Page 11

Janelle rolled stiffly inside the laundry bag, trying to make herself more comfortable.

Her kidnapper glared over at her. “Don’t try any funny stuff.”

She glared right back at him. “I’m sore and I’m stiff,” she snapped. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Lie still,” he barked. His gaze flew to the blacked-out window to study what was going on around them. He’d already made two phone calls, asking the same question, and he’d been laughing ever since. Now he studied the activity in the parking lot. Then he stilled and whispered, “Well, I’ll be. There he is.”

She groaned, trying not to think about what might have transpired.

“Who would have thought a bitch like you would be worth it, after all?” he asked, followed by more laughter. “Granddad will be damn happy.”

When he turned on the engine, she spoke up. “Wait, wait. You said, if he did it, you would let me go.”

He turned and gave her a sneer. “Why the hell would I let you go?” he asked. “You’ll just run your mouth and tell them all about who I am and what I’m doing. No fucking way. I’ll find a place to ditch you somewhere along the highway.” And, with that, he put the van in gear and slowly started to pull out of the parking lot.

“That’s not fair,” she screamed. When he ignored her, she continued screaming as loud as she could, bending over and twisting at the hip to kick the side of the van over and over again.

He started swearing at her, now screaming too. “You stupid cunt, knock it off. I’m trying to drive.”

But she wouldn’t stop screaming at an absolute maximum pitch, as she called out to the world for help, hoping that somebody, anybody, would hear her.

Then the van stopped, and out of nowhere a hard slam hit her in the face, and she cried out.

He grinned at her. “Are you trying to make my life a fucking nightmare? Is that what you’re trying to do?” He shook his head. “Well, guess what, bitch? You’re still in my possession, and, if you think you’re fucking getting away with this, you’re not. Believe me that this isn’t your deal. This isn’t your time to get free. No fucking way I’m letting you go now.”

Suddenly the rear door opened, and somebody jumped inside with a roar. All of a sudden, her attacker was flung outside onto the pavement. He hopped to his feet, his fists coming up, and he danced right into Guilliam’s fist. It took several hard blows before the asshole went down. She wiggled her way over to the edge of the door, watching as she struggled to get out of the stupid laundry bag.

As soon as Janelle got her arms free, she watched as the punk went down one more time. This time he stayed down.

Breathing hard, Guilliam turned and rushed to her and asked, “Are you okay?”

She nodded, tears rolling down her face. “I’m okay. I’m okay,” she muttered, throwing her arms around him.

He held her tight and whispered, “Jeez, that was close.”

“I know. It really was. I couldn’t… I couldn’t get him to stop. I kept screaming and crying at him to stop, but he kept driving. Then he pulled off to the side because I was screaming and kicking the walls.”

“I was trailing the van, and, as I got closer, I could hear you.”

“Thank God, thank God. He was going to—” She couldn’t stop crying.

“I know.… I know.” He held her close, even as he pulled out his phone and called somebody. She heard him, over her sobs. “I’ve got her. I’ve got Janelle. She’s safe. I just need a hand out here with this asshole.”

She heard voices on the phone and knew that help was on the way, and she finally calmed down enough to sag against him, her arms clutching him tightly. “What is wrong with this world?”

“There’s a lot wrong with it, but, in this case, it’s basically an old man who ran amok for a long time. He used his money and power to scare people into doing his bidding. Power, control, and hatred drove him to commit God-only-knows how many crimes,” Guilliam explained.

She frowned. “An old man did this?”

He gave her half a smile. “Something like that. Yeah.”

“What? Why?” she asked. “How the hell did he do that?”

“We’re still working on it, but he had some help.”

“Yeah, everybody around him probably,” she muttered.

He smiled. “Definitely some people were looking after him, yes. And now some of them are claiming that they were forced.”

Safe in the circle of his arms, she pondered that and nodded. “It’s quite possible. But not this guy, not this one.”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed to her kidnapper, the unconscious guy on the ground. “He wasn’t forced to do this. He did it quite happily on his own.”

Guilliam looked down at his prisoner and nodded. “You could be right.”

“Oh, I’m definitely right,” she murmured. “He told me that, for him, it was all about the money. He’s doing this just for the money.” He frowned at that, and she nodded. “I don’t know what kind of money he’s hoping to get, but, according to him, his granddad is supposed to leave him quite a pile of money—billions—if he took care of this one last job.”

