Christ.

“So why didn’t she call her parents to come and get her?” Layne asked and Rocky shook her head again.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. She’s fourteen and she was freaked. She said if her parents knew she did the photo shoot, they’d be angry. They’re overprotective, especially after her sister got sick. That’s why she didn’t phone them. She thought she’d be in trouble if they found out. She wasn’t thinking straight, just got scared and hid. Tripp called and texted and her parents called and texted and the more they called, the more scared she got. But she got my call and she thought she could trust me so she called me back.” She paused, Layne nodded and Rocky continued. “The photo shoot was about a month ago but nothing after that even though Gaines offered it, Giselle wouldn’t do it and she doesn’t think Alexis or Tiffany did either but they were trying to talk her into it. They’d made a girl pact, it was an all or nothing thing. Then she said Gaines spent a lot of time with her after that, talked to her a lot, tried to make friends and she felt weird about it because he was pushing another shoot. She said she’d swear she’d sometimes see him, when she left school, in his car outside her house but she’d look again and he wasn’t there so she thought she was seeing things. But last night, she wasn’t seeing things.”

No, she wasn’t seeing things.

Ryker needed this intel, if they were doing it to Giselle, they could be doing it to Alexis.

“This happened last night, why’d she cut Tripp out at school yesterday?” Layne asked.

Rocky’s expression cleared and her lips twitched. “Alexis’s advice. Told her she was making it too easy on Tripp. Told her to play hard to get. That was nothing to do with Gaines or any of this. She’s almost more worried that Tripp is going to be mad at her than she is about her parents or Gaines.”

Jesus, teenagers playing games. Starting young. It felt like Layne had a lifetime of that and he sure as fuck was glad that shit was over.

“They change clothes?” Layne asked and Rocky’s face grew confused.

“Change clothes?” she repeated and Layne moved close to her, putting his hand to her neck.

“Change clothes, Roc, at the photo shoot. Even alone, if they did it, they could have had cameras on them,” Layne explained and Rocky swallowed.

“I didn’t ask,” Rocky whispered.

Layne jerked his head toward the ceiling and whispered back, “Ask baby, hurry, before her folks get here.”

“Shit,” she muttered, looked at her brother then walked out of the room.

Merry moved to Layne.

“So, what’s the play, brother?”

“He’s out,” Layne stated instantly, looking at Merry. “I outed him to the reverend as exactly what he is. He doesn’t know it yet but he doesn’t have a job anymore. Pastor Knox would not let him work undercover and we’re not workin’ that angle with that perv. No more recruiting. This model business is out too. We tell the Speakmons, we tell Ryker, who’s seein’ Alexis McGraw’s mother and we tell the Emmersons.”

“Then they’ll flee, they’re outed and got no way to recruit.”

“Maybe and maybe not. We turn Gaines, we may be able to get him to talk them into trying to play it another way. They’re dug in, set up, they spent a lot of time on this and they were goin’ in for the kill. They got a lot invested and, because of that, there’s a lot to keep them here. They need to dismantle the operation, they lose big. We turn Gaines, we get him to get them to cool it, convince them he’s still got the girls, he leads us to them and we take them all down.”

“Rutledge?”

“We don’t get what she’s got on him, we find him, you’re gonna hafta flip Rutledge in the interrogation room.”

Merry smiled.

Layne didn’t return his smile. He pulled out his phone and called Ryker.

“Yo,” Ryker answered on the first ring.

“Alexis safe?” Layne asked.

“Yeah,” Ryker answered.

“How sure are you of that?” Layne asked.

“Sure enough, since I been callin’ my babe probably every fifteen minutes since I heard that girl was missin’. Alexis is at home. Ticked. She’s grounded because she mouthed off bad when Lissa cut her off from Youth Group.”

Every fifteen minutes and cut off from Youth Group. Layne believed it. Proof Ryker was the man Layne thought he was.

“Right, they’re keepin’ an eye on the girls. Don’t know why but they’re followin’ them. You need to brief your babe and you got a friend you can trust, you put a man on her house.”

“Shit,” Ryker muttered then said, “roger that.”

“Gaines sweating?”

“He’s tied to a chair watchin’ your man clean his gun. He’s findin’ it fascinatin’, bro.”

Layne didn’t laugh.

