AFTER DELIVERING THE restraining order to the hospital, Reid was allowed into the ICU to sit with Caleb, whose condition had been deemed unchanged.
His brother appeared dead, but for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Cold comfort came from knowing that he was breathing on his own. Some part of his brain was still functioning. It seemed to Reid that the swelling might be going down, although the livid color of the bruises made Caleb look as if he’d been made up for a horror film. Too extensive and vivid for real life, Reid’s eye tried to tell him.
A different doctor this morning explained that they were keeping Caleb sedated. They didn’t want him to wake up yet. Reid had a vague feeling he’d been told that yesterday. It just hadn’t sunk in. So maybe he was being artificially kept from opening his eyes and saying, Reid! Man, what happened?
Left alone with his brother, Reid took Caleb’s hand in his, remembering the comfort of holding hands with Anna last night. Not just physical contact—it had felt more like the hookup between two computers. Signals flying back and forth. Maybe, wherever Caleb was lost, he’d feel the same kind of connection.
“Dad can’t get to you here. I got a restraining order,” Reid said, his voice sounding unnaturally loud. He cleared his throat. “No problem. That doesn’t necessarily mean clear sailing from here on out, but the judge was sympathetic. It was a woman, pretty new on the bench, I’m told. I went in with my dental records and I got yours emailed first thing this morning. Lucky you’d told me where he took you to get that bridge. She said the number of dentists he took me to over the years was a red flag that should have been noted when I was a kid.” He paused, watching for a twitch of reaction. Nada. “Dad hasn’t showed his face yet. I think I shook him up yesterday. I...really thought it might have been him who’d run you down, but it doesn’t look like it was.” His voice gained urgency. “I sure as hell wish you’d wake up and tell us what you saw.”
He rambled for a few more minutes. He didn’t talk about Anna, although he wanted to. Figuring out what to say was too tricky. Not when part of his turmoil concerned sex.
Making love.
The sight of her still sleeping in his bed before he left this morning had stirred him in unaccustomed ways. He’d had the fleeting vision of waking up with her every morning. The idea didn’t scare him as much as it should.
He did tell his brother that he had to go out to the Hales’ because TJ wanted to talk to him. “I’m meeting Sergeant Renner there, too. No way around it. It’s his investigation. Uh...I told you about him last night. So far, he seems okay. I guess I’m not surprised, since he’s married to Jane Renner, who works for me, and she’s good.”
He squeezed Caleb’s hand. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours at the most. Later today, the doctors are going to start tapering off on the sedatives. Your head will feel a lot clearer. In the meantime—” God, he sounded like an idiot “—you just rest, okay?”
Was he imagining the tiny flexing of those too-chilly fingers? Yeah, he decided, staring down at them, he must be. Reid hesitated, then lightly touched the less-damaged side of Caleb’s face. “I’ll be back,” he repeated and strode out.
* * *
IT WAS DISORIENTING to wake up in someone else’s bed. Anna lay still for a minute, until she remembered where she was. Then she opened her eyes and turned her head to see she was alone. The small house was quiet. So he was gone— Then her gaze fell on the clock and she squeaked. 10:54? No wonder Reid was long gone!
She leaped for the bathroom, where she found a note laid on the closed seat of the toilet, hard to miss.
Hope you didn’t have to be anywhere early. I figured you needed the sleep. I’ll see you at the hospital.
Signed, Reid.
Not that she’d expected any Love, Reid, but...
She huffed. Sure. Dream on.
After a shower, she ate a quick bowl of cereal and left, using the push-button lock, but unable to turn the dead bolt without a key. Somehow, she kind of doubted today was the day someone would break into Reid Sawyer’s rental house and steal...what? There weren’t a lot of goodies on display.
At the hospital, she spotted a strongly built, very dark-skinned Hispanic man near the nurses’ station on Diego’s floor. Even from a distance, his fury was obvious. Wonderful. He’d been told he wouldn’t be allowed to see his son. Talking to him was a peachy way to start the day.
Fortunately, his anger already had a target: the DHS caseworker, who cast Anna a grateful glance when she joined them. They took him into a small conference room, where they explained that given the allegations of abuse, they had requested a dependency hearing. In the meantime, his son had asked for no contact.
Hector leaped to his feet with a roar. “You know nothing! Women.” He spat it like an epithet. “Don’t think you’ll keep my son from me.”
The painfully young DHS caseworker shrank back from him, an enraged male standing above the two women with his fists balled. “You’ll receive a fair hearing....”
