Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good Man\Promises Under the Peach Tree\Husband by Choice (22 page)

“What makes you believe that?” Reid asked, keeping his voice calm. “Did that look like his truck?”

He'd already checked and knew that Randal Haveman was the registered owner of two vehicles, neither of which was black.

But the boy shook his head. “No. I mean, I don't know. He might have gotten a new one. Or borrowed it or something. Before he had a Yukon. It didn't have the right kind of grille. Besides, it was like a 2007 or 2008. Whatever it was that hit Caleb was really shiny and new. You know?”

Reid nodded. “It's a help that you were so observant.”

“Oh, sure. You mean, like how I got the license number?”

Reid held his gaze. “You saved yourself. That's pretty damn impressive.”

The boy ducked his head for a minute. “Everything that's happened, it's just like Dad,” he mumbled. “He likes to scare people. When he was in a really good mood, I knew he was setting us up for something. And Dad really liked fire. He has this, like, monster grill on the patio. He owns a whole chain of stores that sell grills and woodstoves and saunas. You know, like that. At home he had this brick circle in the backyard to have fires, too. He'd get these
huge
ones going with sparks floating toward the neighbors' roofs. They called the cops a few times.” His eyes were dark and desperate. “After the guy who lived next door complained, Dad slashed his tires. I saw him coming back in with his knife.”

“Son, why didn't you tell us this sooner?” Roger asked, somehow keeping his voice kind.

“I thought maybe I could catch him. Or at least see him so you'd believe me.” He looked from face to face. “It's me that oiled the hinges on the back door. I've been sneaking out at night, watching for him. The night he stuck the knife in the door, I saw someone running away down the driveway. But when I started after him, there was someone else there.” His shamed gaze met Reid's. “I didn't know it was you. I'm sorry. I sneaked back in.”

“I heard the door.”

“You think your father was trying to hit you, and Caleb and Diego were collateral damage?” Renner asked.

“He wouldn't have cared if anyone else got hurt.”

“Has he ever actually tried to kill you before?”

“No, but I sort of ducked my head and tried to get by. He...came pretty close this one time when I ran away and was brought back.”

This wasn't the time to ask
how
the son of a bitch had “almost” killed his son in retaliation for the sin of trying to escape. “I've been trying to check out your father's whereabouts,” Reid said instead. “It's turned out to be a challenge because he has a dozen stores, including ones in Bend and Klamath Falls, which gives him good reason to be in our neighborhood. He's traveling a lot. Pinning down his whereabouts hasn't proved easy.”

“I should just go,” TJ said in despair. “If I'm not here, he won't have any reason to keep doing this stuff. That's what I wanted to say.” He hunched his shoulders. “And that I'm sorry about Caleb. It's my fault.”

“No.” Reid heard how hard his voice was. “It's not. TJ, if your father is really behind all this,
he's
responsible. Him and no one else. Caleb would say the same thing. And no, you're not going anywhere. You're a victim as much as Caleb is. More. We're going to find a way to keep you safe. You hear me?”

The boy stared at him, seemingly stunned.

Paula scooted along the bench until she could wrap her arm around the boy who looked like a man. “Of course you're not leaving us,” she said softly.

“Don't even think about it,” Roger echoed.

TJ's face crumpled and he began to sob.

Throat working, Clay Renner stood and jerked his head toward the door. Embarrassed that his eyes were burning, Reid nodded and went with him.

Outside, the two men stood on the porch. Both of them stared out at the woods that shielded the old resort from the road and neighbors. Renner let out a gusty sigh at last.

“God damn. Sawyer, I don't see how we can protect the Hales, not if Haveman is behind this. It would involve a shitpot full of lying, and that would only work if he keeps his mouth shut.”

“Which he won't do,” Reid said flatly. “He's going to claim he's over here on a legitimate mission to try to get his boy back from renegades who hide runaway kids from their legal guardians. Shining the spotlight on the Hales will suit his purposes.”

