Chapter Five

"Trent?" Carlos knocked on the door to Trent's hotel room.

"Carlos." Trent propped the door open enough to see his three friends, Carlos, Gage and Walker, standing before him. Sighing heavily he leaned against the door jamb, knocking it open, allowing the three men with worried masks covering their normally smiling faces into the room.

"Where's the note?" Walker tried to keep his tone official as he stepped through the door. Wordlessly Trent thrust the hotel pad of paper toward his old friend. " 'Malloy, I have the boy. You want him, come and find him. I can't promise he'll be in one piece. - Biggins p.s. rumors of my death were premature', " he read it aloud for Gage and Carlos.

"That sick son of a . . ." Gage stopped himself in mid sentence, not allowing himself to let the careful control, that he was barely maintaining, slip.

"Have you checked around for witnesses yet?" Carlos asked, trying to keep his head straight.

"No." He ran his hands through his slightly long blond hair. "I was trying to get myself together enough to do that." Trent sank to the closest bed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Gage, you and Walker talk to the guests. Trent and I'll check the front desk," Carlos delegated.
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"Excuse me, Ma'am," Carlos said, approaching the woman at the front desk.

"Yes?" she said curtly.

"Have you seen either this boy or this man?" He pulled two photographs from his shirt pocket then set them side by side on the counter top.

"Not the boy, but I was working when the man came in and wanted a room." She tapped a bright red lacquered finger nail against the photograph of Biggins.

"Were you also on duty when he checked out?" He allowed his detective side to take over, curbing his desperation to find his best friend's brother.

"No."

"Do you know who was?"

"Andi was," she said.

"Is he still here?"

"She is in the back getting ready to go home."

"Could you get her? I have a few questions for her," Carlos said, feeling a twinge of hope begin to fill him.

"Why should I?"

"Look . . . " he began, his dark eyes scanning the small green tag above her left breast for a name. "Look, Sarah, the man you pointed to in the picture is wanted for kidnaping, child pornography, assault on a police officer and murder." He all but yelled at her, hoping that it persuaded her to cooperate.

"He seemed like such a nice man." A look of horror and shock settled on her face. "Wait right here." She disappeared to the back.

"Are you a cop?" a woman asked emerging from the back room.

"No, I'm a private detective. And the boy in the photo is that man's . . ." he pointed to Trent, who was pacing silently in front of the glass window. "Younger brother. The man in the other photo kidnapped him today."

"Oh." She took the photographs from Carlos. "I saw them together," she said after looking at the photographs for a few seconds.

"When?"

"Early this afternoon." She leaned against the counter. "He said that the boy was his son and that his ex had just dropped the boy off."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Just that they were headed home."

"Do you have the name he used here?"

"Yes," she said typing in a name. "He checked in as Mr. Kevin Dallas. Just one moment." She turned and opened a filing cabinet that was next to a short table behind the counter along the back wall.  Taking out some paperwork she quickly went to the copier. Fresh copies in hand she returned her attention to Carlos. "I'm not supposed to give these to anyone, but there was something about the boy that worried me." She handed the papers to Carlos.

"What was it that worried you?" He glanced at the papers in his hands.

"He started to tell me something but Mr. Dallas cut him off."

"What was it he was trying to tell you?"

"I'm not sure. All he got out was 'he's not' before the man made him be quiet."

"Thank you very much." Carlos smiled at her, and then turned in Trent's direction.
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"Any luck?" Walker asked the moment Carlos and Trent walked through the door to the room.

"Some." He handed the papers he was given to Walker.

"Biggins was here." He faced his three friends, leaning slightly against the wood grain desk in the room. "The woman at the front desk, her name's Andi, said that he checked in as  Kevin Dallas. She told me that when he checked out Tom was with him. He claimed that Tom was his son. He also told her that he was taking his son home with him." Walker and Gage looked through the small stack of papers as Carlos spoke.

Walker opened his mouth, taking in a sharp breath and to say something that had just occurred to him when Carlos' cell phone rang.

"Sandoval." The tone in his voice was sharp, to the point and very nearly dangerous.

"How's Trent holding it together?" a voice Carlos did not recognize asked casually.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Put Gage on," the voice said coldly.

Silently Carlos handed the phone to Gage, hesitating slightly he took the phone from Carlos.

"Biggins." He was doing his best to keep his anger, at the monster on the other end of the line, in check.

"Gage, it's been a while." Biggins voice was bright as the sun on a sunny summer day.

"Not long enough," Gage countered.

"That would hurt if I didn't know that you missed me."

"I miss you the way that the mouse misses the cat," he spat.

"My, my aren't we in a bad mood today."

"Let the kid go."

"Make me."

"Why are you calling?"

"Just wanted to see how the investigation's going. But then again you just started looking. There's nothing in the room I had, so I wouldn't waste my time with it. Did you get my clues yet?" He hung up.

"Where is he?" Trent asked. He was beginning to feel sick and numb.

"He didn't say." He ran a hand through his short blond hair, handing Carlos the phone. "All he said was that his room's clean and that he left clues for us."

"His name," Carlos said, quietly.

"He's taking Tommy back to Dallas," Walker said. "Gage, call Trivette and have him get over to the Malloy's just in case he meant that home."

"He won't go there, not so long as he has Tommy," Gage gravely informed them. He could not bring himself to look Trent in the eye. After all this was all his fault.

"Where will he go?" Trent and Carlos' voices mingled together as they spoke in unison.

"We need to get back to Dallas and find out." Walker headed for the door.