“He did, I swear.”
“When do you want to go?”
“I guess after I speak with Todd.”
Summer startled at those words, but Weaver had been looking at his watch and hadn’t caught it.
Summer had brought him there to be an alibi. The last thing she wanted was to allow Weaver to interview Todd. Todd had to be dealt with and his manuscript destroyed before he could hurt her.
Summer rose from the chair and sat beside Weaver on the bed.
“Well, like I said before, I need to see Todd first.”
“Why?”
“I have to assess his mental state, and, I have to prepare him to meet with you. The moment he sees us together he’ll know that we’re lovers.”
Weaver looked into her eyes.
“Are we still lovers, or are you through with me because I pushed you over including your childhood in the book?”
Summer lowered her head on his shoulder.
“One thing has nothing to do with the other, but tell me, Robert, could we go see my friend first, and then come back and visit Todd?”
Weaver thought it over for a moment and then nodded.
“I guess, besides, you reuniting with your friend makes for a better story than your ex-husband, but I’ll still want to come back here and talk to him, understood?”
Summer raised her head and smiled.
“Understood, and we’ll leave tomorrow, but right now...”
Summer kissed Weaver as she began unbuttoning his shirt.
Weaver was a man who had always been honest with himself, and he knew that he was way out of Summer’s league.
She was using sex to keep him on her side, but that was all right. He had proven to himself while writing about the Chicago mob that he couldn’t be bought or threatened off a story. A little hot sex wouldn’t buy his integrity either.
Once his shirt was removed, Summer went to work on his pants. She then shed her own clothes, before dropping to her knees.
Minutes later, when Summer paused in the midst of performing a certain act, she asked Weaver a question.
“You don’t really have to mention my father in the book, do you?”
Weaver raised his head up and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“To hell with your father.”
Summer went back to what she had been doing and Weaver moaned with pleasure.
CHAPTER 15
WEST LAKE HILLS, TEXAS
Jessica and her husband smiled when they finally came face-to-face with Michael Wheeler.
Wheeler was very handsome, had dark hair, and was as tall as Jessica’s husband. Other than those similarities, the two men didn’t look alike, but Wheeler did bear a passing resemblance to Amanda.
Wheeler’s home was magnificent and worth over three million dollars. Both Jessica and her husband had grown up in modest homes and had built their current house to suit their needs.
However, those needs had changed with the birth of the twins, and with Amanda and Maggie having moved in, they had begun to consider either adding on or building a new home. While taking a tour of Wheeler’s palatial home, those thoughts had resurfaced.
The home was magnificent; however, Wheeler himself was a bore. He insisted on showing them his wine collection, his art collection, and let them know what each item cost. When he wasn’t talking about his possessions, he spoke of his accomplishments in business.
Jessica and her husband asked Wheeler questions when they could get a word in, and found that his story was very similar to the one told by Michael Hobbs, only Wheeler’s recollections were sketchier and didn’t involve riding on trains.
Instead, Wheeler recalled running alongside a riverbank, before being found by a homeless man and dropped off at a shelter.
When Wheeler led them back towards the entryway, they realized that he was escorting them there to bid farewell.
He apologized to them, and said that he had to go over paperwork for an early morning conference call to Indonesia.
Jessica looked at him in amazement.
“Mr. Wheeler, we’ve traveled a fair distance to see you, after a number of postponements I might add, and you do realize that my husband may actually be your brother?”
“Of course I do, Dr. White, but I guess that I should tell you the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Yes, you see, I never responded to your inquiry, that was my daughter’s doing. She pressured me into giving a DNA sample. She’s also the one who sent you that old blanket. I stopped wondering about my past when I was a boy, but Melissa, my daughter, she’s only fourteen, and I supposed that she’s curious and intrigued by the mystery of where I came from.”
White looked at Michael Wheeler as he searched for the right words to say.
“Until a few years ago I thought I was an only child. Jeffrey Mitchell, well, he was never going to be a brother to me, but you and I could have a relationship. If you are my brother, you have a mother waiting to meet with you as well, and she still loves you, Michael. Don’t shut us out.”
Wheeler sighed and looked regretful for the words he next spoke.
“If we share the same DNA, then yes, we’re brothers, but sir, I have no need for any more family, my daughter and my ex-wife are enough of a familial entanglement, and my life is already full.”
Jessica became angry, but as she opened her mouth to speak, her husband held up a hand.
“He’s just telling us how he feels. We’ll be going now, Wheeler, but we’ll call you either way when the DNA results come back.”
After they walked out the door, Wheeler called to him.
“Yes?”
“I hope it’s not me. That way, you’ll still have a chance to have a brother.”
“Thank you, and if you are my brother, we’ll welcome you anytime.”
Wheeler sent them a sad smile and then shut the door.
***
Her husband could tell by the way her heels clacked loudly on the way to the car that Jessica was angry, and so it surprised him that she began to laugh as they were driving away.
“What’s so funny?”
