Missing in Miami

Chapter 5

Blake and I got into my Explorer and drove to the college for our meeting with Lindsey Carroll. We pulled into the coffee shop parking lot, just as Lindsey was walking toward the front door. Blake smiled as he held open the door for her and I followed them inside as we found a table.

I said, “thank you for meeting with us Miss Carroll.”

She said, “please, call me Lindsey.”

I smiled, “thank you Lindsey, I am detective Ridgeway, you can call me Ridge, and this is detective Robbins.”

Blake said, “Blake is fine.”

Lindsey asked, “so, what can I help you with? You said it has something to do with one of the members of our LBGT group. Detectives, our group is not involved in anything other than support and help for the campus LBGT community.”

I shook my head, “no Lindsey, your group has done nothing wrong, but one of your new members has been reported missing.”

She said, “oh my God, who?”

Blake showed her the picture, and said, “Joey Morris.”

She looked at the photo and nodded, “yeah, I remember him, Thursday night was his first meeting, he even volunteered to sit at our information table next week at the annual high school visitation day.”

I asked, “have you seen him since that meeting?”

Lindsey shook her head, “no, I haven’t. You don’t think anyone in our group has anything to do with his disappearance, do you?”

Blake said, “we’re not sure, but that is the last place he was seen.”

I asked, “did you see him leave with anyone?”

Lindsey was starting to look concerned, “well, he was one of four new members that night. Let’s see, there was him, Carla, Matt, and Ty. I made sure to introduce them all to some of our other members. They all seemed to blend in really well, like I said Joey already was volunteering, so were the others. I just can’t believe anyone in our group has anything to do with this.”

I shook my head, “we aren’t saying that anyone from your group is involved, we would just like to talk to them to see if they have information that might be helpful.”

Blake said, “it would be really helpful if you could give us a list of your members.”

I stepped in, “we will not release the list or demand that they talk to us. If you could just let them know we are looking for information and please have them call us with anything they might know.”

Lindsey nodded, “yes, of course we will cooperate, what do you think happened to Joey?”

I said, “we don’t know, we are still holding out hope that he is somewhere and just hasn’t had time to let his family know where he is.”

Blake said, “I think we should concentrate on the three new members first.”

I agreed, “yes, unless you think that we should talk to some of your other members. What can you tell us about the three new members?”

Lindsey said, “Other than the new four, all the other members have been in the group for a year or more. Joey and Carla stopped by our information table at the student union the second week of classes. I had a class with Matt, and he heard me talking about the group and asked when our next meeting was.”

I was writing all this down, I asked, “what about Ty?”

She looked at me, “he just showed up at the meeting that night. He said some of friends told him about it and he wanted to see what we were about.”

Blake asked, “do you know his last name?”

She shook her head, “no, I don’t.”

I looked at Blake, then back to Lindsey, “do you have your members give you all their information, like name, address and phone number?”

She said, “yes, we have a basic info sheet that everyone fills out, I gave one to Ty that night. He said he would get it back to me as soon as he could.”

Blake and I again exchanged looks, he asked, “do you think you could give us a description of Ty so that our sketch artist could make a composite?”

Lindsey shrugged, “I could try.”

I asked, “could you come down to the station this afternoon?”

She nodded, “sure, I’m done with classes at 1 pm today, I could be there right after that.”

Blake said, “that is perfect, we have the artist already coming in on another case, we’ll have them meet with you right after.”

Just as we were wrapping up our conversation, the waitress approached our table with a coffee pot in her hand. She smiled and asked, “can I get anyone a refill?”

I said, “yes please, but could you put it in a to-go cup?”

Blake said, “yes, me too please.” He was starting to put papers back into his bag.

The waitress said, as she saw the picture of Joey, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eaves drop, but that guy was in here on Thursday night with another guy.”

I asked, “did you hear the other guy’s name?”

She said, “I don’t know which was which, I just heard the names Joey and Ty.”

We thanked the waitress and Lindsey as we paid for our coffee and drove back to the station. We were both confident that we were on the right track and needed to talk to Ty.

***

Joey was finally able to think clearly, he walked around the room and tried the door, it was locked. He walked to the only window and looked out. He was clearly on an upper floor of what appeared to be an apartment building. Joey wasn’t sure, but if he had to guess, he would say that he was somewhere between the eighth and tenth floor.

He heard the door open, the same man that Joey had seen yesterday walked in.

The man looked at Joey and grinned, “good, you are more alert today.” Joey backed up against the far wall.

The man said, “oh, there is no need to be afraid, I am not going to hurt you. In fact, if you behave, I will take very good care of you.”

Joey asked, “what do you want? Why am I here?”

The man chuckled, “I bought you from Mr. D. You are here for whatever I want to do with you. Now, there is no need to worry, as long as you cooperate, you will have everything you need. In fact, this is your apartment, well, yours and Dylan’s.”

