Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Sitting home alone, worrying about Dad… Worrying about Brock… That won’t make me happy. It will only make me miserable.
But going on the road with Jesse and the band? Sure, those other things are still in the back of my mind, but performing makes me happy. It gives me a high that nothing else does.
It’s not the same high I get from making love with Brock, but it’s close.
And since Brock isn’t around? I’ll get my high from performing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BROCK
I’m fucking exhausted.
I was supposed to get some sleep during Dad’s couple hours of watch, but I didn’t. How the hell am I supposed to sleep when I’m in a strange home, sleeping on the floor, with my father holding a gun?
I got to hold the gun while Dad was supposedly sleeping. That was fun.
Turns out, he didn’t really sleep either.
We both downed two or three cups of strong coffee this morning, which I made. I used double the amount of the expensive Kona coffee Doc had in the kitchen.
Expensive Kona coffee.
Not a Kona blend—pure Kona, from Hawaii.
That shit’s not cheap.
It’s little things like this that we have to be aware of. The Kona coffee. The gold signet ring Doc is wearing on his right hand.
I never noticed it before, but when the hell had I ever looked at his hands?
We’re in the car now, Doc’s four-wheel drive, driving through his property and onto ours. No paved roads, but this path has been driven enough times that two distinct tracks are visible.
Brittany is with us, of course. We couldn’t leave her home and let her call the cops.
As we drive, two barns appear in the distance.
On our property.
“Did we have those built, Dad?” I ask.
Dad shakes his head in the front seat, his gun still pointing at Doc, who’s driving.
“Great,” I say under my breath.
I already know what was being kept in an old barn on our property back in Colorado.
“Let me guess,” I say. “Those two barns coincide with the GPS coordinates left for Donny in that safe-deposit box.”
“They appear to,” Dad says, his voice still steady.
My father’s something else. He’s running on no sleep, and still, he’s steady as a fucking rock.
I’m thankful for that, as I’m scared out of my mind.
The barns come nearer, and the four-wheel drive jerks and jostles as we drive through and over rocks and weeds.
Finally, Doc brings the truck to a stop. “Here we are.”
“What exactly am I going to find inside those barns?” Dad asks.
“Honestly? I can’t tell you.”
“Take an educated guess,” I say.
Doc sighs. “The east barn houses live freight. The west… Not alive.”
I swallow. “Not alive meaning dead, right?”
No reply.
“Say it,” I grit out. “Say the word, Doc.”
“Dead. Yes,” Doc says.
“You’re going to insist on calling human beings freight?” Dad asks.
I suppress a shudder. I always knew, deep down, that we were talking about human beings, but this is the first time Dad has actually said the words to Doc Sheraton.
“I don’t do anything,” Doc says. “I just provide the shelter. And the guard dogs.”
Interesting. Dale, Donny, and I were right about the dogs. When we determined that whoever commandeered the barn on our own property was using working dogs, we figured we could find the culprit that way—by figuring out who supplied the dogs.
“On my property,” Dad says.
“That I lease,” Doc retorts.
“Yeah, and an important provision of that lease states that you will not carry out any illegal activity on my property.”
“I built two barns,” Doc says. “That’s all I did.”
“Well, you’d better hope these damned barns are empty,” Dad says. “Because if they’re not? You’re in a heap of trouble.”
He’s in a heap of trouble anyway, but I understand what Dad is doing. He’s trying to make Doc a little more comfortable. You know, as comfortable as someone can be with a gun pointed at him.
“We may not find anything,” I say. “There aren’t any other vehicles around.”
“The cargo is usually flown on a small plane,” Doc says.
“And no one would think anything of a small plane over farmland,” I say.
“That’s right, son.” From Dad.
“Why in the hell would these people be using our property?” I ask. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Dad doesn’t reply.
Does it make sense to him? Didn’t our family take down that human trafficking ring all those years ago? Back when they rescued Dale and Donny and countless others?
Damn.
Maybe that’s it.
Maybe these traffickers, still after all these years, hold a grudge against our family for bringing them down.
Which means…
Not all of them were captured.
Some of them escaped, and…
Nausea claws up my throat.
Horrendous, horrific things are happening on our property.
How long must this go back? At least sixty years. That’s when Patty Watson died, and her bones were found on our property. And what about those red fingernails? Those red—
Oh. My. God.
Brittany is still wringing her hands, and only now do I notice that she’s wearing bright-red nail polish.