Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

of Allison’s body from the morgue. She slammed them down on the table in front of him.

“What is that?” Samuel sneered as she reached for the photo of Allison.

“She is Allison Newark,” Olivia corrected him with a snarl. “She was one of the women you and your men were keeping captive. You knew her as Cat.”

“Oh, her,” he huffed with a shrug. “I barely recognized her. She looks like hell.”

Even though she was sitting a foot away from me, I could practically feel Olivia tensing with anger at his rude response.

“Yeah, well, if she hadn’t sailed from here to Miami in a tiny fishing boat, maybe she wouldn’t be in that state,” I retorted.

“Right, right,” he muttered. “She’s the one that took off a few weeks back with Antonio’s kid. I told that idiot keeping them around was a stupid idea. Looks like I was right.”

He was smirking as though he found all of this funny. It pissed me off.

“Allison was kidnapped from her parents nearly twenty years ago,” Olivia continued calmly, though I could tell she was annoyed. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Of course,” the man grinned, exposing his gnarled and yellowed teeth. “I’m the one who grabbed her.”

“You what?!” Olivia exclaimed.

“Just what I said,” Samuel cackled. “I was just a grunt worker back then. I had a part-time job as a custodian at the hotel she and her parents were staying at. I still remember that day. I knew the moment I saw her that she’d fetch a huge price. Blond hair and blue eyes, and milky white skin, too. You don’t find girls like that here, aside from the tourists. Clients will pay a lot more for a girl with her looks.”

“She was a child!” Olivia gasped as she stood up, her chair dragging across the floor with a scrape.

“So?” Samuel shrugged. “She was going to grow up eventually, and boy, did she grow up fine, eh?”

I literally shuddered at the way he chuckled at his own disgusting thoughts. I glanced over at Olivia. She was glaring at Samuel with a look of unbridled hatred, and for a moment, I was genuinely concerned that she was about to attack him. After a few seconds, though, she slowly sat back down.

“I was right, too,” Samuel continued. “She was a big money-maker. At least until Antonio went and knocked her up. I told him to arrange for her to get rid of it, but he insisted that he wanted her to have it. We had other girls by then, younger ones, so it wasn’t a big deal.”

“You’re a monster,” I uttered, unable to hold back any longer.

“Ha!” he scoffed at my insult. “You think I haven’t heard it all? I’m no monster, boy. I’m a businessman. I’ll bet you make a pittance doing that little government job of yours. You go out, risk your life, spend all day getting shot at, and for what? Meanwhile, I’m here, basking in paradise and getting rich off the backs of others.”

“You’re sitting in a police station,” I deadpanned in response. “And you won’t ever be a free man again, I can assure you of that. Say whatever you want, but you’re going to pay for everything you’ve done.”

Samuel’s face scrunched up like he’d just smelled something rotten.

“Whatever,” he replied petulantly.

“Captain Turner,” Olivia suddenly spoke up. “From the Kew Town police station. Is he working with you?”

“Turner?” Samuel raised an eyebrow at her. “Why do you want to know? What’s in it for me if I talk?”

“You’re in no position to be making bargains,” Olivia snapped angrily at him. “Answer the damned question.”

“Alright, alright.” Samuel shrugged. “I guess if I’m going down, I might as well take him with me! Yeah, he is, in a way. He uh… looks the other way, if you know what I mean. And In return, I give him a small cut of our monthly earnings.”

“That explains why he kept trying to hinder our investigation,” Holm muttered.

“What a shock,” Olivia scoffed bitterly.

“One more question before we go, Samuel.” I kept my voice as even as I could. My skin was crawling just being near this unimaginable monster, and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. “You said that you were the one who grabbed Allison all those years ago. How long has this group been operating?”

“Oh, hell if I know,” he shrugged. “I’ve been working for them practically my whole life. Worked my way up, right to the tippy top.”

He smirked proudly as he spoke, and it made me sick.

“Yeah, well, it’s all going to end here,” I told him as I stood up. “You’re going to be extradited to the United States, and you’re going to spend the rest of your miserable life locked in a tiny box. Everything you dedicated your life to has come crashing down, and I hope you die angry about it.”

He glared at me as I turned to leave the room, Holm and Olivia following closely behind me.

As soon as the door closed behind us, Olivia buried her face in her hands and let out a long, anguished groan.

“You cannot imagine how close I was to doing something I would have regretted,” she said as she ran a hand through her hair.

“Oh, I think I can,” I scoffed.

“How can someone be so cruel?” Holm grimaced. “I mean, being a jerk is one thing, but he seemed almost proud while he was talking about everything he did.”

“He was proud,” Olivia huffed. “That’s the whole reason he talked to us so easily. It gave him a chance to brag about everything he’d done.”

“I need a shower,” Holm grumbled. “Or maybe two, after that interrogation.”

“I hear you,” I sighed. “But what’s important is that we caught him. According to what Samuel said, we put a stop to a group that had been operating for decades. He’s going to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison. Let him brag all he wants in there.”

“You’re right,” Olivia replied. “At least