Page 8 of Savage (Savage Dragons #1)

“How long will you be gone?” Kings was packing his things as he spoke to them. He told her that he’d be gone for about two weeks but would have all the investments that they have taken care of. “Taken care of how? And why can’t you do that from here?”

“I’ve been doing it from here. And it’s not getting done. I have to go there and face to face with them so that our money is where it belongs. It’s millions of dollars that are tangled up in a weave of lies, and if I don’t go now, we may never get it back.” She asked him if he needed to go alone. “No. But my cousins are busy. I’d take you with me, but I think that Tucker would have a cow.”

He would too. They were having so much fun being a married couple that she couldn’t stand for him to be much more than an arm’s length away from her before she missed him terribly. Not even explaining to her that they had lifetimes together could she get over the fact that he was going to leave her someplace. That had come from Kings’ parents. His father had said it would only last six months before he’d drop her to the curb. Kaida was very insecure like that.

Taking him to the airport, she felt like she was losing a part of herself. The man was only going to be gone for a couple of weeks, and she was being silly. On the way home, she tried to console herself with thoughts of the party when he returned, but that wasn’t working either. She missed him too much. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have a lot to do while he was gone.

“Matt’s parents arrived in town this morning. They’re staying at the hotel just outside of town. It’s a nice little place, much nicer since it was renovated some years ago.” She asked Tucker what the plan was for them. “Nothing yet. It’s not like we can keep their son from them. Just keep hiding him away so that they don’t do a snatch-and-grab with him. I shudder to think what it is they’d do to him when they find him. They’ll more than likely put him under lock and key, and that would be bad for him.”

“What about that guy, Jason? What can we do about him?” Tucker told her that he was in jail and would be for a while yet. “I guess opening fire in a restaurant full of people will get your ass in trouble in more ways than one.”

“He didn’t have any kind of permit to carry either. Not to mention him being a convicted felon who had a gun specification on his record.” They stopped just outside of town to pick up some things for dinner. They were having fun feeding Matt. He had the appetite of a full-grown man and the silliness of a child. Plus, he was very intelligent, too.

Thanks to Matt, they knew what his parents looked like. So when they stepped out of the grocery store with a photo in their hand, Tucker stepped back so they’d not have to encounter them. They looked pinched in the face, plus years older than she thought that they would with a child of Matt’s age. She was going to look into that as well.

Keeping an eye on the couple in the parking lot, the two of them picked up the things to make your own Sundays for dessert tonight. They were also having pizzas as it was the cook’s night off. She was going to make things for a cookout, but it was Skye who wanted hot pizza right out of the oven, and who could turn that down.

“Excuse me.” She turned when someone spoke behind her, and she smiled at the couple. Up close, they looked beaten, like not having their son around was making them lose some grip on their livelihood. Taking the picture when it was shoved at her, she looked at the picture of Matt. It was an old picture taken when he was about seven or so. “Have you seen our grandson?”

She nearly let the cat out of the bag when she nearly asked if he was her son or grandson. Looking at the picture, she could see too that Matt didn’t look a bit like his parents, not even an eye color that would maybe make it so that they looked related.

“I don’t remember anyone like that. I think that I would too if a child that little was all by himself.” She explained that he was ten now and not necessarily hanging out alone. “Oh, so he’s with his mother or something? Not that it matters. I’ve never seen him before.”

“Why would you say that?” The woman’s voice was sharp and mean. Taking a step back, she told her that she’d not meant anything by it. Only making an observation. “You think that I’m too old to have a son this age? Well, I’m sick of people assuming anything when it comes to him. He’s my son, not my grandson, and I don’t want to hear another word from you.”

They had drawn a crowd now, and she hated that. When Mr. Moore, the store manager, asked her if she was all right, she told him that she was but that the woman seemed out of sorts. As her husband—whoever he was started pulling her along, Kaida could hear him telling her to hush up before the police were called.

