Bash, Volume III by Candace Blevins Read Free Book Online Page B

have ice cream.”
    “Yeah, and it’s mine ,” I said with a smile. “Not offering to share my ice cream with you.”
    Bash chuckled and went to the fridge. “Detective Johnson will take a cold bottled water. What do you want, Agent Graham?”
    “A water would be nice for me, too. Thanks.”
    I noted Detective Johnson studying my face, and I told them, “I don’t intend to be seen without make-up after today, so get a good look while you can.”
    “Mind if I get a few more pictures?” Graham asked.
    I shook my head. “I let you get all the pictures of my face and arms you wanted yesterday. That’s all you’ll need for court, should we make it there, and if you keep making me feel self-conscious about it, I’ll go put makeup on now, before we get started on our conversation.”
    “Tell me what you can about the five men who took you,” said Detective Johnson.
    “They were all black. One was lighter skinned and I suppose could’ve been Latino but is likely biracial. I can’t tell you anything about the driver other than his skin tone because I only saw a small bit of his arm. One of the four in the back with me seemed a larger build than the others, but the rest were wiry, thin. They all wore jeans, t-shirts, and masks.”
    “You were on the floor of the van, right? Did you notice their shoes?”
    Brain had told me to be honest about anything that happened in the van, with the exception of the conversation and masks. I realized I had noticed their shoes, and I said, “Yeah, I did. One of them wore royal blue shoes with grey laces. Another wore blue Nikes with a grey swoosh. Two wore white shoes — one was a white high-top with a lot of royal blue on it. There was a star, I think. Both pair of white shoes were so white , I remember wondering how anyone kept their shoes that clean.”
    Detective Johnson asked me if I knew which pair of shoes had come at me, at the end, and I shook my head. “Sorry, no.”
    “Can you walk me through it, again? How you got out of the rope, what you heard them saying?”
    I shook my head. “I’ll answer any new questions, but I’m not up to answering the same questions again. Agent Graham has the entire session on video, I don’t need to give you permission to watch it, but I’m doing so anyway.”
    Johnson looked at Bash. “Mind telling us where you were last night?”
    “I was across the street, at the bar. A bunch of us had planned to watch the game. When all hell broke loose, we stayed put and strategized. We had no clue where to start looking for her, so there was nowhere to go.”
    “I’ve already put together a USB drive with the video of them from last night, showing them in the restaurant area with last night’s game in the background,” Brain told him. “The rest of us were over here, watching the game and then strategizing, so we don’t have an electronic alibi. You’re more than welcome to track our activities on the traffic cams, though. We know you put them up on our street specifically so you can keep tabs on who comes and goes.”
    Paco had driven them all out of here in the panel van, and then they’d been brought back two-by-two, hidden in the back seat floorboard of various cars and SUV’s. If LEO tried to say they’d left in the van, they’d have to explain how they got back, because the van was at Paco’s girlfriend’s house today, so he could help her move.
    “Why do you need to know where they were?” I asked, incredulous. “They didn’t kidnap me! Bash and my dad were terrified, and the rest of the MC was either worried for me, or there for Bash.”
    Johnson looked at Brain. “Where were you?”
    “Doing what I do best, in the control room. I’ll note you kept all discussion off the police radio. I was listening at the time Angelica thinks she called the police for help, and no one was sent to a McDonald’s on Rossville Boulevard to talk to a woman who claimed to have been kidnapped.”
    Johnson smiled. “Standard procedure