Thread of Deceit (23 page)

Ana nodded. “Because you know he cares about them. They know it, too. That’s why they hang all over him. A molester may have children around him, but he has lured them with toys or candy. Teens can be seduced by drugs, alcohol, pornography—or just a place to get away from their own horrendous home lives. Money can be the draw, like with Gypsy. But there’s always fear. Fear lurks under the surface of all abusive relationships, and you can see it in the kids’ faces if you look closely.”

“Gypsy,” Sam said, his eyes focused in the distance. “She lives in fear for her life.”

“Her pimp is exploiting her. He uses her and keeps her on the edge of terror.”

“Terell’s not taking advantage of anyone,” Sam said. “Even when he was living down and dirty, he paid good money for his vices. That’s why there’s nothing left but his Rolex watch and an empty bank account. He sold his house in Miami to pay off his debts, and he gave me what was left as a down payment on the Haven building. If anything, other people exploit Terell. He’s so good-natured they use him to get what they want.”

“Sam, I think I steered you wrong about Terell. When he found out about Flora’s abuse, that was genuine horror, disgust and rage on his face.”

“But Jim is empathetic, too. You heard him talk about the orphaned children he brings into the country. He’s motivated by their plight, not by some scheme to molest them. If Jim wants to abuse a child, why not pick up a girl like Gypsy? He doesn’t have to go all the way to Honduras for that. Remember what he said about the red tape he wades through? Those immigration laws.”

Her brows lifted. “This morning in church, Jim didn’t know a whole lot about Honduran immigration law. Ran from the question like he was about to be stung.”

“He had to take his buddy to lunch.” Sam rested his hands on his hips. “Listen, Ana, if Flora said this Primero is at Haven, I won’t argue. But we can’t accuse people left and right. I’ve hurt my best friend, and now you’re ready to pounce on a man who supports Haven with both his time and his money. If there really is a molester, Flora’s going to have to point him out.”

“If she ever comes back.”

“I think she’ll be back,” he said, “because of you. You’re the only one who’s gotten through to her.”

“I don’t know. She’s terrified of Primero, Sam. After I got down into the trash bin with her, she literally clung to me. And the tears…she broke my heart.” Ana looked away. “I’d better get home. I have an article on lead paint to write.”

“I’ll walk you to you car.”

He took her arm as they started down the sidewalk. “Do you think Terell will forgive you?” she asked. “He was very upset.”

“I’ve never seen the guy hold a grudge longer than five minutes. I’ll apologize again, Ana, but I’m going to keep an eye on him, too.”

“You and Terell both need to be watching for trouble.”

“And then there’s Raydell. I’ve got to find that boy. From the time he first showed up at Haven, he hasn’t missed a day. Even when he wasn’t working the front door, he came to play basketball or just hang around and talk.”

“Let me know how it goes, okay? And if you see Flora…”

“I’ll call you immediately. Will you be coming in to teach your writing class?”

They paused beside her car. “Next Saturday,” she said. “I’m glad I had a chance to talk to the kids. The article will be better for it. I’m in great shape now.”

He grinned, scanned her up and down, and wiggled his eyebrows. “Can’t deny that one.”

With a groan, she rolled her eyes. “Have a good week.”

“You, too.” Hands in his pockets, he eyed her as she unlocked the door and slipped into the driver’s seat.

As she pulled out into the street, she glanced in her rearview mirror. Sam was still standing there watching her, and a pall of loneliness filled her chest. How could anyone miss a broken-down building with a basketball court and a bunch of ragtag kids inside? How could she feel empty inside at leaving a neighborhood filled with muggers and teenage prostitutes? And how could the sight of a man in her rearview mirror make her want to jump out of the car and run right back into his arms?

Shaking herself, Ana focused on the road ahead. She needed to change the bandage on her arm. Get out of this filthy dress. Take a shower. Review the notes she had taken. And browse the Internet for a former resident of Aspen, Colorado…one Jim Slater who had been a successful building contractor.

Or had he been a real estate agent?

He put down the phone and stared at Bering. “The Feds got Stu. Picked him up a few minutes ago. His wife said they took his computer and all his files. Everything out of the home office.”

Cursing, he shook his head. The idiot! How many times had Stu been warned? But he was too stupid to understand the danger. Too obsessed with his hobby to destroy the years of evidence he had collected. No doubt some of it could be linked to its source.

“I bet the wife is freaking out,” Bering said.

“Who cares?” he snapped. “He was a fool.”

“I didn’t like him, either. Creep.”

“Forget Stu. You’ve got a job to do, and there’s not much time. The Feds will be heading this way. I want you to do the first two tonight. Then follow the woman, and do her.”

Bering shifted in the chair. “You sure about the two? I mean, they’re kids.”