“They’ve been all over town about three times whipping out that picture and asking people if they’ve seen him. I’ve told her at least a dozen times that I’ve never seen him. But that doesn’t stop her. She’s also looking for a woman and a man. I don’t know what to think about that but if you were to ask me, it seems sort of fishy. They’re a might too old to be his parents, then all of a sudden today they are his grandparents. What’s this world coming to, Mr. Savage?” Mr. Moore shook his head in disgust. Tucker said that he didn’t know but would look into it if necessary. “You go on and do that for us. She’s being a pain in the ass, pardon my speech, but just look at them every day—I’d probably be doing the same thing if it was my boy. I know that, but why don’t they move on? We’ve done told them that we’ve never seen him. Now, this man and woman are someone they’re searching for.”

“Could it be the same man that shot up Travelers the other day?” It was funny that she was just going to say that when one of the others said it first. “I heard he was looking for a boy too. You think those people are out to kidnap all our kids? Well, they come around my house, and I’ll show them how we greet the door in his town. I’ll blow them away.”

“Mr. Jacobs, you don’t want to be killing anyone. It might be all the stress of losing their son or grandson. I don’t know which.” No one seemed to have any idea what their names were either. Kaida thought that odd. To be showing off a picture without any means of contacting them if they were to see the boy. She wanted to race home now and tell Matt what they had discovered but they needed to be calm about this. Calm and collected until they had more news.

After getting their things bagged up, they headed out the door. Having pizzas tonight seemed slightly spoiled because of the people around town. But she’d bet anything that if Matt were to walk down the main street right now, no one would tell the Connors. She was going to ask him about his grandparents, too.

“I’ve lived with them all my life, and they told me that I was their son. It never occurred to me that they might be my grandparents until just now.” He handed back her phone with a confused look on his face. “How would we find out if they are my parents or not? I mean, not that I ever looked for one, but I never saw a birth certificate when I was living with them.”

After getting his birth date and social security number, Brenin started to do a search on him. Coming up with the name of the hospital became something of a trial, as he couldn’t remember anyone mentioning that. After about two hours of searching and making pizzas, they had little more information than when they started. Just the name of the hospital that he might have been born in and a record of his social being used about fifty years before he’d been born. It was making more questions than answers, she thought.

“I have a plan.” Cassian said he wasn’t going to tell anyone his plan in the event that it didn’t work. She was all right with that, and so was everyone else. About an hour after they’d exhausted every little bit they could find out, one of the members from the local pack came to the house with a bunch of pictures. She worked in the hotel and was a cleaning lady for them.

Getting the information hadn’t been all that difficult. All she’d had to have done was go in like she was cleaning, finding the paperwork, and taking pictures. After tidying up the room, she left and finished out her shift. Kaida thought that it was just too easy to get the information from the room and decided that she was going to use the safe in the rooms when she had something to hide.

“I have DNA, too, that I found in the bathroom. The mister must be a diabetic, and when he pricks his finger, it leaves me enough blood to get some information from that.” Kaida shivered, thinking of all the things that were left behind when people stayed at hotels. “I have a friend that I’m sending this off to, and when we get the results back, we’ll have a better understanding.”

Beth was able to take Matt’s DNA, too, and that was sent off as well. Once they got the results back, in a couple of weeks, they were told, then they could work from there. At least they’d know how or even if he was related to the elderly couple at all.

In addition to the things that she located, there were things in the room that had startled her. There were handcuffs as well as chloroform. A body bag, too, that was still in the package. All she could think about now was that she was thrilled that she’d never given them any information when she’d seen them today or the other day. These people weren’t right in the head and she was slightly afraid of what they might do in order to get Matt back to them.

“There is no record of birth filed in the county that he was born in. There are no files with the Connors name on them either. No homes, no driver’s license. They have never voted either, as far as I can tell. I can’t find a place where they have voted or even registered to vote with their registration on it.” She asked what that meant. “They aren’t real. At least as far as the county is concerned.”

