Champ and I had a silent conversation where he communicated with a series of increasingly violent head nods that he expected me to take care of this situation, and I blinked back at him innocently like I had no idea what he was talking about.
I’d take a bullet for the man, but weeping women gave me hives.
Finally, Champ stepped forward. “Who’s your brother, Miss…?”
“Nutter. Kandi Nutter. Buck’s my big brother. And they took him!” She wailed again, this time throwing herself against Champ’s chest as she did so.
Champ turned to glare at me, like just by saying Buck Nutter’s name, I’d conjured his sister and that somehow this whole situation, including the mascara stains on his shirt, was my fault, which it wasn’t.
“What makes you think someone took him, ma’am?” Champ asked, guiding her to the lone chair in the lobby and handing her a tissue from the box on the desk.
“Well, he’s gone, isn’t he? Just up and left town without telling me or anyone in the family.” She sniffled. “And he wouldn’t do that. Not Buck. He’s the kind who doesn’t go so far as the front porch without tellin’ everyone he knows.” She blew her nose, not very delicately. “Never been one for keeping secrets, our Buck.”
I gave Champ a look that said, Are you gonna explain to her that her totes-not-secretive brother’s probably on the run in a secret location with his secret stolen intellectual property, or am I?
Champ rolled his eyes.
“And what possible motive could someone have for kidnapping him?” he asked with a perfect poker face. “Who’d want to do such a thing?”
The waterworks stopped on a dime, and her expression turned hard. “If I knew their names, I’d have already taken care of the situation. I’m a Nutter. I have resources. All I know is, Buck was trying to sell… er, something,” she said cagily. “Something on the internet. He changed his mind in the end, but it was too late.”
“Something?” I repeated. “Like… collectible figurines?”
“Well, no. They wanted to get their greedy hands on his Horn, obviously.” She blinked up at us. “Like from the game Horn of Glory?”
I’d been afraid of that. Except it probably wasn’t his Horn they wanted; it was his Magic Seed.
I didn’t say that out loud, though, because Champ had already started making wheezy, pained sorts of noises at the mention of Horns, and it was all I could do to fake a cough to cover my laugh.
I’d had no idea that the man was so incredibly pun-averse until he’d set up our offices in Licking Thicket, Tennessee, and the jokes had started writing themselves. For the record, I absolutely never made those puns on purpose just to watch his eyebrow twitch because that would have been wrong. Ahem.
He shot me another angry look, like he’d heard my laughter… or like he thought it was my fault that the disgruntled programmer had had advance knowledge of his impending layoff and had taken off with a back door to the HOG system, which he was apparently trying to sell to a dangerous criminal and which might or might not have gotten him kidnapped for reasons I couldn’t fathom.
And… okay, yeah, come to think of it, that one was probably on me.
“We know what Horn of Glory is,” Champ admitted reluctantly. “The video game HOG Corporate produces—”
“Horn of Glory ain’t just a video game,” Kandi said passionately. “It’s a whole lifestyle. It’s literally the most popular video game system on earth ever, even though it’s only been out for a few months. I think half the people in the world must have a Horn! The first-generation Horn devices sold out in a day and a half. And my brother was the one who came up with the whole idea for the game while he was driving a tractor on our great-uncle Amos’s farm. He made the original Horn prototype. He did all the coding for the game too, even though it took him years. It was his life’s work. And now he’s gone. And I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure he didn’t go voluntarily.” She sniffled again. “Or, like, maybe eighty-two percent. Something big like that.”
“Something big like that.” Champ nodded sagely. “Uh-huh. And have you taken your concerns to HOG Corporate?”
“No way.” Kandi’s eyes flashed. “I wouldn’t warn Jacob Horn if a tornado was heading for the Thicket. Not after the way he treated Buck. Besides, y’all are HOG’s security folks, and there wouldn’t be any HOG without Buck Nutter, so I figure all y’all should, you know, secure him.”
“Secure him,” I repeated, scratching my head. “From an unknown location. Where he may or may not have gone voluntarily.”
Let’s face it; it was almost definitely voluntarily.
Champ shot me a look. “What Mr. Riggs is trying to say is that there isn’t a lot of information to go on, Ms. Nutter. Was Buck’s passport taken? Were any of his clothes or suitcases gone? Can anyone access his accounts to see if he’d made any large purchases or withdrawals?”