Nick talked to Joe beforehand about trying to get access to Shane Barnes penthouse or at least seeing if he could get the guy to talk to him. Joe told Nick to come to the hotel and he would try to get him access. Nick pulled into the Hilton parking lot and was looking for a parking space when he saw Greg's car. He found a spot near it and parked. He got out and pulled his hood over his head as it was still raining. He walked up to the car and tried the door, it was locked. He looked up at the hotel and wondered if he was with Shane at this time. He wondered if he ran into his bed after Nick made him leave. He shook his head, nauseated by the thought.
He went into the hotel and asked for Joe at the Front Desk. A clerk went back to get him. Joe came out dressed in a suit, looking like the manager he was. "I can get you up to the Penthouse floor. You are on your own from there," Joe told him. Nick nodded and thanked him.
As they rode up the elevator he prayed he would not find Greg in the mist of having sex with his guy. He knew if that was the case he would not give him another chance. It would be over. He could not put up with outright cheating.
Luckily there was only one suite on that penthouse level so Nick knew he had the right door to knock on. He knocked and waited for a response.
"I didn't order any room service," a voice yelled through the door. "I'm not with the hotel. We need to talk about someone we know in common." Nick said through the door.
Shane looked out the peephole and saw the man. He recognized him right away since his face had recently been in the newspaper due to his being shot. He silently cursed but decided to bite the bullet and opened the door.
Nick had never seen the man before and as he saw him he wondered why he would resort to using escorts. The guy was younger than he expected and definitely a good looking man. He would think a guy with his looks could get any guy he wanted. And yet he probably did, he just bought them for the night. "Come in," Shane said to him.
"You know who I am, don't you," Nick said as he walked into the lavish suite. Yes, the guy definitely had to have money to afford that suite. No wonder why Greg liked being with him. It made Nick feel like a useless penny compared to a gold bullion.
"You're face has been in the papers recently and well, Greg talks of you often," Shane admitted to him. "Would you like a drink?" he offered the Texan.
"No thanks." Shane nodded to him. "Alright, if you don't mind I will need one for myself as I have a feeling this will be an interesting conversation." He went to his wet bar and started pouring himself a whisky.
Nick was looking around. "I thought Greg might be here with you now. I saw his car in the parking lot."
Shane came back to the couch where Nick had taken a seat and sat down with his drink. "Um, no he left several hours ago. I don't know why his car would still be here, unless he ended up getting a room here. I know he said he was going to find a room for the night at least since he knew you didn't want him to be around."
"So he was here and talked to you then?" Nick asked him, now curious to Greg's current whereabouts.
"Yes, he came very upset and told me everything. I have to admit, you can pretty much blame me for hooking him back up with drugs," Shane told him.
Nick glared at him. "You do know you just confessed to a narcotics detective that you gave drugs to another man. I could arrest you."
Shane's eyes lit up. "Shit, so you came here just to bust me for giving some of my own personal stash to your boyfriend? Had I known I would have never let you in."
Nick shook his head though. "No, I'm not interested in busting you. He would have found someone else, I know that. He started with the OxyContin and I should have known better than to believe he was not going to go any further. He was in pain and I knew he would try to fix it in some way."
"He wouldn't have been in that pain if that asshole, Frankie hadn't kicked the shit out of his back," Shane muttered. Nick's eyes narrowed. "What did you say?" Shane looked at him. "Frankie beat him up. Frankie is another former client of his but he likes to cause pain but usually never resorted to that kind of violence. Not that I know of anyway."
"Greg told me he broke up some bar fight," Nick told him. "He fucking tells you the truth but not his own boyfriend. He really doesn't trust or care about me at all." Nick suddenly got up and started pacing the floor.
Shane felt he had to make him understand Greg's frame of mind. "Hey, look. He didn't want you to know that he has had a lot of his former clients coming onto him at the Golden Ram. He's been trying to tell them all he is out of the business. I accepted it. I just said I was willing to be a friend if he needed one. I've always liked him. When he wasn't too wasted, I knew he was smart. Not many are."
Nick looked at him, trying to read him. He seemed to be telling the truth and so far what he said about himself jived with what Greg said about him. "So what about this Frankie?"