Joey was trying to figure out what was going on as the man started to walk toward him. Joey flinched as the man ran his hand across his bare chest. The man chuckled, “relax, let’s just enjoy ourselves.” He started to kiss Joey’s neck, then down his chest. He worked his way down Joey’s stomach and tugged Joey’s underwear down and licked his limp cock. Joey tried to resist, but the tongue on his young dick caused it to swell. The man was soon sucking Joey to the root, an involuntary moan escapes Joey’s lips. The man guided Joey to the bed and pulled his clothes off. He turned Joey onto his stomach and began to lick and suck at Joey’s hole. Once Joey’s pucker was coated with slobber, the man aimed his cock at the nearly virgin hole and slowly pushed. Joey bit his lip as he gave in, just wanting the man to get off and leave. The man picked up speed and much to Joey’s relief was soon shooting his sperm across Joey’s ass. He again slapped Joey’s cum covered ass and said, “that’s a good boy, just keep that up and we will get along just fine.” The man grabbed his clothes and walked out the door.

Joey got himself up off the bed and walked to the bathroom that was off of the bedroom. He started the shower and turned it to the hottest setting he could stand and fell to the floor and wrapped his arms around his legs and started to cry like a baby.

***

Blake and I arrived back at the station and updated the captain on both the Wilcox and Morris cases. We grabbed a quick sandwich from the vending machine and prepared an interview room for both Adam and Lindsey to meet with our sketch artist. To be honest, it wasn’t really an artist, it was more of a technician. With computers these days, the witness just needed to look at pictures of eyes, noses, ears, chins etc. on a computer screen, the tech would click on them, and the computer would generate a composite. The witness would verify the picture and the tech would make any adjustments until we had a final picture of the person we were looking for.

Adam arrived just as the tech finished setting up his laptop. The tech guided Adam through selecting all the facial features, slowly a picture of Dave started to emerge. The great thing about using a computer was that we could produce a full color picture. From Adam’s description we were able to see the red hair and green eyes and Adam was very confident that we had the composite right.

The front desk notified me that Lindsey was waiting in the lobby.

I turned to Blake and said, “Lindsey is here, I’m going to take her to my office. You ok with staying here to finish this up?”

Blake nodded, “yeah, no problem, we’re just about done, I’ll come get you when we finish.”

***

Joey finally got out of the shower and walked back into his bedroom. He was still trying to wrap his mind around what was going on. He had worked through the denial mode of his emotions and after the last encounter with the man, had passed to survival mode. Did that guy say he bought me? What the hell did that mean? Joey quickly moved on to anger after he cried it out in the shower. He told himself, I need to find a way to break out of here. He checked in the dresser and found a pair of shorts and a couple of t-shirts. He put them on and walked to the door, he was surprised when the knob turned, and the door opened. He peaked out into the hall, he didn’t see or hear anything. Joey slowly padded down the hall, he was startled to see another guy about his age sitting on the couch with headphones on and a laptop on his lap.

The guy noticed Joey and took off his headphones, “hey, I’m Dylan, you must be my new roommate.”

Joey nodded, “I’m Joey, what the hell is going on, why am I here?”

Dylan closed the laptop and set it on the table in front of him, he said, “you are here to replace Ty. That’s the deal here, Mr. Edwards wants two guys, if you want to leave, you have to recruit your replacement.”

Joey was stunned, he said, “are you kidding me, I don’t want to be here. Are you telling me you want to be here?”

Dylan nodded, “it sure beats living on the streets.”

Joey asked, “so you were homeless before you were…recruited?”

Dylan stood and walked to the fridge and pulled out a can of soda, “yep, got kicked out of the house when my stepdad found out I was gay. Do you want a soda?”

Joey took the can of soda, “thanks, but I still don’t understand.”

Dylan smiled, “Mr. Edwards takes care of us, we have plenty of food, a warm bed, and a nice place to stay. In return, we just have to let the perv fuck us every couple of days. Once you’ve been here a few days, just ask him for anything you want, after he’s had his way with you. A PlayStation, a new laptop, a tv for your room, whatever you want, he’ll get it for you. You should give him a list of your sizes and he’ll bring some new clothes the next time he comes over.”

***

I greeted Lindsey and led her to my office, I gave her a chair and went to get her a bottle of water. I walked back in and handed her the bottle, she was looking at the pictures on my unsolved wall.

Lindsey took a drink and asked, “why do you need me to give you a description of Ty, you already have his picture.”

I gave her a stunned look, “what are you talking about?”

She pointed to the picture on my wall, “right here, Tyler Pearson. He is the guy that Joey was talking to after our meeting that night.”

I just stared at her for a minute, “are you kidding me?”

She shook her head, “no, his hair is a little longer, but that is the same guy that showed up at our meeting on Thursday night.”

Blake walked into my office, “hey Ridge, we’re ready for Lindsey.”

I pulled the picture from my wall and said, “please come with me Lindsey, you can help me update this.”

We rushed down the hall, Blake asked, “what’s going on?”

I just said, “you’ll see.” We got to the interview room, and I gave the picture to the tech, I asked, “can you load this picture and help us update it a bit?”

He nodded, “sure, I just need to hook up my scanner.”

I told Blake what was going on and as soon as the tech had the picture loaded, Lindsey guided him in the few updates, mostly it was the length of his hair and the addition of some facial hair. We thanked Lindsey as we walked her out the door and went back to my office.

Blake asked, “what does this mean?”

I shook my head, “it means that I was wrong about Tyler Pearson running away from home. I think he was kidnapped and is now being used to get other guys into this… this… whatever the hell it is.”

 

To be continued…