Charity's Secrets (33 page)

He
hands me my glass first, always the gentleman, and then hands Garrett his.
"Tell you what, let me ask you a question, and depending on how you answer
I'll decide if I let her tell you the truth about that?"

Garrett
has that same lack of fear that Justin has. "Sounds good. Hit me with
it."

Justin
sits directly across from him and sips his wine. "There's a lot of people
around me; people that I love and look out for, people that mean the world to
me. But there's only a small group that really know what the hell is going on.
That group I consider my family. To be family to me takes a certain kind of
dedication. If you're part of that, and then you cross anyone in it, you become
the enemy. After we do what we have to do here for our mother, do you want to
be my brother—or do you want to be family?"

"Family,"
Garrett snaps quickly. "Without any doubt—family."

His
eyes remain locked on Justin's without a flinch, twitch, or blink. It's the
first time I realize they are the exact sparkling green as Justin's.

Justin
puts down his glass, stands, and extends his right hand toward his brother.
Garrett gets up to meet him, placing his hand in his brother's. Justin yanks
him unexpectedly, physically pulling him in to his chest and tossing his other
arm around his shoulder. Stunned for a moment, Garrett does return the embrace,
their hands loudly clapping on each other’s backs.

"I'm
sorry that I didn't know you sooner, Garrett. I wish I had."

Fucking
deny it if they want, but I see Garrett’s eyes glass over. I'm sure it's the
feeling of family that he's always been searching for.

When
they sit back down, I tell Garrett all about how Justin and I met, and about
Steve. Just like Justin, Garrett reacts visibly when a woman is in distress. I
see his anger swell as I talk about the kidnapping, the protector in him
bubbling to the surface. The rescue impresses him, and then I describe what
became of Steve. I watch him to see how he handles learning what his brother is
capable of, and there's nothing but satisfaction on his face.

Lena
arrives moments after I finished my story, barging in without knocking, like a
real family member would. She's holding a thin folder in her left hand that
Justin fixates on immediately. "Everything good?" he asks.

"Pretty
damn good, yeah," Lena answers. "Is he in?"

Justin
turns and looks at Garrett, talking about him as if he's not listening to every
word. "He's in," he says eagerly. Justin takes the folder and flips
through some of the pages. "What was he doing before?"

"Your
brother's an MMA fighter, a damn good one." She smiles and winks at
Garrett.

"No
shit?" Justin chokes loudly, looking back up at his brother.

"No
shit," Garrett replies through a strong, wide smile.

"You
don't even have one of those fucked up noses," I tease.

Garrett
is proud as hell. "Most people never get the chance to get that close to
my face." He rubs his jaw where Justin nailed him yesterday. "My own
brother gave me one of the best shots I've ever taken, but in my own defense, I
was a little distracted by the gun."

"Yep—he's
your brother alright," Lena laughs. "Cocky as hell."

Justin
scoffs at her. "I'm not cocky, I'm just right most of the time."

"I
feel you," Garrett agrees.

"You
see," Justin chirps. "Now
that's
my brother. Lena this is my
brother, Garrett. Garrett, this is your new boss."

Garrett
looks stunned and a little embarrassed.

"Are
you feelin'
me
?" Lena chuckles.

IT WASN'T VERY LONG
before Lena had all the case files from their mothers’
attack up on the screen. Her picture was upsetting, the blank look in her eyes.
Nicolette was gone when they took her picture, her body was there but she
wasn't. At the time she wasn't much older than I am right now.

"They
really didn't know a damn thing back then," Lena complains mostly to
herself. "Not for any kind of victim. Therapy had such a bad stigma; most
people thought it was best just to suck it up and go on."

Lena
even stumbled upon the missing person report that Justin's father had filed
when she disappeared on her drug binge.

All the
related arrests are here. It was just over twelve hours when they had the first
one of them in custody. He was still in the park, probably living there by a
looks of his arrest photo. There's fingernail marks on his face. Alex Bremer
gave up his two buddies names within a couple of hours. They had gone into
hiding, but since they were fucking morons, they were both caught by the next
day.

Mark
Lauder looks absolutely scared shitless in his photo. He had regrets, but
unfortunately for everyone they we're only for himself and they came too late.
He was only seventeen when he did this; and apart from a dirty, homeless look
to his clothes, he was not bad looking in the face, proving that shit can look
okay on the outside sometimes. I don't want to say anything out loud, but if I
had to guess, I'd say he was Garrett's biological father. Same nose and cheeks
under his dark hair.

The
last one, Jesse Simpson, I fucking hate him on sight.
Prick!
He smiled
for his arrest photo. What kind of scum smiles for an arrest photo for a rape?

I don't
have to read the file to know he's the asshole that had her underwear. It only
takes a glimpse at his bulging eyes with the dark circles around them and his
crooked smile filled mostly with crooked, brown teeth to be filled with
disgust. He did it; he's the right type of garbage.

"Where
are they now?" Justin asks.

Lena
taps away at the keys. Jesse Simpson's sheet comes up quickly. He's been in the
system over and over his entire life. This doesn’t surprise any of us at all.
Assaults, burglaries, too many for one person to really have. Sexual assaults
follow him throughout his life and have him on the registered offenders list.
Jesse has had a lifetime of ruining woman after woman and now it's time it
ends. There's no current address anywhere for him, probably living off the
support of anyone that knows him. There's enough to go on, though. Addresses of
family and known acquaintances from prison.

We'll
get him, of that I have no doubt.

