“And the kids will be scattered all over the state,” Jimmy added, “and brothers and sisters will be separated, and some of us will be in awful places . . .”
Nick hesitated, giving Jimmy a long look. “Jimmy, don’t you want out of that home? Don’t you realize what he’s done to you?
He’s not only risking your life, he’s using you to commit crimes, training you and the others to be crooks. That’s child abuse.”
“Can you get Lisa out? Can you keep us together? If you can’t, I’m not telling anything. Nothing. You can find another witness.”
“Jimmy, I can try my best to keep the two of you together. But Lisa’s going to be better off no matter where we put her.”
“Bull!” Jimmy shouted, his eyes filling with angry tears. “She depends on me. She’s probably worried to death right now. She thinks I left her, just like—” The word fell off, and he turned away. “When can you get her out?”
“As soon as I relate all this to the police.” Nick paused and shot Beth an eloquent look. “I know you want to get the story done first, but do you think you can finish it in the next couple of hours? If Brandon thinks you’re ready to go public, we don’t have a lot of time. I want to get those kids out of there.”
She looked at all her evidence scattered across the table. “I think I might be able to pull something together by then. But then my editor—”
“Great. Beth, do you realize that this is the break I’ve been looking for? That we might really be able to shut down that home?”
“Yes,” she said softly, touching Jimmy’s shoulder, though he shook her hand away. “I realize it. It’s a dream of mine, too.”
“Oh, man. Jimmy,” Nick said, “you could be a hero because of this. A regular celebrity. And your life of crime is over. Nobody’s going to make you break into people’s homes ever again.”
But Jimmy didn’t look so sure.
“Hey, why don’t you come with me, Jimmy? We could hang out while Beth finishes the story.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
“He can stay here,” Beth said. “He can just watch TV or something while I work. It’ll be all right. He’s quiet as a mouse. Proved that last night. My only fear is that Brandon will show up.”
“Don’t worry about that. I think I’ll pay him a visit right now.”
“What for?”
“I’m allowed to make impromptu inspections whenever I want. I’ll just hang around there, inspecting the cottages and all. That way we can be sure he stays where he is.”
“Okay,” Beth said. “I’ll do the best I can. But are you going to mention Jimmy? Should we call the police about finding him?”
Nick considered that. “No, I don’t think so. They’d just report it to Sheila or me. Let’s keep this just between us for now. I could lose my job, but I’ll risk it. And I can’t wait to see how Bill handles Jimmy’s disappearance.”
He patted Jimmy’s shoulder. “Jimmy, you just relax, all right?
I’ll try to check on Lisa while I’m there.”
“Will you tell her I’m okay? That I haven’t left her?”
Nick hesitated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jimmy. It might put her in danger. If she tells anyone, Bill could hear about it.”
“She keeps secrets,” he said. “She won’t tell.”
“She might do it without meaning to. But relax. In a little while, we can go in there and get her out for good.”
That wasn’t good enough for Jimmy. Brooding, he slumped on the couch.
“I’ll call you in a couple of hours, Beth,” Nick said, rising.
Beth walked him to the door and bolted it behind him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lock the door, Brad.”
Bill’s order was clipped and direct. The eleven-year-old boy could tell from Bill’s voice and from the look on his face that this was going to be one of those meetings Brad would wish he hadn’t attended. Not that L he had a choice. He locked the door when the last of the dozen kids in Bill’s group of “favorites” filed in, then took his seat beside his best friend, Keith.
The faces of the children were solemn—even frightened. Bill didn’t often call them together in broad daylight. It drew too much attention from the other kids. But this morning he had made them all get up early, even though it was summer and they didn’t have school, and file into the meeting room next to Bill’s office for what he called a “briefing.”
Something had happened, Brad thought, and he was sure it had something to do with Jimmy Westin.
Bill’s face was angry as he paced in front of the dead-silent children, tapping a metal ruler against his palm and examining their faces one by one. “We’ve had a development, people,” he said. “A rather upsetting development. I thought I should prepare you so you’d know what to expect.” Suddenly he slammed the ruler down on a table, making all of them jump. “Jimmy Westin was arrested last night.”
A collective gasp sounded in the room, and the children gaped up at him for more details.
“He got sloppy,” he went on. “Let himself get caught during a mission. Now he’s paying for it.”
Brad whispered a curse, and anger surged inside him that his friend could be so stupid. He had always thought that Jimmy wasn’t careful enough. He hadn’t worked at it, like Brad had.
The boy looked up at Bill and struggled with the question weighing on his mind. “Was it adult jail, or the detention center?” Either way, it was bad, but in their room late at night, the boys sometimes speculated about what would happen if they got caught.
“I hate to say it,” Bill said, “but they’re holding him in the adult facility. A year ago, he may have gone to juvenile hall, but after the last election, Florida passed the Adult Crime-Adult Time Law. You do a grown-up crime—and they do include burglary—and you serve with the meanest, toughest criminals in the state.
“I wish I could tell you that I could get him out. But I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. Because he’s a ward of the state, he’s considered high risk, which means that—according to HRS—if I can’t make something out of him, he’s probably a lost cause. So they’re processing him into the justice system, where he’s likely to stay for at least ten or twenty years.”
