by KJ Dahlen
“My parents?” Cricket questioned. “Why were you thinking about my parents?”
“I was also thinking about you. How you were a combination of the both of them. You had your mother’s tenacity and your father’s strength. You were soft yet stubborn just like my Grace had been. You had the street smarts Orrin had and the common sense he had. It was rare to find both of those traits in one person. Usually, one is common but not both. But you were so much more than just a clone of your parents. You had grit, real honest grit. You called it honor but it was so much more than that.”
“Why are you still here? Everyone thinks you died a year ago,” Cricket asked softly. “I buried you a year ago.”
“I know.” Theo nodded. “Bane Jessin did die a year ago. He died begging his brother and his wife to forgive him. He died admitting he had been so wrong about them, about his life. Bane Jessin never begged anyone for anything but he begged Grace and Orrin for forgiveness for the way he ruined their lives.”
“How did you manage to get out of those woods?” Cricket rubbed her upper arms as if a ghost just walked over her grave.
“A friend was there for me. He helped get me out of there. He set up the body they found that day. He got me to a place I could recover, a place that offered me shelter to change my face, to change the direction of my life and most of all to heal.”
Cricket couldn’t look at him. “We found your will. We went to your house and we took things from it. Things we didn’t know you might want back.” Hanging her head, she admitted. “We took your money.”
Theo reached out and tipped her eyes to meet his. “Child, its fine. I wanted you to have that. The money? It doesn’t matter.”
“Why did you come here tonight?”
“I guess I just wanted to let you know I was still here. You recognized me earlier didn’t you?”
Cricket nodded. “I couldn’t believe it was you though. I thought I was going crazy for a moment.”
Theo nodded. “I wasn’t going to say anything but then I was caught.” He glanced in her kitchen window. “Was that Dusty? My grandson?”
Cricket grew afraid for a moment. Taking a deep breath she admitted, “Yes that was Dusty. He’ll be eight years old soon.” She reached out and touched Theo’s arm briefly.
When he looked down at her touch, she pulled her hand away and flushed. Looking away, she told him, “He’s got a good life here. He’s living with his dad and Paige. Paige is good for him and I’m still around. I look after him too. With Gambler, he’s got a man in his life that loves him and will teach him everything he needs to know. He’s got a little brother or sister waiting to meet him in a few months.” She paused and with a sob, she told her uncle, “He’s happy here. He’s going to school and he has friends. It’s not at all like it was when Cordy was alive.”
“Oh Cricket, that seems like a life time ago, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “My children were too much like me, weren’t they? Like the soulless man I used to be?”
Cricket didn’t say the words instead, she nodded.
“I was offered a do over and I took it. I am a changed man and I intend to make that change. I learned something about myself in the past year. I may not have deep feelings like everyone else but I do have feelings. I found that while I thought I loved your mother I really didn’t. I cared for her the best I could when we first met but I never truly loved her. I was an arrogant man back then. And in my arrogance, I thought just because I wanted her I could make her love me. When I couldn’t I didn’t know what to do about, she belonged to me but I couldn’t love her, not like Orrin did. Orrin was a better man for Grace. Cordelia and Michael were born from my union with Grace but they weren’t born out of love, they were born out of hate. Grace hated me and I can’t blame her for that. She hated the man I was back then. And I didn’t know how to be any different.”
“You said you got a second chance to change your life.” Cricket wet her dry lips with her tongue. “Have you? Have you changed any?”
Theo nodded. “As strange as that sounds I think I have, changed that is. I think for the first time in my life, I’ve found the way to a softer life, a life filled with color instead of just black and white. A life filled with wonder and beauty and I think I found someone to love me.”
“Sarah?” Cricket smiled softly.
“Sarah,” he confirmed.
“So now what? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?” she asked.
“I may have a plan for that. We’re working on the details yet but it sounds like a plan to me.” He paused and looked in her kitchen window again. Looking back at her, he stated, “One day, I would like to meet that young man, maybe not today or tomorrow or next week but one day. I don’t expect he needs to know we’re related, if that’s the way it has to be but I would like to meet him in person.”
Cricket nodded. “I’ll ask his dad and see if we can set that up.” She dared to step forward and look him in the eyes, “I want to wish you well uncle, with the life you’ve chosen and with Sarah. I hope she can make you happy.”
Theo reached out and cupped her jaw. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips on her forehead and stepped back. They both heard a gasp behind him and as they turned, they saw Raine standing there with clenched fists.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asked in a tight voice.
Theo held up his hand to stop the other man. “Nothing at all. I was just saying goodbye to my niece, that’s all.”
Raine frowned. “Your what?”
Cricket stepped over to Raine and whispered something in his ear.
Raine’s eyes widened as he stared at the other man.
Theo stared back at Raine and after a minute, he said, “I hope we can keep this between the three of us. I have too many enemies that would bring hell to this place if they knew I was still alive. I died in the woods a year ago, please let Bane Jessin stay dead. For everyone’s sake.”
