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“What did I ever do to you?” Tristan asked plaintively. “We went out for a while, but it wasn’t working out. You didn’t like my friends, and they were important to me. So I figured it would be best to go our separate ways.” He tried to sound as logical as possible. “I cared for you, but I don’t think we were good together.” They obviously weren’t. Eddie was some sort of psychopath, and there was no way any relationship with him could be good. “Sometimes stuff like that happens.”

“Yeah, it does,” Eddie agreed. “But people who care about each other don’t go turning the other in to the police.” Eddie’s eyes blazed with anger, and then it was gone. His mouth curled up into a smile that was anything but soft. Hell, he looked more like the Joker than anything else. “But none of that matters now. You’re here, and you’re going to stay with me because that’s what I want.”

“So you’re holding me hostage,” Tristan said for clarity.

“Of course not. You aren’t a hostage because I’m not going to ask anything in return for your release. See, you’re a prisoner, and you’ll stay one, most likely for the rest of your life.” Eddie leaned over the bed. “How long that is, pretty thing, remains to be seen.”

“So you intend to kill me.” Tristan’s voice wavered, and he tried to think of what he could do. “Then you might want to get it over with, because I don’t want to be here, and I would rather die than stay with you.”

Eddie simply smiled, evilly and with no joy whatsoever. “We’ll see about that.” He turned to the guy who smelled like death. “Bring him water and nothing else. He can think about what he really wants for a day or two. Then maybe he’ll be more cooperative.” Eddie turned away and walked toward the door. “You aren’t going anywhere, and if you give me too much trouble, I’ll decide you aren’t worth it. Then I’ll truss you up in a room in the basement and let all my men have at you.” He laughed. “Some of them are very good with pain, and others just want a hole to fuck, and they don’t care whose or what it is.” He took a step back. “Hell, with them, the more you struggle, the more they like it.” He opened the door. “I’ll give you time to think about it.” He pulled the door closed and the lock slid home.

Tristan gasped and pulled at the blanket to cover himself. He knew he was being left this way so he’d feel vulnerable, and it was freaking working. He shook with fear and collapsed onto the bed, wondering what he was going to do. “Harry, you have to find me,” he whispered like a prayer. He wasn’t sure if that was possible, but it was the only hope he had right now. He was hungry, and that wasn’t going to change. Tristan did his best to put that out of his mind, but it didn’t work. He’d been ripped away from the people he cared about and the life he liked and dumped into a crack-house hell, with an ex-boyfriend who was crazy. Eddie hadn’t done drugs when Tristan knew him, at least he didn’t think so, but maybe that had changed, and they had altered his mind. The Eddie he remembered was pretty nice, just too controlling. But obviously things had changed in the intervening months, and the results were scary as hell.

Tristan lay down on the bed, curled up into a ball, and watched the door. He needed someone to figure out where he was and come to his rescue. If only he could get a message to someone. But that wasn’t possible, not in any way he could see. He was trapped here in this hell.

After a little while, his mind stopped concentrating on his situation and wound its way over to Harry. “I wish you were here,” he whispered and then closed his mind, concentrating on Harry as though he could send the man he loved a silent message.

“W
HAT
DO
you mean you haven’t been able to find him?” Harry asked the uniformed police officer standing in front of his desk, as Bull and Tristan’s friends all crowded into the office at the club. “Have you been in touch with Officer Douglas?” Harry was getting tired of talking to the people who didn’t think Tristan had actually been taken. Even with the video, they didn’t seem to be taking it seriously.

“He’s been assigned to another case, and—”

Harry picked up the phone. “I suggest you get him on the phone, or my next phone call is to the mayor and then the local news. I’ll have every station here in fifteen minutes. I think they’ll love to get their hands on a story of how the police are ignoring a possible case of kidnapping because it occurred to a gay person.” He handed the officer the receiver. “I want to speak with Officer Douglas. Now.” Harry had had all the runaround and double-talk he could take.

“Now see here—” the officer said.

Harry cut him off. “No. Get him on the phone, or I start making calls. There are people in your department on the payroll of the man who most likely took Tristan. Do you want to be investigated for corruption? I can arrange for that too.” He instantly regretted that remark, but he was too far gone to stop himself. “Get. Him. On. The. Phone.”

The officer was definitely rattled, and he took the receiver from Harry and dialed. After a few minutes he obviously got who Harry wanted. They talked, and then he hung up. “He’s on his way.” The officer seemed a little paler than he had before. “Douglas said I was to listen to you and that the instructions I’d received from my colleague were to be ignored. Apparently he’s being investigated….” His mouth formed a large
O
.

Harry nodded. “Yes. He’s being investigated for a number of things. Is he the one who sent you here?” The officer nodded. “Then let’s wait to see what Ken has to say.”

“How did you know? Those things are supposed to be…. They’re internal to the department.” He seemed truly surprised.

“Not if you’re the one who helped deliver the evidence.” Harry smiled. “Now let’s talk about what we’re going to do to find Tristan.”

The door cracked open, and Spook stuck his head inside. He said nothing and left again. Harry stood up and stepped outside the office. Harry knew Spook didn’t want to be in the same room as a police officer if he could help it. It was due to his past, and Harry respected his decision and reticence. He hoped Spook would someday trust him enough to tell him the full story. Bull knew some of it, he was sure. Otherwise Bull wouldn’t have recommended him for a job here. Sometimes he wondered if Jeremy knew, but then he figured he probably knew parts as well.

“A man and a woman are out front, asking to see you. They’re Tristan’s parents.”

Harry nodded, and Spook left. Harry wound through the club to the front door and opened it. A man and a woman stood outside, looking around them nervously, like they hoped no one they knew saw them. “Mr. and Mrs. Martin? I’m Harry Klinger.” The man nodded. “Thank you for coming.” He motioned for them to come inside. “I’m the one who called this morning and reported Tristan missing.”

