Noah’s knees fell open as Adam’s soapy fingers dipped below the waterline, but there was no promise in it. Noah was just touch starved and Adam loved feeding him.
Adam exhaled. “We’re careful. Nobody would ever suspect a bunch of rich kids are murderers. It’s too ridiculous to even comprehend for most people.”
Noah was right, though. The fallout had never really been anything any of them had taken into consideration, but since meeting Noah, Adam knew they wouldn’t make that mistake again. But before he could explain that further, his phone began to vibrate along the side of the tub.
When he saw it was Calliope, he swiped the phone to answer and jabbed a wet finger on the speaker button. “What’s up?”
There was a long pause before Calliope asked, “What’s with the echo? Are you in the bathroom? Tell me you didn’t answer the phone on the toilet, Adam.”
Adam snickered. “If I had, would I admit it?”
“No, probably not. But it does sound like you’re in the bathroom.”
“Adam and I are taking a bath,” Noah supplied, shifting so the water sloshed around them.
“Aw. Hi, Noah,” Calliope said with that same sunshiny voice she seemed to save just for him.
“Are you ever going to stop saying hello to me like I only have six days to live?” Noah asked.
Calliope’s voice didn’t lose its sparkle. “I’m just so happy Adam finally found somebody. That’s all.”
Adam scoffed. “You do know that not having a relationship was my choice, right? I had plenty of offers. It’s not like Noah took pity on me.”
Noah snickered, reaching back to pat Adam’s cheek. “Nobody thinks that, baby. Look at you.”
Adam tipped Noah’s neck to the side to suck the water from his skin before pressing a kiss to the spot.
Calliope cleared her throat. “Keep it in your pants, boys.”
“We’re not wearing pants,” Noah pointed out with another breathy sigh.
“Your metaphorical pants,” Calliope said, exasperated.
Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. What’s up?”
“Nothing good. I tried calling your father about this but he’s got that gala tonight. I’ve been going through all the paperwork you found in the storage locker and attempting to piece together exactly what these men have going on, but obviously the data stops when Noah’s father—” She stopped short, as if realizing her mistake. “When Holt died. But the server at the cabin revealed some things. Some bad things.”
“Yeah, we’re well aware of that,” Adam said, voice grim.
“But you aren’t,” Calliope said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. When I went through the video the first time, I was simply looking to isolate faces and identifying marks that could tell us who those men were.”
When she didn’t continue, Adam prompted, “Are you pausing for dramatic effect? Because, I promise, we’re riveted.”
There was the sound of a deep breath and a slow exhalation, like she was gathering herself. “I decided to go through it again, hoping to find anything to help me identify the victim. We still don’t know where he is. Maybe he’s at home, but maybe he disappeared like so many of Holt’s victims. You know?”
Noah stiffened against him. “And did you? Find him, I mean?”
“No. Not exactly. When I went through the video a second time, I paid more attention to what was happening before those men arrived, trying to find a picture I could use to run facial recognition software against the missing person database. But I went back all the way to the beginning. The boy was just sitting in the corner, running a toy car over his leg…” Once more, another deep breath. “Gary and another man were talking just out of frame. The mic picked up everything.”
“What did you hear, Calliope?” Noah prompted gently.
Maybe that was why Calliope liked Noah better. Adam had never considered what it must be like for people who could empathize with the victims. Noah and Calliope were the same. Two people willing to wade into the worst parts of humanity despite the toll it was clearly taking on both of them. Especially Noah.
“They were auctioning off ten spots. One night only,” she said, choking on the words. “They sold him to those men. They might not all be part of the circle, or maybe they’re all part of a larger circle. I don’t know how it works or what the fuck they’re doing to those boys, but they appear to have expanded their empire far outside their initial group.”
Noah shot to his feet, water cresting over the side of the tub onto the tile below. “When are we going to just kill these fuckers?” he snarled.
Adam followed Noah from the tub, wrapping him in a towel before grabbing one for himself. “I appreciate the added information, but we already knew these men are scum. That’s why they’re all going to die. One at a time or all together. Their time on this planet is limited. We’re not the cops. We don’t need physical proof to know they’re guilty.”
“That’s not the point,” Calliope said. “They’re selling children. Trafficking them. There could be living, breathing victims out there who need help. They could still be living with their abuser, like Noah was. We have to find a way to figure out who these kids are. Not just this boy, but all of them.”
Adam examined Noah. His skin looked ghostly white and his eyes were hollow, strain etched across his beautiful face. “How do we do that?”
“I think the information on the hard drive you cloned holds the key to everything. I don’t think it's just chock full of kiddie porn. I think Gary is keeping records, maybe even recordings of the auctions, like Holt did before he died. I think it's insurance of some kind. I could mine through the data on what I do have of the hard drive you took from Gary’s house, but I can’t crack it. It’s fucking Fort Knox. I need the encryption key.”
“Encryption key?” Noah echoed.
“Yeah. It’s a string of letters and numbers, like a super complicated password,” Calliope said.
“And you can use the encryption key to crack the hard drive and figure out who the victims are?” Adam asked.