"Frankie approached him a couple of times I guess, previously at the bar and Greg told him to basically fuck off. Then I guess that one night when Greg was leaving the bar, he was cracked over the head by a drunken Frankie. Then he started kicking him and it was Terry who found them and got Frankie to get off of Greg. Greg told him not to call the cops. He didn't want you to know. See Greg figured if you knew he was having these kinds of issues at work, you would want him to quit. It was hard enough for him to find a job as it was. He's just lucky he applied for a job at a place I have partial ownership in. He just doesn't know that." Shane said with a sly smile.
"You co-own the Golden Ram? You knew he was applying and made sure he got the job?" Nick asked, rather surprised.
"I was in the back office when Greg came in. I was about to walk out with Chad, the other owner when I saw Greg filling out an application. I pulled Chad back in and said I knew him and he was a good guy and quickly filled him in on what had happened to him. Chad kind of already knew from the papers. I mean unfortunately for Greg, Will trashed his name big time to the media. I know he turned his life around and I thought he deserved a chance."
Nick was pleasantly surprised by Shane Barnes. He was a pretty decent guy after all, just a guy who happened to pay for sex with his boyfriend in the past and do drugs with him now. "So you can't tell me you don't secretly wish he would dump me and go back to that life or perhaps be with you?"
Shane chuckled. "You're a cop alright. Yeah I admit, there is a part of me that wishes he would let you go and I would take him in. I know he would but that guy is so in love with you. He was a fucking mess I tell you when he came to see me. He said he wasn't going to see me anymore. He was going to stop cold turkey with the heroin and pray that you gave him another chance. So is that why you are here, to find him to give him another chance or did you expect to see him and me together? Because I can tell you, I wanted to touch him even and he pushed my hands away. He said he would not cheat on you. He knew doing drugs again was bad enough but cheating would be an end all."
Nick sat down on the couch again. Greg really did not cheat on him but he did lie to him about the beating. That still bothered him some, that trust issue he had. He didn't know where it stemmed from. He looked up at Shane, who looked more serious now. "I believe you. I can't believe I am saying that but I do. Now I just got to find Greg."
"Have you tried calling him?"
"Going to right now." Nick pulled out his cell phone and called Greg. His cell phone went directly to voice mail. He left a message for him to call him right away. "No answer. So you said he might be here?"
"I mean if his car is still here, I don't know why else it would be. I thought he told me he couldn't afford this place. I even offered to pay for a room for him but he declined saying it was better to stay in a place away from me. Maybe he changed his mind. It was raining pretty hard when he left," Shane surmised. "Say, how did you get up here anyway?"
Nick smirked. "I have my connections, which I need to put to use now." He stood up and was getting ready to leave. "Look I guess I should kind of thank you for at least being a friend when Greg needed one, even though he should have talked to me about it. But he doesn't have really any friends anymore, so I guess you aren't a horrible one, except for the drugs factor," he laughed.
Shane was glad he could laugh about it because he felt really weird about it now. "Yeah, well I figure I won't be seeing him anymore. Take good care of him, he needs it."
"I plan to."
Nick said goodbye and then headed downstairs to meet with Joe again. Joe led him into his office in the back. "So was Greg with him?"
"No, but do you know if he took a room here for the night? His car is still in the parking lot." Nick told him.
"Really? That is odd. I will check who is in house," Joe said. He got on his computer and punched in a few things. A minute later, "I don't see him listed at all. Unless he is staying with someone else."
Nick didn't think so though. Something in his gut was telling him that something was off about all of this. "Say, you all have surveillance cameras out in your parking lot, don't you?"
"Yeah, we do. I can take you to security. They can let you know if he went to his car and came back in." Joe took him down a back hallway and through another doorway. Inside was the security office with tons of video screens all over the wall of various parts of the hotel, casino and parking lot. He told his security officers what he was looking for.
"We have face recognition software, so if he is on the casino floor we will spot him there too," the captain of security told Nick.
"Can you go back a few hours in the parking lot video and see if you see him going to his car?" Nick told him where in the parking lot and approximately when he might have left, based on information Shane had told him.
