Page 71 of A Future To Remember

“Why did you think that?”

“She just seemed out of it. You know, her eyes were rolling around and her eyelids were droopy.”

“And it never occurred to you that she might’ve been roofied? Or in trouble?”

Another shrug. “They could’ve been together. How was I supposed to know?”

“But something seemed off to you, right?”

“Yeah. Maybe. She smelled nice. She was pretty. He smelled like he’d been camping for a week or two, and he was dog ugly.”

“Any discernable tattoos or scars on him?” I was gonna have a sketch artist work with this idiot, but I needed to confirm the tiger tattoo that Gwen had seen.

To my surprise, the idiot nodded. “Yeah,” he said. Sweeping a finger across the top of his hand, he added, “He had a couple of tattoos across his knuckles.”

That was news. Gwen mentioned only the tiger. “Describe them.”

Idiot scratched at his cheek, hesitating. I knew he remembered this guy, and I knew that he was afraid of him for some reason. The reason became a little clearer when he said, “On his right hand, he had DTOM across his knuckles.”

I squinted, working through the acronym. “Don’t Tread On Me from the Gadsden flag.”

“Yeah. And he had the snake coiled around his wrist.”

“Got it. Anything else? Maybe a tattoo on the inside of his forearm?”

Idiot nodded. I was relieved he was opening up, like giving a confession “He had a tiger on his forearm that was…licking a lady.”

I nodded like that didn’t affect me. “And? Any others?”

He lifted his right index finger to trail across the knuckles on his left hand, slowly ticking off the other tattoos he’d noticed. “I-I-I, the percent sign, and a bunch of stars across the top of his hand.”

Fuck. Me.

“He’s part of the Three Percenters,” I said, trying to swallow past the gigantic lump in my throat.

Idiot nodded again.

It was my worst fear. Maybe even worse than my worst fear, if my worst fear was that Abby was dead; the only thing worse that I could possibly imagine was that she’d been taken by a domestic terrorist organization like the Three Percenters.

If they knew or discovered that she worked for the FBI…

I shut my eyes while my mind scrolled its way through crime-scene photos of what domestic terrorists did to their enemies.

“Hey,” the attendant said. “Dude, you, okay?”

I opened my eyes, realizing that I was swaying on my feet. “No,” I told him, because it was the truth.

After taking a couple of deep breaths, I pulled out my phone, opened my contacts app, and slid it toward him. “I need your info. I’m gonna have a sketch artist contact you to get a better description of this guy.”

He looked at my phone like it’d grown tentacles and a sharp beak. “Dude, I don’t wanna get involved.”

I picked my phone up again, turned it toward me, tapped at the screen, then swiveled the photo of Abby toward him again. “Her name is Abby. Abby Cooper. She’s the love of my life. She’s loved by so many people. She’s the rock of our world. And she’s in trouble. She needs your help…”

I paused because I didn’t even know this guy’s name.

“Travis,” he supplied.

“She needs your help, Travis.”