With those words, he turned and walked away, swallowed by the ever growing shadow of the darkness.
~*~
Raine turned to his wife and gathered her in his arms.
Cricket snuggled in the arms of the only man she could ever love. Her past had a way of popping up when she least expected it to. It wasn’t all bad but she still longed for the day when it would just go away. She had enough of Cordy’s lies and pain, enough of Michael’s bullshit and now she finds out her uncle was still alive.
All she ever wanted was what she found with Raine, nothing more than that and nothing less. He and their children and Dusty were enough for her. Maybe Bane could live another type of life, she hoped so and she hoped Sarah would be everything her mother hadn’t been to him. She secretly wished him well. Then she turned to her husband and kissed him wildly in the dark. “I love you husband,” she whispered wickedly in his ear.
“I love you too wife,” Raine told her as he nipped her earlobe.
Then Cricket squealed and ran toward the backdoor with Raine hard on her heels...
Note from K.J. Dahlen
K.J. has a new plot in mind. With series name of Vengeance Is Mine
If you would like to see this new series with Bane, James and the Priest... Please say so in a review at the retailer you purchased it from or come and post your opinion in her Facebook group>>>
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Excerpt From The Next KJ Dahlen Release
At All Costs
(Aries)
Whiskey Bend MC Series
Chapter One
The ringing phone woke Luna Mathias from a sound sleep. On the third ring, she groaned. Reaching out, she picked up the receiver and whispered a sleepy, “Hello.”
“I have received the payment you promised.” She heard someone say. “By this time tomorrow, your judicial troubles will be over, the only witness will be dead, and you’ll be in the clear.”
Luna frowned and sat up in bed slowly. She brushed her long dark hair away from her face and rubbed her eyes. She’d
been so tired lately, she wasn’t sure she was hearing the conversation correctly. “Excuse me?” She took a deep breath. “Who is this?” When she heard no reply she asked, “Is this some kind of joke or something? Because if it is, this isn’t very funny.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath and a muffled swear word then she heard a resounding click as the phone call ended. She frowned and reached over to snap on the bedside lamp. Hanging up the phone she glanced at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside the table and saw it was just after two a.m.
She hated phone calls in the middle of the night. They never brought good news, only bad news and this one sounded like a prank call. Yet, something she heard in the caller’s voice made her stop and think.
It could have been a prank call or something a little more sinister. As a small-town reporter, her inner alarms were going haywire. She knew this sort of thing happened all the time and yet, she had been shocked by the phone call. This sort of crime, a murder for hire, was more a big city occurrence, it didn’t happen so much around here. Whiskey Bend may have its own share of crime but it was still a small town and nothing like this happened here. The caller had sounded very sincere about what he was planning to do. In the small amount of conversation she had with the caller, she could sense his intent. If she believed him, someone or maybe more than one someone would die in the next day.
Luna shivered. She’d just spent the last three days trying to track down a serial killer. She had seen too much death since she began this quest. She received a call four days ago from an attorney for a man on death row. The attorney had said his client’s name was Mike Denver and he was dying of cancer. Mike knew he wouldn’t live long enough to get the needle and he felt okay with that. The attorney informed her Mike had a story to tell, and he wanted her to tell it. He told her she had every right to refuse, it was okay if she wanted to turn around and walk away. He would understand, but he hoped she would at least listen to his story.
Luna had been just curious enough stay. Mike wanted to tell her about someone he met fifteen years ago in Detroit. He’d recently read a story she wrote about child abuse and he told her he liked the way she brought the victims to life. That she made him feel the child’s pain and when she was finished, he felt that justice had been done by the courts. He felt the judge who sentenced the couple to prison had stopped them from hurting any other child. He wanted the world to know his story and why he had done the things he had done. He wasn’t looking for forgiveness; but he did want people to know what he felt during the time he was committing his crimes. While he’d done a number of bad things in his life, he needed to tell the world about a man that scared even the hardest of criminals.
As a reporter, even a small town reporter she knew this man had a story to tell and she told him if she could verify what he was telling her, she would write his story. What she found out scared the hell out of her, but she had been able to verify his tale in New York, Chicago, Seattle and St. Louis; and many little towns along the way. What she never told anyone, the child in her abuse story was herself.
She had returned from her journey only three hours ago. Her suitcase was still sitting just inside the bedroom door. All she wanted to do when she got home was sleep.
Luna grabbed a pen and a notepad she kept close to her and wrote down the message she had been given. She knew she should call Charlie Boone, but if she did and it turned out to be a crank, she didn’t want to look like a fool in his eyes. The caller had said that the hit would happen within twenty-four hours. The question was who was going to die and why? The reporter in her wanted to know the five W’s; who, what, when, where and why. So far, she knew the when but she didn’t know the rest. She tried to think of upcoming interesting cases, but she couldn’t think of one that would warrant this kind of solution. This was Whiskey Bend after all. Being the seat of Bison County there was a courthouse located here, as well as a jail. The DA and judge lived here too.
