Chapter 3 – Chapter 3

At the next event in the regionals, I found more than I expected to find. Fucking Monster was there—but so was the young guy who had been scanning the crowd the day I was snatched. I stayed well into the shadows, where neither of them could see me.

On a hunch, in the ensuing days since I'd been let free, I asked to see photos of the Reardon and Connaut sons, and that had panned out. They were the young men I'd seen the guy with the roving eye looking at where they stood in the shadows. I went even farther in my preparation then and asked Chet Tarbell to get me a photo of the guy, Greg Ivey, who had been molested and hadn't appreciated it. This guy at today's event was older and slightly different looking—but not so different that it didn't make me think he was an older brother or cousin of the Ivey guy.

As most of those in attendance watched the bodybuilders on the lit stage, I watched the guys whose eyes were roving the crowd. I caught the moment that Fucking Monster's attention became focused on Greg Ivey's near look-alike—and, at the same moment I saw the look-alike studiously look away from the Fucking Monster. I also caught the movement of the Reardon and Connaut sons to and out of the main door of the venue.

The look-alike slowly headed for a back entrance—slowly enough to be sure he was drawing Fucking Monster in. The look-alike went through the door, evidently to a back alley, and the Fucking Monster went through the same door about a quarter minute later. I was cracking the door and looking out into the alley thirty seconds after that—in time to see Fucking Monster bundling an apparently unconscious look-alike in the back of an old Jeep Cherokee.

As I watched, though, the Reardon and Connaut sons showed up at the scene and sprayed something—probably Mace—in Fucking Monster's face and, when he'd knelt down and gone to his eyes with his fists, handcuffed his hands and, in turn, bundled both FM and look-alike into yet another vehicle—a Chrysler Sebring convertible.

I barely made it to the head of the alley fast enough to catch the license plate number of the Sebring and to jot down the license number of the Jeep—and to jump into my own Mustang—and keep the Sebring in sight as it moved off.

Trying my best to keep sight of the Sebring in the traffic ahead of me, I snapped open my cell phone and punched in Chet Tarbell's number.

"I'd hoped you'd call," he said when he answered. "Ready to go another round?" The tone of his voice told me that he'd thought I'd done just fine when we last met.

"Whenever you call," I answered. "But not right at this minute. I've hit pay dirt, I think, on the Reardon case."

"Oh, yeah? Speak."

"Let's take this progressively," I answered. I wasn't sure why I didn't want to turn this all back to the police at this point. But I didn't. "You check the names and addresses for a couple of licenses for me, and if I still think I have a handle on what's what, I'll tell you more."

"OK, shoot, and I'll call you back as soon as I have something. You on your cell?"

"Yep. You've got the number?"

"Yep. After the other night I put you at the top of my punch list." He laughed at his unintended double entendre.

I clicked out without further comment and concentrated on keeping well back but keeping the Sebring in my sights. It left the town limits and was climbing up onto the mountain overlooking the town, where I could see that people had vacation cabins.

My cell phone buzzed.

"Got your names. The Sebring belongs to Greg Ivey's older brother, Joe. The owner of the jeep is a guy named Sid Bailey. He's got a record that makes me ask if maybe you've fingered him as our body snatcher and molester."

"Yeah, maybe," I answered.

"And if you're pairing him up with Greg Ivey's brother, my guess is that there are going to be some fireworks that require police help."

"Yeah, maybe. Gotta go now, though, or I'll lose them. Just stay by the phone for me, Chet, and maybe I'll have something for you soon—and if you hang in with me on this, I'll have something for you tonight too, if you want."

"Dale. I think it's time—"

"Gotta go, Chet. Just stay by the phone for me—and maybe set up some police response in Springdale for me—maybe toward the mountain overlooking it."