“That's what I think, too.” Renner turned his back on the view and leaned a hip against the porch railing. “What do you suggest?”

“We find the son of a bitch first.”

A crack of mirthless laughter came from Renner. “Good plan.”

Reid grinned reluctantly. “I don't have jurisdiction.”

Renner's face sobered. “No. I'll call every one of his stores and his home. We'll nail down his schedule.”

“Which will tell him his son is here in Angel Butte if he doesn't already know.”

“Yeah.” Renner's regret was obvious. “It will. That doesn't mean he'll be able to touch him.”

“No.” Reid ran a hand over his head. “Let me know what I can do to help.”

“You helped, cracking the kid open in there. You should be focusing on your brother.”

“There's...not much I can do, until he opens his eyes.”
Until
was such a positive word. He wished he entirely believed it.

“You hear about Jane's sister?” the other man asked unexpectedly.

Reid turned toward him. “No.”

Renner frowned at the woods. “Melissa was in a car accident. No, it was more complicated than that—her kid was grabbed and held hostage. Turned out Lissa had been blackmailing her boss, who was using his trucking outfit to run drugs.” He slanted an apologetic glance at Reid. “Sorry. None of that's relevant.”

“Some part of it must be.” He kept stumbling over other melodramas. It probably said something about him that he felt better to discover these colleagues—maybe new friends—had suffered through deep shit of their own. Maybe that was why they were sympathetic to the Hales—and to him.

“She was in a coma. Lasted for days. We weren't sure she'd make it or who she'd be if she did open her eyes.”

Reid winced.

“Thing is, she's fine.” One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Serving a prison sentence, but that's a whole other story.”

“I wouldn't mind hearing it one of these days.”

Renner clapped him on the back. “We'll have you to dinner once Caleb's home with you.”

Reid winced again.

Renner's blue eyes were friendly. “A little worried about becoming parent to a teenager?”

“You could say that.”

“Is that what you have in mind?”

Reid drew a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. He needs me.”
I need him.

“Good. Keep me updated on his condition and I'll do the same on what I learn.”

“Thank you.”

With an amiable nod, Renner departed in the Jeep Cherokee. Reid stayed where he was for a few minutes, not looking forward to going back in and talking to Paula and Roger, looking forward even less to the talk he had to have with Anna when they met up again.

* * *

R
EID
'
S
FIRST
REACTION
at the sight of Anna rising from one of the chairs outside ICU was pleasure. The second was dismay.

That discussion would have to be
now,
before things blew up and she learned the truth some other way.

And then he got a good look at her face and thought,
Oh, shit.
She knew. Maybe not everything, but something.

“Hold whatever you're thinking,” he said abruptly. “Let me check on Caleb.”

No change. He stood at his brother's bedside long enough to gather himself, not talking this time, just gripping his hand. Finally he said, “I'm here, Caleb. Whenever you're ready.” Then he walked out.

Anna was waiting. They were alone out here, but for the elderly volunteer who sat behind a desk guarding the inner sanctum. He took Anna's arm and led her far enough away so they wouldn't be overheard.

“Diego's father here yet?”

Disgust and maybe a hint of fear flashed across her face. “Oh, yeah. He considered assaulting me, but thought better of it in time. It's almost too bad.”

Reid ground his teeth.
Almost
assaulted her? “That son of a bitch,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not the first time, won't be the last.” Her eyes swam with emotions he didn't want to decipher. “You lied to me.”

Crap.
Wearily, he sank into a chair. “Yeah.”

She stood over him, anger and hurt undiminished. “Let me rephrase that. You've
been
lying to me. All along. Over and over.”

“I didn't want to.” He knew how weak that sounded, and said it anyway.

Anna didn't even bother scoffing. “Why?”

“Because I knew you'd turn the Hales in.”

“The Hales.” Recognition dawned. “Roger. The man who was here at the hospital.”

Reid nodded. “The hit-and-run happened a few hundred yards from his place.”

