Chapter 9 - Process of Elimination.

Justin spent the next forty-five minutes cooling his heels while Brian ordered his accountant around over the phone and  furiously typed away at his computer. Eventually, though, Brian had done all he could for the time being. Between the bank and the accountant, it sounded like they’d have all the money moved around and be ready to meet the ransom demands within the next forty-eight hours.

Meanwhile, Justin spent his time trying unsuccessfully to tap into what Brian would call his ‘psychic’ abilities. Try as he might, though, Justin couldn’t seem to connect to the kidnapper. In fact, strangely enough, he couldn’t seem to connect to anyone. Not his mother, his little sister, or even Daphne. And, while his abilities were always sharper when his subject was nearby, Justin could usually get at least a vague sense of those he had a close and long-standing relationship with, even over long distances. So it was a little worrisome that he couldn’t reach out to his family or his best friend. It was almost like something was blocking him. 

Which is why Justin was almost relieved when he got a text from Daphne even though the news she imparted wasn’t reassuring. 

‘Heads up - both Ms. Patel and Mr. Bartlett commented on you being absent. That’s what you get for being Mr. Perfect Attendance three years running, I guess. I thought you’d be back by now. Any luck finding the baby? Anyway, heading into Dickson’s class now, and you KNOW he always takes attendance, so you better have your excuse ready.’

Justin looked at the time and grumbled a muted, “shit!”

“Problems?” Brian asked, looking up from his desk.

“Nothing serious,” Justin replied. Brian just continued to stare, one eyebrow raised inquisitively, prompting a fuller confession. “It’s just that I’m missing History and, since my teacher is a total dickhead, I’ll probably get detention again.”

“Again?” Brian questioned, a hint of humor in his tone. “You don’t strike me as the rebellious type, Mr. Taylor. But I suppose, with those angelic looks, you could be a regular juvenile delinquent and nobody would suspect, would they?”

“That’s me; Rebel Without a Clue,” Justin replied with a self-deprecating chuckle. “It’s no big deal, though. Dickhead Dickson can bite me. Finding Gus is more important.”

The mention of Gus acted like an ice cold shower on the mood in the loft; Brian nodded sadly and came over to join Justin on the sofa. “Yeah. Unfortunately, though, until the police uncover some credible leads, I don’t think that’s likely.” Brian looked sideways at his young guest before adding, “Unless you and the Psychic Friends Network have a better idea?”

“Sorry, nothing yet,” Justin confessed, hating the way he seemed to be letting Brian down. “It feels like I’m blocked or something . . . I think I’m just trying too hard, you know? I mean, most of the other visions just came to me when I was doing something else kinda boring. Or when I was asleep. So, maybe, if I concentrate on something else for awhile . . .”

Brian shook his head and huffed a little, clearly not impressed with Justin’s supposed empathic skills. “Whatever you say, Kreskin.” Those dispassionate words, however, were accompanied by a fresh wave of hopelessness that Brian seemingly couldn’t hold back.

“Don’t give up, Brian . . .” Justin pleaded, reaching out impulsively to grab the older man’s hand. “There’s got to be another way to find the guy . . . We can . . .” 

Justin looked around himself as if some solution would just magically appear, but the only thing he saw was his phone sitting on the coffee table where he’d placed it after reading the text from Daphne. He picked up the device and stared at the home screen for a few long seconds, racking his brain for some other way to help Brian. Which is when he saw the ‘Notes’ app and a new idea miraculously popped into his head. 

Picking up the phone, he eagerly turned towards his companion. “We don’t have to wait for a new vision, Brian. We can start with the ones I’ve already had. We can make a list of what I remember seeing and . . . and try to match that up with people we suspect. I told you, whoever did this is someone you KNOW. We just have to match up what I’ve seen with people who might want to hurt you . . .” Justin had already opened the app and started a new note. “It’s like one of those logic puzzles. We list all the clues I remember and compare it to a list of all the people you know, and then, by process of elimination, we cross off anyone that can’t be the suspect. Then we’ll at least have a shorter list of who it could be, and . . .”

“Hang on there, Inspector Clouseau,” Brian cautioned, his hand covering Justin’s fingers and pausing the boy’s furious tapping. “That’s gonna be a hell of a long list. I’m in advertising and I know a metric fuck ton of people.”

“Yeah, well, then you better get started on your list,” Justin concluded as he pulled his hand free and began tapping away again, “while I finish up mine with all the clues I can think of from the prior visions.”