Brad wasn’t sure he followed all of this. He often had a hard time understanding much of what Bill said. But the ten-to-twenty-years part didn’t escape him. That was practically Jimmy’s whole life.
“I think you all know what this means,” Bill said, slapping his palm with the ruler again. “It means that every one of you is in trouble. If Jimmy Westin talks, you might go down with him.”
Brad tried to imagine what Jimmy might say if he was tortured or threatened. Would he drag them all down with him? Or would he hang tough and keep his mouth shut?
“I don’t think he’ll talk,” Bill went on, as if he’d read Brad’s mind. “We have Lisa. As long as Jimmy knows that his sins will be visited on his sister, we’ll be all right. And just to make sure she doesn’t talk, I’m going to get her to replace Jimmy, and put a little fear into her myself.”
Silence hung in the air as everyone imagined what he might mean by that.
“Okay, listen up. People are going to be coming around here, asking questions about Jimmy. Those people are not our friends; they’ll be out to get us. Until I tell you differently, I want you to pretend Jimmy’s still here. If HRS comes snooping around, act like he just left the cottage, or the playground, or wherever you are. You just saw him a minute ago. Got it?”
One of the girls frowned. “Won’t they know where he is?” Bill shook his head. “Not necessarily. ‘The right hand knows not what the left hand doeth.’” None of them knew what that meant, but it sounded biblical, and thus, scary. “HRS is not in touch that much with the police. And I don’t want them to know that one of my kids is a jailbird. Besides, they might start looking at each of you, one at a time. I don’t want you to wind up where Jimmy is.”
; He paced the room again, this time walking between their perches on arms of sofas, tabletops, or on the floor. “But we can overcome this obstacle, if we try. Are you people up for it?”
A weak chorus of yeses sounded around the room.
“I can’t hear you!”
“Yes!” they shouted.
“You’re not ordinary kids! You’re gifted with special skills. As the Good Book says, ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ You are the chosen. My chosen. You’re called to a higher purpose—a mission that isn’t for the faint of heart. You’re called to excellence, people. And you are excellent. That’s why I chose you. That’s why you are my hands and my feet. That’s why you are favored among God and men!”
It didn’t matter that his words made little sense to Brad or the others. It sounded good and hopeful, and it elevated them to something more than orphaned children. It made them special.
W hen the children had gone back to their cottages, Bill went through his office into the room where closed-circuit television screens showed him what was happening around the campus. He watched the children going back to their cottages. Some whispered among themselves, but he knew those conversations would be harmless, so he let it go. Seeing no cause for concern, he went back into his office, sat down behind his desk, and thought over the things he’d told them. They’d believed everything. It was so easy to manipulate them. “Adult Crime-Adult Time Law”—what a laugh. There was no such thing.
He just hoped that dirty-faced brat didn’t turn on him. And why had no one called him about the boy yet? If he was in police custody, wouldn’t they have reported it to him?
He looked at the phone and wondered if he should call them and act like a concerned guardian worried about a missing child.But then he would have to explain why it had taken him so long to report the disappearance. He could say that he’d put the boy to bed himself—but that Jimmy had sneaked away during the night, so that he hadn’t known Jimmy was missing until this morning.
It might work. And it would certainly cover him in the event that Jimmy did talk.
But maybe he was jumping to conclusions here. What if the kid wasn’t in custody? Calling could open a whole can of worms that Bill didn’t want to open. Investigations, news reports, posters all over town . . .
No, he couldn’t chance it. He’d have to wait. If the police did have the boy and if they showed up to ask him about Jimmy, he could say that he’d been duped. After all, the police were always quick to assume the worst about these parentless, high-risk kids, who’d been products of alcohol, drugs, selfishness. The police, like everyone else, expected the children to continue the pattern set by their parents. As Bill himself was often quick to remind the police and others, you could take the kid out of the trash, but you couldn’t take the trash out of the kid. And no one ever argued with him about it.
Yes, his best bet was to do nothing, then plead ignorance if the police called. It was the safest course.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The old Western on TV didn’t hold Jimmy’s attention, nor did the puppy who kept wanting to play tug-of-war with him. He could hear Beth’s fingers on the keyboard upstairs as she wrote the story that would bring the walls of the St. Clair Children’s Home tumbling down— exactly what Bill had sent him here to prevent.
He let the puppy win the tug-of-war with the sock, then watched him curl up on the floor to chew on it. Jimmy’s eyes strayed up the open stairway. With just a slight lean, she could see him, and she’d kept a close watch on him all morning. He had kept an eye on her, too. Up there, disks were lying around. Papers. All the things that Bill wanted. If he took those things back to Bill, maybe Bill would go easy on him. Maybe Lisa wouldn’t have to suffer.
But Beth wouldn’t let that stop her; she would write the story anyway. Besides, she had been nice to him, and he didn’t want to rip her off now. She could have reported him to the police, but she hadn’t. It was like she believed he was a good person when she hardly even knew him—like she thought the bad things he had done weren’t his fault. Anyone else would have hung a guilty sign on him and handed him over to the cops.
