, and it wasn’t long before both he and Salvatore had finished everything off.

  “What time did Bull say to be there?”

  “He said to come right down as soon as we were done.” Elliott sat back and tried not to think about what he was going to do. Up until now he had been somewhat evasive about what had happened and what he’d seen, but he was going to have to tell someone everything. Once he did that, there would be no going back. His stepfather would have very little choice but to come after him in a big way. Elliott pulled out his wallet and handed the server the cash for their food. “Let’s go. We need to get this over with.”

  “Anything you say,” Salvatore teased.

  They got on the bike once again and rode the rest of the way back to Salvatore’s, where they took care of their wet stuff and Elliott changed for work. When they left again, they took Salvatore’s car and drove back to the club.

  Chapter 4

  THE BACK door was open, and they went inside, where Spook met them, closed the door, and flipped the lock behind them.

  “This is a private meeting, and Bull and I want you to know that whatever you tell us here will stay here. He and I are not, and have never been, cops.” Spook’s expression was as serious as death.

  “Thanks.” Elliott followed Spook out to the main floor of the club, where Bull sat at one of the tables, with a couple of unopened waters in front of him. Elliott sat down, and Bull handed him a bottle while the others sat as well. Salvatore took one and sat next to Elliott, feeling the nervous energy washing over him.

  “What do you want to tell us?” Bull asked. “I have a ton of questions. I did some research into your stepfather, and I have to say that he is one nasty piece of work. Cloaks himself in respectability while he’s dealing in some serious shit out the back door.”

  “That’s my stepfather,” Elliott said softly.

  “What I don’t understand is that you say your mother isn’t aware of it,” Spook said.

  Bull’s eyes widened. “There’s no way that’s true. His wife’s name is all over his business dealings. It seems he hides some of his activities behind her name and her signatures.”

  Elliott swayed in the chair, and Salvatore gently touched his shoulder. “God, so bringing down my stepfather is going to do the same thing to my mother,” he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  Bull leaned over the table, getting Elliott’s attention. “Look, if your mother knows what’s going on, then your stepfather sending someone to bring you home is also her doing it.” He tapped Elliott’s hand. “Your stepfather is the one law enforcement suspects. They don’t care about your mother unless she’s willing to sell him up the river.” Bull nodded. “What is it that you saw?”

  “I didn’t see anything at first, but I was in the house and I came down because I needed some paper for the printer in my room. My stepfather had some in his office.” Elliott paused as if searching for the words. “God, I don’t even know what to call him anymore. He used to be stepdad, but I can’t call a snake in the grass that. It hurts too much.”

  “You can call him ‘that bastard’ if you like,” Salvatore offered, and Elliott smiled a little and chuckled slightly.

  “Well, anyway, I went to that bastard’s office, and I heard him talking about a shipment coming in from Detroit that Roderick was to have someone pick up. It didn’t take long for me to figure out it was drugs. At least that’s what I thought, but it wasn’t. It was a shipment—more like a load—of weapons. He had arranged for them to be shipped across the border, and then they were to be ‘stolen.’ The plan was for a hundred thousand dollars in guns to turn into a million overnight. They could easily be sold for so much more on the street, where no one could trace them.” Elliott slowly rocked from side to side.

  “What did you do?” Bull asked and Salvatore took his hand to lend support and let him know that he was there for him.

  “I went back toward my room, and when I heard someone coming toward me, I pretended to be coming to see the fucking bastard. I asked him some stupid questions and then got the hell out of there.”

  Bull nodded. “That explains part of what you heard, but….”

  “I couldn’t leave well enough alone. Not by a long shot. Not me. That night, after the house was quiet, maybe about two or so, I went back down to the office. Long ago I had found out where the bastard kept the keys to his files, and I unlocked the drawers and found the shipment details. I copied them, along with a bunch more of his records. I should have been more careful about how I put things back. He was ranting and raving about how his files had been rummaged through a few days later. By then I had hidden my copies well, but it was a matter of time before he figured out it was me, so I got the hell out of dodge and came here. That was a month ago.”

  Salvatore leaned closer. “What did you live on?”

  “I closed out some of my bank accounts and took what I had in cash. That was what I used to pay for everything. I didn’t take my credit cards or even my phone. I left them all there. I took a cab to the train station and bought a ticket to New York, but got off here. I thought I could try to put them off. But they must have traced me somehow.”

  Salvatore hated the defeated expression in Elliott’s eyes. There had been such determination just a little while ago, and now it seemed like it was gone.