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An hour later, Brian was still working on his list even as Justin finished up what had turned into a sort of timeline of visions with full descriptions of everything Justin could remember from each time he’d felt any contact with the abductor. Thanks to Justin’s artistic temperament, he had an excellent memory for details, even though the timeline stretched back over several months. It was a lot of data. He just hoped it would prove useful.

Justin wandered over to stand behind Brian, who was seated at his desktop computer making his own list. Brian had opened up a spreadsheet and had broken down all his acquaintances into three categories: Work, Friends, and Tricks. The list of people in the first two categories seemed to be complete, but he was still struggling through the list of tricks. Justin peered over Brian’s shoulder, peeking at the gargantuan list of tricks, and had to laugh at the way they were being described. 

‘Baths, January ?10, Asian, ~7”, crappy blow job skills.’

‘Babylon, Suds & Studs, tall brunet, ?Allen, good fuck, tight ass.’

And the list went on and on like that. 

“Brian,” Justin interrupted, causing the stud to pause in his listing and look up. “I think you can skip the parade of anonymous tricks. Whoever took your son isn’t some random guy you fucked. It’s someone that knows you pretty well - better than a trick, I’d think. Unless you’re in the habit of disclosing your finances to the guys you fuck.”

“Hardly,” Brian scoffed. “But I’m pretty well known. And you know the gay grapevine - everyone on Liberty Avenue knows everyone else’s shit. So, it’s not inconceivable that one of these losers might have checked me out and found out I’ve got a bit of money. And, well . . .” Brian cleared his throat, squirming a little uncomfortably in his seat. “I may not have been all that . . . accommodating . . . to some of these guys . . .”

“If you’re trying to say you fucked them and then immediately blew them all off - just like you did to me - I get your point,” Justin summarized with an edge of disapproval. “It’s safe to say that a few of your former tricks might be more than a little unhappy with your treatment of them, Stud.” Brian shrugged but didn’t look up at Justin. “Be that as it may, I still don’t think the guy who took your son is a disgruntled former sex partner, Brian. It’s the wrong vibe.”

“You sure?” Brian asked as he scanned down the list he’d already made - which was only up to mid-January despite the time he’d spent on it. “Some of these guys were pretty pissed off at me, if I remember correctly. And you’re not my first stalker, you know.”

Justin had to smile at the flirty way Brian said that last comment. “I’m pretty sure,” the youth reaffirmed. “I think we should at least start with folks you have a more personal connection to. But, if we eliminate all those and don’t find our guy, then we can always come back to your list of stalker tricks. ‘Kay?”

“Whatever you say, Sherlock.” Brian clicked around on his spreadsheet program and moved all the tricks to a separate sheet, leaving just the Work and Friends contacts. “So, where do you want to start?”

Justin Airdropped his notes to Brian’s Mac so they could have both documents open at the same time. Then he pulled up a chair next to the anxious father and they got to work. They decided to go through the list of work contacts first, mostly because Justin figured they’d be easier to eliminate. 

After looking at Justin’s list of clues and talking it over, they concluded that whoever had done this had to be local and had to have a lot of time on his or her hands. Which meant it was fairly simple to cross off the names of clients or business contacts who lived out of town or who travelled extensively or even those who were just busy running their own companies, since none of them would have been around during all the many times that Justin had seen the kidnapper stalking Gus. That winnowed the list down quite a bit.

It was a little more difficult to cross off Brian’s coworkers, since they were obviously all local. Also, the adman admitted to having had acrimonious run-ins with several of them in the past. However, since Brian assured Justin that he assiduously kept his private life and personal life separate, and it was therefore unlikely that anyone - other than his assistant, his boss, and the HR lady who handled the benefits paperwork, of course - even knew he had a son, it seemed improbable that any of these connections would have thought of kidnapping as a means of revenge. Of those who did know of Gus’ existence, Brian could personally confirm that Cynthia, his assistant couldn’t be the bad guy, as he kept her much too busy to be following a toddler all day. His boss, Marty Ryder, was far richer than Brian, so there was no motive for a kidnapping for money there. And the HR lady was a fifty year old grandmother of three, so that seemed unlikely as well. Justin also didn’t think the person whose thoughts he’d been channelling sounded like a coworker, so he concurred in the elimination of all but a few of the names on the Work list.

“What about this one,” Justin pointed to the one remaining name they hadn’t discussed. “Who’s Kip Thomas?”

Brian sighed. “Uh, yeah . . . I don’t think we can eliminate Thomas,” Brian answered, and Justin felt a whiff of red hot anger from his companion. “Kip is a vindictive little fucker; he tried to sue me for sexual harassment when I refused to recommend him for a promotion after we’d fucked a couple times - which was totally bogus and the arbitrator threw his claims out the minute he saw how woefully inadequate the guy’s resume was for the job in question - but that only made Kip even more pissed off at me. Plus, he’s gay and I’ve seen him hanging out in some of the same bars I frequent on Liberty Avenue, so he could probably have found out about Gus through the grapevine there. No, I wouldn’t put a kidnapping or two past that stupid fucker.”