"When
you find him," I say out loud, "you need to make it last. He doesn't
deserve it to be quick and painless. I want this piece of shit to suffer more
than any of them."

"Count
on it," Justin growls.

Garrett
is nodding and agreeing silently. There's a smoky deadliness oozing through his
face.

"Do
me a favor," Justin says to Lena. "Start watching all of their
phones, of these guys and everyone they know." He looks at Garrett next.
"We'll cross reference their calls to see if they are in touch still or
use it to find where they're hiding."

That's
not it. I know exactly why he wants this—I haven't forgotten. Justin wants to
see if our mole at Panther tips them off the way they did Sam and maybe use it
to catch them.

We look
up Mark Lauder next and my nerves are humming. I just know this is Garrett's
father, and I don't know what trouble this is going to bring. My eyes are
already telling Justin he has to handle this one.

Mark is
a follower. Every arrest on his record came when he was with Jesse. At some
point he should have realized that Jesse doesn't give a shit, not about any of
them, not even about himself. He has no fear or care about being arrested or
who he hurts doing it. Mark thinks Jesse is his friend—the truth is Jesse has
no friends.

"A
few years ago," Lena tells us, "Mark seemed to wise up. There are no
more arrests, and I don't see any more connections to Jesse."

"Doesn't
matter," Garrett says indifferently. "Where is he now?"

A
moment later Lena has that answer. "Potter's field. He died on the inside
during his last sentence almost three years ago. No one claimed him"

I'm
relieved. This is better for us, even if they can't see that. It's not what
they wanted, but it's certainly what they needed.

"How?
I wanna know if it hurt, I wanna know if he suffered the way he made my mother
suffer," Garrett growls.

"He
was suffering," Lena says. "He had AIDS by then, in and out of the
infirmary a lot. That's not what killed him in the end, but it was ruining him
slowly. What finally ended him is a lot closer to what you want. Mark was in
general population during recreation when a fight broke out, and it got pretty
violent. The guards had to break it up in riot gear. He took a baton to the
head, crushed his skull into his brain, and it took three days for him to
die."

"Good!"
Garrett said sharply.

"Yeah,"
Justin agrees. "I can live with that."

"What
about Alex Bremer?" I ask, eager to move on.

Lena
works on him while the rest of us quietly finish our wine. It seems to be
taking her longer this time, digging deeper and deeper into his trail.

"Something
wrong?" Justin finally asks, interrupting her angry typing.

"No,"
Lena answers. "I just have to track him differently than the other
two."

Garrett
is concerned. "Why's that?"

"He
stopped getting arrested," she replied as-a-matter-of-factly. "A few
thefts and petty crimes after your mothers attack, and then Alex Bremer
vanishes from the eyes of the law."

"Is
he dead too?" I blurt out, hopefully not sounding too happy for that to be
the case.

"It
crossed my mind," Lena says. "But no death certificate exists for
him, so I kept looking. So far I found a marriage certificate and tax returns
with a dependent listed, a fourteen year old girl. It looks like he got his
shit together and started a life and a family."

Garrett
snarls. His nose is wrinkled, top lip curled and teeth bared like a defensive
dog. "Is that supposed to be enough? Because he got a job, a wife, and a
kid, that means he's off the hook for the lives he ruined. You can rape
someone, but as long as someone else has your baby it's okay?"

"No.
It doesn't make it okay," Justin grumbles in agreement. "A crime was
committed, there needs to be some punishment."

We all
agree with them, but it would be so much easier to do if there wasn't a young
girl about to be devastated by our actions.

Aren't
we about to ruin their lives?

"Let's
get everything we can on him, cell numbers, and employment. Dump his address
and information to my cell," Justin orders. "We're going to start
with him—tomorrow!"

I know
exactly why we're not waiting. This is a live training session and Justin would
rather know now if Garrett can really do this or not.

Justin
turns toward his brother, his eyes growing into his serious JP glare.
"Tell me you know how to fire a weapon?"

Garrett
throws his head completely back and bellows of his sharp laughter fill the
quiet room.

I
t's been a twenty-four hour lesson in
patience for Garrett Sumpter. They could simply have gone right into the
residence and shot Alex Bremer in the head and left when they confirmed he was
home a few hours ago, but it wouldn’t be clean. It's the difference of doing
something and doing something right.

"I
don't like that we haven't seen the wife or daughter," I confess.
"It's a school day; why didn't she go?"

Justin
agrees. I think that is the reason we haven't moved yet, it's an unanswered
question. "Find out from Lena what school she goes to and her attendance
records," he commands.

I put
her on it with a text and wait for her reply.

"They
didn't open a fuckin' curtain all day. Did you guys notice that?" Garrett
asks.

We can
only nod. There's no explanation for anything yet. Maybe they've left him.

Earlier,
Justin had sent one of his men to monitor Alex at work as a Transporter at
Newark Berth Israel Hospital. He was there on time and left on time. Our guy
followed him from work to home on Stuyvesant Avenue in Newark, signaling to us
as he drove by and left us on the street alone.

No one
else ever came or left the house.

My
phone vibrates softly. It's Lena calling me back already.

"No
school," she says flatly. "There's no record of her anywhere, not
even private schools."

"What
the fuck!" I breathe. "This is just getting weirder by the
moment."

"I
found something else, too," Lena adds. "His wife's mother apparently
lives there with them, her social security checks are sent there. But she must
be in perfect health, because she hasn't had a medical record in six
years."