  “It’s very hard to disappear today,” Bull said calmly. “With the way we’re connected and the internet. Your stepfather could have hired a PI to do a skip trace, and most of the time they barely need to leave their computer any longer. A name on a utility bill, or the smallest slipup, is enough to trigger what they need.”

  Elliott grew pale. “I didn’t think about that. I bet the landlord transferred the utilities to me and… I was trying to be so careful.” He groaned and hung his head.

  “Don’t you worry about it. Even professionals have a hard time falling off the grid,” Salvatore said, and Bull nodded his agreement.

  “He’s right,” Bull said, then pulled the conversation back to where he wanted it. “Where are all the papers you copied?”

  “I have them in a safe-deposit box in Pittsburgh. I put them there before I left. It’s in my name, but
I made sure that only I have access to it.”

  “Are the keys in your apartment?” Bull asked, speaking faster.

  “No.” Elliott reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring with keys on it. “I wasn’t sure where to put them, so I kept them with me.”

  “I suggest you wear one of them close to your skin. Maybe on a chain around your neck, under your clothes. You can put the other in the safe here if you’d like,” Bull offered, and Elliott gave him one of the keys, which he handed to Spook to take care of.

  Elliott finished his water and closed his eyes. “I’m not sure what to do going forward.”

  They all remained quiet for a full thirty seconds, and then Bull broke the silence. “What sort of information do you have in those papers? Did you look at them all?”

  Elliott shook his head. “I found the information on the guns, but I copied all the papers I could. There has to be a couple hundred pages. But I was tired and I didn’t want to get caught, so I stopped and put things away. The copy machine is in his office, and I didn’t want it to be warm when he came in early the next morning, so I took what I had and got out. When he got so mad and started scouring for who had been in his office, I opened the safe-deposit box account, got what cash I could, and left town.”

  “So there could be anything in there?” Bull asked.

  “It was mostly shipping manifests and things like that, but there was other stuff too. I just copied as much as I could.” Elliott sighed. “Maybe I should have just left well enough alone and kept my eyes down and my mouth shut.”

  “Why did you do it?” Salvatore asked quietly.

  Elliott turned toward him. “Because when my mom married him, he was nice enough. I was thirteen, and he used to take me places and we did things together. It was fun, like having a real dad once again. It had been just Mom and me for four years after my father died. Then she met that bastard, and everything was good for a while. Once they got married, he changed. I saw it pretty fast. He tried to control her and me. We moved into his big house, and he had more security installed. He said it was because he wanted to keep us safe, but soon enough we couldn’t leave without him knowing, and then I had to ask permission.” Elliott’s hands closed around the empty bottle, clutching it tightly. “When I graduated high school, he tried to pick the college I went to. I applied to a lot of places, but I found my applications in the trash in his office. Then he was mad when I didn’t get in.” Elliott wiped his face. “I hated him for that. But I was stuck there, except for when I went to work.”

  “Had you been looking for something to get even with your stepfather?” Bull asked, and Elliott shook his head.

  “Did you just want to get out?” Salvatore clarified.

  “Yeah. That’s what I wanted. But I was scared and had no idea how to get away. Then I heard all that stuff and I knew that he had a vulnerability, so I copied all I could. I know he knows it was me, or he’s pretty sure I was the one in his office, but if I had stayed, I’d have either been locked up in the house or my mom would be planning my funeral.” Elliott quivered like a leaf, and Salvatore put an arm around his shoulders.

  “It’s okay. He must know that you haven’t turned the papers over to anyone or he’d have investigators by the dozen at his door armed with search warrants and arrest papers. Which also explains why he sent someone to bring you back. He needs to know what you’ve done and what you have.”

  “Yes,” Bull agreed, then smiled. “He has to be shitting bricks wondering what’s going to happen.”

  “That and he’ll cover as many of his tracks as he possibly can. Records will be burned, and anyone who knows anything is probably going to start to disappear. If he can get his hands on me, then I’ll be the one who will never be seen again. I know that now.” Elliott leaned against him, and Salvatore tightened his hold on him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Bull sat quietly, and Salvatore thought as well before offering a suggestion. “We could go to Pittsburgh and retrieve those papers. If they are explosive, we turn them over to the police and let them handle the whole thing.” It seemed simple enough, but Salvatore knew nothing was that cut and dried.

  “Yes, we could,” Bull agreed halfheartedly. “Banking records are confidential, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have someone try to see if you have an account there.” He paused. “But before we do anything, we’d better know as much about your stepfather as we can.”

  “Like what?” Elliott asked even as Salvatore nodded. Know as much about your enemy as possible.

  “What are his weaknesses?” Salvatore asked. “Where is he vulnerable? Does he like women? Boys? Does he gamble? What are his vices?”