“One last job?” Guilliam repeated.

She nodded. “This one last job. According to this asshole, he’s been cleaning up a lot of the things that didn’t work out so well.”

“He’s the one who’s killed everybody on base related to Mason’s sniper attack?” Guilliam asked, shock in his voice.

“I don’t know specifically about your four or five dead people who were involved in shooting Mason, but the jerk certainly seemed to think that he’d done enough to deserve whatever his granddad was handing out. Not only deserved it, but was owed it.”

“Interesting,” Guilliam muttered.

“And you can see it. This guy’s a bit of an asshole anyway,” she stated, glaring down at the unconscious man.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not as you much as you might expect,” she replied. “He hit me several times but could have hurt me a lot more. When he drove off with me just now, he made it very clear that I wouldn’t survive the day. So I started screaming and kicking the van. When I wouldn’t shut up, that’s when he stopped and started hitting me again. By then, my screams were for real too. I was just hoping that somehow somebody would hear me.”

He nodded, his hand stroking her back. “I heard you,” he whispered. “I was already out there looking for you, trying to figure out which van you were in or which building or which vehicle you could possibly be hidden in.”

“I’m grateful that you found me. Jeez, what a nightmare.” She looked up at him and added, “It’s all so surreal. I’m still dealing with the fact that my mother just passed away.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“You were supposed to come right back,” she stated in an accusing tone.

“I was back here—and right on time—but you had already been picked up and taken out.”

“I was just sitting there in the room with my mother. That’s all I was doing.” She shook her head. “Just figuring out how to say goodbye, and then this asshole steps in. I glared at him, saying that I needed a few minutes with my mother. I didn’t even register it was him. He just looked at me, smiled, and hit me on the head. When I woke up, I was in some laundry room in one of those big push carts. I talked to him just briefly, and, the next thing I know, I ended up out here again, in this van, where I woke up the second time.”

“Good to know,” Guilliam said. “The question is, do we have anybody else involved in this? I don’t want anybody getting away with it, and we can’t afford to have anybody coming back after Mason.”

“God, I hope not,” she muttered. “It’s hard to believe this many people were involved as it is.”

“I don’t think most of them were involved by choice,” he pointed out.

She winced at that and nodded. “No, I rather imagine an asshole like this one has many ways to make people’s lives miserable. He’s just that kind of a guy.”

“And he talked to you?”

“Sure. All about how his Granddad was dying and was leaving him a ton of money,… if he did this last job. I suspect there’s been an awful lot of prior jobs too. He mentioned something about blackmail only working to a certain point , and then people do shit that he couldn’t even understand. So then he had to go clean up the mess.”

“And that would probably explain Drew’s death.”

“My kidnapper did seem quite perturbed that the job on Mason hadn’t been done, as if Mason had somebody watching over him.”

“Yeah, he does, his wife,” Guilliam noted absentmindedly.

“More than that though, like there may have been a reason that he hadn’t been killed yet.”

Guilliam nodded. “A lot of people are superstitious, and, when someone survives a close attempt on their life like Mason did, some people tend to get rattled and don’t want to be involved.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m now classified as surviving an attempt on my life, but I won’t be taking anything for granted after this.”

“Not only that,” he added, looking at her, speaking in a gentle tone, “you also just watched somebody you cared deeply about pass away.”

The tears started again, and she wiped them clear. “That is very true,” she murmured. “It’s not fair. I’m grateful that she’s not suffering anymore and that I got to say goodbye, but damn.” She sighed. “This is not the way I expected my day to go.”

“No, and maybe it’s for the best that it did end up this way,” he suggested. “Just think about it. You’re here. You’re safe, and that asshole isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, unless it’s to jail.”

“But you don’t know if that’s all the pieces, do you?”

“Right, I don’t, which is why we’re not taking the guards off Mason just yet.”

“Does that mean I’m not safe either?”

He nodded. “We will treat it like you’re not safe, just because.” She looked up at him and frowned, and he shrugged. “I don’t want you to go through anything like that ever again.”

“Yeah, me neither,” she muttered. “I’m just not sure how you could stop it, not if someone is intent on taking me out.”

