Nick looked at the distraught woman. “Do you have any relatives we can call? Someone who can take the kids tonight?”
“No, my parents are dead,” she cried. “And we don’t even know where his parents are.”
“Any cousins or aunts or uncles? Sisters or brothers? Anyone?”
“No!” she cried, struggling to make him understand. “So you have to let me stay with them. They don’t have anybody to take care of them.”
Wearily, Nick slid the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder, then took the children’s hands. “We’ll see that they’re cared for.”
“But I can take care of them! Please don’t take them.”
“Come on, kids,” Nick said. “Let’s go.”
The woman screamed and fought to get to her children, but the officers restrained her. “You’re making this harder on them!” Tony shouted over her cries. “If you love them, help them through this.”
“You’re not—taking—my kids!” she screamed, fighting to break free.
The children pulled out of Nick’s hands and ran to their mother, but with her hands cuffed, she couldn’t hold them. As they screamed, Nick wrenched them away and hurried them out to his car and into the front seat. He positioned one wailing child in the middle of the bench seat, hooked his seat belt, then hooked the other one in on the passenger side. Agency policy was to put kids in the backseat, but Nick could imagine how lonely the backseat could be when you didn’t know where you were going.
For a few moments after he got in, he could hardly speak. He cranked the car and pulled out of the driveway to get them away from the house as quickly as possible. Then he looked down at the kids, who were still sobbing quietly.
“My name’s Nick,” he said, patting the leg of the boy next to him. “And I promise you, this isn’t going to be so bad, okay? We’ll just find you a place to stay tonight, and you’re going to be all right.”
“But I want to stay at home tonight,” the younger one cried. “I want my mom!”
“Are you taking them to jail?” the older child asked in a shaky voice. “For a long time?”
“I can’t answer that, because I don’t know,” Nick said. “But you don’t have to worry, because you’ll be taken care of.”
The children cried quietly now, tears glistening on their faces. His heart ached for them, but that voice that played like a tape in his mind reminded him not to get involved. His job was to find a place to put them tonight; tomorrow, he would try to find a more permanent temporary home. There was no rational reason for the guilt and grief that he felt; it wasn’t his fault that these two boys were becoming wards of the state of Florida. He just wished their parents had thought about their kids before they’d started dealing drugs.
A few minutes later, Nick parked in front of his office. The building, a branch of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, or HRS, was small, dirty, and structurally unsound, but it was all they could afford on their small budget. He dreamed of the day they could get a nicer place, with a playroom to cheer up broken- hearted kids as they waited to be processed. He unhooked the apprehensive boys and slid them across the seat and out of the car.
“Please, mister. Take us back to our mom. She’s really nice.” The eight-year-old wiped his face and hiccuped a sob. “She won’t do anything bad or nothing.”
Nick stooped in front of them and wiped the tears on both their faces. “The police have your parents,” he said softly. “I can’t do anything about that, and I can’t make any promises about what’s going to happen. But I can promise that we’ll take good care of you and find you someplace nice to stay.”
The boys clung together, weeping, and Nick stroked both of their heads. He couldn’t mend their broken hearts or erase the trauma their parents’ arrest had caused. But he could help with some of the uncertainty. “This is just my office, okay? Let’s go in and see if I can find you a coke or something, maybe a couple of candy bars.”
“We’re not allowed to take candy from strangers.”
The irony. Drug dealers for parents, and they’d managed to teach these kids not to take candy from strangers. “Then I’ll give you each fifty cents and let you get it out of the vending machine yourself. And while you eat it, I’ll make some phone calls and find a nice family who’ll let you spend the night with them tonight. Sound fair?”
The boys shrugged.
No, you’re right, Nick thought. None of it is fair. “Call me Nick,” he said. “And I’ll call you Matthew and Christopher, okay?”
“Matt and Chris,” the little one corrected through his tears.
“Okay, Matt and Chris. Let’s go on in. Nothing in there for you to be afraid of—just an ugly office and me.” He glanced up at the other car parked next to his. “And it looks like my boss is here, too. But that’s all. No big bad wolves.”
