Her gaze followed the cash. “Truckin’ stuff. He moved stuff from place to place.”
“What kind of stuff?”
The lines on her face deepened. Raegan could see she was struggling between her need for cash and her desire to stay quiet.
Alec must have seen it too, because he pulled out a hundred-dollar bill to join the twenties. “What kind of stuff was he moving, Charlene?”
She pursed her lips. Stared at the money. Her face turned as red as a tomato just before she jumped out of her chair. “Nothin’. He wasn’t movin’ nothing. I’m done with this.” She twisted for the trailer’s door. “You can show yerselves out.”
Alec caught her by the bony arm before she could close her fingers around the door handle. She grunted as he jerked her back around and closed his other hand around her throat.
“Alec,” Raegan jumped forward when she realized what he was doing and grabbed for his arm. “Oh my God, let go of her.”
Alec didn’t move. Didn’t release the woman. “Tell me what he was moving, Charlene.”
Charlie’s eyes turned to hard black coals. “You’re just like yer daddy.”
“Yeah, I’m exactly like him. I learned everything from the master.” He slammed her up against the side of the trailer, his voice turning to ice. “Tell me.”
“I don’t—” Her words died with a gasp. Wide-eyed, she struggled against his hold, but all it did was make her face turn redder and her eyes bulge even more.
“Alec.” Frantic, Raegan pulled on Alec’s elbow, desperate to get him to let go, but he was so strong she barely nudged his arm. “Alec McClane. This isn’t the way. Let her go.”
“No,” he snapped, “it’s the only way she understands.” He focused in on Charlie with menacing eyes, his voice turning to a low growl. “I’m sick to death of you and my father fucking with my life. Tell me what he was moving.”
“Brats,” she gasped. “Like you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alec stilled. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Wasn’t sure he’d even heard the right words. “Like you”? She couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded.
When Charlene gasped, he loosened his hold, his heart suddenly beating faster, sweat slicking his skin in the cool air. Against his arm, Raegan tugged at his elbow again, trying to get him to let go, but he ignored her.
He couldn’t focus on anything but the sorry excuse of a human in front of him. “What did you say?” he whispered.
Charlene glared up at him even as she struggled. He wasn’t hurting her—not yet anyway. She was the biggest faker on the planet. He’d learned that long ago. But he was ready to start hurting her if she didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. “You heard me.”
The hold on all that rage he’d locked deep inside over the years bubbled up and over. Jaw tight, he tightened his fingers around her throat and squeezed.
Charlene’s eyes flew wide when she realized he meant business.
“Alec!” Raegan yelled, pulling harder on his arm.
“Okay!” Fear lifted Charlene’s raspy voice an octave. Alec loosened his grip, just enough so she could talk. “I said he was movin’ brats like you for that rich bitch.”
Raegan’s hand dropped from Alec’s arm. He knew her mouth was hanging open. Knew she was staring at the woman pinned by his grip, in utter shock, but he couldn’t react. Didn’t know what to trust or believe. Wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. Slowly, mostly because he didn’t trust himself, he released Charlene, but he didn’t step back.
Charlene, ever defiant, rubbed at her wrist and glared up at him again. “Oh, don’t you go gettin’ all high and mighty. I might not like that bitch very much ’cause she looked down her nose at me, but yer father knew she was doin’ the world a whole lotta good. Those kids came from crappy homes. She saved ’em, found ’em good families. And John was makin’ nice money doin’ it ’til you got arrested and sent to juvie. Then you ratted him out, and it all turned to shit.”
Moving children . . . Finding them homes . . .
“You got nothin’ to complain about, neither,” Charlene snapped, taking one step to her left, closer to the trailer’s door. “He saved you from one a those shitty homes. Brought you to me ’cause I couldn’t have no kid a’ my own. But you was always an ingrate. Even as a toddler. Always had this hoity-toity attitude, just like that bitch. Didn’t surprise me none when you turned on your daddy. I told him you was gonna do it one day. He done gave you a better life than you deserved, and you shit all over him.”