“He heard it?” she said slowly.

Oh, man. “No. A third boy was there, Anna. He...dived into a ditch and didn't get hurt beyond a few bruises and scrapes. Diego had enough presence of mind to tell him to go to the Hales'. TJ...has one of the worst parents of all.”

Her face was ghost pale. After a moment, she sagged into a chair. Not the one next to his. The empty seat between them felt like, and was meant to be, a chasm. “All,” she repeated, sounding shocked despite whatever she'd thought she knew.

“They have...had ten boys,” he told her. His voice was robotic. “The Hales are good people, Anna, whether you want to believe it or not. They've been doing this for years.”

“Hiding children from their legal guardians and the authorities.”

“Hiding children from viciously abusive guardians. Children who, no matter what the allegations, were sent home over and over again.” His voice gained passion as he willed her to understand. “Children no one listened to. Refused to believe.” His jaw tightened. “I was one of those children.”

She stared at him, unblinking. “An underground shelter.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “And you truly believe this is the right way to rescue these kids.”

His “Yes” lacked as much force as he wanted to inject into it.

“Foster parents being overseen by no one. Who could be abusive themselves, but have kids too scared of their alternative to speak up or take off.”

“They're not—”

Her hand chopped off his ability to speak.

“Foster parents whose background has never been investigated. Who, even assuming
they
have the best will in the world, are robbed of any ability to investigate adults
they
introduce to the kids.”

Reid was held silent by the memory of police lieutenant Duane Brewer, who had mentored, raped and murdered girls from the Hales' shelter—a man whose past they couldn't check out. In fact, the very secretiveness of their operation left them vulnerable to unspoken blackmail. Brewer had been a cop; he could have exposed them if they hadn't welcomed him as a volunteer, let him take kids anywhere, anytime, he wanted.

Whatever hurt Anna felt was no longer apparent. All he saw was ferocity.

“Foster parents who had no recourse when a kid chose to take off. They couldn't go looking for him, the way I did Yancey.”

Reid had thought of that, too. Imagined kids who couldn't cut it at the Hales doing something as desperate and stupid as thirteen-year-old Yancey had been about to, preparing to hitch across the country in search of a relative who would have rejected him if he'd ever gotten that far. In search of a dream.

“Do you know what happens to kids when there is no oversight?” Suddenly, her voice shook. The pain in her eyes was back. “Let me tell you.”

“Anna—”

“No,” she said sharply. She sat on the edge of the seat, her back ruler straight. “I had a sister. Molly.”

The grief on her face was a blow to his midriff. He reached for her hand, and she stiffened and shrank away.
Don't touch.
After a moment, he let his hand drop to his side. He wasn't sure he could say anything.

“She was two years younger than me. We were... I don't know. On our second or third foster home. We had a new caseworker. She insisted that this was a wonderful family. They had acreage, and dogs, and even a pony. She would visit often. She
promised.
”

For all his experience, Reid had never heard a single word said with such shattering pain. She didn't have to tell him what had happened, but she did.

“She lied. Or forgot because she got busy. Who knows? What
I
know is that we spent a year and a half in hell. I was in first grade. I should have told my teacher what was going on, but I didn't. I saw how much she liked them both. We were lucky girls to have a home with them, she said.”

His throat unlocked. “She didn't know.”

“No. She didn't. Maybe she would have listened. But I was only six, and I kept thinking, Miss Byrd
promised.
” There it was again, a lethal slice of pain. “She'll be back and I can tell her and she'll take us somewhere else. Someplace safe. Only—” Her voice broke. “She didn't. Not in time.” Anna breathed hard, and then she glared at him as if it was all his fault. “He killed my little sister, and I have to live with the guilt because I should have told someone. Anyone. I should have—”

Reid stood and reached for her.

She leaped up and retreated, her expression wild. “Don't touch me. Don't!”

His fingers curled and uncurled. “Please. Anna, let me—”