The Principle (Legacy Book 2)

by Rain Carrington

  Matt hated that idea, though he thought it was brilliant. And it would probably work. “He’d tell Mac that it was what he deserved, and he wouldn’t help him, but it would work. It would make my daddy really happy thinking other people were turning on me.”

  Stacy heard the bitterness in his voice, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. She patted his hand, and Steve was watching him closely, but he wasn’t ready to completely make nice with him.

  The more he looked at Pat, the more he saw the men in the Tom of Finland drawings, and he could too easily imagine Steve on his knees, hands wrapped around Pat’s thick thighs. That same loving and devoted face he’d seen pointed at him, could be turned to Pat. He didn’t think he could handle that.

  “Is there any reason we can’t call Mac right now? Set that up? Then Pat can head in to speak to the police in town and we can get rolling?”

  Stacy was as anxious as he was to get things started. “I was supposed to call him today anyway, he’d texted me earlier,” Matt told them. “We should let Aaron in on what’s going on too.”

  Pat clapped his big hands together and said, “This is what I like. Let’s get this started.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aaron called about an hour after they’d been discussing the phone calls. Matt was speaking to him in the next room, and while Pat was on his phone with his supervisors, Steve finally got Stacy alone to barrage her with his nagging worries.

  “What the heck was he so angry about?”

  “You’ll have to talk to him about it, Steve. But, let me give you some advice. Don’t go too heavy on the new guy.”

  It hit Steve hard. “He thinks I’m interested in him?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said coyly. “Just back off the guy. Stop discussing how much you two have in common.”

  “He’s probably not even gay!”

  Stacy’s already narrow eyes practically closed as she gave him the nasty look. “Let me tell you something, Stefano, if that’s your first thought, then he has a fucking reason to be pissed off at you.”

  She stormed away from him, and he got what she meant. His first reaction should have been that he was with Matt, loved Matt, though they hadn’t admitted it to one another yet. That should have been his first statement, not making an excuse that the other man in the house was most likely straight.

  “Ugh! God, Steve, are you so out of practice?”

  He went looking for Matt, determined to set things right, but they were all in the kitchen, and Pat held a finger over his lips to warn Steve to be quiet. He went right to Matt, standing close to him as he heard Leo’s voice over the phone.

  “He’s out dealing with a broken ATV right now, but I can fill him in.”

  “What we need from you,” Stacy told him, “Is to get Mac to pretend to be pissed off at Matt. Come up with a quick and non-detailed story that Matt ripped him off somehow, and he should not only apologize to Gabriel, but to ask if he’ll let Mac know if Matt shows back up in town or whatever.”

  “Like the cops will want to talk to him about whatever it was he stole?”

  “Yes,” Pat jumped in to answer. “If he believes that Matt is going to have police after him, then he’ll calm down about any law enforcement believing Matt and his stories about the compound.”

  Leo was calling Mac and soon they were both on the phone, Leo filling Mac in on the plan. Mac chuckled dryly, “He ain’t gonna he’p me none.”

  “He doesn’t have to, Mac,” Stacy assured. “He just has to believe you are angry at Matt.”

  “Well, hell, if Leo, here, coaches me up, I’m sure I can do it. When you need this?”

  “It’s got to be timed well,” Pat informed him, nodding along with Stacy. “We’ll give you a call when we get everything planned out.”

  “We’ll be here. Matt?”

  “Yeah, Mac.”

  “Ya doin’ all right? I mean, I guess not, huh? Ya need anythin’?”

  Steve reached for Matt’s hand, and he let him take it under the table as soon as he sat by him, but it was a loose and cold touch. “I don’t need anything, Mac, but thank you for all you’ve already done. I can never tell you what it’s meant to me,” he said, the last choked out and he ducked his head to hide his new tears.

  Matt left the table after the call, and Steve followed him, needing to help but unsure of how to do that. In the hall, Matt was crying, and Steve held him, though again, Matt was cold and stiff in his arms.

  “Tell me what I can do for you. I want to help.”

  “I’m dealing with this, okay? It just hurts, all of it hurts.”

  Steve pulled back enough to set their foreheads together. On the tip of his tongue, he had words of love, devotion, that he wanted Matt forever, but it wasn’t the time for all that. All he could manage was, “I’m here when you need me.”

  “Are you?”

  Stepping away completely, Steve stammered, “W-what does that mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  He wanted to press him, to find out if what Stacy thought was true, but Matt’s phone lit up and started chiming, an incoming text taking his attention.

  Without looking him in the eye, he told Steve, “I have to make a call.” He left him to stand in the hall while he disappeared into the master bedroom.

  Before he could figure out what to do, Pat was there, asking, “Is it okay if I use your bathroom?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure, it’s that door there,” he said pointing.

  “Anything wrong?”

  Steve’s eyes landed on the bedroom door. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you two…romantically involved?”

  Snapping his head to Pat, he didn’t quite know how to answer. It would seem unprofessional to admit to it, but then again, he wasn’t on the job, not in any official way. “We may be. Why?”

  Pat leaned back on the wall, his eyes cutting the other direction. “He’s…he’s uh, young. You’re what? Ten years older than him?”