“A couple of bad headaches.” He grimaced. “Just get ’em out of here. Go out of town, and get rid of them. Make sure you dispose of the bodies adequately, too. We can’t have those coming back to haunt us.”

“Sure.”

“In the meantime, I’ll be working on the woman. Her phone is unlisted, but I can find out where she lives. I’ll have it for you by the time you get back.”

“You want me to do her in the daytime? I usually take care of my business at night.”

“Do you see that suitcase, Bering?” He gestured at the large black leather wheeled bag beside the front door. “In it, I’ve packed every article of clothing I will need to begin my new life. I have a safe containing my passport and all my documents. Tomorrow, I’ll visit my bank and withdraw the money I intend to take with me when I step out of that door tomorrow night, get into my car and drive to the airport. If you don’t have everything taken care of by that time, I won’t pay you a red cent. I’ll transfer your name and all identifying information to the St. Louis chief of police, who is a personal friend of mine. Do you understand me, Bering?”

“You’re a friend of the police chief?”

“Him and everyone who matters in this city. I sit on seven boards—a bank, a civic foundation, a newspaper and several others. I attend one of the oldest churches in the Midwest. I’m a member of two country clubs. And I volunteer my time and money to almost any organization that needs help. I am a good man, Bering. People respect me, and they seek my favor. My clientele are men like me—men who rule their worlds and pay very well for my services.”

He sat back in his chair, relishing the recitation of his accomplishments. Then he looked across at the lowlife he was paying to secure his future.

“You are nothing, Bering,” he said. “Nothing and no one. You have no significance in this world other than to do what you’re told. If you succeed, you’ll be paid well. If you fail, I will ruin you. Do you understand this?”

The man nodded. “I understand you got no conscience.”

“And you do, Mr. Murder-for-Hire?”

“I got my morals.”

“As do I. Our morals are different from the norm, aren’t they? But we have morals all the same. Our morals tell us that what is right is to take care of ourselves, to make certain our needs are met, to see that we live well and are paid the best possible price for our services. Our morals tell us that what is wrong is to fail. To be weak. To give others the upper hand. Am I correct, Bering?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So, do you intend to sit there and talk to me all night? Or are you going to do what I’ve asked?”

The man nodded. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Standing, he grabbed a black leather jacket from his chair and shrugged it over one shoulder. “The two are in the back there? Down that hall?”

“Asleep in their bedroom, yes. Here’s the key. And be quick about it.”

“No problem.”

Bering took the key and crossed the room. As he vanished down the hall, silence overwhelmed the room. The call of the martini closet rang loudly. The beckoning pills lured with an undeniable urgency. But he must deny them. He must focus. Stu was gone, and the enemy would soon be at his own door. No one could save him now. No one but himself.

B
y late Monday afternoon, Ana had nibbled her fingernails down to the quick. After deleting the story she had started the previous week, she managed to force out one complete article on lead paint—but she wasn’t happy. Trying to fit in enough factual detail to satisfy Carl Webster, she had struggled and failed to cut the piece down to a reasonable length. She could find no place to shorten it, yet what sane reader would want to plow through the endless inches? Quotes from health department supervisors came off as dull and trite. Statistics read like a roll call of indecipherable numbers. Even facts about detrimental effects of the paint were less interesting than the nutrition label on a box of cereal.

What was she doing wrong? Ana slammed her fists on her desk and then dropped her forehead onto her hands. She knew the problem, of course. Flora had been calling to her all day. Tenisha and Gerald pleaded to come alive on the page. Raydell demanded to have his say, too. Sam and Terell insisted on broadcasting their mission. All of them cried out to be heard, and she had promised herself to write about them—no matter what.

But this morning as she had faced the computer, fear came to life in her stomach. Unless she satisfied her editor, she would lose her job. The scenario played out in her mind. Carl calling her into his office, tossing the hard copy of her series into the trash can, and then curtly dismissing her from her position at the
Post-Dispatch.
Boxes and bags stacked at the entrance to her empty apartment. Miles of Interstate highway taking her away from the independence and hope she had so desperately sought. Her mother and father welcoming her back with open arms, smiles…and tears. A search for a job, perhaps back at the old
Brownsville Herald.
Memories taunting her, unforgotten failures tapping her on the shoulder, and the agony of the pain she could never escape haunting her…always lurking just beneath the surface…

“Lead paint,” she hissed through clenched teeth as she pounded the words into her computer. “Lead paint, lead paint, lead paint!”

She had to obey Carl.

But Flora wouldn’t let her. The child’s voice whispered inside Ana’s head. A fragile little girl hiding in a trash bin. How could anyone need Ana more?

“The man put his hands on me,” Flora had whispered, her cheek pressed against Ana’s shoulder as they sat in the darkness of the empty container. “It was Primero. He hurt me so much that I screamed. My shame is great, but I deserve it. Primero offered me the chocolate, and I took it. And so it was my fault that he hurt me.”