"There he is. Wait back up," Nick said. He thought he saw another man. "Can you go back to where he walks up to his car?" Nick watched as Greg ran to his car and seemed to have dropped something, probably his keys. Suddenly another man ran up behind him and ducked down with him. When Greg came back up the other man had his arm around his neck and seemed to be holding something to his back. Nick felt his heart speed up in fear.
"Can you zoom in by any chance and see the hooded guy's face or what he is holding to Greg's neck?" They zoomed in as much as they could. The other man's face was mostly hidden by the hood but it looked like he was holding something smaller than a gun.
"Is that a syringe?" The security officer asked. Nick thought the same thing. "Keep the video playing at regular pace to see where he goes." Nick watched as the man seemingly helped Greg walk away from his car to a black SUV two cars over. He watched as Greg almost slipped from the man's grip before the big guy heaved his body into the back seat. Nick's blood went cold as he saw the man get behind the wheel and drive off with Greg.
"Can you see the license plate?" Nick asked impatiently. The security captain zoomed in but it was still kind of blurry. "Can't really make it out."
"Fuck! Wait, can I take this to our crime lab? They might be able to make it out better with our equipment," Nick asked him. Joe was still there and nodded the go ahead. He had seen the video and knew what happened was not right.
"Wait, before you do that, can you try taking a still frame of the hooded guy? I want to show it to someone and see if they might know who it is." The security captain nodded.
Within a few minutes Nick was knocking back on Shane Barnes door. "Shane, it's Nick again. I need your help with something real quick."
Shane opened the door and saw the expression on Nick's face was full of worry. "What wrong? Did you find Greg?"
"Yes and no. Look at this photo and tell me if you recognize this guy at all." Nick shoved the grainy photo of the hooded man in Shane's face. You could at least see the muscular, large body build and profile of the man's face.
Shane was looking at the photo and then realized Greg was the other person in the photo who the guy's arm around his neck. "Wait? Is that Greg?"
Nick nodded. "Yes and this guy appears to have drugged him and taken him somewhere."
Shane suddenly knew who he looked like. "Oh fuck…I think that is Frankie Delano, the guy that beat Greg up."
"Tell me everything you know about this guy," Nick demanded. Shane ran a hand through his hair in worry. He could have used a shot right now but he knew it would have to wait with this development.
"He's a sadist. He pays for a BJ and fuck but usually ends up getting out a whip or paddle and beating his escorts. One of the reasons most will never go with him again. I think Greg said the first time he was with him was nothing. I know he told me the second time was rougher and he had a few welts to show from his time with Frankie. By the fifth time Greg said he would ever be with him. Greg told me once he started getting out the whip and using it on his back, he pushed back and threw the money at him, saying he never signed up for that shit and walked out. Previously I guess he would smack him around or treat him roughly. He came to me with bruises. Lucky for him, Frankie had not bound him yet. Lots of times he bound his escorts and then whipped them but they could not free themselves," Shane told him.
"What is this guy's obsession suddenly with Greg?" Nick asked him.
"I have no clue. Maybe he is mad that he keeps denying him, even though he should realize Greg is out of the escort business and has been for months. I mean otherwise I have no clue."
"Do you know where he lives? What he does for a living? Anything that can help me find him?" Nick asked rapidly. "No, man, sorry I don't. I only saw him at Rocco's or other bars and clubs we frequented. Mostly it was word of mouth that I know of him. I like to talk to my guys. It's not always about the sex. Lots of them felt comfortable with me telling me about these other pricks that take advantage of them. Frankie's name seemed to come up the most. He was blacklisted at Rocco's eventually."
Nick pulled out his wallet and handed him a business card. "If you can think of anything, anything at all to help me find him, call me."
"Will do." Nick left him and took off down to his truck. He had to get to the Crime Lab and see what they found on this Frankie Delano. He tried calling Greg's cell phone again, hoping maybe it was all just some weird drug thing and not anything worse. It still goes to his voice mail.
The guy had no record but there were uniforms going to his house, but Nick had a feeling they would not find him home. He just wondered what this guy's intentions were for Greg and knowing his propensity for sadism scared him for Greg's sake. If only he knew his true intentions, he would have been rushing even more.