“And this time, so will Diego,” Anna was unwise enough to say.
Snarling, he picked up a chair. She saw in his eyes how much he wanted to swing it at her. Cave in her head. Smash her. She sat frozen, instinct telling her not to stand up, not to move at all. That same instinct said, He’s fooled half a dozen caseworkers and as many family court judges. If he lacked all impulse control, he wouldn’t have managed that.
She was right. His eyes never leaving hers, he set down the chair and walked out of the small room. The caseworker was shaking, and Anna was disturbed to realize she was, too.
After that, she went in to talk to Diego, who, sitting up in bed with the TV on, was undeniably awake. He looked wary. “Miss Grant.”
“Yep, I’m back. I just met with your father.”
The wariness became fear. “He’s here?” He looked past her at the door. “I can’t stay. I can’t.” He shoved the tray table aside and struggled as if he thought he could swing the heavy cast over the edge of the bed and leap to his feet. “I won’t go back with him. I’ll kill myself first!”
“Diego.” She laid a hand on his arm. “He can’t come in here. We’ve filed a court order preventing him until the allegations you’ve made can be investigated. The nurses and doctors are aware of what’s going on. They won’t let him get to you. I promise.”
His face contorted and he bent his head, trying to hide tears from her, but his shoulders heaved with a sob. Anna sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around him. He cried against her, in that raw, unpracticed way of boys and men. When he finally pulled away, she saw his shame. In his eyes, he hadn’t been manly.
Without a word, Anna handed him a box of tissues and he wiped his face and blew his nose.
“You know what?” she said. “I need a Pepsi or Coke. How about you? Would you like a soda?”
He sneaked a look at her face. “Can I?”
“Sure you can. What do you want?”
She had to go all the way down to the cafeteria to secure two tall bottles of Pepsi, chilly and beaded with moisture. The look on his face when she handed one over was her reward.
She bided her time, letting him gulp a quarter of it down and sipping her own before she said, “We need to talk, Diego.”
His alarm flared again. “I told that other social worker everything.”
Anna nodded. “I know you did. She’s going to request medical records and call everyone whose names you gave. I’m more interested in, oh, getting to know you so I can put you in the right foster home if it comes to that.” She paused, watching his guard lower before adding, “I need to know more about your recent history. There’s a whole lot you aren’t telling me, isn’t there, Diego?” she said gently.
He was tough, but also only fifteen years old. Anna’s experience trumped his stubbornness. Even so, she didn’t get everything, but he did admit enough to make apprehension, anger and a sense of betrayal tangle in her until she could hardly draw breath.
Reid had lied to her. He must have. Unless his dear friends had also taken in Caleb and probably other boys, too. None of whom could have been court supervised, or said caseworker would have noticed the boys who weren’t on her list of foster children who belonged in the home.
“You’ve already met Caleb’s brother, Reid, haven’t you?” she said casually.
Diego’s mouth opened and then closed. His eyes were dark and worried. He didn’t have a face meant to keep secrets.
Anna laid her hand on his arm and squeezed. “It’s okay, Diego. I know you’re trying not to get anyone else in trouble, and I understand. We’ll leave it there for now, okay?”
He gave a jerky nod. “What if my dad sneaks in?”
“Scream.” She let him see that she meant it. “Raise a ruckus. Help will come. I promise.”
Diego’s head bobbed. “Okay.”
She was almost to the door when, behind her, he said, “Thank you.”
Anna turned in surprise. The look on his young face was heartbreaking.
“I mean, for believing me.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat before she could get out a word. “I do believe you, Diego. So did Ms. Hinton. We’re on your side.”
She almost said, To the death, but didn’t, because that would sound bad and send the wrong message. She didn’t even exactly mean it. There were legal avenues to save this boy, and she believed in those, heart and soul. She of all people knew what came of not following the guidelines.
Then, feeling sick—no, worse than that, grieving—she headed for the elevator that would take her down to the ground floor and ICU.
* * *
DURING REID’S VISITS to the Hales’, TJ had remained a closed book to him. His looks alone were daunting to the other boys, who noticeably kept their distance.
Although barely seventeen, TJ looked to be in his twenties. He topped six feet, and unlike the other boys, had already developed a man’s muscles, long and ropy. A man’s growth of beard, too. The stubble was paired with shaggy dark hair that often hung over his equally dark eyes and hid his expression. Reid had never seen the kid look anything but sullen. From what Paula and Roger had said, his attitude was lousy. And yet, he’d stayed.