"Dale—"

I clicked off and concentrated on following the Sebring, which, a short time later pulled into an almost-hidden dirt drive. I drove several yards above the turnout and turned the Mustang and parked it on the other side of the road, ready for a quick getaway, if that was required. Then I started walking as silently as I was able up the narrow, forest-edged drive.

I got to a clearing, where there was a small log cabin, in time to see Joe Ivey being lifted from the back of the Sebring by three guys and, awake now, but obviously still groggy, being helped up the porch stairs and toward an open door. The Reardon and Connaut sons had now been augmented by Greg Ivey, who must have stayed at the cabin, waiting for them.

The Fucking Monster—I suppose I should now refer to him by his name, Sid Bailey—was nowhere to be seen.

I waited for them to get settled in the cabin and then I worked my way around to the back, where the window ledges came down almost to the ground, as the cabin was set into the slope of the mountainside.

Looking in the window, I could see that the four guys had Bailey stripped naked and spread-eagled on his back on a bed, with his wrists and ankles tied to the four bedposts.

He was being tormented by the four—sexually—and Greg Ivey already had a fat zucchini half stuffed up Bailey's ass. He wasn't enjoying the attention all that much.

I went around to the front and walked boldly inside.

"You guys don't want to do this," I said, hoping I had surprised them enough that they wouldn't just decide to tie me up as well.

"I know who you guys are and why you're doing this. I was hired by your father, Robert, to get to the bottom of this problem. I know who this guy is, and I've already notified the police, who will be coming to get him."

"If you'll press charges, identifying this guy as your assailant, Greg," I said, turning toward Greg Ivey, making sure he knew I knew who he was, "that will get this done. The police are anxious to get it stopped. But there's no need for you four to go down too on the same charges. Clear out now, and there'll be no connection on him being apprehended and the four of you. Believe me, he'll get his in prison where he'll be branded in the most uncomfortable ways for the nature of his crime."

I had spoken fast and with authority before they could get their thoughts organized, but none of them headed for the door.

"You've got about ten minutes to be down the mountain before the police arrive," I then said. "You did good to track him down. Don't make it worse on your parents to have you up on charges too."

"Come on, guys," Joe Ivey, the oldest of the four and probably the brains for what they'd done, said. "He's right."

"How do we know he isn't just a friend of this guy's?" Greg Ivey piped up.

"My dad did hire someone named Gant," the Reardon son interjected.

"He snatched you too, didn't he?" Joe Ivey said, turning back to me. "I saw him do it."

"Yes, he did," I answered, "So, I have as much reason to want him taken down as you four do. His name's Sid Bailey. Here, I'll write his address down, and you can visit him if the law doesn't put him away. There's no reason not to stay out of it, though, if they do put him in prison. And now you have about five minutes to be gone. What's it going to be?"

I stood at the door to the cabin and watched until the Sebring and the other car, a Camaro, that Greg Ivey must have driven to the cabin were out of sight. Then I turned and looked at Bailey, who was looking back at me.

"You acted like you wanted the fuck," he said in a tone that tried to assert authority but had an edge of hysteria to it. "You let me go and I'll fuck you good."

"Oh, I think you'll fuck me good, anyway," I said, as I started stripping off my clothes. That done, I mounted his hips and impaled myself on his cock. I reached back and started twisting the zucchini still stuck in his channel, and he screamed out in frustration and pain as I screwed it further up into him. But he also stayed hard as I rode him to two ejaculations."

It was twilight before I called Chet to tell him where the police could pick Bailey up—and that they should contact Greg Ivey for a start on a formal pressing of charges.

"Oh, and Chet, if your guys ignore the state in which you find Bailey, I'll be extra special nice to you tonight. I'm sure your guys won't mind a bit of revenge having been taken before he was handed over to you. If you think otherwise, I won't tell you where he is."

Chet said he didn't have a problem with that.

I dressed and left Bailey there, the zucchini well up into his channel. As I walked back to the Mustang, I was almost sad that I had to turn him in rather than keep him as a toy.