He led them in and saw Sheila Axelrod, his supervisor, sitting at her desk, talking on the telephone. In a car seat on her desktop lay a screaming baby that couldn’t have been more than three months old. She hung up the phone as Nick came in. “There’s got to be a better way to make a living,” she said listlessly.
Nick fished some quarters out of his pockets for the vending machine. “Who’ve you got there?”
“Abused baby,” she said. “Police intervened in a domestic fight and saw her. Cigarette burns on her little legs prove the abuse. But it’ll take a miracle to find anyone to take her tonight.” She nodded toward the two still-crying boys beside him. “You’re lucky. At least they’re old enough for SCCH. I’ve got to go down the list until I find a taker.”
SCCH—the St. Clair Children’s Home—was the only private children’s home in town. It had once been Nick’s first choice in cases like this, but not anymore.
“I’m not calling SCCH,” he said, going to the car seat and lifting the crying baby out. Instantly, the child grew quiet and lay her head on Nick’s shoulder. He felt a wave of gratification—and concern—flood through him.
“What do you mean you’re not calling them? Who will you call?”
Still holding the baby, Nick ushered the two little boys to the vending machine and handed them some quarters. They took them grudgingly and chose their candy. The baby on his shoulder whimpered softly as her eyes slowly closed.
“Did that baby’s mom get arrested, too?” the younger boy, Matt, asked.
“I don’t know,” Nick evaded. “But it looks like she’s in the same boat you’re in. Tell you what, guys. You’re older than she is. If you’ll calm down and not look like we’re sending you to the dungeon, maybe she’ll quit feeling like something bad is about to happen. What do you say?”
Chris shrugged. “What’s SCCH? Is that where we’re going?”
“No.”
Sheila had the phone to her ear, but she put her hand over the receiver and asked, “Why not, Nick? They have a whole cottage just for temporaries. It’s the easiest thing, and if this is long term, that’s probably where they’ll end up anyway.”
“I told you, I have too many suspicions about some things going on at the home. Until I can give the place a clean bill of health, I’m not going to send any more kids to them.”
Her face hardened, and her voice changed. “Nick, those two kids have to be placed tonight. You’ll send them where I tell you to!”
He touched the baby’s head again, trying to keep it calm in spite of Sheila’s ranting. “Sheila, if I can find a home to take them tonight, what difference does it make to you?”
“Because I’m trying to find someone to take the baby. It’s not likely that we can find more than one family this late to take them, and nobody’s gonna take all three!”
“Let me try,” he said. “That’s all I ask, Sheila. Just give me a while to try.”
She moaned. “If you don’t send them to the home, you might have to split them up.”
One of the boys gasped, and the other burst into tears again. “No! Please don’t do that.”
“We won
’t,” Nick assured quietly. He pulled a tissue out and wiped the little boy’s nose as he shot Sheila a look. “Sheila, why don’t you let me take care of this, and you go on home? I can handle it.”
“Really?” She looked at him as if he’d just offered her a week’s vacation. Then she seemed to deflate. “I can’t. Not until they’re placed. I’ll give you an hour to try to find a family to take them. If you don’t, I’m taking them to SCCH myself. I’ll work on the paperwork, and you work on the phone calling. Here, give me the baby.”
“No, she’s fine,” he said softly. The baby was relaxing on his shoulder, and he could feel that she was close to falling asleep. “I can call while I hold her. And if I need a hand, my buddies here can help me, can’t you, guys?”
The boys nodded quietly.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be in here. Buzz if you need me.”
He ushered them down the hall to the corner of the building he sometimes shared with two other caseworkers—except that they had both quit in the last month and hadn’t yet been replaced. He looked over the baby’s head to the boys. “You gonna eat that candy, or just let it melt in your hands?”
Matt put it into his mouth, but Chris just sat there. “Do we have to go anywhere with her?”