“I don’t think that avenue will be used again, but I’m not sure,” he admitted, with a sad smile at her, as he pushed the hair off her face. “When dealing with an asshole like this, unfortunately they have their own ideas about what they should or shouldn’t do. Plus, he was getting desperate, or at least he was desperate.” Guilliam stared off in the distance. “Until I talk to him, I won’t know what the hell he is now. I need you to stay right here, while I search the van.”

“No,” she argued, gripping him hard. “We’re not going anywhere until this guy is secured. I want your friends to come and confirm that, if anything happens, this asshole gets knocked out again. He’s got a weapon in here somewhere, and I don’t want to take the chance of his waking up and pulling something on both of us.”

He smiled and gave her a gentle kiss on the temple. “Got it.” He quickly grabbed the asshole and secured him with something he’d found in the back of the van. He looked over at her and asked, “Did he use these on you?”

She looked down to see the weird ties. “Maybe. I don’t know. It was dark in the back of the van. Plus, I was in a laundry bag too. He secured me with something, both my hands and my feet. When I could hardly feel my arms, he did release the pressure so I could at least breathe and stretch them out a bit.” She again looked at the ties on her kidnapper. “I guess they were like that.”

Guilliam nodded, quickly securing his feet now. “He won’t be going anywhere.” He hopped into the van and, within seconds, had found several weapons. “Now this is interesting,” he noted, showing them to Janelle. “We should get some very interesting forensic information off these.”

By the time he stepped out of the van, both Jasper and Masters had arrived, with Gideon crossing the road, from where he’d just parked. With the kidnapper on the ground in front of them, Guilliam quickly explained what happened. Jasper looked over at Janelle, and she shrugged.

“I didn’t do anything, honest. I was screaming for dear life,” she muttered.

“It’s a good thing you did,” Jasper noted. “It was loud enough for this guy to hear you.”

“Thank God for that,” she muttered. “I don’t think I could go through that again.”

“And there is no need for it either.” Jasper looked back over at Masters. “How’s Mason?”

“He’s fine. He was awake a little bit earlier, enough for me to talk to him for a moment. He didn’t stay awake for long. He’s back under again now, but we’ll let Tesla know that everything’s okay and that we have the kidnapper.”

“Maybe tell her that my mother is gone,” Janelle added. “Tesla and I are friends.”

“Right. I’m sorry about that.”

She sniffled, then nodded. “It’s all right. Considering the rest of my day, that part was normal in a way. The good news is, she’s at peace now.”

“And you got a chance to say goodbye, before this asshole snatched you,” Jasper pointed out.

“Yes,” she agreed, giving Jasper a haunted look. “I can’t imagine how I would feel if I’d found out she had died before I was back with her.”

“Thankfully that’s not an issue here.” Jasper turned to Guilliam. “You need to take her home.”

“I will, but we have this guy to interrogate.”

Jasper eyed their prisoner and stated, “We’ll take him back to the office.” Then he frowned at Janelle.

“I know. You want me out of the way.” She raised both hands. “I’m more than happy to go home. I would like to have a hot bath, cry for a couple hours, down an entire bottle of wine, and find myself completely unconscious for at least twelve hours.”

Gideon laughed. “After what you’ve been through, that’s probably not a bad idea.” He looked at the other two team members. “We need to set her up with a guard though.”

“I don’t get that part,” Janelle pointed out. “Everything about me was an attempt to make Guilliam do something, and now that it’s over with, wouldn’t it be foolish for them to come back after me? Is anybody even left to do it? At what point do they just run out of bad guys?”

“I would have thought they’d run out a hell of a long time ago,” Gideon replied, as he put away his phone. “But on a happier note, I now have a guard arranged. He will pick you up and take you home.”

“And how do I know I can trust him?” she asked.

He smiled. “Do you know any of Tesla’s friends?”

“I know a bunch of them, and most of Mason’s crew.”

“Would you trust them?” Gideon asked.

“Sure, that’s what they do.”

“Exactly.”

Within minutes, another vehicle drove up, and she looked over at the driver, and then her face lit up. “Evan? Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you in forever.” He grinned as he walked over. She raced into his arms, and he gave her a big hug. He looked at the others over the top of her head, and she caught the silent glances back and forth. “I know. I know, but, fine, I’ll go.”