“Crawford Martin. This is my wife, Loretta.” They didn’t extend their hands in greeting.

“A police officer talked to us early this morning,” Tristan’s mother said as soon as Harry closed the door. “He said that Tristan has been reported missing, but that he thought Tristan had left on his own. He sounded very sure of himself.”

That was what he’d suspected. “Well, that isn’t true. We were having a little trouble with the investigating officer, but we have someone else coming down, and he’ll look at things differently.”

“I knew Tristan would never just leave without telling us.” Mrs. Martin sniffed into a handkerchief. “But why would someone want to take him?” She blew her nose and shifted closer to her husband.

“So this is one of
those
clubs?” Tristan’s father commented with a slight sneer, keeping his hands to his side. “It doesn’t seem….” He tapered off before finishing his thought, but Harry knew what he was thinking. It was written in the slight curl of his graying-mustached upper lip. He wore dress pants that had seen better days and a white shirt, while his wife wore a simple patterned dress. She’d tried to put her hair into a bun, probably a while ago, but now wisps had escaped. Neither of them seemed particularly concerned about their appearance. “I knew nothing good was going to come of this when Tristan told us how he intended to lead his life.”

“Not now, Crawford,” Tristan’s mother said, dabbing at her eyes. “On the phone you said you thought Tristan had been taken by someone.”

“Yes. Please have a seat at one of the tables. Would you like anything to drink? Water, maybe.” He doubted they would take something stronger, and even though it was early, Harry was tempted to take a belt. He needed one. He’d been up all night dealing with an obstructionist police officer. When Officer Barker had answered their call, Harry had groaned inwardly, hoping like hell they’d been wrong about him. They hadn’t. The investigation had begun correctly enough as far as Harry could see, but then they’d left with promises of action that had turned into lip service. He’d figured Barker had fed Tristan’s parents the same line when he called them early this morning.

“No, thank you,” Crawford answered quickly. Loretta opened her mouth, but said nothing, so Harry grabbed two cold bottles of water from behind the bar and brought them to the table. Loretta seemed grateful and nodded as she silently took the water.

“What do you believe happened?” Loretta asked.

“I believe Tristan was taken by his ex-boyfriend.” Harry saw both of them wince. “Tristan went out with a man named Eddie for a while, but he left when he figured out that Eddie was dealing drugs. To make a long story short, Eddie hasn’t taken it well.”

“What does this have to do with the police not helping to find him?” she asked. She opened the bottle and took a dainty sip.

“Eddie Menendez isn’t a small-time dealer. He runs most of the business in this area now. None of us knew it at the time, and as soon as Tristan figured out what was happening, he contacted the police and gave them all the information he had.” He didn’t go into the fact that the pain had damned near broken Tristan’s heart, but he’d done it. “That was about six or eight months ago. Since then this guy has gotten stronger, and it seems he isn’t willing to let Tristan go.”

“If he had lived his life like a good Christian and not gotten involved in this sinful lifestyle, then none of this would have happened,” Crawford commented self-righteously.

“Tristan talked to us about this. He is the way he is, and you know that,” Loretta said crisply. “I know you don’t understand very well, but maybe you would if you listened to him more, or at least tried.” Loretta turned away and brought the handkerchief to her eyes. “All of this is so hard to understand.”

“I know it is,” Harry said and pulled up an additional chair to the small table. He expected the others to come join him at any time, but the club remained quiet. “Look, I need to lay my cards on the table. I care for your son a great deal, and there is nothing in this world more important to me than getting him back. There’s a police officer on his way over who believes that Tristan was taken.”

“Our son wouldn’t run away from his family like this,” Loretta said. “We haven’t gotten along a lot lately, but we love him, and he wouldn’t just leave without saying anything.” They both looked at him as though there were a million questions they wanted to ask, but to their credit they kept the conversation on what was important at the moment.

“I don’t believe he did. We caught a few seconds on video of what we believe was him being led out of the club last night.”

“I knew this… this place was involved in all this.”

“Crawford, you aren’t helping.”

“Sir,” Harry began. “I understand you don’t accept that Tristan is gay. But that isn’t important right now. Tristan has been abducted, but you haven’t been contacted?” They both shook their heads. “And neither have we. So we have to conclude that he wasn’t taken for ransom. So that means….” God, Harry did not want to think of what that meant.

The office door opened, and Zach, Jeremy, and Kevin entered the room and walked over to the table. To Loretta’s credit, she hugged each of the boys and cried on their shoulders while Crawford shook their hands and remained as stoic as possible. Harry tried to remember when he’d met two people who seemed more different.

Bull and the police officer joined them. “This is Officer Jenkins,” Bull said.

“These are Tristan’s parents, Crawford and Loretta Martin.”

“It’s good to see you, Bull,” Loretta said. Apparently she knew the people in her son’s life, even if Tristan’s father didn’t or wasn’t interested. Harry wasn’t yet sure if he was just unsettled or as cold as ice.

“You’re trying to find our son?” Loretta asked Officer Jenkins.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and Harry let it go. “One of my colleagues is on his way down.” Jenkins was decidedly uncomfortable, and he remained back where he could watch everyone.

Harry had almost everyone here he had hoped to. He jumped a little at a brisk pounding on the front door. Bull went over to it, peered out, and then opened it. “Ken, I’m glad you could make it,” Bull said with fake enthusiasm. Harry knew without a doubt that Bull hated the police, and having them around like this made him nervous as hell. It was one of the few things that got to his huge best friend. But it couldn’t be helped—they both knew that. His attitude was a testament to how much Bull cared for Tristan. “Is everything all right with the department?”