Free Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) by Victor Methos

here?”
    “Yeah, they pay me five hundred bucks a month and I just collect their mail.”
    Stefan leaned into him so far that the man had to take a step back into his apartment. “We need to talk to someone from the company. Someone that would know about the videos they make.”
    He shrugged. “I got a phone number. That’s it.”
    “We’ll take the number. I’d like a look around the apartment, too.”
    “Be my guest.”
    As they entered the apartment, Gio whispered to Stefan, “Run his name.”
    Stefan nodded and began collecting information from the man. Sarah brushed past them and peered into the apartment—hardwood floors and bare white walls with a futon and flatscreen television showing a reality program about teenagers living on the beach. It was so loud she couldn’t think. She reached down to the remote and muted the TV.
    The living room connected to a small kitchen and the only bedroom. Gio was busy going through the man’s drawers and checking his medicine cabinets. Sarah stood there, looking around.
    “Where’s their mail?” Gio shouted.
    The man shouted back, “Under the bed.”
    Gio pulled out a steel-mesh bin filled with envelopes and packages from underneath the bed. It held at least fifty pieces of mail, which they’d have to take, Sarah guessed. Gio lifted the bin and put it on the bed. The bed looked new, much newer than anything else in the apartment. Gently, Sarah reached down, and brushed the comforter with her fingers.
    The agony was instantaneous, as if she’d been hit in the head with a baseball bat. A white flash and pain.
    Sarah saw the room brightly lit, darkness outside the windows. A woman was tied down on the bed, and two men did things to her, ranting about all the horrific things she was going to go through that night. Behind them stood a man with a camera and another man with a boom mic. There were several other people in the room as well. The man that had let them into the apartment was in the kitchen, and he watched what the men did to the woman.
    Sarah crumpled over. She felt Gio’s soft touch as he lifted her.
    “He’s lying,” she gasped, out of breath. “He’s lying.”
    “Easy,” Gio said, laying her down on the bed.
    “Not on the bed,” she said, forcing herself up. She rose and sat on the floor, her head in her hands until the pounding subsided. “He’s lying, Gio. They’ve filmed here before. He knows exactly who they are.”
    Gio rushed into the living room, his face twisting in anger. He grabbed the man and slammed him into a wall. Stefan tried to pull them apart while saying, “Gio, no. Back off, man. Take it easy.”
    Gio pulled the man away from the wall and then slammed him into it again. “You think I’m fucking playing with you. I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice and accomplice to rape, you little shit. You’ll never see the outside of a fucking prison cell again.”
    “Hey man,” he shouted, “I ain’t done nothin’, man.”
    “You know who they are. They’ve filmed here before.”
    The man looked as though he might pass out. His face lost all color, and his eyes widened. “I…”
    “Don’t you fucking lie to me.”
    “Yeah, they been here. They been here, man. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with those videos. They just pay my rent and five hundred bucks a month to use this place sometimes.”
    “Who are they?”
    “Just two dudes. Justin and ah…Bill. Justin and Bill, man.”
    “California Bill?”
    “Yeah, that’s what he goes by.”
    Gio eased off him a little. “How do you get in touch with them?”
    “They call me. I have their number. That’s it, that’s all I know.”
    “If I find out you’re lying to me, I swear I will do everything in my power to put you in prison for as long as I can.”
    “No, man. I’m not nothin’. I just let ’em use this place. That’s it.”
    “You’re gonna call them and set a meeting. Tell them they got some mail that they need to pick up right now. If they ask