Jessica didn’t answer, but laughed harder, and he pulled the car over to the side of the road as she wiped away tears of mirth.
“Do you want to share the joke with me?” he asked.
“It’s Michael Wheeler. He’s rich and successful and we all spent weeks hoping that he’d be your brother, and when he sent that blanket that Amanda recognized, we became certain of it. Now, the last thing I want is for that cold fish to be your brother. You deserve better than him, and so does Amanda.”
Her husband smiled, and then laughed too.
“Meanwhile, I was afraid that Michael Hobbs might be a serial killer like Jeffrey, and he turned out to be a hero. I wonder what surprises Michael Storm will give us.”
“He’s already given us one. According to what Daddy told us, Michael Storm is an old friend of Summer Gray. I only hope he’s nothing like her.”
“It’s funny, in the beginning, I was ambivalent about finding Michael, about having a brother, but when Wheeler shunned me, I felt hurt by it. Why is that?”
“Because he could still be your brother, and although it’s been decades since you were last together, you did love your brothers as a child, even Jeffrey.”
***
They returned to their hotel in Austin and had dinner in their room, as neither one felt like going out.
Jessica had begun doing research for a second book, and after turning on her laptop, she saw that she had an email from Caliber Investigations.
The DNA results were in.
After informing her husband, he came over and stood by the desk. When she looked in his eyes, she saw a rare sight. He was nervous.
After opening the email and reading silently for a few moments, Jessica grinned, and then she stood and hugged him.
“We’ve found Michael. He’s Michael Storm.”
“I have a brother,” he whispered.
“Yes, and we’ll leave for California tomorrow so you can meet him.”
He took out his phone.
“I have to call Amanda and let her know that we’ve found Michael.”
He started to hit the call button, but stopped, as a grin lit his face.
“I have a brother.”
Jessica kissed him.
“Yes baby, and tomorrow we’ll find out what he’s like.”
Before calling Amanda, he brought up the picture of Michael Storm.
“He has a good face and he looks happy... a brother.”
After clearing his throat, he called Amanda.
CHAPTER 16
Dominic, along with Ron and Jerry Ponte, entered the hospice through a rear entrance in the early morning hours.
They had been given a key to an unmonitored door by the maintenance man they’d been paying to keep them informed.
After climbing up three flights of stairs, they arrived at the floor where their ex-cohort, Sal Silvera, lay dying.
Silvera, along with Dominic and the Ponte brothers, had robbed an armored car in 2002. Silvera had left behind his DNA in the form of spittle.
He had been angry with one the guards as the man cried and begged for his life. After calling the man a coward, Silvera had shot the guard in the head and spat on him.
Despite being offered a deal by the DA that would have seen him do only eight years in a country club prison, Silvera refused to turn rat on his friends. He was given two consecutive life sentences in a maximum-security prison.
Robert Weaver worked the story as a reporter and uncovered Silvera’s connection to Dominic and the Ponte brothers, and like the Feds, he was certain that they had been involved in the robbery, which had surely been carried out by more than one man.
When the police and the Federal authorities had moved on to other cases, Weaver kept digging into the armored car heist, and his investigation led to an inside man who worked at the armored car company. The man was eventually tried and convicted in connection with the robbery, but the only one he had ever dealt with was Sal Silvera, who the cops already had cold.
Weaver dug some more and uncovered a witness who was willing to testify that he had sold Dominic the stolen car used in the heist, and that the Ponte brothers had been present at the time. When the witness was assured that he wouldn’t be charged as an accessory after the fact, Federal authorities were ready to file for arrest warrants.
That ended when the witness was shot to death along with his lawyer, as he was headed to give a full statement.
The Feds and the Chicago PD tried, but they couldn’t break the alibis crafted by Dominic and the Ponte brothers.
Soon after, Weaver was let go from the paper due to budget cuts and went full-time as a ghostwriter.
Meanwhile, after serving only three years of his sentence, Sal Silvera was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. His illness had progressed until he could barely move more than a finger on one hand, and he’ll soon need assistance just to breathe.
***
Dominic nudged Silvera’s shoulder as he gazed down at the frail man.
Silvera looked old at only fifty. His hair was a stark white, where before it had been black as a raven. Silvera woke and looked up at Dominic and the Ponte Brothers with startled eyes.
He could no longer talk, but his eyes still blinked, and after greeting him, Dominic explained why they were there, and asked him about Robert Weaver.
The maintenance man had told them that he had seen the nurses communicate with Silvera by asking questions. If Silvera blinked once, it meant yes, two blinks meant no.
“Did Weaver come to see you?”
Silvera stared at his old friends for long seconds, and Dominic repeated the question. More seconds passed and then Silvera’s eyes blinked once.
“He was here?”
Again, Silvera blinked once.
“What did he want?” Jerry Ponte asked, but then he realized that the question couldn’t be answered with just a blink, and he asked a second question. “Does Weaver have something new on the three of us?”
Silvera blinked once again, but only after a long pause.