“Ouch. Okay, keeping Kip Thomas on the list,” Justin agreed before moving on to the much shorter Friends list. “Debbie, Vic, Michael (Dr. Dave), Ted, Emmett, Mel, and Lindsey.” Justin read the names aloud. “Not too many; we should be able to go through them pretty quickly.”

“Yeah, real quick; none of my friends would do something like this,” Brian declared, sounding sure of himself. “You can just cross them all off right away.”

“Hold on a minute, Brian,” Justin grabbed Brian’s hand before he could reach for the mouse. “I understand why you wouldn’t suspect someone you consider a friend, but we need to at least look at all of them. I mean, don’t all those cop shows on TV always say that most crimes are committed by people you know?”

“That’s bullshit. None of my friends would hurt a child! I just can’t see it.”

“Well, maybe not but . . .”

“But what?” Brian pressed when Justin balked. 

“It’s just that . . .” Justin took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself to argue what was likely to be an unpopular opinion. “If the kidnapper was a close friend, it would fit with the stuff I saw in my dreams.”

“It’s not possible,” Brian insisted.

“Look,” Justin held out a hand in a ‘stop’ gesture, trying to get Brian to pause long enough to hear him out. “Whoever did this has to know you really well.” Justin started to tick off the points he was making on the fingers of his outstretched hand. “He knows you have a son. He knows you have enough money saved to meet his ransom demands - and that’s not common knowledge, right? I mean, lots of folks probably know that you’re doing well for yourself, but who would know you have THAT much money on hand, huh? Also, assuming it’s the person I’ve been seeing in my dreams, it’s someone who has a lot of strong personal feelings about you - it’s not some stranger or someone you’ve only tangentially pissed off. The vibes I’m getting are from someone who’s PERSONALLY angry at you. Someone who’s jealous. Somebody who wants to hurt you . . . Which means you can’t rule out someone you might think of as a friend.”

Justin thought his logic was pretty unassailable, and yet Brian still continued to shake his head throughout the empath’s entire recitation. “Listen, kid. You don’t know me that well and you definitely don’t know my friends. These people,” Brian pointed to the list on his computer screen. “These people are more than just friends. Hell, they’re closer than my real family ever was. I would trust any one of them with my life. I trust them with my kid’s life too. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”

“Fine. Then let’s go through them the same way we went through the work contacts and eliminate them,” Justin proposed, still not convinced by Brian’s blind loyalty to his friends but willing to give them the benefit of the doubt provided they met the same criteria they’d already used on the rest of Brian’s list. “We can cross out Mel and Lindz, obviously, because I already confirmed they were being honest with the police.” Brian nodded and positioned the cursor to line through those two names. “What about this one; Emmett?”

“Emmett’s too big a nelly bottom to hurt anything, let alone a baby,” Brian snorted a half-amused laugh. “I once saw him run out of the bathroom, shrieking like a banshee, when he saw a spider.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Brian. Fear of spiders doesn’t necessarily mean he’s afraid of doing other bad things.”

“No, but . . .” Brian scanned over Justin’s timeline of visions for a few seconds and then smiled when he seemed to find something. “Aha! Look. You say you saw this one on the morning of New Year’s Eve, right? Well, it couldn’t have been Emmett then. Or Ted for that matter. They were both out of town that weekend. Ted arranged to do his remaining end-of-year continuing education credits at some conference in Vermont and took Emmett with him as his guest. I remember because he spent most of the week before bragging endlessly about how it was all going to be tax deductible as a professional expense and I gave him shit about spending one of the most fuckable nights of the year in a cabin with Emmett and a bunch of boring accountant types.”

“Okay. Cross them off,” Justin conceded. “What about the rest?”

“There’s no way it’s Debbie,” Brian asserted. “She’s been working like a fucking dog, doing double or sometimes even triple shifts, for the past six months, trying to pay off those fucking credit card bills from her and Vic’s trip to Italy last year. Deb doesn’t have time to stalk anyone. Besides, I’m pretty sure she was working the breakfast shift this morning - she’d have half the boys of Liberty Avenue as her alibi for the time when Lindsey was attacked.”

“Right. Debbie’s clear then,” Justin agreed, nodding as Brian crossed that name off too. “What about these other three? Who’s Vic? I don’t think I’ve met him.”

