Love You Madly(42)
Death would be too good for this punk.
If Travis was disturbed by this new revelation, he didn’t show it. “So you’re paid to deliver girls. Where?”
“To this safe house. I told you.”
“Why? What are they doing with the girls?”
The question hung in the air, and Meredith strained to hear the response.
“I don’t usually ask.” He sounded sullen. Travis pressed the gun against the bleeding flesh wound on Matt’s thigh, and he howled again.
“You probably could venture a guess. Try.”
“Sex. Okay? I think they’re used as prostitutes. All I know is I deliver the girls to the place and I get my money. Anything beyond that I’m not usually given details.”
“Nor would you want them, huh?” Meredith said, no longer able to stay silent. “Then you might feel some guilt for selling these girls into human bondage. There’s a special place in hell for people like you, and I for one hope that you find that place sooner rather than later.”
“Is that what you did with the girl in the photo?” Travis asked, not skipping a beat. “Tell me about her.”
“I’d seen her a couple of times. At some of the other parties. It was Lance who pointed her out again last weekend. Said to bring her in, but she and that guy took off before I had the chance. Then she came alone on Wednesday, and I did what I was told.”
“You drugged her, didn’t you?”
“It’s harmless. Just makes it easier for everyone.”
Travis smacked the kid in the head with the gun. “Easier for you, you mean. Not the girls you’re kidnapping. That you’re selling. Did you take her to the same place we’re heading?”#p#分页标题#e#
Matt nodded. “Shit,” he whined. “I’m bleeding out here.”
“You would only be so lucky,” she said.
Neither she nor Travis spoke again, each lost in their thoughts as Matt gave the directions. He’d at least confirmed for her that Darcy had been taken. That she was possibly even at the place they were heading to now, alive. Waiting for Meredith to save her.
She wouldn’t disappoint her.
The neighborhood Travis pulled into wasn’t what Meredith had expected. The two-story white-sided house with black shutters and a sign out front that advertised psychic readings didn’t look like the crack house she’d envisioned. It was so…middle-class. In an unassuming neighborhood in the middle of the freaking suburbs.
“How do you make the drop?” Travis asked.
“Pull up into the driveway, flash the headlights. The garage door opens, pull in. Once the door shuts, someone comes out and accepts the pack—girl. Then I leave.”
Travis pulled up to the curb, stopping short of the house’s driveway. They studied the place in silence. “Why don’t we just call the police?” Meredith finally asked. “Tell them what he explained.”
“Not without proof,” Travis said. “Right now we only have his word. And from all appearances, the house looks completely legit. Quiet. For all we know, the house is clean. Cleared days ago of any evidence. Bring the police in right now without proof and we’ve shot any credibility we have. We just need to get inside. See what’s going on.”
Meredith realized the truth of what he said. She could just envision the look on the officer’s face who’d initially taken her police report, certain she was a crazy overprotective mother. If she called them with this story, they’d laugh her off the line.
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’ve got a plan. You up for it, Mer?”
Chapter Eleven
Meredith tried to imagine the vacant look in the eyes of the girls she’d seen at the club. Stoned, almost. Confused. She hoped she could pull this off.
“Don’t forget, Matt, that I’ll have my gun trained on the center of your spinal cord. I’m a very good aim. Don’t try anything funny,” Travis said from behind the driver’s seat, crouched low and flat on the floor with a blanket they found in the back thrown over him. “Go.”
Matt pulled up into the driveway and flashed the beams. As he’d said, a minute later the garage door opened. Meredith tried to still the rapid beat of her heart, the breathing that was becoming more and more shallow in her panic.
Think of your daughter. She’s inside. Waiting for you. You can’t blow this.
When the door was high enough to clear the car, Matt pulled in and put the car in park. They waited as the garage door shut behind. Trapping them inside.
Meredith heard a door open and then close again before the car door was thrust open by a guy in jeans and cowboy boots. “Where did you get this pile-of-shit car?” the guy asked.