“All right, Ryker, I need you to get me four things from this guy. One, why’d he go after Giselle last night? Two, are Towers and Rutledge still in town? Three, are they lookin’ for Giselle? And four, if they are, why’s he gettin’ a blowjob from Tina Blackstone?”

“You got it,” Ryker replied.

“I’ll want more later, start with that and anything else you wanna know.”

“Ditto on the you got it,” Ryker repeated.

“Keep listening to the apartment. If he’s gettin’ head from Tina because they’re not tweaked by Giselle running then the woman might go back to the apartment. We’ll need to hear what she has to say.”

“Devin’s all over that,” Ryker told him.

“Right,” Layne replied. “Tell Devin he’s on clean up. He needs to make sure the Reverend doesn’t talk. Youth Group is suspended for the time being, no explanation, that’s it. Nothin’ else leaks.”

“I’ll tell ‘im.”

“Later.” He closed his phone and flipped it open to call Jasper.

Jasper answered on the second ring.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“We have Giselle. She’s fine. Totally fine. Tripp with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him now.”

He listened to Jasper say, “Dad’s found Giselle. She’s cool, Tripp-o-matic. It’s all good.”

“Where is she?” Layne heard Tripp ask.

“Her parents are coming to pick her up.” Layne answered but didn’t wait until Jas relayed this information before continuing. “You boys finish gathering intel from Giselle’s friends. We need everything we can get on Gaines. When you’re done, you can go home to your Mom’s. And Jasper, I need you to locate Tiffany Emmerson. If you don’t have her number, find someone who does. I want you to call in to me when you know she’s safe then I want one of your boys glued to her until I can get to her parents.”

“Another favorite,” Jasper muttered.

“You got it, Bud,” Layne muttered back. “Closin’ ranks, son.”

“Gotcha,” Jasper replied. “Later.”

“Later, Jas.” Layne flipped his phone shut and looked at Merry. “I need your Dad. We’re spread thin and I gotta have ears on that apartment. Can you call him and get him to the office?”

Merry nodded, pulled out his phone and stepped away.

Then Rocky walked into the room.

“They didn’t change clothes,” she announced when she got close. “They told them what to wear to the shoot. It was skimpy and Giselle doesn’t do skimpy. Alexis told her she could borrow something but Giselle wouldn’t do it. She told me Alexis and Tiffany did but the woman, the photographer and Gaines didn’t make a big deal out of it that Giselle didn’t.”

“Good kid,” Layne muttered.

Rocky got close and slid an arm around his waist so he slid his around her shoulders.

“She’s feeling a bit foolish, sweetheart, thinks she made a big deal out of nothing. Worried her parents are going to be angry, Tripp… I didn’t know what to say.”

Layne had looked down at her while she was talking and when she stopped, he asked, “What did you say?”

“I said always go with your gut, you get a bad feeling, you get safe and then you find someone you trust, which was what she did. I didn’t get into Gaines, I just told her she did the right thing and everyone would understand.”

Layne squeezed her shoulder and muttered, “Good answer, sweetcheeks.”

“Probably be a good idea you get Tripp to text her, say he heard she’s all right, he’s glad and she should give him a call when she can.” Rocky pressed closer and whispered, “She likes him, baby, like, a lot.”

Merry moved back to them, he was off the phone, his head tilted to listen to the car pulling into the drive and then he looked at Layne. “Parents,” he murmured then started to the front door.

“You call him, Roc, he’ll like to hear that from you,” Layne told her and she nodded, smiled up at him and her arm got tight around him.

Then her head turned to the door they heard Merry opening.

“We better talk to Adele and Wade,” she whispered, eyes still pointing in the direction of the door.

“Yeah,” Layne sighed and he kept his arm around his woman as he led her to the door.

* * *

When Layne arrived at his office, Dev met him at the outer door.

“You got here just in time for the good part,” Dev whispered on a scary smile.

“He talkin’?” Layne asked.

“Yeah and I’m wonderin’ ‘bout her now, she picked this guy,” Devin answered. “First, that boy is stupid as shit. I reckon he got by on his looks his whole life and that worked for him so he uses about a quarter of the eleven percent of the brain that other people use. Second, he’s scared of her, he’s scared of us, he’s scared of everything. Last, he don’t care who he works or who he works for, he just wants to stay pretty.”

“Pretty isn’t gonna serve him very well in the hole,” Layne observed.

“Yeah, I explained that to him. That’s one of the reasons why he’s scared of us,” Dev replied.