Recalling the trembling girl in her arms, Ana gripped the vinyl armrests of her office chair. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block the image of that small, frightened body huddled so close to hers inside the reeking steel womb.

“Oh, Flora, it’s not your fault,” Ana had told her. “Please believe me. That man is bad—not you.”

But sobs rose from deep in Flora’s chest. “Before I went to live with Segundo, he took away my sister.”

“Who took your sister?” Ana asked.

“Primero took her. I did nothing to stop him. I lost my sister, and I don’t know where she is…and it is my fault….”

That night in bed, Ana had stretched out like a corpse, unable to move, hearing the words over and over. I lost my sister. I lost her. It’s my fault.

How could Ana turn a deaf ear to Flora’s cries when her own pain hammered at her day after day? Was there any hope for relief?

God had saved her from the brink once, not many days after her sister’s death. Ana, too, had heard the sweet siren serenade of suicide. How nearly she had succumbed. Yet, God’s hand had reached out to her, and she had taken it. He had lifted her up from the murky, sucking sea of her despair.

But what was the true nature of her rescuer, her Savior? Was Sam right in his view of God as the strong force who could triumph over all? Or was He the softly cradling arms of love she once had felt?

Sam’s message of surrender echoed in Ana’s heart. Surrender everything to God, he had told her. Ask Him to take control of your life. Surrender was the opposite of welcome and warmth, wasn’t it? Did God have both traits within Himself—the loving Father and the vigilant Protector?

At her desk, staring blankly at the text that covered her computer screen, Ana at last understood the truth. Closing her eyes, she opened her heart in prayer. Jesus had lifted her from the depths and embraced her. He was Love. But He was also power and authority. Ana and Flora both needed God’s love…and His strength. Surrender, she realized, meant laying down her own efforts to protect herself. It meant allowing the God of love to do battle on her behalf. And so, in the busy crowded newsroom, she submitted to Him, surrendering herself to His compassion as well as His commanding rule over her life.

When Ana lifted her head, she saw that nothing had changed. The cursor still blinked at the end of her lead paint article. Her deadline still hovered. And Flora was missing.

But something had changed. Ana could feel God’s presence. Not only His compassion but His strength. It was as though He had opened another part of Himself to her, like a curtain drawing back from a shrouded window to reveal the sunshine. Joy flooded her…yet at the same time, her heart ached. Amid the bustle, she still heard Flora’s voice.

Primero took my sister…Primero…

Primero. The first man. Flora said she had seen him there—at Haven. Who was he, then? Terell Roberts? Raydell Watson? Sam Hawke?

No. Not one of them fit.

Ana clicked out of her word processing program and called up an Internet search engine. Possessed with a determination that almost frightened her, she typed in a few key words. James Slater Aspen Colorado. A list of entries appeared—a genealogy record, a travel agency, a bed-and-breakfast guide.

Her heart racing, Ana added more words to define her search. Building contractor. Real estate agent. Again, a random group of references materialized. She opened several and read them carefully. Not one could possibly refer to the man who now lived in St. Louis and operated Young Blessings Adoption Services.

Precious minutes ticked by, and Ana knew she should be editing the lead paint article and starting others that must accompany it. But she couldn’t make herself stop. After printing out what she had uncovered, she located phone numbers for the Aspen chamber of commerce, real estate and builders associations and the city’s finance department.

An hour and many phone calls later, she had learned that no one by the name of Jim Slater had ever belonged to any organization in the town of Aspen, Colorado. He had never applied for or received a business license there. No address or telephone number had ever been recorded in his name. Nothing open to public investigation revealed that anyone by the name had ever lived in Aspen. Widening her search, Ana checked the same information in the nearby towns of Woody Creek, Snowmass, El Jebel and Carbondale.

Nothing.

Now she turned her attention in another direction. Locating Web addresses for the sheriff’s department of every sizable city in Colorado, she searched sex offender registries. Names and addresses marched across her screen. One criminal after another. But Jim Slater?

Nothing.

She entered the names of newspapers and went through their archives looking for the man’s name. Had Slater committed crimes in the state? Had he been tried? Served on a jury? Received civic awards? Been nominated for committees, sat on boards, made comments about anything anywhere? Had he even advertised the company that had earned him such wealth?

Nothing.

Jim Slater had not lived in Colorado. Ever.

Letting out a breath, she picked up her phone one last time. As she dialed, she realized she was hungry. Her head ached, and her heart had been beating so fast for such a long time that she felt as though she’d run a marathon. One whole day had vanished, and all she had to show for it was a lengthy, unreadable article and a fruitless search of the state of Colorado.

“Haven, how may I help you?” The voice belonged to young Caleb, the volunteer who had come from New Mexico.