The more they dug, the deeper they were in with questions. If he was their child, there should have been something that would have had his name on it. There wasn’t anything. The car that they drove around was a rental but it wasn’t registered to anyone they could find. Just a post office box number that didn’t exist either.

Digging into Jason’s life. They found more information on him than she could have imagined. He had convictions all up both his arms. Armed Robbery, solicitation, hit and run, as well as kidnapping. That was all there was in the top few of the list and she sat down at the table.

“How does he keep getting out of jail? It looks to me like he’s been let out at least a dozen times after only serving a few weeks. Who is releasing him? And why?” No one had an answer and she knew that they wouldn’t. “It’s too bad we don’t know anyone with…maybe I can do it.”

“Maybe you can do what?” She explained to them how she needed to find Skye and that she’d only had to touch her before she was able to not just figure out who she was but also that she needed her help. “It’s worth a shot. What do you need?”

“I’m not sure. Let me just think about this for a minute.” She sat down with all the paperwork that they had on the man and the older couple and started touching things. She could get little bits of information on them but nothing more. When she picked up the DNA package, she felt a swarm of information roll over her until she had to let it go. She looked up at Tucker.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” She nodded, and he sat down beside her. “All right. Tell me, and we’ll work from there. Or you tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it. I trust you with my life, love, and we can do this together.”

Almost as soon as he touched her with his hand, she knew that he was getting all the information that she’d found. Even Matt’s real name and that of the people that he’d been born to.

“They killed them. Like they were nothing, they killed his parents to get to the boy when they found out about how smart he was and what he could do.” She nodded and waited for him to continue. “They killed that young couple just because they had a smart son, and they wanted him for his magic.”

“Not just that. They wanted his inheritance. However, they were never able to collect on it due to the fact that they’d have to admit who Trevor—his real name, was and how he’d come to be with him. Greed and evilness. If that wasn’t enough, they stole all the things that he had at his house and took it with them. Wiping out all evidence of the boy even being there. The couple is buried under their home so that they could keep a good eye on them never being found.”

“Christ.” Tucker got up to pace. He was tossing out comments like he was giving this a great deal of thought and tossing them away nearly in the same breath. He was pissed, she could tell that, and worst of all, she didn’t know how they could make the Connors pay for what they’d done. “He was only one, so it stands to reason that he’d probably not remember his own parents. Or he does and that’s what is keeping him up at night. I know he has nightmares. I hear him crying out when he goes to sleep.”

“We have to do something. I don’t know that much about laws to know where to even begin.” He said that he might well know someone. “Good. But before we do anything, we’re going to have to tell Skye and Trevor what we figured out. And how. It’s the least we can do to keep them safe if they know what they’re up against.”

“I agree.” He continued to pace the room and when he stood in front of her again, she knew that he’d hit on something but wasn’t very happy with it. “If she were a mate to one of my cousins, this would be so much better for her. But they all said that they didn’t think she was and—”

“Didn’t think she was?” He nodded, then smiled. “So there is a chance like you didn’t know that she’s someone’s mate, and they just don’t know how to figure it out. Christ, Tucker, if I could find your parents right now, I’d dig them up and kill them again. Who treats their children like they did and think that it’s all right?”

“Not just my parents but all of our parents. I think they were sick with money and power, and it went to their head.” She agreed with him. “There are a couple of things that I can take care of right now, but in the meantime, you do your thing with whomever you thought could help. Tonight, we’ll sit down with Trevor and Skye and tell them what we’ve figured out. Maybe they’ll have some more information once we start telling them what we’ve figured out.”

He kissed her on her mouth and left her there. She wondered if there would ever be a time when she didn’t want him to leave her. Things were heating up concerning the young man and his guardian. She only hoped that she could keep them safe until such time that they could figure out if they were mates or not with one of the others.

She liked Skye and hoped that they could be long-lasting friends. If only they could get the things cleared up with the couple and Jason. They were going to have to go and soon. Kaida didn’t even care if the lot of them were killed or put into prison, so long as they were out of their lives.

