In doing so, I’d fucked up. Darcy was gone. Potentially in grave danger. Who knew how much money this Luke guy had stolen? What was he willing to do to keep his secret?
“Tallus.”
He stopped typing. I felt his gaze, but didn’t lift my face from my hands.
“We need to report this.”
“What?”
I stayed silent, letting him absorb my words.
A black hole opened in the center of the room, sucking away the frantic energy that had driven us this far.
“To the police?” he asked skeptically.
“Darcy’s been kidnapped. If I was strictly hunting down this asshole to blow his operation wide open, I wouldn’t fucking care. Helping the cops would be the last thing on my mind. But I can’t risk Darcy getting hurt because my goddamn ego prevents me from doing the right thing. He’s a kid.”
Tallus didn’t speak.
My muscles ached from holding myself together for the past hour.
Exhausted, I lifted my head and met his gaze.
He glanced at the computer, a defeated slump to his shoulders. Tallus was as invested in our business as me. He’d developed a taste for outwitting the police and never argued when I purposefully kept them in the dark at times I shouldn’t.
Nodding, he tugged a brown folder from a stack and opened it. “Benaiah gave me a number. One of the officers who performed the original interviews. He said to contact him if he discovered more information. I’ll call him. Unless…” He paused, meeting my gaze. “Do you want me to call Quaid?”
Quaid Valor worked in the missing persons unit and was best friends with Tallus’s cousin. Tallus and Quaid weren’t friends, per se, but they were friendly enough that they had long ago exchanged phone numbers.
“I don’t care about Luke or Elwood’s fucking money or the police’s goddamn investigation into this grandparent scam. Darcy’s a missing kid.”
“Okay. Quaid it is.” Tallus reached for his cell as something heavy thudded against the door to the office.
Tallus and I startled.
Echo jumped to her feet and barked.
Confused, alert, and ready for combat, I spun as the door opened and Darcy tumbled into the room, landing in a heap on the floor.
22
Diem
The first thing my brain registered was shock.
The second was blood. Not a lot, but enough that my stomach cramped.
The door crashed against the wall, rebounding and knocking into the kid as he fell. Darcy, who must have been leaning heavily against it, collapsed first to his knees before tipping forward and resting his forehead against the floor. With a groan, he rolled to his side and curled in a fetal position, cradling his arm.
His already tattered jeans were shredded worse than before and spotted with rusty red stains. His jacket was missing. He hugged an arm against his chest, his hand streaked with more blood. It seeped from dozens of cuts and scrapes. His cheek bore a gruesome patch of road rash, angry and weeping pink fluid. Blood mixed with his tears.
Echo barked and barked, bounding in circles around the fallen kid as though we didn’t see him or register the emergency.
Tallus raced from behind the desk, shouting something I couldn’t process, as I landed on my knees, gently touching Darcy’s shoulder to get his attention. He whimpered and cried pitifully, no longer the brash boy with the attitude who had run from me on the street.
“Hey. Hey. What the fuck happened?”
“How bad is he hurt?” Tallus crouched on Darcy’s other side.