Alec’s pulse turned to a whir in his ears, and his skin grew hot and tight as the impact of her words sank in.
Moving children . . . Finding them homes . . . “Makin’ nice money doin’ it . . .”
His vision turned red, and a rage like he’d never known whipped through his veins. He slammed his hands into the side of the trailer, inches from Charlene’s head. “Did he take my daughter?”
Charlene jerked back, her eyes filled with true fear as she scrambled back, trying to slink away. “I—I don’t know.”
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know!” Her voice trembled as she pressed her hands back against the siding. “I swear it. I only seen him a handful a times since he got out a prison. I didn’t even know you lost your kid ’til last year. ’Fore I could ask him about it, he was arrested again on that probation violation. He was just trying to find work. He wasn’t doin’ nuthin’ wrong. I tried to ask him ’bout it the other day when he was here too, but he wouldn’t talk.”
“Where did he go?”
“I—I don’t know.”
Alec lurched forward and grasped her by the throat again. Charlene gasped. This time, Raegan didn’t even move at his back. “If I find out you’re lying to me—”
“I ain’t. I swear. He was actin’ all nervous when he was here. Rantin’ about that rich bitch makin’ him do stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”
“Moving more children?” Alec asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think it was that. He was only good at that before ’cause he had that big truck, ya know? It was easy to pick up kids on his delivery route, throw ’em in the back, and take ’em to the drop spot without anyone knowing. He ain’t got that truck now, not since he got outta the clink. He said he was doin’ somethin’ else. Somethin’ he didn’t like. Somethin’ he said was gonna get him in trouble with the cops if they ever found out.”
For the first time since they’d arrived, Alec looked back at Raegan. And in her eyes he saw disbelief, shock, and horror.
Alec focused on Charlene once more. “When you see him again, you’re going to call me. Do you understand?”
Charlene nodded quickly. “’Kay, I will. But he ain’t comin’ back here.”
“How do you know?”
She pursed her lips as if she’d just realized she’d said too much.
Tightening his fingers once more on her throat, Alec said, “Talk.”
“H-he said he was leavin’ town. Said th-things are too hot for him now.”
“Where? Where is he going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Charle—”
“North, okay? He said he was goin’ north. He stole Bobby’s truck across the street and split. That’s all I know. I swear it. I swear that’s all I know.”
Alec knew she was no longer lying. He’d lived with her long enough to know when she was working him, and the last few minutes there’d been no manipulation in her words, only fear.
He released her. She stumbled forward but quickly righted herself and lurched for the trailer. The door slammed in her wake, and a click sounded on her flimsy lock.
Anger vibrated in Alec’s veins as he stood in the silence, staring at the peeling metal siding, his mind tripping back over Charlene’s words.
Moving children . . . Finding them homes . . . “Brats like you . . .”
Something soft touched his arm, jolting him out of the fast-forward replay. Raegan whispered, “Al
ec.”
“Brats like you . . .”
His pulse raced faster until it was a roar in his ears. Turning away from the trailer, he moved toward the mud path on the side of the trailer, those three words spinning like a tornado in his mind. He needed air. Needed to think. Needed—
“Alec, wait.”
Holy fucking shit. “Brats like you . . .”
Brats like him.
Shock gave way to disbelief, and finally, hysteria. Whipping out his cell phone, he checked the signal only to find nothing. “Dammit. No fucking signal.”
He needed to call the cops. Needed to call the FBI. Needed to get someone out here before Charlene realized what she’d just done and tried to run. Needed—
“Alec.” Raegan rushed in front of him, forcing him to slow his steps. Worry and fear swirled in her eyes. “Talk to me.”
There were no words. Closing his arms around her, he pulled her against him and buried his face in her hair as the hysteria inside him turned to a laugh he couldn’t contain.
