Page 79 of Loving Trent
“No, you are going to answer some questions for us.” My voice never wavers or cracks, and for that I’m grateful.
“I won’t.” The set of Josiah’s shoulders tells me that he believes he can hold onto his secrets, but he doesn’t know the darkness that he created in me. He doesn’t know what I’ll do to get justice for myself and all the other kids. He doesn’t know how close we are to nailing his ass.
Once Demon got the hit that Josiah was back, he showed up at the house with all his research and laid it all out for us.
Demon sets the two stacks of papers on the table in front of us before he pulls out a chair. The room is silent as we all wait for him to tell us what he found. My hands start to shake–fromwhat, I’m not really sure. It could be anticipation or maybe adrenaline. Hell, maybe it’s a mix of both with a bit of fear added in.
“As we all know, Tom and Sandy are fake names. Tom is really Stanley Blake Horsin, born and raised in Southern Illinois. I’ll start with him first since he is the originator of all of this,” Demon says, pushing the much thicker pile of papers toward me. I don’t move an inch to retrieve the papers. Instead, I grab Sonny’s hand with one of mine and take Harley’s with the other. I wish for the millionth time that Shawn were here with us, but there is nothing I can change about that now.
“Once I had his real name, finding everything out was easy, but I didn’t want to say anything until it was time to end this.” Demon’s eyes are on me as he talks, and I know he’s worried I’ll be mad, but I’m not. I just want him to tell me what he found so we can figure out what to do with everything.
“Stanley’s father, Abraham, started a camp when Stanley was sixteen. It was in operation for two years until Abraham died from prostate cancer. At first look, the camp wasn’t like the one that Trent or Harley were at, but I kept digging. I found one single report about the camp,” Demon stops talking and lays a paper on top of the stack in front of me. Once again, I don’t move to look at it.
“It was from a parent who had sent their son to the camp the last summer it was open. In the report, the mother alleged that her son confided in her that Abraham had touched him inappropriately. Since Abraham was already dead, there was nothing the police could do. The first camp that Stanley opened was in his real name. He was twenty-five and fresh out of college. The first report of abuse came almost a month after the camp was opened. But when the police arrived, the girl refused to confirm what her mother alleged. Things she apparently told her mother in a letter. Long story short, a week later, themother told the police that the letter was a cruel joke from her ex-husband, who wanted custody of their daughter.
“That camp stayed open for another year, but then out of the blue it shut down. Another camp didn’t open until ten years later,” Demon says, then he points to me. “That one was abandoned a year before you were sent away. The police were onto Stanley this time because of a young adult who worked at the camp. The guy was busted trying to force himself on a young girl in the town over. After interviewing Stanley, the police had concerns, so they went back with a search warrant based on the concerns of the children. When law officials showed up at the camp, they found it just like we found the ones we located. Abandoned. All the kids were interviewed, but none of them said what happened there.
“We can only assume that they were too afraid to tell the police what really happened. After the first camp closed, there was no more activity for Stanley Horsin; his bank account was wiped out, and that’s where his trail went cold. When I was able to run a picture of Stanley through my system, all the pieces fell into place. His picture is attached to four different names. Each name has been traced back to the land where these camps were located.”
Sonny leans forward and asks, “We know that he stole one identity. Are the other three also stolen?”
Demon reaches forward, slides a group of papers from the stack, and sets them on top. “According to what I found, two identities are of men who have been reported missing from a state other than the one in which the camp was operating at the time. These men either had no family and were reported missing by neighbors, or in the case of this one,” Demon points to the identity of Tom. “He was reported missing by his daughter, who lived in the UK, when she couldn’t get in touch with him.”
“How come the police never figured out that someone was using their identities?” Harley asks.
“That I don’t know. When I called and asked about the missing person cases. The officers I spoke to were unaware of them. The files I got from the respective stations are severely lacking in investigation. I can only assume that the missing persons cases fell by the wayside and eventually turned cold, or the police didn’t want to do their job. It happens more times than I like to admit,” Leon says, placing two folders with maybe four or five sheets of paper inside in front of him.
“So, how the hell is he able to fund all of this?” Sonny asks.
“That I’m not sure of right now, but I have a feeling Josiah is our key to figuring that out,” Demon says, leaning back in his chair.
“What about Sandy?” I ask, needing to know everything about her, because she is the biggest monster from my past.
“Sandy’s real name is Jules Lopez. There isn’t much on her, seeing as how she grew up in foster care, but from what I found, she has always been a troubled individual. She was abandoned when she was thirteen and then proceeded to move from foster home to foster home. Each time she was returned to the state, the foster parents stated violent tendencies as the reason they could no longer keep her. Eventually, she was put into a state-run girls’ home. From the time she was eighteen, there hasn’t been much on her. She held down a couple of jobs, but that’s it. She popped back up when she married Stanley right before he started the first camp. Her foster records were sealed, but that doesn’t stop me when I want something.
“There were multiple accusations against her for touching the other kids in the foster home, and once in the girls’ home, she was caught in the bathroom with another girl. The other girl was beaten up pretty badly, but when they tried to talk to her about what happened, she shut down and didn’t sayanything. I don’t have a list of names she used besides Sandy. The real Sandy Owens went missing around the same time as Tom Bennett did in Texas. Leon found the same shoddy police investigation when he looked into her missing case.”
“That’s great. We know how they got their identities and who they really are, but we are no closer to finding them,” I say. All of that tells us nothing about where they are now and how to stop them. Frustration eats away inside me, along with the feeling that somewhere out there right now, more children are being hurt, and I’m no closer to stopping them.
“You’re right, we’re not, but hope is not lost,” Demon says, leaning forward. “If we find out how they get their money, then?—”
“We can stop them,” I say. My eyes bounce between Demon, Sonny, Leon, and Harley. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get our answers.”
Leon holds up his hand to stop me from getting up. “We’re going to, but I have a plan. You aren’t going to like it, but just let me explain before you go off.”
“Trent,” Sonny’s voice pulls me from the past. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and focus on what I need to do.
I don’t know what has happened while I spaced out, but Josiah now has a bloody nose and his mouth is split, but I don’t really give a fuck.
Forty
TRENT
My steps are measured, my knees are solid, and my focus is tunneled as I walk toward the man who was supposed to be my father. “Tell me how you found Stanley and Jules,” I demand, because he will tell us what we want to know.
“Go to?—”
Without much thought, my hands tighten into fists, and one flies forward, connecting with the side of Josiah’s face. The sound it makes sends pride soaring through me. For fucking years, I’ve thought about doing that, and now I finally have the chance. Bending down, I grab his face just like I did Nathan’s not that long ago, and pull it back toward me. “I’ve already been to hell thanks to you, but I walked through it. I made it out alive. Tell me, how did you find them?”