  “Actually, fourteen. Yes, I know, the age difference bothers me, but he’s not a kid, Special Agent. Is this part of your investigation?” He knew he was getting defensive, but it couldn’t be helped. That had passed his thoughts several times during their time together.

  “He’s pretty messed up, and being so young, I doubt he has the tools to deal with everything he’s dealing with. Adding a relationship to that, well, it may be none of my business, but he’s from a cult, and I’ve seen a lot of former members mess their lives up because they couldn’t move on from it.”

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought of all that, knew it to be true. What Pat didn’t know, however, was the strength of the Matt and his determination. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  He left the agent to use the bathroom, finding Stacy in the kitchen. Without meaning to, he asked her, “Do you think Matt’s too young for me?”

  Letting out a huff, she didn’t so much as look his way. “Damn, you’re easy.”

  “Easy?”

  Without clarifying it, she left the kitchen, Steve standing there wondering what the hell was happening. The counter under his hands was cold, like Matt had been. Cold, hard, and unyielding, like Matt had been. Curling his fingers, he pictured Matt, never once seeing him as a young man. He was older than all of them, and that was because of all he’d been through. All he knew about the world, which most people never had to face.

  Was him loving Matt selfish? What was in his heart wasn’t necessarily right.

  He’d walked into the situation head on, without thinking about consequences. His age, Matt’s, all Matt would need after their predicament was over, it all had to be considered. It was too late to pull back, however. Not unless Matt pulled away, because for him to tell Matt they need to slow down, or worse, back off, after everyone he’d already lost…

  “Where’s Matt?” Stacy asked as she rushed through the kitchen.

  He spun around and saw her heading down the hall, rushing after her to say, “He’s in t
he bedroom,” he started, then saw her through that door open. Pat came down the hall, asking, “Is he there?”

  “No,” Stacy said, her voice high and shrill, like she was becoming hysterical.

  Steve’s heart started thrumming as he walked into the room, seeing it empty of Matt. “What the hell? No one saw him leave?”

  They spread out, looking for Matt in the house, and Steve left the backdoor, ready to start searching his entire property, but Stacy yelled at him from the house, “My keys are gone!”

  They went to the front to see Stacy’s rental car missing. Pat got on his phone, admonishing, “This is what I meant. He’s young and doesn’t understand his own damn danger.”

  “Where the hell could he have gone?”

  Steve thought about his discussion with Pat and his question to Stacy. If Matt had overheard either…

  “We have to find him.”

  ****

  The moment he got the text, he knew he’d have to meet up with them. The one secret he’d kept from Stacy and Steve, and he’d felt horrible for it. There was no getting around it, though.

  He knew they’d look for him, worry, but to explain anything would have just led to more questions he wouldn’t be able to give answers to. The secret wasn’t his to tell, pure and simple. If he were to tell people…no, not just people, but all people connected to law enforcement, about Helen and the others, he knew he’d never hear from them again.

  They’d made the plan to meet on the edge of town. They moved around a lot, and Matt didn’t want to know where they were staying. If he was ever followed, by either people from the compound or his new friends, he couldn’t have the people he was protecting be found.

  He pulled in behind the rest area, a parking area that was hidden from the highway. The place was mostly empty except for a big truck and trailer, the name Dole written across the entire thing.

  Waiting in the car, arm on the door so he could hide the lower half of his face with his fist as his eyes scanned the area. When the old Oldsmobile pulled into the lot, he knew it was them. They had several cars, all of them old. None of them had much money, the little bit Helen made from her department store job and odd jobs of the others.

  They were wary, moving slowly past him, trying to pretend they weren’t looking for him. In the Oldsmobile, they sat for five full minutes before Matt got the text he was waiting for. Men’s room.

  Once he was out of the car, he hurried to the men’s bathroom in the small rest area. There were signs assaulting him as soon as he got inside warning not to drink the water from the sinks, non-potable water, all of them huge and some with pictures for those who couldn’t read.

  After he checked all the stalls and finding them empty of people, he sent back a text giving the all clear.

  Another five minutes passed, and though he was antsy as he waited, he knew they did things that way for a reason.

  When Helen came into the men’s room, she was dressed the part, baseball cap slung low on her face, collar of her flannel shirt pulled up and she was looking downward to the cracking cement floor.

  After a look for herself in all the stalls, the cap came up, letting loose all her long, blonde locks and she finally looked him in the eyes. “Matt.”

  He took her into an embrace, before he choked, “I know you’re worried about him.”

  “What do you know?”

  She pulled back and searched his face, seeing the answer there. “No. God, no!”

  Matt’s eyes filled with tears again, but he couldn’t get the words out.

  “Matt, how? When?”

  Instead of answering, he asked his own questions. “How are Tara and Melanie?”

  “They’re fine. Melanie is in Washington. We got her to that family there, and Tara is waiting for a family to clear in Georgia.”

  Safe, families, lives away from the compound and horrors they would have been subjected to. “Good. Don’t move her yet. Keep everything quiet for a while.”