Most of the kids didn’t like Sheila, which didn’t surprise Nick. She could be cold sometimes, but he knew her coldness was stress-induced. She’d been at it longer than he had, and it was a job that got to you over the years. He sat down and leaned back in his chair, still stroking the baby’s head. “I’ll try to find a place for you myself, guys. And if I can, then I’ll take you there.”
“Why can’t we stay with you?” the little one asked.
Nick smiled and messed up the boy’s hair. “Because I’m not home much, kiddo. I couldn’t watch you.”
“We can watch ourselves. We’d be okay. We do it all the time.”
“No can do. But trust me with this.” He picked up the phone, breathed a silent prayer for help, and dialed the number of his first choice—a family he’d saddled with four new kids just this past week.
When they turned him down, he tried the next one on the list, and then the next, until he had almost given up. Little Matt had lain down on the small, garage-sale sofa against the wall, and had gone to sleep with his head in his brother’s lap. The baby slept soundly, too. Chris just stared back at him with red, dismal eyes.
Not the St. Clair Children’s Home, Nick prayed. There’s got to be somebody else.
Holding the phone between ear and shoulder, he dialed the next number—a new family on their list. A retired couple who had volunteered to be foster parents, they had just today completed all the requirements to be accepted into the program. This would be their first placement call. He wondered if dumping three children on them this late at night their first time might frighten them away. He had no choice but to try.
“Hello?” The woman sounded kind—a good sign. He hadn’t been the caseworker assigned to her—Sheila had done it—so he hadn’t met her before. He hoped her voice wasn’t deceiving.
“Mrs. Miller? This is Nick Hutchins with HRS. I have three children I need to place temporarily tonight. They’re from two different families, so if you can’t take all of them, we can give you one or two of them. But I’d at least like to keep the brothers together—”
“We’d be delighted to have them!” the woman said, then put her hand on the receiver and shouted, “Honey, they’re bringing some children tonight.” She came back to Nick. “Please, bring all three of them. What ages are they?”
Nick couldn’t believe his ears. “The baby girl is probably three months, and then I have two brothers, six and eight. The baby’s an abuse case, and the boys’ parents are in police custody.”
“Oh, the poor little things. Please, bring them right over. We’ll have their beds all ready when you get here. I’ll tell Vernon to get the crib out of the attic. We’ll get it all dusted.”
Nick mouthed “thank you” to the ceiling as he hung up the phone. He hurried to Sheila’s door. “I found someone to take all three, Sheila. Grace and Vernon Miller. She’s even excited about it.”
Sheila didn’t look impressed. “I wasn’t planning to give them a trial by fire. I was going to ease them in. But I guess it can’t be helped. Remind her not to get emotionally involved with them, Nick. They’re new at this.”
“I will,” he said. But in his heart, he hoped they’d get a little involved. These kids were going to need someone who cared about them.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beth ignored her puppy as he whimpered and scratched at the attic door. Instead, she stared down at the answering machine. Why was it turned off? She had left it on; she was sure of it. Maybe the power had flickered, and the machine hadn’t come back on.
Maybe. But that didn’t explain the person who had answered the phone when she’d called.
Maybe the cellular phone company had mixed the signals. She’d heard of it happening. The fact that she was being followed at the time had made it all seem suspicious, but that didn’t mean that the two events had anything to do with each other. She was probably being paranoid.
She started to turn the machine back on, but the yelping puppy distracted her. She scooped him up and stroked his head. “What’s the matter, boy? You want to play?” He wiggled in her hands and reached up to lick her face. “We’ll go down and play in a minute,” she said, walking to the window near the apex of her roof. She peered out into the night, looking for headlights, any sign that Bill Brandon was out there, waiting, watching, ready to pounce.
No, of course he wasn’t out there. She’d chosen this house very carefully. No one could just accidentally find it, and no one would be able to look her up, either. Her address was a post office box. It wasn’t listed in the phone book, and it wasn’t even in her files at school or the paper. Since she rented, there was no public record of where she lived. The only way to find her house would be to follow her here.