  “Does he have a regular routine?” Bull asked. “Something he does every day or every week? Those can be used to our advantage. If he has a routine, then we know where he’s going to be and we can either avoid him or we can meet him… antagonize him. Maybe interrupt his business enough that he realizes we’re going to make his life more miserable than he can make yours. I’m not saying we’ll do that, but I want you to get the idea. The more info we have, the better.”

  “Okay, ummm.” Elliott sighed. “He once had a fit that I put a family picture on Facebook and made me take it down. He tried to make me close the account, but I just left it instead.”

  “Is it still there? A picture would be a good place to start.” Salvatore brought up the app on his phone and handed it to Elliott. “See if you can find it.”

  Elliott scrolled through. “I was mad at him, so I hid the post, but I didn’t delete the picture.”

  He handed the phone back, and Salvatore stared at the picture of a man with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses, in tan slacks and a polo shirt. He looked like someone’s grandfather. Next to him was a woman with blonde hair the same color as Elliott’s. It could only be his mother. They were together, but it wasn’t a posed picture. The two of them were talking to someone else barely in the image.

  “I’m going to pull the image, and I’ll send it to all of you.” He got busy and then forwarded it around.

  “Any routines?” Bull prompted, but Elliott shook his head. “What about vices?”

  “His vice is money in any and all forms. It doesn’t matter how much he has, he wants more,” Elliott said.

  “Greed,” Bull muttered. “Is he faithful to your mom?”

  Elliott shrugged. “He never took me to titty bars or things like that. I’ve never known him to have women or even flirt at a party.” He stiffened. “Why?”

  “Because if we can find proof that he has been unfaithful, maybe that will undermine your mother’s support. Even if we have evidence that can be used against him, your mother can’t be compelled to testify. But maybe she will if she learns that he’s a cheating scum,” Bull explained. “No one likes to be made a fool of.”

  “True…,” Elliott said cautiously, as though something were tickling the back of his mind.

  “What is it?”

  “We were out to dinner for Mom’s birthday last year and a woman approached the table. Mom turned to say something to the bastard, touching his arm, and the woman backed away quickly.” He scratched his head. “It could be nothing.”

  “Mistress,” Spook said. “Classic behavior. She saw your father and came over to say hello, but then saw your mother and backed away. Pretty simple to figure out that she knows about your mom. I’ll check it out. See what I can find out from my contacts.”

  “But don’t let anyone know that we’re interested or why. Be discreet,” Bull said.

  “Always am,” Spook said without heat. “While I’m at it, I’ll check on his financial dealings. See if there’s anything hidden in plain sight.” He stepped closer, and they both shifted their gazes to him. “I don’t want to be a dick here, but are you prepared to find out things you might not want to know? It’s possible your mom is actually involved… or that your stepfather is into things that are going to make you squeamish as hell.” His expression was almost gentle. “
Just prepare yourself so you aren’t too shocked.”

  “I’ll try. But how can you prepare yourself to find out that your stepfather is a gangster and that your mother is a moll?” Elliott rolled his eyes. “This is all a little too much.”

  “Sometimes the truth sucks,” Salvatore said.

  Spook nodded. “And sometimes it’s liberating as anything.” Spoken like a man who knew exactly what he was talking about. “Now, how do we keep Elliott safe? There are going to be people looking for him, and they already know that he works here. The club is going to be point central for anyone trying to find him.”

  “That means that we need to be on our toes. If we see anyone, we take action first. We can apologize if we’re wrong, but I want this place to be a fortress. We search everyone, not just for alcohol, but for weapons. And we check all IDs. Tell the men at the door that anyone with a western PA license is suspicious and they need to inform one of us.” Bull’s eyes grew hard as stone. “And if anyone so much as thinks of taking a tip to let someone in, I will kick them to the curb so fast their ass will have boot prints that last for a week.”

  “Got it,” Salvatore and Spook said at the same time.

  “We need to tell the bartenders that anyone looking for info or asking questions is to be pointed out, and questions are to be deflected. I don’t care how innocuous they might seem. This place is going to be fucking Fort Knox. I don’t want any trouble, and we’re going to assume that anything out of the ordinary is trouble. It’s Saturday night, the busiest night of the week, so we are going to be on our toes.” Bull turned to Elliott and gentled his expression. “I don’t want you to stay until closing. Once the crowd begins to thin out, Salvatore is going to take you home. Use the back and don’t make a fuss. By a little after one, the floor usually begins to thin, and you can go then.”

  Elliott nodded. “Of course, if that’s what you want. But that isn’t fair to everyone else who has to stay to clean up and prepare for the next day.”