Page 45 of Loving Trent
Zak slaps a hand on my shoulder with such force that I stumble sideways into Shawn. Shawn chuckles and wraps his arm around my shoulder. Zak’s eyes bounce from Shawn’s arm to me a couple of times before saying, “Once Nana adopts someone, there isn’t anything to do about it. So welcome to the family.”
Slowly, everyone starts to leave, saying their goodbyes and promising to get together soon. All the guys have to get back to their wives and kids. Nana is heading to bingo with some friends. All that is left is Sonny, Uncle Joey, Ryan, Harley,Shawn, and me. Sonny looks from me to Shawn, who still hasn’t removed his arm from my shoulder. His eyes give away that he has something he needs to tell me, but is afraid to speak with everyone here. Everyone here knows, so I give him the go-ahead with a quick nod.
“Jackson found something,” Sonny says, sitting in the plush armchair in front of the window.
Uncle Joey looks at me and asks, “Who’s Jackson?”
I motion for everyone to sit down. Uncle Joey and Ryan choose the second armchair, with Ryan sitting on the arm and Uncle Joey’s arm around his waist. “Should I take Harley somewhere else?” Shawn asks, which reminds me that he doesn’t know her story. He doesn’t know my whole story.
With a shake of my head, I tell him, “No, this involves her as well.” I take his hand and move toward the couch against the wall, facing the window and the two armchairs. Harley joins us on the sofa and sits close to Shawn, who is in the middle. “Shawn, if you are going to be a part of this, you have to know the truth.”
My gaze is solely on Shawn, but I feel Sonny glaring at me. “If he?—”
“Dad,” Shawn says, holding up his hand. “Don’t try to talk me out of it because I’m not changing my mind. I might not know the whole story, but I know enough to know that over my dead body am I staying out of it.” The little growl that slips out stokes the small simmering fire of lust inside me.
I look at Sonny and find nothing but pride in his eyes. “Okay, the thing is…” I spent the next thirty minutes telling Shawn the condensed version of my life and what’s going on. When I get to Harley’s involvement, my eyes drift over to hers, and she nods with tears in her gray eyes. So, I tell her story and Shawn wastes no time pulling her into his arms. While his green eyes fill withtears, there is also that fire I saw in them earlier when he told me he was going to spill blood.
“Now that you are caught up,” I look at Sonny again. “What did you find?”
“A lot, actually. This time, we have way more to go on. Banking accounts that hadn’t been closed down. A couple of properties that they were interested in. But the best thing was something Glen found… a hidden safe in the main house. At first, it looked empty. But there was something left behind,” Sonny says, pulling out a small card and sliding it onto the dark oak coffee table in the middle of the room.
I pick it up with steady hands until I see what it is. “That’s Tom,” I say, holding the state-issued driver’s license in front of me. It’s expired by years, and the picture confirms that it’s old because he looks younger. He looks like he did when I first met him. The name on the ID is Stanley Blake Horsin. “Did Demon run the name?”
“Sure did, and this one’s real. Everything he found matched. He is collecting everything he can get his hands on. We need to know everything about Stanley,” Sonny says, leaning back in the chair.
“What about the properties?” Harley asks, leaning forward, her eyes glued to Sonny.
“Well, there are two. One in Florida and one in Washington. We have gotten satellite images of them and contacted the realtors who are related to them. So far, they are still available, and they both said people were coming to see them from out of state. We thought it would be best to run it by Trent to see if he wanted to check them out.” Sonny points at me as he says my name.
“Is there any way to find out who’s interested in them?” Uncle Joey asks, chiming in for the first time.
“There is, but that would take time. More than likely, whatever name they are using will be another fake, and that will just lead us on another wild goose chase,” Sonny answers, turning to look at Uncle Joey. That’s one thing I like about him. He looks at whoever he is talking to, so they know they have his full attention.
“Did the bank accounts turn up anything?” Ryan asks, leaning closer to Uncle Joey.
“Not really. We already knew they were using fake names, but we don’t know how they are getting all the necessary paperwork. It doesn’t make sense to us. How are two people pulling off these massive operations? Why are none of the parents coming forward, or the counselors?” Sonny runs his hands through his hair in frustration.
“What if it’s not the same two people?” Shawn asks pulling the ID from my hand and setting it on the table. He replaces the empty space with his hand.
“What do you mean?” I ask. Everyone turns their attention to him.
“We know that the directors of the camps Trent and Harley were sent to are the same, but what about the other ones you found? Is there any solid proof that it was the same people?” Shawn’s grip on my hand tightens, and I soak up the strength he is giving me.
“No, we never found any image or ID for those,” I answer him. “At one, there was literally nothing left behind, but the last one before Ohio, all that was left was a few files on a couple of kids. There were only a couple of papers in each, though.”
“Ever thought about tracking them down and showing them pictures of Tom?” Uncle Joey asks.
Sonny leans forward and steeples his fingers under his chin. “No, because we don’t want to bring up any trauma for those kids. They have been through hell and?—”
“But if it could help them get some kind of justice. Even vigilante justice, I’m sure they would talk,” Harley cuts Sonny off. “I know that if I were in their shoes, I would do everything to help. Hell, I’m giving everything right now to help. Yeah, it’s going to hurt like hell, but so is living with this threat of them coming back.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I say, looking at Harley. She has a fire in her gray eyes and is sitting up determinedly. “Hey,” I say, and she turns to look at me. “I’m so fucking proud of you and just want you to know how strong you are.”
Her gray eyes mist over, and she starts blinking fast. “Thank you. I’m only taking after you. If you didn’t start this, then I don’t know?—”
Shawn throws his arm over Harley’s shoulder and pulls her into his side. “You would have survived because you are that damn strong. You would have shouldered the weight of the world alone and kept on moving. But you don’t have to do that anymore because you now have all of us to take that weight.”
My heart breaks for Harley at the same time that it soars because Shawn is saying, ‘us’. Is he saying us as in me and him? Or does he mean the Hill family? I want to ask him. The question sits on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it down.