But a nagging voice in the back of her mind reminded her: Bill Brandon has ways of finding out anything he wants. Everyone who knows him discovers that.
Shivering, she carried the puppy back down the stairs, set him down, and went back to the phone to try Nick’s office. Just as she picked up the phone, she heard a car on the gravel outside. She froze. Keeping her eyes on the door, she dropped the phone back in its cradle, pulled open a drawer in the end table, and grabbed the pistol she kept there. The doorbell rang, and the puppy erupted into a round of high-pitched barks.
He’s here, she thought, holding the pistol aimed at the door. Her heart flipped into a triple-time cadence, and adrenaline pulsed through her.
The bell rang again, and a knock followed. “Beth? It’s me, Nick!”
Nick. Not Bill.
She let out a huge breath of relief and lowered the gun. Feeling dizzy from the sheer terror that had gripped her, she headed for the door and opened it. “Nick, you scared me. I didn’t know it was you. Where have you been? I tried to call.”
Nick came in, his brown, slightly wavy hair tousled by the warm wind. His face looked tired, and the stubble on his jaw added to the picture of fatigue. “Didn’t you get my message?”
“What message?”
“On your machine. Telling you I had an emergency and couldn’t meet you at my house, that I would just come over here.” He frowned as he saw the gun. “What’s wrong?”
“I just got a little spooked, that’s all.” Embarrassed, she put the gun back into the drawer and closed it.
“Did something happen? Did the interview turn out badly?”
“No, no. It was fine.” She shoved her hand through her short honey-colored hair and looked up the stairs toward the answering machine that had been off when she’d checked it. “It’s just . . . a little weird.”
“What is?”
“That you left a message. My machine was off when I got home. Are you sure it was on when you called?”
“Positive,?
?? he said. “I left a message that the police had just done a drug bust, and there were these two boys—their parents were dealing cocaine. I had to go get the children and place them in foster care tonight until we could find some relatives.”
Her face whitened. “You didn’t put them at SCCH, did you?”
“No,” he said. “My supervisor would have, but I put them with a retired couple new to the foster-care program. They’ll be okay.” He paused and studied her for a moment. “Beth, you’re pale. What is it?”
She breathed a self-conscious laugh and tried to calm herself. “Nothing, really. The interview went great. Better than I could have dreamed.” She sank down on her couch and covered her face, and Nick sat down next to her.
She didn’t really know Nick all that well, having met him just a few days ago when she’d called to interview him about his take on the children’s home. Her questions had immediately piqued his interest because he’d also had suspicions about the home. So he’d spent a lot of time with Beth since that first meeting, trying to help her put the pieces together.
Although Beth tried to deny it or, better yet, ignore it, there was something about Nick Hutchins that made her feel safe. Her life up to this point had been anything but secure—ironically, that meant she distrusted nothing more than feelings of safety and security.
Still, something about Nick invited her trust. Maybe it was that he seemed to genuinely care about the children he watched over. It had been her experience that most social workers were so overburdened that they had little time to care about the people whose lives they affected. Nick seemed different.
She drew her mind back to the conversation. “Marlene was ready to talk,” she said. “I taped our conversation. It was fascinating. She confirmed everything. Bill Brandon uses some of the kids in his care in a crime ring that breaks into people’s homes and businesses and steals things. He has a central warehouse where he stores things until he can sell them—or until his people can sell them. Apparently, there are more people than just Bill and the kids involved. In fact, she said he has someone big running interference for him. Like someone on the police force or in government. That’s how he’s gotten away with it. She didn’t know any names or where the stuff is stored, but she said that he uses horrible tactics to force the kids into cooperating. Besides the abuse that you’ve suspected, he threatens them with harm to their sisters and brothers, their parents if they’re living, or he makes them believe that they’re as guilty as he is—that they’re the ones breaking in, that his hands are clean, so if anyone goes down for the crime, it’ll be the kids. And they have no way of knowing otherwise, so they cooperate.”