  “It’s been quiet, kid, way too quiet.”

  He looked into her loving face, round, red-cheeked. She looked like she could be Santa’s wife, but she didn’t have the jolly to back that up. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can see your face. Dean told me what they did to you. I get that you had to take some time. What happened to him, Matt?”

  He raised his hand and pointed to his own face. “This, only they finished the job.”

  Holding her stomach, she paled badly and turned away from Matt. “Jesus. Those bastards.”

  She not only rarely cussed, she never looked so weak. Helen Rouch had been a member of their compound when she was a girl. Matt’s grandfather had given her in marriage to her own first cousin, told her father wanted to keep their bloodline strong. She was only fifteen, and her cousin was over thirty. She was his third wife and the other two held her down while her husband raped her over and over again the first few weeks of her marriage until she became pregnant.

  Her husband wanted a child a year from his wives, and when she became pregnant, he backed off the physical beatings he inflicted on her daily and the rape. In fact, he became nearly sweet, but then she had a miscarriage, and again, he turned on her, blaming her for losing the baby.

  She worried that she’d become pregnant again, so she ran. While on the streets, she met up with a few lost boys from the compound. They lived in squalor, squatting in a home on the edge of town. There was no running water, no electricity, but they got by.

  It was Helen who decided that they needed to live better, getting them to get jobs, making a few take their high school equivalency tests. Then, she discovered a girl almost dead, with a story that few of them could believe. They’d begun selling girls from the compound.

  She’d consulted a women’s shelter in town, telling them the story. When they insisted the law get involved, she was wary, but consented. When the police wanted to talk to the girl, she was wary, but brought the girl to them.

  The story wasn’t believed. Her parents told the police the girl was rebellious and badly behaved. They told the cops the girl had ran away because she didn’t want to do her chores. They gave her back to her parents and she was never heard from again.

  Matt knew the girl as Felicia Toms, a cousin of his. When questioned, they were told she’d been sent to reeducation. That was where bad girls were sent. Everyone was told that once she’d seen the wrong of her ways, she’d been married to a man from the compound she’d been sent to. Her parents never questioned it.

  The women’s shelter was up in arms, but Helen sat the two women in charge down and explained everything to them. They told her their own secret, that they knew of an underground that took abused women into hiding from their abusers. They’d set Helen up on the line of it, helping her to set up something similar with men and women in trouble from compounds like theirs.

  She composed herself enough to ask, “Did you find him?”

  “No, the cops did.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  He had been wondering if Dean had told her about Steve and Stacy. He must not have said a word. That was like him. “My cousin, Mac, he found out that I was missing and sent a private detective to find me. She did. She’s a former fed and has friends there still.”

  She ran to the door and peeked out, then turned on him with a fury. “You’re working with cops?”

  “Not exactly, but yeah, kind of.”

  “Not exactly but kind of? What the heck kind of answer is that, Matt?”

  He squirmed, knowing how she felt about the law. Not to mention that if she was caught, she’d be in more trouble than anyone. A lot of the people she helped to run were underage, and their parents could charge her with kidnapping. There were plenty of reasons she didn’t want them involved, so she’d likely never understand why he’d went along with them.

  “Listen, it’s not the local cops, Helen. I haven’t said a word about you or the others. Dean didn’t either.”

  “Dean�
��Dean knew?”

  Nodding, he tried to calm the situation. “He knew. He met them, well, some of them. See, the detective I told you about had an ex, and he told us about a guy who might let us stay with him while we work things out with me. His name is Steve…and he’s…he’s great. He’s sweet and he used to be a federal marshal. They’re taking care of me, Helen. Stacy’s ex, he’s FBI and I told him some, just about my father and grandfather, what they’ve done, but they needed proof, which we don’t have. I can’t risk anyone, I won’t have another Felicia, so we’re trying to figure out how to take them down and still keep everyone else safe.”

  “It’s impossible, Matt. You know that. There is always someone who is innocent who gets hurt in all this. Like Dean.”

  “I know, Helen. That’s why I’m not going to tell them anything about you all. Not unless you’re okay with that.”

  Instead of answering, she leaned back on the sink next to him, sighing long and quietly. “Do you ever wonder? I mean, if Joseph Smith and all of them were right, and us breaking all these church laws would mean we’re in the wrong?

  “I’m not afraid of hell, but I am afraid of that abyss. Being cast out, never seeing my parents again, my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews…”

  Matt had thought the same too many times to count. Being raised believing that the strict rules had to be followed, having those rules quoted every single day, being told that was God’s way, the only way to reach the wonderful afterlife, left its mark. “I wondered that, which family I’d be with if I did make it. With them, with you guys, or if I was forced to marry, if it would be my wives and hundred kids.”

  “Who would you be with, if it was your choice?”

  There was no doubt in his mind. “I…I fell for someone, Helen.”

  “Oh? Is she pretty? Please, tell me she’s not from the compound.”

  Outing himself to yet another person wasn’t easy. He knew in his heart Helen wouldn’t judge him, but there was always a chance, especially someone raised with the beliefs they were. “He’s handsome, and he’s definitely not from the compound.”