Page 12 of Gator
I’d never had a conversation with a bird before, but she was ridiculously easy to understand. My agreeing with her that she was a bird and telling her she was pretty seemed to mollify her enough for me to keep going. “Okay, I’m going to check out the rest of the place.”
“If there was anyone else here, Trixie would tell us, but you go ahead if it makes you feel better.”
And it did make me feel better. The bird had obviously sounded the alert when it saw me, but it was a bird; it wasn’t like it actually understood what it was saying.
I paused and looked at Julius. “Please tell me when you said you had a security system that isn’t what you meant.” I pointed at the bird cage. I hadn’t seen him disarm any alarms when we came in, so I wasn’t sure.
He waggled his phone in the air. “No, I have a legit system. I turned it off in the car before I got out.”
“Good.”
It didn’t take me long to make a quick pass through the place and give him the go-ahead. I didn’t really want to leave him here, but I also wanted to do my part to try to locate the boy who was taken.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m good, honest. I mean, this night didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped, but there’s always next time, right?” He shrugged like it was no big deal. But it was, and I wanted him to know it.
I stepped up to him and brushed my thumb across his cheek. “Listen here, baby boy. I let you get away before. I don’t plan to make that mistake a second time.”
“But tonight you have a job to do,” he said.
I nodded. “I don’t know how much luck we’ll have finding him, but the police are on it, and we’ll help them in anyway possible.”
He drew in a breath and then let it out slowly. “Okay, you go do what you can.”
“I will.” I walked to the door. “You lock this behind me and don’t open for anyone you don’t know. And turn the alarm back on. The real one. The bird doesn’t count. You hear me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Daddy. I hear you.”
“Don’t be a brat. I want you safe.” I leaned down and placed a light kiss on his lips. “Call me if you need anything.”
He nodded, and I opened the door to step out when Trixie called out clear as day, “Daddy’s leaving. Bye, bye, Daddy.”
I shot Julius a look, and I could tell he was doing his best to hold in a laugh. I shook my head and left.
I was glad Wolfe had given me something to do. Carmine had assured us that the police department would do everything they could to find the boy, but that wasn’t good enough. Whoever these guys were, they snatched that boy right out from under the Three Bears’ eyes. I mean, we weren’t working and had no idea anything was going on, but still, it didn’t sit well with any of us.
It was close to midnight by the time I got to the office. I stopped in the break room, got a couple of cups of coffee, and went straight to the ops center. Kat was sitting at her computer in her pajamas, hard at work. I stepped up behind her and saw her watching the tapes from inside the club.
She looked back over her shoulder at me, and I held out one of the coffees. “Thanks, Gator.”
“Any luck so far?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Right now, I’m focused on trying to identify the boy. He never once looks at the camera out in the alley. Luckily, he was wearing a sparkly hot pink crop top that stands out even in a crowd.”
She tapped the screen where a small guy in a pink top was standing at the bar. “This is him right here.”
“Okay, that’s progress, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “It is. I’ll find a good frontal shot and then run him through my face recognition software and see what I find. Next, I’m going to see what I can do about the guys in the alley. The camera out there is only so clear because it was dark.”
“Did you find anything on the car?”
“Just a partial plate that matches a bunch of cars across the state. It’ll be useful to confirm things once we have a suspect, though. Wolfe wants me to pass along any information I have to Officer Russo, but I’ll keep you updated, as well.”
Chapter five
Julius