Royce(4)

“Where is she?” he asked them as they headed to the elevator. His heart was pounding in his chest and he hoped to Christ that she was all right. “What happened?”

“She was in the bathroom when I left her. She’s beat up pretty bad. Christ.” Daniel leaned back against the wall as the elevator started down. “I didn’t go and check on her sooner so I didn’t get in there on time.”

Royce nearly dropped to the floor. “Someone…someone beat up Mom? What…she’s gone?”

Daniel straightened up and looked at him. “What are you talking about? I’m talking about that girl from this morning. She was beat up. Though I don’t know why anyone would tangle with her, but he did.”

The girl from… “The York girl? Someone beat her up? What happened?”

The elevator slid open onto the lobby. The place was quiet and the only people who looked out of place were them. The ambulance rolled to a stop in front of the building before he could ask again what had happened. Jesse led them to the back part of the first floor where the security offices were. Royce stepped into the room just as the medics began working on…a man? He looked at his brother.

“I thought you said she was beat up. I’m reasonably sure you know the difference between a male and female.” Royce looked back at the man from this morning as he whimpered on the floor. “Where is she if he looks like this? And where is the person who beat them up?”

Royce thought it a reasonable question. He was confused when Jesse starting laughing and Daniel flushed. Before he could ask again Mike White began howling like someone was trying to murder him.

“Quiet,” Royce snapped. The room did just that. “Now, who did this to you?”

“She did. She’s nothing but a fucking cunt. I didn’t do…you have no idea what it’s like to come to work every day afraid of your employees. She hit me. Hit me with a…she used a club. Yes, a club. I’m suing her for…oh, I’m in so much pain.”

Royce looked at his brother with a raised brow.

“Bathroom. She was bleeding pretty well before I left. I told her to sit still, but she had to throw up.”

Rubbing his fingers over his forehead, Royce went to the bathroom that Jesse had indicated. Royce knocked and waited. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked harder and announced he was coming in.

The room was empty. He could see where someone, presumably the girl, had rinsed blood from somewhere in one of the sinks, but there was no one in here. He looked under the three stall doors before opening them and still, no girl. He came out of the bathroom and entered the men’s room just in case. No one was there either. He went to speak to Daniel and Jesse.

“She’s gone. Where could she have gone? Do we know if she had someone take her to the hospital?” Royce noticed that the officer that had been with her this morning was trying to move away. “Stop right there.”

“She left,” he said as soon as Royce was in front of him. “She probably went home, but she ain’t here. Poor girl. She won’t go to the hospital, so she’ll either be at her aunt’s by now or her own place, though that ain’t much of a place I’d want to be in if’n I was hurt.”

Royce didn’t know what that meant and was frankly too pissed to care. He took a deep breath and tried for patience. He had very little under normal circumstances and this was proving to push him very close to the end of his tether.

“Can you give me the address to both places? And have my car brought around.” Royce turned to Daniel. “Go with White and make sure he keeps his mouth shut until we can figure this out. Jesse, can you—”

“Her uncle needs to be told. He’ll wanna go with you if’n you go to his house.”

Royce turned to the guard who spoke behind him.

“Her uncle is Jay York. He’s the armament.”

Royce heard his brother move away. He hoped to get the girl’s uncle. Royce pulled out his cell phone as he stepped from the desk. He watched as the medics took a now quiet White out of the building with Daniel right next to him. The phone was answered on the second ring.

“Yes, sir.”

He smiled at the voice at the other end. The unflappable Mrs. Bobbie Noel had been his secretary for nearly as long as he’d been working.

“I need some information on one of the security guards. Address, phone number, if she’s been in trouble before. Her last name is York.”

“Kasey York?”

That shocked him. Both that she knew who the girl was and the tone of her voice.

“What’s happened? Her uncle? Or…oh God, not her mother, is it?”