~*~

Skye wasn’t sure if what they were telling her was the truth of things but she also had no reason to not believe them. To think that the boy she’d been taking care of for the last few years wasn’t even their son nor grandson, and he had magic, too. She wondered for a moment if she had been caring for him or if he was caring for her. It seemed that he was a good deal smarter than she was in all things.

“Are you all right?” She nodded, then shook her head at Matt…Trevor. That was something else she was going to have to get used to. He was Trevor and not Matt, as they’d all thought. “I know just how you feel. It’s like my life has been a lie and I just don’t know where to start over or just let things go the way that they are now.”

“I’m sorry about your parents, Trevor. They’ve been so close to you all this time, and you didn’t know.” He told her that he thought too that they’d been watching over him. “I don’t doubt that at all. You’re a good kid and smart too. They’d be so proud of you right now.”

“You had a lot to do with my upbringing, Skye. I wouldn’t have survived those first few years had you not taken me under your wing. You’re the best mother figure a kid like me could have.” She hugged him. Holding back tears as best she could, she held onto him until he pulled away. It occurred to her that she loved him like he really was her own son and wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Don’t get all emotional on me. You’ll ruin my new shirt.”

They both had a lot of new things. Not just clothing but a room for themselves. Food whenever they wanted it as well as someone to talk to in the way of the Savage family. All of them had been very good to them, and she couldn’t have been happier to have them in their lives.

“Kaida saved my life, and I can’t help but feel like I owe her everything. Did you hear that Tucker is looking into some contacts that he has to figure out what to do next? It’s not like the Connors are going to be getting out of jail anytime soon. Nor will Jason.” They had enough evidence on the Connors to keep them in jail as a flight risk. So far, they had demanded that the police allow them to take their son home and be done with everything. They weren’t budging on allowing them to get out anytime soon.

Jason was going back to prison. This time, she hoped for good. The man had murdered more people than she would have imagined. And he’d been hired by the Connors to kill her and take the kid. How they figured out that she was with him, she might never know, but it was scary for her to think what he would have done to her had she not kept on the run from him.

“I think that we’re safe for now, don’t you?” She said that she’d never felt safer than she was right now. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that. Now, before you get upset with me, I’m going to go and see the Connors. They won’t be in the same room as I will be, but far enough away from them that they can’t touch me. Tucker said that he thinks I can get a confession from them where no one else will be able to.”

“Please don’t do this.” He said that he needed some closure, too. “I would imagine that you do, but this isn’t the way to go. They could hurt you. If not physically, then mentally, for sure.”

“I started to tell you that I’d be fine, but I don’t know that for sure. I do know that if I don’t do this I’ll wonder for the rest of my life as to why and how they did this to them and to me.” He hugged her. “You can understand that, can’t you? Why I’d need to know what made me so special at such a young age that they thought that they could get away with this. And they might well have if not for you coming along when you did.”

They talked about other things in their life rather than the one that was going on now. She understood why he needed this and was happy that he could. However, she didn’t have to like it any more than she was going to like confronting Jason someday in court. It was funny—not ha-ha funny but weird funny—how the two of them had found each other. If they hadn’t, she was sure that at some point, she would have been murdered, and Trevor would be right back with the Connors being locked up in his room and only brought out when there was a way to show him off. Her heart hurt for the young boy.

When Tucker left with Trevor a few hours later, she went to the kitchen to find something to munch on until dinner. She didn’t know what she was smelling, but she was looking forward to having whatever it was. This house always smelled like home-cooked meals and love. She envied the love that Kaida and Tucker had. It was like they were each in their own little world and only came out when it was impolite not to. She laughed every time she caught them kissing. It would embarrass them so much.

Getting to the police station an hour later, the time being set up by Jason’s attorney, she sat outside his cell and watched him fumble around with his clothing. His attorney, someone she’d only just met, told her that she could ask him anything she wanted, but she wasn’t to expect it to be used against him. Standing up, she was nearly to the door when she was called back.