Her adrenalin was pumping and she knew from the butterflies in the pit of her stomach she had stumbled on to a story that she was never supposed to know about. What she would do next might save someone’s life or cost her own.
She got up and walked over to the window. Pulling the drapes open, she stared out at the town beyond her windows. Even in the darkness, she could see her neighborhood. She knew by heart every inch of what lay beyond her window. She was part of the neighborhood watch, although here in Whiskey Bend people tended to watch over one another and she knew her neighbors as well as they knew her. The streetlights shone at every corner illuminating the yards and houses nearby. Down the street from where she lived, there was a Catholic church and a public school. During the day, the people bustled along doing their own thing but it was basically a safe town, a good town to live in and raise a family. Had the horror of the big city finally come to Whiskey Bend, Wisconsin? Luna shivered as the cool night air blew in from her open bedroom window.
~*~
In a small room in a rented cabin just outside Whiskey Bend, a man was sitting in the dark. The neon sign across the road flashing a beer sign gave him more than enough light to dial a phone. He hadn’t thought about turning his own lights on until now. Before he could snap the light on, the flashing sign across the street went out for the night. Getting up, he moved over to the window and looked outside. The parking lot across the street was finally empty after being full earlier. The music that blared earlier was gone as well. Everything was quiet now, except his mind. His mind was going crazy with the mistake he’d just made. Now he would have to find and eliminate the witness he might have just informed of his intentions.
He always used a motel or a cabin such as this one for his business. That way, the cops couldn’t trace any of the calls back to him. He also used a false name and a disguise to register at the motel. He didn’t want anyone to know his true identity. After all, he had his own reputation to protect, as well as his day job. Every time he had to do a job, he would use a different hotel or motel in the area. If the police ever thought to trace the incoming and outgoing calls made by the people who hired him, all they would find was a person they could never trace. And a series of untraceable burn phones as he bought a new trac phone for every job he did. It kept him clear of any suspicion in the cases and it gave his clients some protection as well. He wasn’t exactly a rookie at police work or his sideline. He gave both of his occupations his full attention to detail and so far, neither one had crossed over into the other.
He looked at the phone sitting on the table and frowned. The numbers on the piece of paper were the same numbers he had dialed, yet his contact had sounded like a woman. He reached over and flipped on the light. He checked the numbers again and hit the redial. The number he had dialed flashed and when he looked at it he realized he had switched two of the numbers around. It was a common mistake except he couldn’t afford to make common mistakes.
He growled as he quickly wrote down the number he had called and slammed the phone down. “Damn, I got the wrong number.” He paused to light a cigarette. As the smoke circled his head, the man again looked at the number on the paper. This time he dialed it correctly and when his contact answered the call, he repeated his earlier message.
“Are you sure you can handle this job?” his contact asked again. His voice was a little on the high side and it had a certain whiney quality.
“Do you want the job done or not?” he asked his contact. “I mean it doesn’t matter to me whether they are dead or not, but once you pay, I do the job. I don’t do refunds if you change your mind.”
The contact scoffed. “I don’t want a refund, I want the job done. I want Sheila Donner dead. The little bitch thinks she can blackmail me. I’ll show her I won’t be blackmailed by anyone.”
“Hey man, I don’t need to know the details,” he told the contact. “In fact, I don’t want to know the details.” His voice had grown cold. “I just called to inform you that the money was delivered.”
“Ok, ok. I understand and
I’ll be ready.”
He hung up without saying anything more. There were times when he didn’t much care for the people he worked for. Some, like this man regarded him as nothing more than dirt on their shoes and they tended to treat him as such. He deeply resented them. They all thought they were better than he was, but without him they all would be rotting in some stinking jail somewhere. His only saving grace was his clients didn’t know who he was. To them he was a voice on the other end of a phone call. They couldn’t even tell the police what his voice sounded like since his voice was often disguised. All the contact they had was over the phone. To them he was just a phone call away. He could be standing right next to them and they wouldn’t know it.
He poured himself another drink from the bottle of Black Velvet sitting on the table. He lit another cigarette and thought about how his life of crime began, so many years ago. He’d lived a lifetime since then, or maybe several life times. His lips curled in some sense of a smile and he contemplated his life. He was a very intelligent man, He had to be. His freedom depended on it. His eyes caught sight of the tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. He had put her face there as a reminder and every time he looked at her he remembered what she did to make him the man he was today. He flexed his thumb and her face changed. It became the face he saw the day he killed her. That day her face had been twisted in hate and she became the monster inside him. She hadn’t died easily that day but he held her close to him until he no longer heard her breathing. Then he carefully laid her on the ground and walked away. He hadn’t looked back as there was nothing left for him there. His mother was dead and he was truly alone in this world.
