Page 70 of Cry Baby
“I’m serious.”
“I would’ve remembered that.”
“You don’t remember walking off with him.”
That shut him up, and he looked genuinely unsettled now.
“I woke up in my truck this morning…my head hurt, and I was off toward I-90.”
“What time?”
“Six-ish, maybe seven.”
“How’d you get there? Why’d you drive out to I-90? Do you remember the mansion?”
“I…” he frowned harder. “I don’t know.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute, and then Ryan finally looked at me. “What happened to me?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. How the hell was I supposed to answer that?
I didn’t fucking know any more than I remembered what had happened to me.
Not really.
I only knew there were holes in my memory that shouldn’t be there.
And Jailbait had been standing in the middle of every one of them.
Jailbait and his fucking smile.
“I think he’s connected,” I said quietly, rubbing my jaw absentmindedly. It hurt like hell today.
“To what?”
I glanced toward the evidence board on the far wall and yanked Ryan’s head toward it. “The missing men.”
Ryan furrowed his brow and laughed bitterly. “You’ve been on that for years, boss. We literally exhausted every single avenue, and it’s been proven that no trails are leading anywhere. Sometimes missing is just missing, ya know?”
“I know.”
“You got anything besides a gut feeling? I mean, why do you think it’s connected with the bar guy? You have always hated him…”
I hated Ryan more than I hated Jailbait in that moment for questioning my authority.
The answer is no.
No fingerprints.
No DNA.
No witnesses.
Nothing that would survive five minutes in front of a judge.
It was all just a fucking growing pile of missing men over the years, and now a very spotty memory that didn’t bode well.
“I’ll get something soon.”
