She didn’t try to act unreasonable, backing off once he let her know he wasn’t unattached, which left him relieved. He had known women that preferred to cling to their prey, no matter whether they were interested or not, attached or not, on occasions he went to high end bars and clubs with some of his clients.
Putting the experience behind him, he continued toward the table. The two mercs had long taken note of him already. Samuel took the third seat at the table, and almost immediately a waitress approached them. He noticed the other two had already ordered, but he waved the waitress away himself.
He didn’t mind the occasional drink, but he wanted to be as clear headed as possible until Camila and Adrien were found.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Kane,” one of the mercs said, extending a hand across to him for a shake. “I’m Chris.”
“I’m Brandon. We promise not to waste your time.” He gave Samuel a hard smile.
“It’s good to finally meet you both,” he said, taking the handshakes. “And please, call me Samuel. I assume you have some good news for me or you wouldn’t have called me out. I didn’t know the two of you were working together.”
They shared a glance between themselves.
“We weren’t so much together as we both had the same ideas and the same clues,” Chris said. “We both followed them and ended up in the same place.”
Brandon reached inside his pocket and pulled out a brown envelope. “We found your brother’s car, a Mercedes. It was dumped up in Poughkeepsie, though tracking it all the way there wasn’t easy. It wasn’t in the list of cars you gave us, but it’s registered under his name.”
Samuel took the envelope and opened it. Inside were pictures, and he looked over them quickly. He saw a car that he didn’t recognize, and several locations that he didn’t know, either. He fingered one of the shots that showed blood on the driver’s seat, about shoulder height, he thought.
Morganna did get him with that shot. He frowned. What could Adrien have been doing all the way up there? Did he seek out a doctor to fix his wound?
“Can you tell me what else you found there?” he said, looking up at them. “People he met, places he went, like a hospital or clinic? Any possibility that could lead to where he went?”
“There wasn’t much else to be found there,” Chris said. “No hospital or clinic records. Finding the car in itself was a bit of a hassle. But he didn’t stay there long and finding people he talked to wasn’t exactly easy. But once we were working together, we did find some things.”
“Around that area, not long after your brother showed up, an old black Ford sedan was stolen from the same lot he parked the Mercedes in. It was dark, no witnesses. He left as soon as he parked the car, but it’s possible he went back to pick up the other car, because no one was around when it was taken. The guy in charge of looking after the lot must have thought the owner probably picked it, because he didn’t make a report to the police, not until the owner showed up for the Ford a day later.”
“The police haven’t picked up the clue yet,” Chris said. “But we asked around some more and tracked down the movement of the Ford as soon as it left the lot. There was a camera that showed it pulling out, there’s no clear picture of the driver, it was too dark, but just in case it was your brother, it looked like he was heading Upstate, and it appeared he was alone in the vehicle, though someone could have been laying in the backseat. Hard to say for sure.”
“Upstate?” Samuel repeated, frowning.
Going back to the pictures, he saw they even had some shots of the missing Ford, it must have been taken from the cameras in the area because the image wasn’t as clear. What he didn’t understand, was what Adrien would have been thinking, and where he was going.
Right then, Samuel was regretting the need to make this situation private. It just wouldn’t be wise to publicize that they were looking for a criminal with his face, though. Even if he attached that it was Adrien Kane and not Samuel Kane, it would have caused an uproar. Of course, it wasn’t just solely because of reputation that he wasn’t doing everything possible to have Adrien’s face plastered all over. Even if his own face got saddled with words like kidnapper, murderer, convict, he could deal with it.
Showing his face, though, would only make people act unreasonably. He wouldn’t even be able to go out like this, so the police were being discreet in their search so as not to create an uproar that would be worse for the investigation.
“We thought we’d better come to you with this information,” Brandon said. “So you can decide whether to hand it over to the police or ask your own people to go after him. I will warn you that this means there’ll be a lot of ground to cover if your brother is to be found, because it won’t be easy to tell how far he’s gone.”
“Thank you for this,” Samuel said, knowing he would have to leave this to the cops because of their superior manpower. His guys still weren’t prepared for this kind of thing, no matter how much training they had. “Here’s the ten grand for each of you.” Samuel gave them each envelopes. “Come up with anything else and there is a bonus to go with that.” He nodded toward the envelope. “Thanks for your help. You can’t know how much this—” he stopped for a moment, and then said. “Just, thank you.”
“We completely understand, sir.”
“We’ll be in touch if we hear anything else.”
With a nod, Samuel got up and left them there, pulling out a few bills and leaving it on the table to pay for their drinks.
A lead.
He had a lead.
Samuel felt like it was a miracle. It gave them a lot of ground to cover, but it was the first lead that had been found in this case, and at least they would know where to start looking. The police could handle how they did the search, but Samuel already planned to be involved in it.
He drove home like a mad man, several times going against traffic rules, but he didn’t care right then. No sirens blared after him, so he ignored it. He arrived home in record time and jumped out of the car. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him, even leaving the keys in the ignition. Michael would find it and drive it over to the garage.
Inside, he found Morganna and Brianna keeping each other company. Morganna was good with Brianna, even better than Camila was, and it had surprised him when she managed to get through to Brianna when even he couldn’t, but he could only be grateful for her presence. At least now he could say he had something for her.
“There’s news,” he said as soon as he entered, causing the two of them to look up at him.