A round clock with a faux wood frame—its transparent plastic cover yellowed with age—hung on the wall directly above his office door. That damn thing had been in the exact same spot since the first time Leonard stepped foot in this office fifty-five years ago. With a fresh double-A battery, it still kept good time.
He inhaled the familiar odor of decades’ worth of stale cigarettes and cigars that clung to the walls and the olive-green carpet, with a path worn in it from the door to behind the desk.
Gerald had been a lifelong smoker, and you never saw him without a fat stogie or cigarette held between his fingers. Sometimes he’d talk with a cigarette in his mouth, and it would bob up and down with each word spoken.
On Leonard’s eighteenth birthday, Gerald had called him into his office.
“Here ya go, kid.” He’d tossed him a pack of Camels. “You’re old enough for those now. Enjoy.”
At first, Leonard hadn’t liked ’em much, but he’d worried that not smoking them would be a sign of disrespect to the man who’d been so good to him and his family. So he’d stuck with the harsh Camels until he couldn’t start a day without lighting one up.
The last years of Gerald’s life, he’d ended up depending on oxygen just to get around the house. Slowly, over the course of a couple of brutal years, and after having one lung removed, the larger-than-life man—his hero—withered into a bedridden bag of bones, hacking and coughing, until one day, he fell asleep and just never woke up.
Terrified he’d suffer the same awful and humiliating fate, Leonard quit smoking the very next day.
Gerald Bernardi had been the most honest, honorable family man he’d ever known, and Leonard tried not to think too much about how disappointed the old man would be about his latest business venture.
Though this place, this office was dated, well-worn, and stunk of cigarettes, he couldn’t bring himself to change a thing, because it was also rich with the few fond memories he had of his childhood.
He swiveled his big executive chair—the only new piece of furniture in the building—and stared out the big plate-glass window at the lot full of transport trucks of all sizes and several brand-new commercial buses.
Back when Leonard and Vinny spent hours running around that lot, there hadn’t been nearly as many rigs, and there weren’t any buses at all. That all changed when Leonard took over. He’d scraped together every penny he had, twisted a few arms, literally, and—one vehicle at a time—built Bernardi Transportation into one of the biggest trucking firms east of the Mississippi.
The exclusive contract he’d signed three years ago with the Human Rescue Alliance would ensure his kids and grandkids would never want for anything. He could finally retire, sell the business—since none of his kids wanted it—and finally give Melissa the divorce she’d been hinting at recently. Then he’d buy a nice place on the water somewhere in Costa Rica and never deal with timelines, union strikes, or miserable winter weather again.
He chuckled to himself at how things had changed. Growing up, everyone always told Leonard he would end up dead or in prison. That he was a thug, an embarrassment to his mother, and wouldn’t amount to anything.
Well, his mother now lived in a beautiful condo in Miami, and, thanks to an incident when he was nineteen, he’d already done the prison thing.
Some douchebag had been messing with Vinny’s kid sister. Leonard merely helped the asshole see the error of his ways. The judge hadn’t agreed with his methods and sentenced him to a three-year stint in the shithole known as the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.
As far as death went, that would find him eventually, but not until the good Lord decided.
He crossed himself, lifted the small, gold crucifix hanging from his neck—the one his mother scrimped and saved to give him for his first communion—and kissed it. Then he tipped his chin up to the sky, pointed, and winked.
Until his Lord called him to heaven, no damn prying, do-gooder of a woman was going to destroy everything he’d built.
CHAPTER NINE
“So,Ariana’snotspeakingto anyone?” Charlotte sat at the end of the large table in one of ELC’s executive conference rooms. She scribbled some notes in her notebook, right below where she’d written the child’s name. “Not even other children?” She lifted her gaze to the large screen on the wall.
“Other than her name, she hasn’t spoken more than a few words since she arrived here.” Darla, the director of the safe house, looked frustrated but mostly sad for the pretty little girl who had been through so much. “She’s a somewhat unique case because she was kept alone while in captivity.”
Darla sat in her office in Kalispell. In the background were stacks of supplies—bottled water, snacks, toys, donated clothing, and sadly, even cases of disposable diapers and cans of formula.
“Not being with other children who were suffering through the same experiences can make a massive difference.” Charlotte had handled more cases than she wanted to count, and some of the most challenging ones were the children, or even adults, who had been kept isolated from the rest of the world.
Children like Ariana reminded Charlotte of how trivial her own periods of loneliness were. At least she always had her mother to lean on.
This poor little girl had been completely on her own.
“Her silence has made it challenging to locate her family.” Darla took a sip from an extra-large mug with the wordsInstant human, just add coffeeprinted on the side. “She’s most content when she’s sitting outside on the front porch, watching the birds and squirrels in the feeder.”
“After the trauma and abuse she’s suffered, it’s understandable why she doesn’t trust anyone.” Charlotte made some more notes. “And she’s probably sitting outside because, no matter how much reassurance you’ve given that it won’t happen, she might be concerned about being locked away again and wants to enjoy the freedom as long as possible.”
“The sheer joy on her face as she’s watching all of the different kinds of birds flit around is actually kind of … I don’t know … heartbreaking, for some reason.” Darla was obviously very kind and empathetic. Necessary virtues in this business, but they could also wear you down. “And there is definitely an element of fear there whenever we call her inside. Her entire demeanor changes, and you can actually see her shut down.”
“Seeing her so joyful about something most people take for granted is difficult because you know it’s not rooted in youthful innocence and wonder but a byproduct of having survived a nightmare.” Charlotte made sure her voice was gentle as she explained the psychopathy behind Darla’s feelings.