“Vic is Debbie’s brother,” Brian answered. “I don’t think he’s the one either, though. Vic’s dealing with too much of his own shit right now. He’s HIV+ and he’s been pretty sick up until the past few months when the new meds finally kicked in. But even though he seems to be doing better, I don’t think he’s up to traipsing around the city stalking Lindsey.”

“Maybe not, but if he isn’t working he’d have tons of time on his hands and it sounds like he could use the money, right? You said Deb was working to help pay off his bills?” Brian reluctantly nodded. “So we can’t cross him off yet, even if it’s unlikely.” Justin could tell that Brian was about to argue the point so he quickly moved on to the last entry. “That leaves only Michael and . . . who’s this you put in parentheses? Dr. Dave?”

“David Cameron. He’s Mikey’s latest love interest,” Brian replied with a scowl. “I don’t know all that much about the guy, to be honest, except that he’s boring as shit and, like, a thousand years old. But he’s not bad looking for an oldster and he seems to have swept little Mikey off his feet, so whatever.”

“He’s a doctor?”

“A chiropractor, yeah. Same difference.”

“Doesn’t seem like someone who’d need money badly enough to steal a kid,” Justin guessed. “Unless he was a secret drug addict or a gambler or something . . .”

“I doubt it. He’s too respectable for that,” Brian scoffed. “Plus, according to Mikey, he drives a Mercedes, wears a Rolex, spends a month every summer in Europe, and keeps shelling out for dinners at the most expensive restaurants in town.”

“Ok, I’m going to guess he’s a no, then,” Justin concluded. “Which just leaves Michael . . .”

“Why did you say it like that?” Brian questioned.

“Like what?” 

“The way you said ‘Michael’; as if you don’t like him or something?”

Justin paused and tried to think through how he would word the concerns he had without alienating Brian. He knew the two men were close friends. Back in the fall, when he’d tried to interest Brian in more than just their one night stand, Justin had run into Michael several times. Michael hadn’t been mean about it, per se, but it HAD seemed like the short Italian was running interference for Brian most of the time and was determined to keep Justin on the sidelines. Justin had sensed a possessiveness in Michael that was incongruous in someone who was just a good friend, but hadn’t thought much about it back then. Now, however, combined with the over-the-top animosity and jealousy he’d felt from Michael when they’d been ambushed outside the loft earlier, it made Justin wonder. Was there something more there, under the surface, that deserved a closer look? Something that Michael was trying to hide?

“I don’t know Michael well enough to judge him like that,” Justin hedged. “But . . .”

“But . . .” Brian echoed.

“Well . . . What he said earlier? About how he wanted your help with his bills and all? It made me wonder, is all.”

“So what? Mikey’s been helping out his mother and Uncle Vic for a while now. It makes sense he’s struggling a little. And I did promise I’d help them if they needed it,” Brian replied defensively. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not. It’s just that . . . Well, the way he said it - that he was ‘drowning in bills’ - that’s almost exactly what I heard the kidnapper saying in my vision last night,” Justin explained.

“That’s bullshit. It couldn’t be Mikey,” Brian countered immediately without even pausing to think about it. “It just couldn’t be. We’ve been friends for more than half our lives.”

“I just know what I heard, Brian,” Justin insisted. “The person in my dream last night was sitting at a table, looking at piles of bills and he said something like, ‘what’s the fucking point. I’m fucking DROWNING here while HE wastes more money in one night than I earn in a week.’ And then he said a bunch of stuff complaining about how well Gus was treated instead of him and that he was ‘done being pushed aside and treated like an afterthought’.” Justin inhaled, waiting a beat to see how Brian would respond, but when the brunet didn’t say anything, he plowed on. “This morning, Michael said almost the same thing, Brian. He said he was drowning in bills and he had a whole stack of them he was waving around in his hand. Plus . . . Well, the emotions he was projecting were sort of . . .”

“. . . Were sort of what?” Brian growled.

“He was hiding something, Brian. I don’t know what, exactly, but I know I felt it. He wasn’t being completely honest about his motives either. And he was also feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions; there was concern, sure, but there was also a lot of guilt and jealousy and anger and . . .” Justin sighed, trying to find a way to soften the blow but not coming up with anything substantial. 

Brian simply sat there, looking a little stunned. But he was so emotionally closed off at that point that Justin wasn’t sure what the man was feeling. Brian had once again become a blank wall. Which made Justin feel ashamed that he’d obviously caused the already stressed out father even more pain, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to tell Brian the truth as he saw it, right?

“I’m not saying Michael did anything, Brian, but I don’t think you can one hundred percent rule him out either,” he concluded. 

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