No, he couldn’t turn on her now. But he still worried about Lisa. If there was just some way that he could talk to her, tell her to hold on, that he hadn’t just left her.
His eyes strayed to the telephone. Could he get away with just calling her? Clicking the remote control, he turned up the television as the shoot-out raged louder. He picked up the phone, then took it to a part of the living room where he was just out of her sight. Quickly he dialed the direct number to his and Lisa’s cottage. It rang, and Stella, the housemother, answered.
He tried to disguise his voice. “Can I speak to Lisa, please?”
“Who is this?” Stella asked. “Jimmy, is that you? Where in blue blazes are you?”
As if it had stung his hand, he hung up the phone quickly and backed away from it. Oh, great. Now Stella would tell Bill that he had called, and Bill would be madder than ever that he’d been near a phone and hadn’t tried to reach him. When he found out Jimmy had tried to reach Lisa, Bill would fly into a rage—and when he finally found Jimmy, as he would eventually, he would get even.
The worst part was that Lisa still wouldn’t know that her brother hadn’t abandoned her just like every other person she’d ever loved had done.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bill didn’t like Nick Hutchins. The social worker seemed to have it in for him. Nick had been giving him too much grief lately. His monthly inspections of the home had stepped up to twice monthly, and he seemed too curious about the children, especially those who’d been caught in petty crimes. Bill had tried to explain to him that he wasn’t responsible for the value systems of these kids before they came to his home, but that he did the best he could with what he got. If one of them occasionally got himself into trouble, it wasn’t Bill’s fault.
Now, as Bill followed the man from cottage to cottage, as if Nick expected to find some horrible violation that would warrant a severe reprimand from the state, he wondered what Nick was looking for. Did this impromptu inspection have anything to do with Jimmy’s disappearance?
“Are all the kids on the premises right now?” Nick asked casually, walking into a playroom and scanning the children playing games.
So, he does know that Jimmy’s missing. Bill struggled with the idea of candidly admitting to the kid’s disappearance. But he couldn’t understand why Nick was being so secretive. Why didn’t Nick just come out and ask him where Jimmy was, and how long the boy had been missing? No, maybe he was just being paranoid. He decided not to mention it yet. “No, actually,” he said. “We took a vanload to the library this morning. Some of the others had swimming lessons at the Y.”
Nick peered at him skeptically.
They had just turned up the hall so that Nick could snoop in the bedrooms when Stella, the housemother of Cottage B, burst in. “Uh, Bill, could I have a word with you, please?”
“Certainly,” Bill said. “Nick, you’ll excuse me for a moment, won’t you?”
Nick nodded but didn’t say anything, and Bill felt the man’s eyes on the back of his neck as he followed Stella out of earshot.
“What is it?”
“It’s Jimmy. He called just now, trying to disguise his voice.He wanted to speak to Lisa.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He hung up before I could—”
“I’ll find out. Go back in there and keep that jerk from doing us any harm. I have to go to my office for a minute.”
He rushed out of the cottage and across the lawn to his office and bolted inside. He unlocked a closet and checked the Caller ID he kept so that he could monitor the origin of calls coming into each of the cottages. When he’d opened the home, he had had an extension to each line installed right here in his office. He also taped all of the calls made on any campus telephone, either incoming or outgoing. It was what he called quality control. You never really
knew whom you could trust. And of course no one, not even his “inner circle” of staff, knew what was in this closet.
He checked the Caller ID for Cottage B—and saw the name E. J. Wright. Bill’s heart jumped. Elizabeth Wright. Beth. Jimmy was still in her house? Was he nuts? Hadn’t he told that kid to get out of there? But Jimmy hadn’t asked to speak to Bill, who could come and get him, but he’d asked instead for Lisa—and in a disguised voice.
Something was wrong. Jimmy had turned on him.
What was he telling Beth? Bill rubbed his forehead and found it cool and wet with sweat. Was Jimmy giving her more fodder for her story? That little twerp knew enough to bring down his whole operation.
Bill hadn’t had a lot of time to think this morning—first the cops had come to tell him about Marlene’s death and ask a ton of questions, and then Nick Hutchins had shown up. But this situation didn’t require a lot of thought.
He was going to have to kill both Beth and Jimmy, before she could turn that story in.
His face hardened with violent determination as he cut back across the lawn to the playground behind Cottage B. He saw Lisa, Jimmy’s little sister, sitting alone on a swing, drawing figures in the dirt with the tip of her toe. Her strawberry-blonde hair strung down in her eyes, and he could see from her red eyes that she’d been crying.
He approached her, and she looked up fearfully. “Come here, darlin’,” he said, taking her hand. “Come with me.”
Her innocent eyes widened. “Where?”
“We got some trainin’ to do. I’m about to promote you from orphan to executive. What do you think about that?”
He could see that she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “I don’t know.”
“See, since Jimmy’s gone and got himself in trouble, I’m giving you his job. It was a real important job. You think you’re smart enough for it?”
Tears filled her eyes, but she nodded bravely. “When is Jimmy coming back?” she managed to ask through trembling lips.
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