After reviewing his records, Reid could see why. Theodore James Haveman’s father didn’t just have anger-management problems. He held grudges and possessed a mile-wide streak of cruelty. He harbored a hell of a lot of anger, but didn’t necessarily lash out the way your garden-variety abusive parent did. No, this guy would bide his time, let his kid think he’d gotten away with something or that an offense had been forgotten, and then he’d punish him viciously. Even creatively. Unfortunately, he was smart enough to do it in ways that didn’t show on the surface. Bruises and scars might tell a story. Electrical shocks didn’t. Killing the family’s pet didn’t. Hurting Mom to punish the kid, that didn’t, either. Apparently, he could count on his wife to keep her mouth shut.
Reid hated this guy. He despised him. Unfortunately, Reid was left wondering how sane the son could be after a lifetime of such treatment. There was no way he’d been behind the wheel of that pickup truck, but he still could be the arsonist who was also fond of knives.
Renner had said TJ seemed genuinely distraught over the hit-and-run. The kid was seriously shaken, and no wonder. Riding along the shoulder of the road, TJ had had a bull’s-eye on his back, escaping only because of sharp ears and quick reflexes.
Reid grimaced as he got out of his Expedition in front of the lodge. TJ had probably had a hell of a lot of practice in evading pain. He’d learned to trust instincts he should never have had to acquire.
A dark green Jeep Cherokee was already parked in front. Was somebody else here, or had Renner driven his own vehicle?
Reid took the steps two at a time and went in without knocking. Four heads turned. Clay Renner, Paula, Roger and TJ were seated on benches on each side of one of the long tables rather than in the more comfortable living room setup around the river-rock fireplace. No fire burned in it today. The weather had actually turned a corner, and the day almost felt like spring. Memories of the winters he’d spent in Angel Butte made Reid suspect the almost-balmy day was only a trick to make them think winter had released its grip.
No sounds came from the kitchen. The other boys were absent, probably huddled in their cabins.
At the sight of him, Roger swung a leg over the bench. “Coffee?”
He flapped a hand. “Don’t get up.”
Nobody else wanted a refill when he offered. When he returned, he chose to sit right across from TJ.
“Any update on Caleb?” Paula asked anxiously.
Reid told them what the doctor had said about keeping Caleb sedated. “We’ll see once they taper him off.” He raised his eyebrows, his gaze on TJ. “All right. What’s this about?”
“Can’t I talk to you alone?” The boy had a man’s voice, too, deep and even gruff.
Renner didn’t look happy, but didn’t raise an objection.
Reid took his time thinking how to answer. “TJ, unless this is unrelated to the safety of everyone here at the lodge, I don’t see how we can keep what you have to say from Paula and Roger. And if it has to do with the hit-and-run—” He stopped as soon as he saw from the boy’s expression that it did. “I think you’d better just come clean.”
TJ slid a glance at Paula, took a deep breath and nodded. “Everything happening... You know. The fires and shit. Stuff,” he corrected himself. His Adam’s apple bobbed hard. “I think it’s my dad.”
“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.
* * *
REID’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—”
“That is what you encouraged. Condoned.”
There was no good answer. It was true. All of it.
“Condemned your brother to.”
He felt the first stirring of anger. “I visited often. I promised I would, and I kept that promise.”
“Lucky Caleb,” she said, bitterly scathing. “What about all the other kids? Years’ worth of other kids?”
“I lived with the Hales for three years. I know what kind of people they are. They saved a lot of kids.”
“Every one who came to them?”
There was no doubt she could see the answer on his face.
He tried one more defense. “Have you saved all the kids who came to you?” The question came out sharper than he’d intended, and no sooner had he spoken than he realized how unintentionally cruel he’d been. She hadn’t been able to save the one child who meant the most to her: her own sister. And she would never forgive herself, despite the absurdity of a six-year-old child taking responsibility for protecting anyone else. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m sorry,” he said roughly.
Anna only shook her head and backed away. “I thought at least we were friends.”
“We were.” Desperation swept through him. “We are. Anna—”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She took an angry swipe at them, turned and walked away. Her walk became faster and faster until she was almost running by the time she disappeared from sight.
Reid dropped into the chair again, feeling as if he’d been shot.
I love her. I would do anything—
He buried his face in his hands. Anything. Like tell unforgivable lies.
Anna, Anna.