Bad Boy Soldier (Bad Boy 3)

The man entered a narrow walkway that skirted the coast a few hundred feet ahead of me. I sped up and bumped into him, knocking him in an attempt to intimidate him, put him off balance.

"How do you live with yourself?" I said in a hushed voice, my disgust with him and his type making me feel that violence was the only solution.

He stopped and turned to face me, his response showing he was alert, but not expecting to be followed.

"Who the fuck are you?"

I grabbed his arm when he tried to run. "Who do you think I am?"

He shook his head, his eyes wide. "I don’t know." He looked me up and down, sizing me up. "Are you one of Franklin's men? I paid up."

"No," I said, making a mental note to check all Spencer's contacts for a Franklin.

"Then who are you?"

I reached into his pocket and grabbed his keys, his wallet, and his cell. He tried to wrestle with me, but I was a few inches taller and a few dozen pounds heavier.

"Go," I said and shoved him.

"Give those back," he replied, reaching for the wallet and

cell, trying to take them from me.

I withdrew my sidearm and pointed it at him. "Leave before I shoot your sorry ass," I said and backed away. "Be prepared."

He frowned. "For what?"

But by the paleness to his face, I could tell he knew what I meant. He'd better prepare himself for being arrested when I turned the bastard in.

"Go, now," I said waving my gun at him. "Or I may lose my temper and shoot you, you perverted fuck."

He turned and hustled down the walkway, disappearing into the trees where the walkway met the forest. I watched for a moment and then turned back, running along the pathway back to the cabin. I tucked the phone and wallet into my jacket pocket and did a recon of the cabin, looking for a point of entry.

Before I did anything, I slipped on a pair of latex gloves. No need to leave my fingerprints all over everywhere. Then, I used the handy little device George had given me that jammed the radio frequency used in any alarm system, enabling me to open a window and slip inside undetected. Your average neighborhood thug didn't have access to sweet tech like I had.

The living room looked completely normal, except for a dozen empty bottles of beer, and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. A distinct scent of weed hung over the room.

I took my time, examining everything. Then, I opened the door to the basement and walked down the stairs, my heart in my throat as I went. I knew that if there was anything incriminating, it would be located down here, where the air was cool and damp.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I felt sick to my stomach.

Video cameras set up on tripods.

They were making child porn. Inside a dark room was a bed against one wall and video equipment, a camera on a tripod, an assortment of other cameras on a table against another wall. Restraints of many kinds—leather straps and chains, belts and whips—were laid out on a table. Whoever owned this cabin was not only into abusing children sexually, he was a sadist who enjoyed their pain and fear.

I felt the blood freeze in my veins as I examined the sadistic pedophile's paraphernalia, my anger making my muscles tense. This stuff between consenting adults I had no problems with, but against children?

Had the worm been this bad, this developed in his sick perversion, when he’d lived with Celia? He'd hit her, he'd hit Graham, but had he spared Celia this hell?

I could only hope so.

I couldn't imagine Celia as a little eleven- or twelve-year-old girl, tied up and abused.

It was impossible.

I checked around, looking for a stash of pornography, magazines, photographs, or films in the room that Spencer and his pedophile associates used as a trophy room, but there was nothing.

Then I found it.