Cascade (34 page)

“
You can come with me on the
bulldozer or watch here,” the man who turned on the excavator said.
“We’re taking a video for Aden. I think the FBI is here,
too.”

The man pointed to a non-descript woman
holding a video camera.

“
If this is what I think it is, I
want to participate!” Tanesha said. “Yes I do.”

“
Me, too,” Heather waddled after
Tanesha.

The man helped the women up onto the bulldozer
then took over in the driver’s seat.

“
Ready?” Valerie said into her
walkie-talkie.

The people on the ground moved away from the
house.

“
Are you ready, Sandy?” Valerie
giggled.

“
I guess so.”

Valerie drove the excavator up onto the lawn.
She moved the arm near the exterior of the house.

“
Go ahead, Sandy,” Valerie
said.

“
What am I doing?”

“
You’re demolishing your father’s
house, the place you were so awfully hurt.” Valerie’s eyes were
huge. For all of her actress ways, Valerie was one-hundred percent
heart. “Just move the lever and the walls will fall. When you’re
done, the bulldozer will scrape the mess. These folks will get all
the destruction into the dumpster. In a couple of hours, you won’t
know there was a house here.”

“
Really?” Sandy bit her lip. “Why
would you do this?”

“
I think every woman knows what
can happen to children. I’ve always been very lucky. But I’ve known
a lot of women who weren’t so lucky. My college roommate killed
herself because of her sexual abuse. I wanted you to… be able to
have some real peace, start some healing. I know you’ve had therapy
but I gave Aden a list of some good people. We’re going to get you
on our insurance plan and you can get some professional support
while you go through this.”

“
Why would you do this? For
me?”

“
Because you matter. Because you
deserve to have some justice for yourself. Because some things are
too awful to standby and do nothing,” Valerie said. “Plus, this is
going to be fun. Put on your mask!”

Sandy and Valerie put their dust masks on.
Valerie swung the bucket of the excavator forward.

Smash! The bucket created a hole in the wall
of the house. Sandy screamed, hooted, laughed and cheered. Heather,
Tanesha and the crowd of employees cheered. Valerie maneuvered the
bucket near another piece of the wall.

“
Your turn!”

Sandy smashed the wall with the bucket, and
then smashed it again. Within minutes they had demolished the
exterior wall. The roof fell in. Valerie demolished the roof debris
and the flooring. She backed up the excavator so the bulldozer
could clear off the mess. The workers began clearing bricks, old
furniture and everything the bulldozer didn’t carry into the
dumpster.

“
Ready for the next set of
walls?”

Valerie drove the excavator close to the
interior walls. She reached the arm over the wood floor interior
next to the wall. Thinking this non-load bearing wall would fall
over with one solid thump, Valerie lined the excavator bucket near
the middle of the wall.

“
Go ahead!” Valerie
said.

Sandy thumped the wall. Unlike the exterior
wall, this wall didn’t come apart.

“
Go again!”

Sandy moved the bucket more quickly. The wall
shimmied then seemed to sigh. A chunk of plaster slipped down to
reveal metal sheeting underneath.

“
That’s weird. Try again!” Valerie
said.

The excavator bucket made its third contact.
The wall seemed to bend forward, collapsing from the inside. A
moment later, a stream of green paper flew up in the air. The paper
caught a warm draft from the excavator exhaust and began flying all
over the yard.

“
Is that what I think it is?”
Valerie asked into her walkie-talkie.

The workers ran forward to check.

“
Hundred dollar bills!” came over
the walkie-talkie. “There’s a million dollars here –
minimum.”

“
Did you know?” Valerie asked
Sandy.

“
He always said it was safer to
keep his money at home,” Sandy said. “I didn’t know about the
walls. Why would he sell the house?”

“
He told his attorneys he had to
get money out of the house to pay their fees,” Valerie said. “Guess
they misinterpreted what he meant.”

Sandy laughed.

CHAPTER
SEVENTY-SEVEN

In motion

Friday midday — 11:45
A.M.

Valerie skipped over to the limousine and
slipped in the back. She threw her arms around Mike. Laughing, Mike
kissed her cheek.

“
You seem very happy and very
dirty,” he said.

“
I happen to be very happy and
dirty.” She beamed at him. “Guess what my master secret plan
was?”

“
Tearing down half of Sandy’s
father’s house?”

Laughing, Mike buckled Valerie’s seat belt. He
tapped on the glass and the driver took off toward Denver
International Airport.

“
I wanted to tear the whole thing
down but the FBI had other ideas,” Valerie laughed.

“
What happened?”

“
We found like a billion or so
dollars in actual hundred dollar bills inside the walls of the
house,” Valerie said.

“
A billion dollars?
What?”

“
I don’t know exactly how much
money. But a lot. Check this out. I’m there arguing with the FBI
person about who owns the house and the money, when an armored car
pulls up,” Valerie said.

“
An armored car?”

“
Sent by Jake,” Valerie said. “The
Lipson people and the armored car guys had most of the money loaded
before the agent could get an answer from his higher ups. By the
time the FBI got there, the money was already off to the bank to be
counted.”

“
Why would Jake send an armored
car?”

“
Just thought we might need one,”
Valerie repeated Jacob’s usual cover for his psychic
abilities.

“
He didn’t know anything
yesterday,” Mike said.

“
His skills are changing,
strengthening,” Valerie said. “He’s gotten really powerful. How did
it go at the Castle?”

