Peace. What an odd choice of words I thought to myself. Was there such a thing? Tira made a beeline out of the room, and I could hear her in the hallway calling for a nurse.
I looked back at Jarreau and caught him watching Tira with an affectionate smile.
“She’s a little old for you, isn’t she?” I asked, my words turning to a gasp as I tried to use my legs to scoot up a little in the bed.
A bark of laughter escaped Jarreau before he could stop it.
“Tira? She’s like a second grandmother to me. I worked under her husband when I was a probie in Solon Springs. I’d just been hired by the Milwaukee Police Department when her husband passed. He wasa good man, and Tira is a good woman. Shame about their daughter, though,” he said, pausing to take a sip of his coffee.
“…daughter?” I asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of my voice.
“Yep. She ran away from a rehab facility several years ago, and they never saw her again.” He sat back in his chair and looked at me, his eyes piercing. It was almost as if he was weighing me. Measuring me. After a moment, he continued.
“Mason, I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve pulled your record. I know you just turned eighteen, but you’ve got about five or six convictions for solicitation. Each time, you were returned to the care of your…” he looked down at the paperwork he had pulled from a briefcase next to him. “…your uncle? One Richard Taylor? And his ‘friend’ Dreyven Reckner.”
I froze in fear. Surely, they wouldn’t send me back to Ricky and Drey. Wait… no, Ricky was dead. At least, I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in that it hadn’t been a dream. The detective had said I’d turned eighteen.Huh, go figure.
“Richard Taylor…” he began reading. “Arrested for gun possession, drugs with intent to distribute, pandering...the list goes on and on. He was also suspected of being one of the biggest human traffickers in Milwaukee.”
I almost cried in relief when he said “was”. Ricky really was dead.
He shook his head at the paperwork. “Why the fuck would they keep sending a kid back tohim?”
I tried to shrug, but it hurt too much. I’d wondered the same thing over the years, but Ricky and his buddies had connections. Nothing stuck to them.
“Look, Mason, I’ve been putting a case together against Ricky and Drey,” he said, his brown eyes boring holes in mine as I glanced up in surprise. “Ricky is now a moot point, but Dreyven is still out there. He is a sadistic bastard of exceptional proportions. And he needs to be put away where he won’t be able to hurtanykid, ever again.”
Jarreau sighed. “Truth is though, I need help, Mason. I need evidence. A witness.Something. No judge in the city is going to go up against them without hard evidence.”
I suddenly realized where this was heading. Me. He wantedmeto testify against Dreyven.
I closed my eyes a moment, the fear rolling over me and bile rising in my throat. Tiny goosebumps ran across my skin, and suddenly I felt incredibly cold. There was no way I could testify against Dreyven.
I shook my head at him. “I can’t,” I whispered. The goosebumps had changed to tremors and tears started leaking out the sides of my eyes, the room narrowing down to just the sight of my arm in the cast. This was what Dreyven and Ricky had done to me for running. Dreyven might let me go if I lay low and didn’t make a fuss, but there wasno wayI could testify. “I can’t. I can’t…I can’t.”
Jarreau just watched as the words bubbled from my mouth, a sad sympathy on his face.
“Okay, Mason. It’s okay,” he said, reaching his hand out to touch my arm.
I jerked away from his touch, which only made the pain in my body worse and I cried out.
“Just... just leave me alone, please?” I begged, tears running down my face.
Jarreau nodded at me, then set a card on the tray table next to the bed.
“If you ever change your mind, this is the phone number for Milwaukee’s confidential informant line. If you need help, if you ever need a way out, call this number, leave this code and wherever you are, Iwillfind you and wewilltake him down.”
I nodded, and first the doctor, then the nurse, entered the room with Tira. The nurse carried a syringe filled with some clear liquid, which she injected into my IV. The tremors stopped, the bright edge of pain became muffled, and my eyelids got too heavy to remain open. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
1
Lee
“Where the hell is he?”I growled, watching as yet another car pulled out of the parking lot and drove away from the not-so-grand opening of Twin Peeks, my brothers’ bookstore. Gold and black helium balloons hung limply near the cash register, tired ribbons losing their curl in the afternoon heat.
Hand-made signs announcing autograph times for comic superstar Mason Cameron hung lopsidedly on the door. The original printed time was crossed out with a black Sharpie, and progressively later and later hours had been added until we’d finally stopped guessing. The tape on one side of the poster board gave way with a sad swish, and the poster hit the ground with a dull thud that echoed in my chest.
The air conditioning had crapped out early in the day, and even at 6 p.m., it was still over ninety degrees outside, which probably meant it was one-hundred degrees in here. I wiped the back of my hand across my sweaty forehead and was glad I still had my hair cut short. I’d been out of the Navy for over eight years, and I still couldn’t seem to shake the high and tight habit.
