chapter 38

chapter 37
Martines sat there glaring at Justin and Ben, but Justin didn't back down. "Who shot Tanner Ericson?" he almost screamed. As Martines stayed silent Justin turned towards Ben. "Guess we'll let your buddy know to charge him with murder too." Justin made his way towards the door and Ben began to follow.

"Wait!" Martines yelled just as Justin went to lay his hand on the doorknob. "I'm not going down for murder, or attempted murder, that was all my father!" The cop broke his silence.

Justin glanced at Ben and let the smile flicker a moment before he turned back around. "So, Sal Thompson killed Tanner?"

"He wasn't supposed to be there, all he was going to have to do was drop the girl off at the house, one of the guys at the party was supposed to offer her a ride home."

Justin was shocked at first, a guy was supposed to offer Bree a ride home? Had things gotten so bad on the father that he’d give up his girl? Make money off of her? This didn’t make any sense. Justin asked the dreaded question, that he probably didn’t want to know the answer to. “So, Tanner was in on it?”

“No, he wasn’t,” Martines started. He let out a sigh. “I didn’t know him very well, except for just a few head nods when he drove past, we were going to try to take more than one that night, I was outside the house when Tanner dropped one six nine off, I heard the man tell the girl he would be back at ten,” Martines paused again. “Can I get something to drink? I’ve been locked in this small room for hours.”

Justin scoffed in disgust. “You don’t deserve anything to drink, did you feed the girls you had captive? Did you give them anything to drink when they needed it terribly? No, I didn’t think so.”

“I knew our plan was to take any girls that night would go up in smoke if he showed back up. I had to act fast with coming up with some kind of plan to make sure he didn’t show back up or we got everything done before he did.”

Justin desperately wanted to throw Martines into the wall at that point. This was one sick bastard, and it was making Justin sick to think about what possibly unfolded for Bree that night.

“I paid some random punk ass kid to hit on one six nine, he was supposed to offer her the ride home, the idiot picked up the wrong bitch, so the dad showed up anyways, my father was in the house trying to round up as many drunk girls as he could, he was doing okay until one six nine ran out of the house after he tried hitting her over the head the first time, but ol’ daddy was waiting for his daughter.”

Justin almost couldn’t hold back, he made an intimidating move towards Martines. Justin wanted to punch the bastard, and not just some wimp baby punch. He wanted to rock this guy’s skull, knock him out. Show the dirty cop what it felt like to be thrown into darkness without warning.

“When she came running out of the house, Tanner was out of his truck in a minute, she yelled for him, but my father pulled out the stupid gun, shot at him three times, then he knocked one six nine out and dragged her to the van. I made him abort the other girls he had managed to round up and they left. We’ve struggled to get rid of her since day one, the buyers like it when there is more than one girl, first off, second she had such an attitude on her it wasn’t funny, even though she didn’t remember who she was or that she never belonged in that house, she sure put up a fight when ever someone would come look at her.”

Justin went to lunge over the table at Martines. Ben had to grab him by the shoulders hard, so he didn’t beat the man who had hurt his niece, Bree, and the other girls.

“Justin, come on, Cierra just text me, Darrius is on coming up to the station now, we can't let this case be thrown out."

Justin turned towards Ben. "These bastards don't deserve what they will probably get once Darrius does get involved." Justin gritted out, balling his hands into tight fists, but kept going for the door.

“Wait!” Martines yelled out. “You’re telling him I didn’t have anything to do with the murder right? Because I didn’t. I told you everything.”
           Justin turned back calmly. “I guess that’s up to the FBI, because in my eyes, you did, you had everything to do with the murder, you set up this operation, came up with the plan to take the first girl, you may not have pulled that trigger, but you allowed it to happen, the thought to stop it never crossed your mind.” Justin motioned for Ben to head out the door and followed.

Martines let out a yell, but Justin calmly shut the door on the yell. Everything in him wanted to beat the dirt bag. He threw a glance at Ben.
           “Darrius and his team will deal with everything from here on out, he’ll make sure the right justice will be dished out, our concern can now be focused on Marnie and Bree.” Ben tried to calm Justin down some.
           ‘Yeah, it’s just challenging, I wish I could get a few round in with the dirt bag before, but all that matters right now is I have some answers for Bree, she deserves answers with all that she has been through." Justin clamped his mouth shut as Darrius came down the hallway with a few more agents behind him.
Ben grabbed Justin's shoulder and squeezed. "You go be with your niece, I'll handle filling Darrius in on everything, you need to be with your family."
Justin gave a brief nod and headed out to the lobby where he found Cierra pacing. "Can you take me back to the hospital?" He asked quietly.
She nodded and they made their way out the door of the station.
As Cierra drove she kept throwing little glances at Justin.
"If you want to know just ask, Cierra."
"What I really want to know is what you found out?"
"Tanner was killed the night Bree was taken, she is his daughter, Martines confirmed it, but I still want to wait for the DNA, which Ben is supposed to get , I may have you look into that for me, Sal was the one who shot Tanner, Martines watched the whole thing while he tried to set Bree up to get a ride from someone else, but they were going to try to take more than just her." He explained as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Can he still move?"
"Only thanks to Ben, Cierra, do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to beat him to a bloody pulp? I almost want to go back and take care of that asshole myself."
"I know, Justin, but Bree now has answers, we don't have to wait until Darrius and the others are done with him, hopefully she wakes up soon and we can tell her the sad news."
Justin gritted his teeth. He just hoped she did wake up and soon.