“There any kind of reward?”
Great, this is about money. Nothing but a waste of my time.
“There might be, if your information proves valuable.” Dawkins, Inc., had offered a fifty grand reward for the arrest and conviction of whoever killed Steven Dawkins, but that didn’t offer squat to a back alley informant.
“Figures. Okay, look. It’s going to work like this. I’m going to put this on the ground and then I’m going to leave. You aren’t going to do jack until I’m long gone. Then you are gonna retrieve the disk. What you do with it after that, that’s on you. I’m done.”
“It can’t work that way, pal. This might be the best information in the world, but unless there’s a way to corroborate it, it can’t be used in court. You’re gonna have to give mesomething, some way to contact you or prove whatever’s on the disk.”
The informant laughed, the sound long and loud, echoing in the dark. The maniacal sound sent chills down Jansen’s spine.
“Trust me, once you’ve looked at that disk, you’ll know exactly who you need to talk to, to verify the information. Pictures don’t lie. There’s enough on that little disk to bring down a whole lot of people.”
The sound of wailing sirens approaching screeched through the air, and Jansen turned, looking for the flashing red and blue lights. When he turned back around, the snitch had disappeared. The glint of a DVD case on the ground glinted in the near dark, and Jansen walked forward, stooping to pick it up. With a sigh he headed back to his car.
Here’s hoping this wasn’t a wild goose chase.
“A murder?” Suzannatook a step back, staring up into Gage’s eyes.
“My parents were killed when I was ten. It was a stupid, senseless killing. I didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood, but my folks did the best they could. Dad worked as a janitor at the local elementary school, and mom worked at a drug store as a cashier. We had a house that was right on the outskirts of what you’d call the wrong side of the tracks. I didn’t mind because there was a whole lot of love in that house.”
“That’s a good thing. Lots of people don’t have that much.”
“It was good. I had friends, played sports, all the usual stuff a ten-year old boy does. Everything changed on July 26th. I was so excited. It was a big day. Huge. My tenth birthday. Mom had picked up a cake and dad was bringing home balloons and streamers and we were going to decorate the front yard for myparty. All my friends from school and from the neighborhood were coming over. I already knew I was getting a ton of presents, because it was my birthday and you always get presents on your birthday, right?
He huffed out a breath, and she could feel the emotions rolling off him. She didn’t want him to go through this. Maybe he didn’t need to tell her any more. It wasn’t really her business anyway.
“Gage—”
“It was eleven o’clock in the morning. I was inside the house. I heard the car door slam and mom went out onto the porch to meet him. Me, I stayed in the kitchen getting the paper plates and the cups ready for cake and ice cream. That’s when I heard the shots. Over and over, rapid fire automatic weapons. I remember hearing screaming, loud and shrill and piercing. Didn’t realize it was coming from me. I plastered myself on the floor, and put my arms over my head. Even at nine—sorry—ten years old, I recognized the sound of gunfire. We heard it all the time in my neighborhood. When it stopped, I laid there, waiting for my mom and dad to come in and tell me everything was okay. Sometimes, guys would drive around and fire guns in the air, thinking it was funny. I knew that’s what it had to be. When that happened, nobody got hurt. Nobody got…killed.”
“Please, you don’t have to tell me any more.”
“It’s okay. This is the bad part, but it’s necessary so you can see that sometimes good things come from the bad stuff.”
“You mean like the Boudreaus.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, like the Boudreaus. After my parents were killed—it was deemed a drive-by shooting—I was put into the system. There wasn’t any other family that could take me in. I’ll be the first to admit when I went into Child Protective Services I was not a model of goodness and light. I became sullen, angry, and combative. Anybody crossed me andI became violent. Went into a half dozen homes and lasted a couple of weeks and then was brought back again. I was a little monster who was unlovable and hopeless. Until this mountain of a man showed up at the facility.”
“Douglas?”
“Douglas Boudreau. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a lady at the center, everybody called her Mrs. A. She kept an eye out for the troubled ones, the boys who needed an anchor, somebody to tell them that life wasn’t always pain and suffering. When she found somebody like that, she called Douglas. Anyway, I got placed with the Boudreaus and I swear I couldn’t have been a bigger disaster if I tried. I hated everything about Douglas and Ms. Patti. I despised all the other boys who lived at the Big House. I especially hated the little baby girl named Nica, who seemed to be the princess everybody adored. All the other kids there were supposedly like me, all foster kids who came from traumatic backgrounds, but they didn’t act like me. They weren’t all tough and mad at the world. No, they followed the rules, did their chores, and they knew there were people at the ranch who cared for them, cared about them.”
“You must have changed, because Douglas talks about all the time you spent with the horses and around the barn.”
He leaned against the top rail of the paddock, and the shadow from his cowboy hat shaded his eyes. She almost wished she could see them, watch the emotions roll across his face, but he remained guarded.
“It took a while, probably three weeks before I finally bent a little. Ms. Patti let me help in her vegetable garden. You try showing a ten-year-old kid the difference between a good plant and a weed. Let’s just say I’ll never be the greatest gardener in the world, though I did finally catch on. Fast forward a few months. We had some tests done at the elementary school I attended. Standardized stuff, you know the kind of tests everyschool administers. Only later did I find out these weren’t routine testing. These were specialized tests and I scored off the charts. I attracted the attention of an organization in the government, looking for kids like me, ones who could be trained early enough, given specialized education. They concocted a story about an uncle who stepped forward, wanted me to come and live with him.”
“That should be against the law. They didn’t have the right to rip you out of your home and taken you like that.” Her heart ached for the little boy who’d already had his world turned upside down again, who’d lost a loving family only to find another, and have that one stolen out from under him. Sometimes she didn’t think the world was fair. Poor Gage had seen more than his share of heartbreak.
“Who do you think makes the laws, Suzanna? I hated it at first. One more trauma on top of all the others? Again I wasn’t exactly the poster boy for family life. But I got over it, and I learned. I knew it was my one way out, to get as much knowledge as I could, because one day I’d walk away with an education unlike any other. I learned skills that have served me well. Languages, I can speak six fluently, and another couple passably well. After graduation, I immediately went into the military, where I excelled. That’s not bragging, simply stating facts. From there, I was recruited by the CIA to work missions, eventually going into black ops. Clandestine government operations so far buried beneath bureaucracy it would take a bulldozer to dig deep enough. But even through all that, I never forgot this place. Never forgot Douglas or Ms. Patti. Never forget little Nica or the other guys who were here. This place became my version of paradise. A fantasy that helped keep me grounded in reality when the world around me became a cesspool. I always had the Big House and Shiloh Springs.”
“I’m glad. You deserved to be happy, Gage. It’s a shame it was taken away from you.”
“That’s just it. It wasn’t, because Douglas and Ms. Patti finally got through to me, made me remember what it was like to have a family who loved and cared about me. Once I was able to, I dug into the Boudreaus, followed everything that happened here. Checked online, in the newspapers, I even hacked into government records. I did everything to keep tabs on them, because they were mine. My family. I never came back, but I could tell you everything. Where the guys were, what careers they went into. What college Nica attended. And when there was trouble here, I did what I could to ameliorate it.”
One of the horses meandered out of the barn, into the paddock and immediately came over to Gage, nuzzling against his hand. He scratched at his nose, ruffling his mane. Douglas was right, Gage did have a way with horses. Her heart broke for the boy he’d been, losing so much at such a young age. Seeing the man he’d become, she realized it had been worth it, because he was an honorable man. A man who stood up for others. Look what he was doing for her, a woman he barely knew, because a friend had asked him to help.
