“Get at it, brother.”
I gave him a nod, then headed for Menace’s office. When I walked in, he was working away on his laptop, and like many times before, he wasn’t aware I’d walked in the room. Menace was always overly organized. Everything had to be in its place, so I was surprised to find his office in such a disheveled mess. Receipts were piled high on his desk along with various folders and papers, and again, Menace looked like an exhausted wreck. I sat down in the chair in front of his desk. “Hey, brother. How’s it going?”
“Ain’t gonna lie.” Menace turned to face me as he admitted, “It’s been better.”
“You look wiped, man.”
“That’s because I am.” He motioned his hand over his desk as he complained, “Hell, look at this shit. Even with all the help you guys have been giving me, I’m still fucking covered up.”
“You can’t keep burning it at both ends like this, brother.”
“I know, but I think all this is finally starting to pay off.”
Hoping he might let me in on what he’d uncovered, I pushed, “How’s that?”
“We got Stark.” He cocked his head as he corrected himself, “Or make that, we got Stark’s location.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“After I finally broke through that godforsaken firewall on those encrypted emails, I was able to track down the server address to a place outside of San Antonio.”
“That’s awesome. I knew you could pin him down.”
“Don’t know about that just yet.” He raked his fingers through his already disheveled hair as he explained, “Viper sent one of the brothers from the Texas chapter over to check the place out, and it was just an old, abandoned office complex.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, it’s fucked up for sure.” He reached into one of his folders and pulled out several photographs. As he offered them to me, he said, “Not so much as an office chair left in the place.”
I looked through the different images, and Menace wasn’t exaggerating. With all the tall grass and litter scattered around the parking lot, the place looked like it had been vacant for months. “Damn, brother. You think our guy knew we were coming.”
“Can’t say for sure. All I know is the last email sent between him and Schommer led me to that fucking address, and it was sent three weeks ago.”
“So, another dead end?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m going to do some research on the property and see what I can find out.”
“What about getting Schommer to send out another email? See if he can make some kind of contact?”
“This guy’s slick, brother. He proved that with all the damn firewalls. A guy like that will know if the email isn’t coming from Schommer’s office.”
“Then, we take him to the office.”
“Can’t do that, Rafe. With the cops investigating his disappearance, they’ll be watching that office and that’s not a risk we can take.”
He was right. Days after we’d taken Schommer, the media had the guy’s face plastered all over the news. Seemed everyone was up in arms about what had happened to the college’s beloved professor, but thankfully, there was nothing being said about the daughter being taken. Apparently, she’d heeded Viper’s warning and kept her mouth shut—not that she had anything to tell. Menace had sedated and blindfolded her before bringing her to the clubhouse. Her presence had done the trick, and after Schommer finally started talking, we sedated her again. We got her back to her apartment, put her in bed, and when she finally came around, there was a good chance she thought the whole damn thing was a fucking dream. Unfortunately, we hadn’t had the same luck with her father. I wasn’t ready to give up on Schommer, so I suggested, “We could have him make up some excuse. Give this Stark guy a reason why he’s been off grid and see if he takes the bait.”
“We’ll need to run the idea by Viper and see what he thinks, but before I can do that, I gotta take a minute to get caught up here.” He looked down at all the bar’s paperwork and sighed. “I think it’s time we got ourselves a fucking bookkeeper.”
“I could give you a hand.”
“You sure?” He cocked his eyebrow as he taunted, “I figured you’d want to keep an eye on your girl, Marlowe.”
“She’s not here tonight. I had her take the night off.”
“Why’s that?”
“You know that bit in the background check where you found out she was adopted.” I reached over and picked up a stack of receipts as I told him, “Well, it turns out Marlowe didn’t know anything about it until her sister broke the news to her earlier today, and from the state I found Marlowe in, I’d say Kate wasn’t exactly gentle about divulging the information. Seems she was pretty cutthroat about it.”