“Alec.” Her hands stilled against his chest. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? I’m better than okay. I’m fan-fucking-tastic.”
“I don’t underst—”
He knew she didn’t. He was acting like a lunatic, but he couldn’t help himself. The relief—the knowledge, the truth—was so sweet . . . “He’s not my father,” he said into her hair, holding her tighter. “You have no idea how that makes me feel. He’s not my real father. He’s nothing. He’s . . .” He closed his eyes and breathed what felt like his first liberated breath of air. “I’m free. I’m so fucking free.”
“Free?” Pushing back, she looked up at his face with confusion and disbelief. “You’re relieved? I thought you’d be upset. Your whole life has been—”
“My whole life has been a lie, and I’m so okay with that.” He framed her face with his hands. “All this time I thought . . .” Emotions tightened his throat, and he shook his head, fighting back the hitch in his voice. “But he’s not my father. I’m not related to him. Everything I’ve fucked up, I’ve fucked up all on my own. It’s not genetic. I’m not him. I’m never going to become him.”
“I never thought you were like him.”
God, he loved her. Loved her so damn much. Even when she’d just seen him at his worst, she was on his side. “Five minutes ago I proved the opposite.”
“Why? Because you grabbed Charlie? She’s lucky I didn’t get a hold of her. I was ready to rip her limbs off if she decided to clam up.”
Laughter rose in his chest again, and he closed his arms around her, holding her close once more, her heart racing just as fast as his. “I should have let you have a go at her from the beginning. Would have saved me some cash.”
“She’s a terrible human being,” Raegan said against him, the humor gone from her voice, “and you are nothing like her or John Gilbert. Nothing.”
Alec closed his eyes and just held her, knowing that wasn’t true. His quick temper, the drinking, and the internal struggle he still waged on a daily basis that he wasn’t good enough or smart enough or worthy enough were all things he’d gotten from Gilbert. They were things he was going to continue to fight. But at least now he knew it wasn’t a losing battle. He wasn’t going to become the man he hated more than any other.
A new emotion surged inside him. One he hadn’t felt before. One that gave him strength.
Hope.
“You know what else this means? Don’t you?” he asked, still holding Raegan against him. “It means she’s out there. It means Emma’s out there somewhere, and she’s alive. If he took me, if he took those other kids, it means she’s with another family right this minute.”
Raegan drew back and looked up with shimmery eyes. “Oh, Alec.”
“We’re going to find her.” He framed her face again, lowered his head, and pressed his warm lips against her cool ones. “We’re going to find her and bring her home.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.
All he wanted to do was get lost in her, but they didn’t have time. Releasing her, he closed his hand over hers and tugged her down the road toward his truck. “We need to get out to the highway where we can get a signal and call Bickam. I want Charlene picked up before she decides to run or ODs. She’ll be itching to spend that money I gave her.”
Raegan’s feet shuffled to keep up with his longer steps. “What if she takes off after we leave?”
“We’ll wait at the bottom of the road until the Feds show up. There’s no other way out of here except the hills. And if she decides to go that way, she won’t make it far.”
He turned and smiled at her, and when she smiled back—a warm, happy, hopeful smile—his heart turned over and he knew that finally, finally, everything was about to be right.
He was getting his family back. And nothing and no one was going to stop him.
“Shit.” John Gilbert stared down at the burner cell phone buzzing beside him on the ripped plastic bench seat as he drove. Only one person had the number to his new phone.
He ignored the call. He had enough cash left from his first payment to get him all the way to Seattle. There he could find a forger to create documents that would take him across the border. As for money to get to the border, well, he was a man who could always find a way. Charlie, the bitch, had been a total bust in the money department, but at least she’d helped him steal this beater F150.
Shifting against the seat, he reached for the knob on the radio. The phone buzzed beside him again.
