Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(124)

Parrish managed to nod. Sean lifted his hand. “Let’s hear it.”

The man rubbed the spot, surprised it was not a bleeding hole. He gasped with each indrawn breath. “I had no idea—no idea—”

“Of course you didn’t,” Connor said. “No idea about what?”

“Osterman,” the man gasped out somewhat more slowly. “He’s…he’s a researcher. I would never have dreamed…he’s an extremely distinguished scientist. Brilliant. I can’t believe that…the Haven is a legitimate research facility, in spite of being so secret, and—”

“The Haven?” Miles broke in, his eyes big. “You’re kidding!”

Sean swiveled his head. “What? What’s the Haven?”

“The guy who’s been recruiting me,” Miles said. “Mindmeld666. The Haven is his outfit. Which means that Osterman must be—”

“The Geek Eater,” Con finished softly.

Parrish’s breathing sawed heavily in the appalled silence.

“Where is the Haven?” Sean asked him.

“I don’t know,” Parrish replied. He shrank back as Sean raised his hand. “No! Please, no. I swear. The facility moves around, and the only people who know where it is are the people in the brain potential program. They specialize in product design, and those designs are realized by our development team. My own daughter participated in the program some years back. It produces spectacular results—”

“I don’t want a promotional brochure. I want to know where that murdering psychopath is,” Sean snarled. “And I don’t believe that you don’t know. Just like I don’t believe that you never checked Kev’s story. You were in on this from the very start, weren’t you, Parrish?”

“No! You have to understand how crazy it sounded!” Parrish was getting desperate. “It was wild paranoid jabbering! He claimed to have been strapped down and tortured for days, but he was strong enough after his ordeal to pick up a security guard and throw him through a plate glass window! The man needed thirty stitches!”

Parrish’s yammering receded as Sean’s mind seized one detail, and focused on it. “Shut up,” he said, cutting through the babble.

Parrish’s voice cut off abruptly. “Huh? What?”

“Clarify something for me,” he said. “You said Kev claimed to have been tortured for days. Kev wasn’t missing for days. I saw him the morning of the seventeenth. Right before I got locked up.”

Davy and Con exchanged startled looks.

“Where are you going with this, Sean?” Davy asked softly.

“What day did he come to see you?” Sean persisted.

Parrish blinked rapidly. “I don’t remember.”

Thunk, back Parrish went, flush to the wall, Sean’s finger putting painful pressure on the now bruised nerve center under his ear.

“Think harder,” he suggested, his voice deceptively gentle.

Parrish sucked air. “Ah…let me s-s-see. The day he came, I had a b-bicycle in the office. For my daughter’s eleventh birthday party.”

“What’s your daughter’s birthday?” Davy asked.

“The t-twenty-third of August. Tomorrow, actually.”

Sean let go of the man so abruptly, Parrish stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Miles took the guy’s elbow, helped him to his feet. Ever the sweet nice guy. Somebody was going to have to slap some mean into that kid, because the McClouds couldn’t seem to manage the job.

That and other random thoughts ricocheted senselessly through his head while paralyzing shock rolled over him. August twenty-three?

They had buried their brother on the hill, near the little waterfall that he loved, on the twentieth of August. Twenty-three? What the f*ck?

He put his hands on his knees, tried to get some blood back into his head. Swooning dead away in front of Parrish would not do wonders for his hard-core, meaner-than-shit intimidation machine.

Fortunately, Con and Davy’s meaner-than-shit machines were in fine working order. He just hung on, concentrated on staying conscious.

An ungentle hand stabbed him hard between the shoulder blades some time later, to get him marching down the corridor. Past the red-hot blonde with the take-me eyes. No security personnel stopped them, no police were waiting. Parrish was going to play both sides until he could tell which way to jump. Prick.

When they got to the parking lot, Davy seized him by the scruff of the neck and slammed him against the SUV so hard he almost howled.

“I told you we weren’t going to get physical,” he snarled into Sean’s face. “And you lost it. Both times. We do not need this kind of trouble, punk. If you cannot hang on to your shit, I will tie you and gag you and stuff you into the trunk, I swear to God.”

Sean glanced to Connor for support, and got just a twitch of his mouth and a shrug. “I’ll hold you down while he ties you,” Con said.

He looked at Miles, who gave him his what-the-f*ck-do-you-want-from-me look. He grunted, shrugged. Whatever. He was too boggled to get his feelings hurt. He rubbed the lump on his head as he got into the vehicle. “The twenty-third of August,” he murmured.

Davy pulled out of the lot. “I knew that would set you off,” he said grimly. “It was fifteen years ago. The guy could be lying. Or just wrong.”