“Does that mean you trust me enough to keep you safe? I’m glad if that’s the case,” Evan teased.

“You’re not like that asshole on the ground,” she muttered. She looked over at Guilliam. “I would be totally okay if you kicked the shit out of him again.”

He laughed. “Not necessary, as he’s not going anywhere.”

“Maybe not,” she agreed, “but he’s definitely ruined my peace of mind,… probably for the rest of my life.”

“You’ll get it back,” he noted calmly. “Not to worry, as this won’t be the way it ends.”

“You say that but…” she added.

“And I mean it too,” he pointed out. “Absolutely no way this ends like this. However, we do need to interrogate this guy. So, as much as I would love to take you home myself, I need to be here to see what the hell’s going on.”

“I get it,” she said, with a sigh, then looked over at Evan. “Looks like you’re it.”

He smiled. “I am more than happy to be it. Come on. Let’s get you home.” And, with that, he gently put an arm around her shoulders and led her to his car.

When a shout came from behind her, she turned to see Guilliam walking toward her. She looked up at him, feeling her heart aching, whether because of him, what had happened to her with the asshole, or still about her mother passing.

He folded her in his arms, held her close, and whispered, “I’ll be by later tonight, okay? We can talk then.”

She lifted her tear-streaked face and shared, “I could be asleep.”

“That’s fine. I’m still coming by.”

She gave him a smile that she knew was probably the first real smile she’d had since this nightmare began, and she nodded. “Thank you.”

“This just might be a whole new beginning.”

“I hope so. Whatever this ending is, it sucks.” She reached out, kissed him on the cheek, and added, “I’ll talk to you later.” And, with that, she looped her arm through Evan’s and let him walk her to his vehicle.

*

Guilliam watched Janelle leave, forcing his hands into his pants pockets instead of reaching out and snagging her back into his arms.

“I didn’t think you could let her go there for a minute,” Jasper noted at his side.

“I wasn’t sure either,” he muttered. “You know what I want to do.”

“Of course. We’ve all been through it.”

“I know.” He turned back to the asshole on the ground, surprised to see him staring up at him. Such a calculating look filled his gaze that Guilliam wanted to clock him one. In fact, he walked closer and bent down.

Jasper grabbed him and muttered, “Nope. We’re not doing that.” When Guilliam glared at him, Jasper shook his head. “I know. Believe me that I know, but we need answers.”

Their prisoner just laughed. “I’m not giving you any answers,” he sneered. “Ain’t nothing you can do that will get me to talk.”

“Yeah? How about the fact that your dear old grandfather, the one you’re counting on for all that money, is nearly broke?”

The kidnapper stared at him and shook his head. “That’s not true,” he cried out.

“Why do you think he’s staying in that run-of-the-mill old folks’ home instead of some fancy private place?”

He blinked and shook his head. “He’s always been thrifty.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jasper quipped. “Not that the money will make a damn bit of difference to you, not from prison.”

They loaded him up into one of the vehicles from the base, and then, driving his own car, Guilliam arranged to meet them back at their offices.

Hopefully they had the whole gang now, all the people involved in the sniper shooting of Mason. If he were awake right now, that would be a huge boon as well. By the time Guilliam walked into the investigative offices, he was tired, frustrated, fed-up, and incredibly short on patience. He glared at the man sitting in the prisoner box. “Seeing as you’re not getting out of jail anytime soon, I want you to talk.”

“That’s fucking nice,” the guy said, laughing at him. “Yet you ain’t got me on nothing. She was in my vehicle because she wanted to be there. She was looking for a real man,” he added in a mocking tone.

“Tied up, huh ?”

“Yeah, tied up,” he confirmed. “That’s how she likes it. Maybe you should have tried something like that.”

He studied him closely for a moment, wondering where the chink in his armor was. The guy was awfully young for that much negativity.

“If you’re expecting me to talk, forget it,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t expect you to talk. I know you’ll talk,” Guilliam replied, with a laugh. “It’s just up to you how long you want to hold out.”

“Ooh, what are you planning to do, beat me up?” He snorted. “You see? We’re not constrained by the same set of rules that you are,” he noted, with a smile. “So, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to me. You can sit there and listen to nothing as long as you like, but I’m not offering anything.”

