Wes tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling of the warehouse in utter weariness. “You know, I might be able to answer these questions a lot more effectively if the duct tape around my wrists and ankles wasn’t cutting off the circulation to my brain.”
Donovan smirked. “Nice try, Officer. It’s not happening.”
“Untie him.”
Wes’s head snapped up to attention. He stared at Flynn, wondering if the order was genuine or not. Apparently, Donovan had the same thing on his mind.
“What?” he asked in a disbelieving tone.
“I said untie him,” repeated Flynn. “From the chair, at the very least. Let him stand and stretch.”
“Why?”
“Davenport, just fucking do it.”
Reluctantly, Donovan approached Wes. Wes kept a wary eye on the Raptor as he knelt at Wes’s feet with a Swiss Army knife and started hacking at the duct tape. It only took a minute or so to free Wes’s ankles, and when he was finally able to stretch his legs out in front of him, he let out a long groan of relief. Under Donovan’s gaze, Wes cautiously stood up, his hands still bound behind his back, and shook out his limbs. He’d lost track of how long it had been since he arrived at the warehouse, but it had grown darker, and golden sunbeams penetrated the high windows to illuminate the bland room. Wes looked up, watching the dust particles dance through the light, and wondered where Nicole was. As the hours wore on, he worried that he would never see her again. Then again, it was Nicole. If the Raptors hadn’t tracked her down yet, she was doing a pretty solid job of flying under the radar.
Suddenly, a sharp kick to Wes’s right hamstring caused his knees to buckle. He thunked to the floor. Unable to use his hands to steady him, his teeth grated at the impact. He glared up at Donovan.
“The concussion wasn’t enough, asshole?” spat Wes. “I thought you wanted me to cooperate.”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” said Donovan with a smile. Behind him, Flynn rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. You can cut out all the fortune-cookie bullshit.”
“Ma’am, what exactly is the point of untying him?” Donovan asked Flynn. “He’s even more annoying unhindered.”
“Show him the lock on the trunk.”
Wes repositioned a foot on the ground, testing his weight on his bruised knees, but Donovan seized him by the back of his police jacket, as if picking up a puppy by the scruff of its neck, and dragged him over to the reinforced trunk.
Wes, at eye level with the strangely shaped keyhole, peered impatiently at it. “What am I looking at here, and what am I supposed to be telling you about it?”
“Does it look like a regular key is meant to fit into that lock?” asked Flynn.
It sure didn’t. The lock was a peculiar one to say the least. It was shaped much like a curved, upside-down V. A run-of-the-mill key would never be able to pop open the trunk.
No matter how obvious the answer, Flynn seemed to be waiting for a verbal affirmation from Wes. “No,” he said shortly.
“Excellent observation.” Flynn walked over to the trunk, kneeling down beside Wes. “Anything about it seem familiar?”
Wes kept his mouth shut. At first glance, the shape of the keyhole simply confused him, but the longer he stared at it, the more familiar the odd outline became. Nicole had never truly known her parents, and as such, hadn’t been attached to many things of theirs. In fact, Nicole hadn’t really inherited much of anything at all from her mother and father, but there was one thing that she had made a point of holding on to.
“Well?” demanded Flynn.
“I have no idea,” lied Wes. He kept his gaze on the lock, afraid that if he looked Flynn in the eye that she would see straight through him.
She stood up and growled in frustration. “That’s it. I’ve had enough. Donovan, let’s speed this process up, shall we?”
Donovan stepped forward, and a wild grin spread from his mouth and lit up his eyes. “Oh? What do you suggest?”
“Perhaps Officer McAllen just needs a little persuasion to jog his memory,” said Flynn. She ran her fingers almost lovingly through Wes’s hair then grabbed a handful of it and yanked his head back. He grimaced but didn’t make a sound.
“Find the girl,” Flynn ordered Donovan.
18
Patience might’ve been a virtue, but it was a virtue Catherine Lockwood never claimed to possess. She waited in the Raptors’ clubhouse, a hidden collection of rooms in the bowels of the Waverly library, checking the expensive rose-gold watch that decorated her wrist every few minutes. For now, the clubhouse was empty. It was the middle of the night, and most of the other Raptors had retired for the evening. Either that or they were conducting BRS business elsewhere.
Usually, Catherine loved having the clubhouse to herself. It was where she was most comfortable and confident on the Waverly campus. Here, she had standing. She was renowned in these underground hallways, though infamously so, and she often fantasized about the day she would become head of the society’s notorious council. Of course, that would only happen if she proved herself better than her brother.
Today, Catherine found it hard to stay still. She paced the clubhouse’s meeting room, taking hurried laps around the lengthy dining table. As the minutes wore on, she grew more and more agitated. It had been nearly a month since her last fruitless discussion with Anthony. Since then, he’d grown even more reclusive, avoiding the Raptors as much as possible. Twice, Catherine had caught a glimpse of him on campus. Both times, he had been with that infernal Natasha, and damned if he hadn’t looked happier than Catherine had ever seen him