“
The big unveiling? Katy squealed,
laughed, hopped around and begged Jill to bring Paddie to see. Jill
cried when we said goodbye. Delphie made me take some brownies with
us. I think everyone is going to miss us.”

“
You,” Valerie said.

“
Us,” Mike said. “You
and
me. Over the last
months, we’ve become family. It’s been nice. For
everyone.”

“
I’m sorry to take you away from
your family,” Valerie sniffed.

“
Our family.” Mike stroked her
face. “And we’re both going to Prague. You’ll be away from your
family.”

“
My family...” Valerie sighed.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s been… nice. Dad was really sweet
when I left. He told me he loved me and would look forward to
seeing me soon. Nothing special but… it felt really
good.”

Mike leaned over to kiss her but pulled back
before their lips touched.

“
When are you going to shower?” he
asked.

“
Airport VIP lounge.” Valerie
laughed. “Wait ‘til you see how bad I smell on set. They strap me
into some leather or plastic outfit with my breast pressed up to my
chin then I jump around for twelve hours and…”

Glancing over at him, she caught his
lust-filled look.

“
I can hardly wait.”

~~~~~~~~

Friday afternoon — 2:11
P.M.

Aden cursed himself. He’d been so sure Nash
would be able to return to school. After all, the assistant
principal was in jail. The boy who Nash fought with all year was
arrested for sexually assaulting at least four girls at school.
Nash and his friend Teddy should have been able to get back to
their classes.

He’d been so certain.

And he was so wrong.

He glanced over at Teddy’s father Zack
Jakkman. Captain Jakkman was speaking to the principal in a near
deadly tone. The principal was firm. The boys would not be allowed
to go to school there this year and possibly never
again.

“
Let me get this straight,” Aden
interrupted Zack. “You have a pedophile working here as an
assistant principal and my son is still expelled?”

“
Sir, these boys have had a lot of
problems this year,” the principal said. “They’ve been in numerous
fights. They were appropriately suspended for their
behavior.”

“
Nash got in fights after being
harassed by a boy,” Aden said. “The boy who was arrested for
sexually assaulting your students! Here! At school!”

“
I’m not sure where you or Mr.
Jakkman…”

“
That’s Captain Jakkman, ma’am,”
Teddy’s father said.

“
Captain Jakkman. We are not here to talk about other
children’s tragedies. We are here to talk about your out of control
sons and their excessive use of violence. Is it possible
Captain
Jakkman that your son’s violent behavior is designed
to get the attention of his absent soldier
father?”

“
I’m an Air Force pilot,” Zack
said. “And no, it’s not possible. I can assure you if my son used
violence, it was absolutely necessary.”

“
That’s true for Nash
too.”

“
What do your surveillance videos
show for the last fight?” Zack asked.

Zack Jakkman leaned back in his chair. Aden
saw the confident look on the man’s face. Zack must have already
seen the surveillance video.

“
Unfortunately, the camera for
that area is dysfunctional. We are looking into why it didn’t work
during the fight.”

Zack shifted forward with surprise. He turned
his head to look back at Aden and shook his head.

“
Come on Norsen,” Zack stood from
his chair. “Our kids deserve better than this.”

“
They will not be able to attend
Denver Pubic School for at least the rest of the year,” the
principal said.

“
What? Because of a pedophile?”
Aden gulped back his rage.

“
Because of their inappropriate
behavior.”

“
Come on, Norsen.”

Zack pushed Aden out of the room. Before Zack
closed the principal’s office door, Aden said, “You’ll hear from
us.”

Aden shook his head. The men walked down the
hall in silence

“
I’ll buy you a beer,” Zack said
as they reached the entry hall.

“
Sober,” Aden said.

“
Coffee?” Zack laughed.

“
Pie?” Aden smiled.

The men walked out the front of the middle
school.

“
God, I hated this age,” Zack
said. “You?”

“
I don’t remember much. I started
smoking pot and drinking when I was ten. I was on my own at
fifteen.”

“
I remember it well enough for
both of us. I had the hots for this girl. She was… yeah. She
wouldn’t have anything to do with me. We were friends as kids. Once
we hit puberty, she completely ignored me. I’m permanently scarred
by the sights and sounds of middle school.”

Aden’s head jerked to Zack when Zack gave an
exaggerated sniff and whipped an imaginary tear from his eye. They
both laughed.

“
What are you going to do?” Aden
asked.

“
Teddy can go to Catholic school.
His Mom used the kid’s school money to buy drugs. That’s why he’s
been in public school.” Zack shook his head. “Luckily, she’s not an
issue anymore.”

“
You have custody?” Aden had never
met another father who had sole custody of his kids. He watched
Zack’s face.

“
Yep. Finally,” Zack said. “She’s
in rehab but they say she’s ‘too fragile’ to take care of the kids.
Whatever. I wish she’d said something five years ago when I begged
her, and anyone who would listen, for custody. Your ex is in
prison?”

“
She broke Noelle’s cheekbone and they
still
haven’t denied her most recent custody
request.”

“
I know that song and dance.
Children need their mothers! Not these mothers,” Zack said.
“Anyway, Teddy doesn’t want to go anywhere without Nash. Can Nash
go to Catholic school?”

“
We’re not Catholic,” Aden said.
“I mean, my family was Catholic… mostly for the free food. I
haven’t been to church in… twenty years at least. The kids weren’t
baptized or confirmed.”

“
You’re dating a good Catholic
girl,” Zack said. “You better brush up.”

“
Sandy? She’s never said
anything,” Aden said.

“
Have kids yet?” Zack
laughed.

“
One on the way,” Aden
said.