“We already know everything because your grandfather is in the room next to us.”

He stared, an expression of shock on his face. “Grandpa’s here?”

“He sure is, and he’s already told us plenty.”

“Bullshit. Granddad would never turn me in.”

“He already did. He gave you up immediately,” Jasper interjected in a bored tone. “How do you think we found you so fast?”

He shook his head. “That’s BS, absolute fucking BS. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Do you really think your Granddad gives a shit at this point in his life?” Guilliam asked curiously. “I mean, really? You know what your life is like. You know what his is like. So where do you see that he cares one bit about you?”

He glared at him. “That’s not true. He wouldn’t do that.”

Guilliam shrugged. “Whatever.” He looked over at the others. “Maybe we should just let the two of them have a little talk. Who knows? Maybe this asshole will kill his own grandfather for us.”

He glared. “No way I’m doing that,” he sneered. “And nothing you could say will make me.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Guilliam was laughing now. “I’m pretty-damn sure that by the time you figure out that he doesn’t have you in his damn will at all—or, even if he did, there’s nothing left for you to get—I think you might look at things differently.”

The kidnapper just glared at him.

Guilliam asked, “Your name is Greg, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “No big deal. You could have gotten that info most anywhere. Obviously you know that Granddad had two grandsons.”

“We do, and both of them are pieces of shit apparently.”

He stiffened at that but didn’t say anything.

“And you don’t like your aunt. We also know that.”

“Nobody does. She’s just a stuck-up bitch, and she made my mother’s life hell.”

“Right. Your granddad had two daughters and no sons. Is that right?”

“Yeah. Believe me that he hated that too.”

Guilliam just stared at him for a long moment. “In that case, he must have been happy to have two grandsons. Too bad your cousin Gabe turned out to be such a mess.”

“Oh, he was a mess all right,” Greg agreed, with a shrug. “That wasn’t my doing. He was the one who was messing up all over the place.”

“Yeah, so what was up with breaking into houses? That is guaranteed to get him killed eventually.”

Greg shrugged. “That’s what happens, isn’t it? When you screw up over and over, that’s what happens.”

“So, Granddad didn’t particularly appreciate Gabe screwing up, did he?”

“Nope, he didn’t appreciate it at all. He wasn’t upset at his little pastime, but he was upset that he was doing things that somebody would find out about,” Greg explained. “More than that, Granddad was all about making sure the asshole who killed Gabe paid for it.”

“Right. Because nobody’s allowed to defend themselves when the criminal who comes calling is part of your family, right?”

Greg glared at him. “I already told you how Gabe was a fuckup, but he was family, as my granddad would say.”

“Of course, and that makes everything all right.”

“No, it doesn’t make it all right,” Greg argued, “but I’m not changing anything at this point.”

“Neither is your granddad,” Guilliam said, with a laugh. “Particularly his will.”

“I’m not listening to you on that,” Greg snapped, with a wave of his hand. “Granddad and I made an arrangement on that, and he’s not breaking it. Of all the things he is, he’s still a man of his word.”

“A man of his word, if he had money left,” Guilliam pointed out, with a smile, “but he doesn’t.”

“Bullshit, Grandpa’s companies are worth millions.”

“The companies were worth millions, but then your uncle made all these bad decisions. So they had to sell a whole lot to settle up the lawsuits, involving your cousin.”

“Lawsuits?” he asked, frowning.

“Did you really think that all those people involved in Gabe’s B&Es didn’t sue him?”

“Why the hell would they do that?”

“It’s called breaking-and-entering.”

“But they didn’t prove it was him in any of it.”

“Sure, they did. They found his DNA all over the place.”

Greg groaned. “Still, it wouldn’t matter. I can’t see Granddad paying out very much. He’s not into—what would you call them, shysters? If that happened, he would have been out gunning for the whole lot of them.”

“And maybe that’s what you were supposed to do next.”

“I wasn’t about to do anything next . I told him that this was a done deal.” Then Greg frowned. “Not that you know anything about it.”

“No, of course not, but you just told us how it was a deal you made with your granddad.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, and Granddad’s not talking.”

