“I asked them to make grub,” McGuire said with a slight chuckle. “That got me a poke in the chest by my girl and a few cuss words tossed at me by my sister, but I wanted a few moments alone with my team.”
“I’m surprised Savvy didn’t feed you to the gators.” Patch stretched his back and decided he’d rather sit, so he eased his ass to the dock and leaned against the post.
His buddies did the same.
No one tossed their legs over the edge to dangle their toes in the water. That wouldn’t be smart. Not in these parts.
“She should be part of the conversation,” Patch added.
“I’m well aware, but she’s also who we’re trying to protect, and we all know that sometimes that person needs to be left out of the equation, and I told her that. She wasn’t happy about it, but she figured she’d get it out of you later.” McGuire rubbed his temples. “What do you make of the information Darius sent over?”
“It’s a mindfuck, that’s for sure.” Patch dropped his head back on the post and stared at the lush greenery that engulfed the swamp. When he’d first arrived, he’d thought this place would swallow him whole—and that’s what he’d wanted. He’d hoped that he’d fade into the background and disappear. The circumstances of his life could have turned him into a very different kind of man, and that had been something he’d always carried. He could’ve been angry over all the death. Over the stories about his biological parents.
And even the boy who’d saved him—who, for whatever reason, wanted nothing to do with that part of his past.
But instead, he’d been nothing short of grateful. Happy. All the tragedy, except maybe Hannah’s, had stuck to his skin like aprotective armor. He’d used it to become a better man. To honor the parents who took a baby boy and raised him as their own—even if his real mother hadn’t spoken to them in years.
“You’ve never talked much about what happened,” McGuire said. “And I’ve honestly never thought to ask. But now we’re in this weird situation where things have circled back to two things. The fire that took your biological parents and my sister, with her promotion to be the face of the 73.” McGuire raised his finger and gave it a good wiggle. “Both of those things revolve around Gunner.”
“I’ve got a seriously dumb question,” Stone said. “How is it that you didn’t know it was Gunner who pulled you from that fire? If it were me, I would’ve researched that. Not to mention it was your mom’s sister. You can’t make this shit up.”
Patch rubbed his temples. Mindfuck was not a strong enough sentiment for this. “I’ve always known that my biological mom was my mother’s sister. My parents never lied to me about what happened, including what kind of people my birth parents were.” He shook his head. “It breaks my heart when I think about how they treated those kids and how my presence made it all worse.” He held up his hand. “I knew about Gunner, but his name was different. And my parents, they’d looked into all those kids, hoping and praying they’d been well taken care of. They told me they filed the paperwork to become foster parents and would have taken in any of those kids who weren’t adopted.” Patch rolled his neck.
He hadn’t thought about all this too hard in years. He’d let it go, mostly because his family had made it clear everyone was well cared for. “My folks told me that Gunner and his parents were constantly being hounded by reporters, even after the cops closed the case. I’d wanted to meet the kid who saved my life, but my parents told me that they all wanted to move past that.” Patch shrugged, as if to try to shrug off the weight sitting on hisshoulders. “I believed—or tried to believe by putting myself in that kid’s shoes—that I might’ve done the same thing. And I kept telling myself he saved all the children. He did the right thing. And if the press was indeed harassing him, the last thing he needed was me bringing that shit to his front doorstep.”
“You never blamed him for your biological parents dying in that fire?” Stone asked. “I read every word of Darius’ report, and I can see why the cops kept it open so long. It’s very possible Gunner started that fire, and the investigator stated he believed it incinerated right in front of the foster parents’ bedroom.” Stone cocked his head. “That’s where you slept. How do you explain how he got you out before the flames went wild? It makes no sense. Honestly, the only thing that fits is that Gunner waited with you in his arms until he couldn’t, then he started collecting the other children.”
It wasn’t like all that hadn’t run through Patch’s mind in the last few minutes. But the ten-year-old Patch, or the teenager, or even the young man, hadn’t ever thought about it. Not really. His mom and dad told him to file it away and forget about it. That what happened was a tragedy. That they were horrified and saddened that his birth parents had died. However, they would be forever grateful to that little boy for gathering the children and getting them out safely. That meant something.
Patch closed his eyes and allowed his mind to travel back to right before his parents had died. To the last conversation he’d had with them about his biological parents. He’d had many questions and believed his folks had been brutally honest.
“What about that boy and his new family?” Patch asked.
“That boy is a grown man now,” his father said.“He suffered at the hands of Alice and Charlie. The things we learned about that house are heartbreaking. Now, that wouldn’t be an excuse if that child had done something, but we’ve read the reports and searched our souls. He was tenyears old. He was scared. He had been deprived of food, water, and basic needs.” His father swiped at his cheeks. It was rare for Patch to see that kind of raw emotion from his dad. “Worse, those kids hadn’t been shown love. That right there kills me. So, if his recollection of what happened that night changed when grown-ups came at him with rapid-fire questions, trying to trip him up because they needed nice and neat answers, well, I choose to believe all they did was make him fumble and he did what any normal traumatized kid would do… and that’s bend to give the authority figures what they wanted to hear.”
That always made so much sense to Patch. He’d gotten into trouble a time or two, and when a teacher, or someone in power, questioned him with a raised voice, he might have told them anything they wanted to hear just to end the conversation. Only by the time he was ten, he’d had something Gunner never had… he’d had two loving parents who taught him about honor, respect, and pride. Patch knew there was a big difference between him at ten and that boy who saved him at the same age.
That made all the difference in the world.
So, Patch filed away any lingering questions he had from all the old newspaper articles he’d read, and he went on with his life. Even after his parents had died in a car crash when he’d been only fourteen, he never looked back. Hannah came home and she took over as his guardian. They had each other, and that was enough. However, there had always been a little tickle in his brain. A curiosity to know what happened to the boy who saved him.
Patch felt as though he owed him his life, and part of him wanted to thank him. But he hadn’t because he’d promised his folks to let it go—for his sake and the boy’s.
How fucking ironic now.
“Outside of blaming myself for things, I don’t play that game.” Patch lifted two fingers. “However, my parents wereT-boned. Whoever hit them drove away. The cops found the vehicle but not the driver.”
“Nor could they locate the shooter who ripped up that grocery store where your sister was shot,” McGuire said.
Patch held McGuire’s stare. It wasn’t the first time they’d gone down this rabbit hole, only in the past, they had no solid connection between his parents’ deaths and his sister’s.
But no one on this team lived in the land of coincidences. If you did, you died. His parents’ accident was just that… an accident. But when you couple that with his sister being gunned down… well… that was something entirely different. Add in a foster house going up in smoke when Patch was a baby?
Too many deaths that, while easily explained, can’t be justified, and two were technically never solved.
However, if what Patch was thinking was true, they were dealing with a monster systematically taking out the people who mattered most in Patch’s life. But there was one thing that didn’t quite line up.
“I’ll say what we’re all surmising.” Patch inhaled sharply. “It’s possible that Gunner had something to do with the death of my family.” He held up his hand. “I was only fourteen when my folks died, so I didn’t get to read the reports until I was older, but I dug and dug deep. The car that struck my parents had been stolen hours earlier. It was found abandoned less than a mile from the accident. That got my hackles up for a lot of reasons. The biggest one had to be how clean the vehicle was—as in spotless of evidence. Not a single fingerprint, fiber, or blood drop. Weird for such a violent impact.”