Ana’s shoulders unknotted as she envisioned the technical wizard with his head of dark curls. She could see the boy staring at a stack of computer hardware while fuming and fussing at the pile of junk he’d been handed.

“Hey, Caleb,” she said softly. “This is Ana Burns at the
Post-Dispatch.
Is Sam there?”

“Is Sam here?” the youth scoffed. “Of course he’s here. He’s never anywhere but here. Just a sec.”

She could hear the teenager yelling. “Yo, Uncle Sam, it’s your hot chick! She wants you, man! She needs you!”

Mortified, Ana felt her cheeks blaze. Good grief, is that how they viewed her? The hot chick who was chasing Uncle Sam? Great. This was terrific.

“Ana?” Sam’s voice jarred her. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m not a hot chick,” she informed him.

He was silent a moment, and she could almost see those parentheses in his cheeks deepening. “I beg to differ,” he said finally. “Is that why you called?”

“No, but…” She nibbled her thumbnail for a moment. “Jim Slater never lived in Aspen.”

“He didn’t? Are you sure?” His voice deepened. “How do you know this?”

“I gathered data, made phone calls. I found no record that anyone by that name ever lived in Aspen. I looked in bigger cities, too. No evidence of his existence. Jim Slater is not who he claims to be.”

“That’s a serious accusation about a man of his stature, Ana. Can you disprove the things he said? He gave us details, remember? His family lived in Aspen’s Santa Lucia subdivision. The cherub collection belonged to his wife. They had three daughters, and we saw their photographs. He ran a multimillion dollar company.”

“So, was he in real estate, or was he a building contractor? Sam, he told you one thing and me another. He made a mistake, because he was lying.”

“He told us he did both.”

“He lied to us.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Sam, I think the person we know as Jim Slater is the same man Flora calls Primero. He brought her on a plane from Honduras to St. Louis, and he transferred her to another man, Segundo. Both of them molested her. She ran away, and ended up on the streets. Gypsy found her and took her in. While Gypsy works, Flora stays at Haven, and sometimes she sees Primero there. Jim Slater.”

Sam was silent.

“Do you remember the time I found Flora in the bathroom?” Ana asked. “Jim had been at Haven that afternoon. Flora saw him, Sam. I’m sure of it—that’s why she was so upset. And yesterday, she saw him again.”

“Are you saying Jim Slater chased Flora up three flights of stairs and tried to break our fire escape door because Flora knows who he is? Because she can ruin him?”

“He’s terrified of her.”

“And she’s terrified of him,” Sam said, his voice almost a whisper. “Ana, this is serious.”

“Jim isn’t running a legitimate adoption agency,” she told him. “Something else is going on. I’m not sure what Jim is up to, but Jack Smith is part of it. You told me that God is our protector, a warrior in our defense. Sam, I believe He put us together to save Flora. We have to stop Jim.” She pursed her lips together, fighting unexpected tears. “Please, Sam. Help me.”

She could hear the torment in his voice as he spoke. “Ana, you realize what you’re asking me to do. Jim Slater and his donation to our lead paint rehab fund are my only hope for keeping Haven open. My kids are fighting to have decent lives, and I’m doing all I can to open doors for them. We can’t make an accusation against Jim without absolute proof. We could ruin an innocent man and destroy a better future for hundreds of kids.”

“How can we get absolute proof, Sam?”

“I don’t know. But we can’t point the finger at Jim and then walk away unscathed if we’re wrong about him. Remember I told you how easily Terell forgives? Last night, he refused to talk to me. He won’t look at me today. At lunch, I found him up in our room reading his Bible and crying.”

“Oh, no.”

“You know what he told me? Terell said if anyone ever believed he had done such a thing, his life would be over. The hint of a rumor, any kind of accusation can destroy a man. Terell has worked hard to rebuild his reputation. He’s convinced if he ever messes up again, he’ll never be able to get a job. Or a wife. His family would disown him. He’d lose everything.”

Ana heard the pain in Sam’s tone. He had wounded his best friend, and he didn’t know how to heal the rift.

“I’m sorry Terell is hurting,” she said gently. “But you heard Flora’s screams. We were right to question him.”

Again Sam fell silent. When he spoke, his words came slowly. “Jim Slater holds the future of Haven in his hands. I’ve given all I have to that place. Tenisha, Gerald, all of them—those are my kids, and I’ll do anything to make their lives better. I can’t risk Haven’s future just because Jim Slater lied about living in Aspen. Ana, give me proof he’s the man who hurt Flora. If you can tie it together, I promise I’ll go after him with everything I’ve got.”

Ana clamped her mouth shut as Sam’s demand reverberated in her brain. She had heard such words before. Knew well the disbelief and denial that could accompany an accusation. Understood the impossibility of utter, absolute proof.