Page 45 of The Encounter
“Yes. I’m dating one of them. The other is dating one of my security officers.”
The officer nodded as if he were confirming the information he already knew.
Jace sat down in the desk chair and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Hey,” Officer Taylor said, setting a hand on Jace’s shoulder. “You saved them tonight.”
Jace looked up at him. “I think it’s more like I put them in danger. I convinced Maddie to go dance.”
The officer shook his head. “If you hadn’t told them to use your restroom, they likely would have been taken out of here by those two men and raped.”
The hair on Jace’s arms stood on end.
“And if you hadn’t convinced her to go dance, those men would have targeted two other women, and I’d be dealing with a completely different call later tonight or tomorrow. Or perhaps no call at all, since these types of incidents go unreported often.”
“Jesus,” Jace whispered. A sinking feeling hit the pit of his stomach. He knew Officer Taylor had a point, but he still didn’t like the thought of it happening to anyone, even if they might catch the perpetrators at this point. They could take two sex offenders off the street all because they picked the wrong women.
“I’m going to go up front and help screen people who leave the club.”
Jace stood up and shook Officer Taylor’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We still need to get these guys.” The officer grabbed the photo of the guys off the printer before heading back into the club.
Jace sat back down at the computer and went to work creating the files Officer Taylor asked for. Within a few minutes, he had them all copied over to an email and sent.
Once that was finished, he ran through the footage of the men arguing with Robert after Maddie and Kayla disappeared down the hallway. When the men stalked off, they went back toward the dance floor and Jace followed them on the footage.
“Come on, assholes. Where are you hiding?” he muttered.
The men remained on the dance floor until the point Jace had left the bar and gone back to check on the girls. He leaned forward and watched the footage as they continued to dance with a few other women on the floor. Then he saw it again. They slipped something into those other women’s drinks.
Jace grabbed a walkie talkie off the line of chargers next to the desk and flipped it on. “Those men drugged two other women about fifteen minutes ago on the dance floor.” He gave descriptions of what the women were wearing as he continued to scroll through the footage.
When he hit current time and realized he was now watching the footage live, he saw the women walking toward the restroom.
“They’re heading toward the restroom,” he shouted into the walkie talkie as he fled out of the room and down the hallway.
He didn’t have to ask for Reggie to know to leave his post and follow Jace back toward the bathrooms. An emergency exit was near the restrooms that led into an alley. Jace looked around and didn’t see anyone matching the descriptions. Reggie checked the men’s restroom as Jace pushed his way into the alley.
Two men were practically dragging two women down the alley. Jace clenched the walkie talkie. “They’re in the alley,” he said into it before taking off in a run toward the guys.
They heard his feet hitting the pavement, and they immediately dropped the women and fled. The women staggered and clutched each other. Jace stopped long enough to help lower them to the pavement.
“Stay seated. Someone will be here to help you shortly.” Then he took off in the direction the men ran. Reggie had caught up to him at this point and ran with Jace.
One man tripped, making it easier for them to catch up, while the other hopped a fence and took off down the street.
Jace caught the man who tripped and immediately shoved him up to a wall, pinning him. The two of them were the same height and close to the same muscle mass as far as Jace could tell. But Jace had rage on his side, helping to hold the man down.
Reggie continued after the other man, but stopped at the fence. He gave directions into his walkie talkie with the direction the man went, which the other security personnel were relaying to the police officers.
Reggie jogged back over to where Jace was pinning the first guy. “The police are going after the other.”
Jace grabbed the guy’s shoulders and slammed him back into the wall. “You think it’s cool to drug women, jackass?”
The guy smirked. “Isn’t this far above your pay grade? Why do you care?”
Jace slammed him against the wall again. “One of those women you tried to take advantage of is my girlfriend. You picked the wrong people to fuck with.”
