Everyone's Man – 35

 

 

Keyes waited, a slight smile on his face. Finally, he broke the silence. "May I come in?"

 

"Sure, sorry. You weren't quite what we were expecting." Bill stepped aside to let him in. "I'm Bill Snider. The young man over there is Colin Wilcox."

 

Keyes nodded as he crossed to look down at Colin. "Do you mind?" he asked, pointing at the empty space on the sofa.

 

Colin shrugged, watching him cautiously now.

 

Keyes sat and took out his notebook, flipping to a blank page. "I'd like to know what happened. You don't have to go into details if that makes you uncomfortable. I just need to know how and why you ended up with those men."

 

Worrying his lip, Colin glanced over at Bill. When he received a look of encouragement, he began telling the detective how he'd first met the man who had been instrumental in his rape.

 

"You never saw him before that evening?" Keyes asked.

 

"Nope. He was a new client, or at least new to me. We met in the room, he…" Colin swallowed hard. "I won't do the S&M scene or bareback. A bit of light bondage is my limit. He wasn't happy about that. He got angry, pulled a knife, I got cut, and got the hell out of there before he had a chance to do anything more."

 

"He came with a knife. That's interesting."

 

"Interesting?" Colin chuckled morosely. "More than interesting I'd say, considering he was well-dressed, expensively dressed. We were about to get down to business when he started telling me, well, ordering me, to do certain things. I told him he had the wrong dude for that. That's when he grabbed me and then snagged the knife from where he laid his clothes. Things got…intense."

 

"Then what? I mean after you managed to get away?"

 

"I got stitched up, packed up, and left town." Leaning his head back, Colin stared up at the ceiling. "Guess I didn't vanish as well as I thought, because one of his friends found me."

 

Keyes nodded. "What then? I take it you didn't know that this man knew your attacker."

 

Turning, Colin shot Keyes an angry look. "Are you dumb or something? Of course I didn't know they were…acquainted. It was just supposed to be a birthday party. I was his 'gift' to his friend, or so he said." Colin frowned. "Well, sort of for both of them. He asked if I did threesomes. I figured what the hell, the money would be good, so I told him sure, no problem."

 

Keyes switched gears because he could tell Colin was beginning to get agitated. "Where was this party?"

 

Colin shrugged and shook his head. "In a high-class neighborhood, but I don't remember the address. After I gave it to the driver I guess I left the paper in the cab. Or…" he gulped. "Or they searched my stuff when they…before they dumped me off. And took it."

 

"Would you recognize the house if you saw it again?"

 

Colin nodded. "I think so."

 

"All right, good. Now back to the first time you met this man. I gather someone set that up."

 

"Yeah, but I'm not telling you who." Colin started defiantly at Keyes. "It's bad enough that dude is looking for me, I don't want problems from…from my ex boss too."

 

"Colin," Keyes said quietly, "we have to catch this man and his friends before they rape and kill another boy. For all we know this could have happened before and they're just getting more vicious or you could have been the first and they discovered they liked it. Either way, I don't think they're going to stop now."