Golden Trail (The 'Burg #3)(182)

Jesus, teenagers playing games. Starting young. It felt like Layne had a lifetime of that and he sure as f**k 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.”