“Oh, your granddad’s talking plenty,” Jasper stated, with a smirk.

With that, Guilliam walked out of the room, headed over to where Greg’s granddad was held, and announced, “We’ve got your grandson.”

“That’s nice,” the old coot muttered, with a wave of his hand. “As long as he did his damn job, nothing matters.”

“He seems to think that he’s getting a fair amount of money from you.”

The old man winced. “Yeah, I did let him believe that. He will be a little miffed when he finds out there isn’t a whole lot left and what there is goes to that idiot son-in-law of mine.”

“The son-in-law who runs the companies?”

“Ran them right into the ground.”

“And yet he still works there, still keeps everything functioning, doesn’t he?”

“Not so much. We’re selling the bulk of it now, with several selling at a loss. He didn’t invest in real estate, as I thought we should. He invested in a couple dot coms that burned out and hit the ground,” he explained, with a groan. “So, yeah, my grandson’s expecting a whole helluva lot of money, and not much money will be left at all.”

At that, Guilliam smiled, returned to the grandson, segregated in his own room, and announced, “You might want to hear this.” And he played his grandfather’s words.

Greg stared at the cell phone, his face changing from shock to fury. “He’s fucking lying,” he yelled. “He’s fucking lying.”

“No, he’s not lying now. He was lying for all these years, lying about being megarich. He might have been rich at one time, but, once you start making poor investments and selling companies because they cost more money than they were worth, plus not buying up more lucrative investments, that big stash of money ends up being a whole lot less than you thought.”

“No way they would have burned through it all,” Greg declared. “No way.”

“Yet you’re seeing this as a big chunk of money that was yours, that was due to you. Still, the money needs to be divvied up.”

“But it’s mine. Everything I’ve done was because Granddad promised that money was coming to me.”

“Do you want a chance to talk to him? Of course we must be there during that conversation.”

Greg glared at Guilliam. “Yeah, you’re fucking right that I want to talk to him. Let me see that old geezer and let him say it to my face,” he snapped. “No way that sleazeball is getting away with that shit.”

And, with Jasper’s help, they quickly put the two prisoners together, in the same cell but separated.

“Granddad, tell me that you were lying,” Greg roared.

Granddad looked over at Guilliam and groaned. “Of course you just had to let him know.”

“Let me know what?” Greg asked. “You think they haven’t got it all figured out by now?”

“They don’t know anything,” Granddad spat. “My life is over, and I don’t give a shit if I spend the next couple months in jail because I’ve only got a few months left anyway. But you? You’re the idiot who will now be spending years in jail.”

Greg stared at his grandfather and shook his head. “Tell me again that you have money out there for me,” he demanded. “Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth.”

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” his grandfather began, “but there’s no easy way to tell you. I have some money, but a lot of it goes to your aunt and uncle. They are my first responsibility.”

Greg blinked at that. “What do you mean, they are your first responsibility?” he cried out. “That’s just bullshit.”

“It’s not so much bullshit,” he replied, “but I do have that responsibility to them. My daughter may or may not survive much longer, but I must ensure she’s got money, at least until she’s dead and gone. As much as I don’t like my son-in-law’s business decisions, a lot of that money is already locked up in his name.”

Greg slumped in place, as he stared at the old man. “And what about me?” he asked. “Where is my money in all this?”

His granddad winced. “You weren’t supposed to find out until I was dead,” he stated, turning his gaze to the others. “But instead these assholes had to come along and ruin everything.”

Guilliam snorted. “What? You mean, ruin all your plans that included cheating your grandson out of his payday?” Guilliam asked. “How much of all this death and blackmail and corruption was just you two guys, or are other players involved too.”

“It’s just me,” Granddad replied, but his response was a shade too quick.

Guilliam looked over at Jasper and frowned.

Jasper nodded. “You say that, but I have a gut feeling that’s not quite true.”

“It is true,” he stated, glaring at them. “You’ve got no call to hassle anybody else in my world.”

“We’ll hassle whoever the hell we want,” Jasper noted. “So don’t you worry. We’ll start with all those people who worked at the retirement home to see what they have to say. We’ll tear apart your life and figure out just what else you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” he snapped, glaring at them. “And you guys can go fuck yourself.” And, with that, he fell silent and refused to say anything more.