“He told me that you’d be stubborn about this. Remember Ms. Houston, whether he agrees or not with that, everything is being recorded including there is a camera in every cell.” He winked at her and she returned to the seat. “Now, she’s only here because it was a request of yours to see her, Jason. What is it you wish to talk to her about?”

“Why couldn’t you have just died?” Skye was startled by the questions. “It didn’t matter what I did about you or to you, you just fucking wouldn’t die. Christ, and I really tried, too. Everything that I did, you’d just get up and walk away.”

“Maybe you just weren’t as good as you thought you were.” He said that he’d hired people to kill her, and they couldn’t do it either. “I think a better question would be, why did you want me dead? I didn’t know you at all. But you kept coming after me like you were stupid or something.”

“I am not stupid, you fucking cunt. I’ve been killing women for decades, and you just wouldn’t die.” She asked him how many people he had killed. “Not people but lowlifes that owed someone something. I just wanted you dead, then one day, I saw you with that kid. I’d seen his picture someplace and went to the Connors about it. They didn’t care what happened to you so long as they could get their boy back. Why did you kidnap their kid?”

“He wasn’t their child. They killed his parents to get him.” He snorted and told her that was why they were caught. Freelancing with murder is always going to get you caught. “Yet here you sit with bars around you caught too.”

“You can’t use this against me. I told you that.” She shrugged and told him that she didn’t care what he said. She’d use it if she was asked. “You fucking bitch. I swear to you, I hate people.”

“I’m sure that not too many like you either. You’re a murderer, liar, and a thief.” She looked at the attorney, and he winked at her. “What did you want to talk to me about? I have a busy schedule and I need to keep on track of it.”

“I hired someone to kill you soon. And when they do, I’m going to dance a little dance in happiness. You’ll never be able to thrall him as you have me. He’s a professional.” She told him that he worked for the police. “No, I told you. I hired him right out of the jail cell before he got out.”

“Right. He’s working now, telling them everything you told them about me. In addition to things that you told him about me, you’re also going to be tried for trying to kill off Trevor and the people who hired you to kill him. You tried to get them to pay up, and when they didn’t, you—”

“No. He was in the jail cell right there. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She told him what he looked like. “No, you’re wrong. Damn it. I know what I’m talking about.” The door opened down the hall and she glanced in the direction of Brenin. He’d been in the jail cell next to Jason’s and had recorded every word of what he wanted done to her. “That’s him right there. See? I told…what is he doing here?”

“He’s my friend. And when they wanted you to confess to murder for hire, they asked him to come in and pretend to be a gun for hire. Didn’t you think it was suspicious that he seemed more up on the laws than you did? Christ, you’re an idiot of the first order, aren’t you?”

Leaving this time, she let his shouts echo down the hallway where she was headed. Brenin asked her if she was all right and it was all she could do not to break down and fall on her face. As soon as she was outside, she sat on the steps and put her head between her knees.

“You told me what he said, but I didn’t want to believe it. He was going to hire you to kill me.” She looked up at him. “I know that you wouldn’t have, but just the thought that he thought it was all right to hire someone to come along and kill me simply because he’d been asked to do it. I just don’t understand where his mind was.”

“He’s probably been at killing for a good long time, and since he was never caught, he felt that he was doing something right. At least that’s what I’m thinking.” She asked him if he’d run into that sort of thing before. “I have. We all have. It’s just the way that some people think about themselves. That they’re something along the lines of the almighty and what they say and do is the way things should be done. I’m sorry that he hurt you, honey. Why don’t you and I have some dinner and a nice cold beer and enjoy the rest of the day without thinking about Jason.”

She took him up on his offer and wondered if Trevor was doing any better. She hoped so. The young man needed to have a good look on life before he got too much older and was jaded. Like her, he was all alone in the world, and she wanted nothing more than to keep him safe and happy for the rest of their lives.