Karin Slaughter - Kisscut

"You got something to tell me, Dave?" Jeffrey asked, pushing him down the hall.

"Help me," Fine said, reaching for a patrolman who happened to be coming out of the bathroom. The cop looked at Fine, then Jeffrey, then walked on as if he hadn't seen anything.

"Move," Jeffrey said, still holding him up by his collar.

"Somebody help me!" Fine screamed, bending his knees until he was on the floor. Jeffrey still dragged him down the hallway by his shirt collar.

"Help!" Fine screamed.

"Help you like you helped Jenny?" Nick asked, walking beside him. "Help you like you're helping Lacey?"

"I don't know where she is!" Fine screamed, putting his hands on the floor to give more resistance.

Jeffrey saw Maria stick her head around the corner. She looked at Fine, then turned back around.

"Help me!" Fine cried, his voice hoarse from the effort. "Oh, Lord, please help me."

Jeffrey's hand was cramping. He let go, and Fine dropped to the floor, sobbing. "Oh, Lord, please deliver me from these men," he prayed.

Nick bent down in front of him. "The Lord helps those who help themselves," he suggested.

"But you can keep on praying, Dave," Jeffrey told him. "You can pray the papers don't print how you died from having your asshole ripped open."

Nick put his hand on Fine's shoulder. "Hate to have your wife and kids read about that, Dave. It's a bad way to have to go."

Fine looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."

"Okay what?" Jeffrey asked.

"Okay," he repeated. "I might know where she is."

Jeffrey drove while Nick sat in the back seat alongside Fine. Behind them, an unmarked car with four GBI officers drove at a safe distance.

"You better not be fucking with us, Dave," Jeffrey said, making a right turn to circle the block for the third time.

"I told you I'm not sure what the address is," Fine insisted. "Dottie only took me here once."

"What'd she take you here for?" Nick asked.

"Nothing," he mumbled, looking out the window.

Jeffrey looked at him in the rearview mirror. "This better not be just you postponing the inevitable."

"I'm not, okay?" Fine snapped. "I told you this was where she did some business."

"What kind of business?" Jeffrey asked.

Fine looked like he wasn't going to answer, but for some reason he did. Jeffrey liked to think it was guilt that made Fine tell them things, but he had been a cop long enough to know it was plain and simple stupidity.

Fine said, "This guy, he keeps kids here sometimes."

"You sure it's just him alone there?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yes," Fine insisted. "It's mostly used as a safe house."

"Safe for who?" Nick asked.

"Who do you think?" Fine snapped. "He keeps pictures mostly, but a couple of times I saw some kids and a couple of cameras."

"And out of the goodness of your heart you reported him to the police," Nick suggested.

Fine stared out the window, probably feeling sorry for himself. They had spent an hour driving to Macon, then another two hours driving around different subdivisions looking for this house that Dave Fine said he would recognize only by sight. Jeffrey looked in the rearview mirror, wondering how much longer they had before somebody called the Macon cops about two suspicious-looking cars in the neighborhood.

They were on tricky ground here. Technically, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had jurisdiction over the state, but as a courtesy, they should have notified the Macon Police Department that they were conducting surveillance on their turf. As Jeffrey and Nick weren't even sure Dave Fine had ever been here, let alone whether or not Lacey Patterson was being held in Macon, there wasn't much they could tell the Macon Police Department. They couldn't get a warrant without a street address, but Nick was counting on im-minent jeopardy to cut through that red tape. They could always say later that they saw something suspicious in the house. With a child involved, and time being of the essence, neither one of them was worried about getting slapped on the wrist for this.

"Turn here," Fine said. "Left up here. This street looks familiar."

Jeffrey did as he was told, thinking it was pointless because they'd already been down this road.

"Then up here on the right," Fine told him, excitement in his voice.

Jeffrey took the right, going down a new street. He exchanged a look with Nick.

"There it is," Fine told them. "It's the one on the right with the gate."

Jeffrey didn't slow the car, but he had enough time to see that all the windows had the blinds drawn. The outside security lights were also on even though it was the middle of the day. The gate had a large padlock on it. Whether or not this was to keep people out or keep them in remained to be seen.

Jeffrey stopped the car at the end of the street and waited for the other car to catch up with them. He could hear cars from the interstate, which was less than thirty feet from where they had parked. Jeffrey guessed the people who lived around here got used to the noise, but right now, every car was like fingernails against a blackboard.

Agent Wallace got out of the car, leaving two men and one woman inside. He adjusted his belt, even though he was wearing a shoulder harness. He was a beefy young guy who worked out enough to make the material around the short sleeves of his shirt look about ready to break. His cheeks were so close-shaven that Jeffrey could almost make out the razor marks.

"That the house with the gate?" he asked, taking off his sunglasses.

"That's what our guy says," Jeffrey told him.

Wallace looked back at the car, meeting Dave Fine's glare. He spit on the road, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "Motherless piece of shit," he mumbled.

Nick had been on the other side of the car, calling the Macon Police Department. "He's not happy," Nick said.

"Didn't think he would be," Jeffrey answered, knowing that if someone from the GBI had called Jeffrey to say an operation was going down in Grant that Jeffrey knew nothing about, he'd be pissed, too.

Nick said, "It'll take 'em a while to get their heads out of their asses and get over here."

"Did you tell them the house?"

Nick smiled. "Hell, I couldn't even remember the street."

Jeffrey laughed, glad he was here instead of back at the Macon police department.

Nick opened the back door and grabbed Dave Fine's hands. Before the preacher could protest, Nick had cuffed him to the strap over the door. "That'll hold him."

Fine said, "You can't leave me here."

"If I were you," Nick said, "I'd relish this time alone."

Fine colored. "You said I'd get my own cell back at the station."

"Yeah," Jeffrey agreed. "That's the station, though. I've got no control over what happens to you in prison."

Nick chuckled, knocking on the hood of the car. "Don't worry, Davey boy. I'm sure you'll meet yourself some quality folk in prison."

"You can't do that," Fine insisted.

Nick smiled. "Don't worry there, preacher. Near about all of 'em already found God. You can pray with them till your heart's content."

Fine shot Jeffrey a panicked look. "You promised!"

"I promised about my jail, Dave," Jeffrey reminded him. "I've got no control over what happens in the big jail. That's up to you and the state."

"You said we'd work out a deal."

Jeffrey said, "A deal for reduced sentence, but you're still going to jail."

Fine started to say more, but Nick slammed the door in the man's face.

"Pussy," Nick said.

"He will be to somebody," Jeffrey agreed, using the remote to lock the car doors.

"Goddamn," Nick said, his eyes lighting up as he checked his revolver. "Can't believe I'm getting to do this twice in one day."

"We'll take junior, here." Jeffrey indicated Wallace, who looked about ready to jump out of his skin. Jeffrey probably looked the same way. There was enough adrenaline in his blood to give a lesser man a heart attack.