Dominic wanted to know exactly what Weaver had, but knew it would take too long, and so he settled for asking how severe the problem was.
“Can he burn us?”
There was nothing, and Dominic was about to rephrase the question when Silvera blinked twice.
“He has nothing solid, but he’s onto something, is that it?”
Once again, a single blink.
As Dominic looked gravely at the Ponte brothers, Silvera’s eyes blinked rapidly, but then stopped. It went unnoticed.
Dominic looked down at his old friend with a grave expression.
“Sal, other than you, the only one that can burn us is the guy we bought the guns from, that old army buddy of yours. You told me once that he wasn’t a problem, is that still true?”
Two swift blinks came before Dominic had even finished asking the question.
“Shit,” Dominic mumbled, as he looked up at the Ponte brothers. “I knew we should have wasted that punk too, but he moved somewhere and I don’t know his name, do you two?”
“Nah, and the dude wore mirrored sunglasses. Hell, I’m not sure I would know him if he stepped into the room right now.”
“Yeah, our best bet is to track down Weaver and see who he talks to,” Dominic said, and then he patted his dying friend gently on the chest and told him thanks.
***
An hour after they left, a nurse entered Sal Silvera’s room with a doctor at her side. The doctor was new to the staff, and needed to be advised about each patient’s condition.
“This is Mr. Silvera. He has late-stage ALS.”
“Good morning, sir,” the doctor said. He was a young blond man with an enthusiastic manner.
The nurse spoke up.
“Mr. Silvera can no longer communicate, Dr. Hart. He lost the ability to blink on command about a week ago, although his corneal reflex seems very active at times and he’ll blink often, and of course, he can no longer hold a pen.”
The doctor patted Silvera much the same way as Dominic had done earlier, and then he and the nurse moved on to the next patient.
CHAPTER 17
Summer instructed Robert Weaver to park on the side of the country road they were driving on, and afterwards, she exited their rental car.
She walked over to a picket fence that was so old its paint was peeling off, and it had numerous broken or missing slats.
The house beyond the fence fared no better and its left side had collapsed near the rear.
It was the home that Summer had lived in for a short time while she was a child, and she gazed at it with mixed emotions.
Weaver came to stand beside her.
“That’s where you lived with your Aunt Janice?”
“Yes, and Michael’s farm is only a mile away.”
“I did some research and found out that he’s losing the farm.”
Summer’s eyes left the house and turned towards Weaver with concern lighting them.
“He’s gone bankrupt? How much does he need to keep his home?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. His land and all this surrounding property has been seized by the state using eminent domain, so that they can build a new airport. Michael Storm was compensated financially, as were the other people around here, but in a matter of weeks he’s got to vacate.”
“That’s sad. This farm must be the only home that Michael has ever known.”
Weaver gestured towards the car.
“Let’s go meet him.”
Weaver moved away from the fence and then noticed that Summer was still standing there.
“Summer?”
“I’m nervous. What if he doesn’t like me?”
Weaver shook his head in wonder as he waved a hand towards her.
“Have you looked in a mirror? What man wouldn’t like you
?”
“I don’t mean that way. I’m not... I’m not the little girl he remembers.”
“I’m sure he’s changed as well. Now let’s go, it’ll be all right.”
Summer took a deep breath, nodded her head, and returned to the car.
***
A hundred yards away, Dominic and the Ponte brothers watched Weaver and Summer climb back in their rental.
Dominic had used his connections to discover that Weaver had booked a flight to California, and he and the Ponte brothers caught an earlier flight and followed Weaver from the airport.
They erroneously believed that Weaver might be meeting with the illegal gun dealer who had sold them the weapons they used in an armored car heist years earlier, and once Weaver met with the man, they would kill them both.
“How’s a normal looking putz like Weaver get a smokin’ hot redhead like that?” Jerry Ponte said.
“I don’t know. He must be making big bucks, but hot or not, she’s got to die too. We can’t leave a witness,” Dominic said.
“It’s a damn shame,” Ron Ponte said from the back seat, but he was smiling when he said it. Ron liked to kill women.
***
Not far away, Jessica, her husband, her father, and Amanda were all heading to Michael Storm’s farm.
Once she had learned that Michael Storm was her son, Amanda couldn’t wait to meet him, and had flown in with Dr. White to join her other son and Jessica.
Amanda looked nervous, but happy, and she was chattering excitedly about all the things she wanted to ask Michael when she met him.
He looked at Amanda in the rear view mirror as he drove.
“According to Caliber Investigations, Michael was dropped off at a local orphanage by a man and a woman who wouldn’t give their names. A few months later, he was adopted by a couple who owned the farm we’re going to, their names were Edith and Albert Storm.”
“I read the report,” Amanda said. “Edith Storm died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver when Michael had only been with them for a few months. Albert Storm passed away from a heart attack ten years later, and then Michael was raised by Albert’s mother, his adopted grandmother, and she recently passed away as well.”
The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4) Page 53