Son of a bitch. He slowed the truck and pulled to the gravel shoulder. Staring at the phone, his heart beating hard, he debated his options, then decided the less they knew the better. If he didn’t answer, they’d know he’d run. If he answered, they’d think he was still around doing their shit work.
He lifted the phone to his ear. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Mr. Gilbert,” a terse voice said on the other end of the line. “You haven’t been answering your phone.”
He refrained from saying sorry because he wasn’t. “I didn’t hear it.”
Silence, then, “A man named Alec McClane checked in to the emergency room the other night with a gunshot wound. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Gilbert’s heart raced like a filly in heat streaking away from a stallion. “No. I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“Mm hm. Your job was to keep one nosy female reporter off a story that could be detrimental to our interests.”
“By any means necessary,” he huffed. “That’s what I was told. I done exactly what I was told to do.”
“Firing a weapon in broad daylight on a busy downtown street is not what we told you to do. And at your son, no less.”
Anger burned a path straight up Gilbert’s cheeks. “He ain’t my son. He never was.”
“Our employer wants to meet with you to discuss your progress. Ten o’clock tonight. There’s a dock at the end of North Sever Road. Don’t be late. And don’t think about running, Mr. Gilbert. We know where to find you.” The line clicked dead in his ear.
Blood pulsed in Gilbert’s veins, making his hand shake against the phone. He was dead meat if he went to that meeting. A dock off a deserted road, late at night? No fucking way.
Lifting his gaze, he looked out the cracked windshield and tightened his hand into a fist around the phone, a new wave of rage roaring through him.
This was Alec’s fucking fault. He should have killed the bastard with that bullet instead of injuring him. He’d wanted Alec to suffer and now that was coming back to bite him in the ass, just like the no-good kid he never should have taken in had come back to bite him more times than he could count.
The phone’s casing cracked beneath his fingers. Realizing his knuckles were white, he let the phone drop to the seat beside him.
Fuck his employer. Fuck what the bitch wanted. He was done. He shoved the truck into gear and pulled out onto the highway. He was leaving thi
s fucking town for good.
As soon as he did one last thing.
He whipped a U-turn and headed back to Portland.
Alec kicked the apartment door closed and pulled Raegan into his arms. She moved into him without hesitation and lifted her mouth to his, opening to his kiss with the same heat and need and hope thrumming all through his veins.
They’d waited thirty minutes for Bickam to show up at the trailer park. Alec had never been as happy as the moment he’d seen the Feds hauling Charlene out of the trees in handcuffs. She’d tried to run—as he’d expected—but she hadn’t gotten far. And she was spitting daggers at him when she saw him standing there watching. Alec had wanted to sit in on her questioning, wanted to know exactly what she’d omitted when she’d spilled her story to him, but Bickam had quickly shut that down and sent him and Raegan home with the promise he’d call as soon as he had any information.
Any information . . . That could come tonight, or tomorrow. But for the first time in years he had hope that it would come. Until it did, all he wanted to do was savor every moment of this life he should have been living these last three years. This amazing, wonderful, perfect life he was never walking away from again.
Tipping Raegan’s face up with his hands, he kissed her deeper and pressed her back against the wall in the entry. “Mm, Raegs . . .” He slid his hands down her arms, across her ribs, and around to her lower back. “I need you. Right now.”
“Yes.” She lifted to her toes and kissed him harder. “Yes,” she mouthed against him, trailing her hands over his shoulders, careful to avoid his injured arm. Her fingers dropped to his waistband and the button on his jeans as if she couldn’t wait.
His whole body trembled.
“I love you,” she mouthed against him, flicking the button free and sliding her tantalizing fingers inside to graze his hip bones. “Have I told you that lately?”
He groaned at her wicked touch. “And I love hearing you say it.” Shifting his hands lower, he lifted one of her luscious legs to hook around his hip and rocked against her. “Say it again.”
She laughed and whispered, “I love you.”
Gone (Deadly Secrets Book 2) Page 23
