In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (15 page)

“Thank you, Drew,” she whispered.

“Like Papa said,” Andrew commiserated, “we’re family. I’ll take care of you just as I would James.”

The delicate smile on Kristen’s face wavered and her eyes became slightly clouded, but the sincere look on her brother-in-law’s face reassured her and she moved on, allowing herself to be comforted in the arms of Bridget Casey.

As he watched the two women turn into one of the hospital rooms, Andrew R. Tremayne wondered just how soon Kristen Marie Connors Tremayne would be joining her father and LaVonda.

Liam stood beside
his son’s bed observing with detached interest. His green eyes moved over the bandaged face, the wrists strapped tightly to the bed frame, the slight rise and fall of the sheet covering James’ chest. He looked up at the IV bottle hanging beside the hospital bed, followed the tubing down to his son’s arm, spied more tubing along the edge of the bed and turned a questioning eye to his daughter.

“He’s being catheterized,” Bridget explained as she wrote something into her brother’s chart then flipped the stainless steel cover over the record. “Until his face has healed enough he can’t do damage to it, he’ll remain in restraints.”

“Do you consider that a possibility?” Liam inquired, looking back to his son’s bandaged face.

Bridget shrugged. “Who knows what he’s likely to do, Papa. It’ll be a couple of weeks before the bandages are fully off, and until then, until he sees we haven’t mutilated him, we’d rather have him unable to undo all we’ve done.”

“What about food?” Andrew asked. He was staring intently at the IV bottle. “You can’t sustain him on that, can you?”

Bridget shook her head. “We can’t introduce a feeding tube right now for fear we’d damage his vocal chords. His nose is packed also. He won’t starve to death with just the IV for a few days.”

“Let me see those pictures you told me about,” Liam demanded.

Bridget slipped a manila envelope from under her brother’s chart and handed it to her father. “The first photo we took before Paddy operated. The second is a computer-generated composite of what he’ll look like after the swelling and bruising are gone.”

Liam slid the photos from the envelope and studied the first one. His eyes roamed over the face of his youngest son, not happy with what he was seeing. Although James’ vivid brown eyes were closed in unconsciousness, Liam could imagine their shade.  It was a color he had always detested; a tint he thought feminine.

“He doesn’t look like any member of the family I can bring to mind,” Liam sneered. He brought the picture closer, scanned the faint lines that had come into his son’s face. Liam found  the character lines even more detestable. “He looks like a cop.”

Bridget smiled. “He used to.”

Sliding the computer-generated photo on top of the first one, Liam nodded. “This I like.” He scrutinized the face before him, looked into the dark eyes, evaluated the shape and contours of his son’s new nose and cheekbones, approved of them, even thought them remarkably handsome. He turned his eyes to his daughter. “Now this is an Irish face.”

“We thought you’d approve,” Bridget commented. She glanced at Drew and found him smiling. “Is there anything you’d change, Papa?”

Liam shook his head. “Not a thing. This is a face I can look at without becoming ill.” He slid the photo back into the envelope and handed it to Bridget. “Destroy this.”

“I will.”

“When will he be awake so I can talk to him?” Liam inquired, once more turning his attention to the still man on the bed.

Looking at her watch, Bridget estimated the time. “Two, maybe three, hours. I gave him a shot of demerol, but it didn’t knock him out for long. I gave him a strong tranquilizer about an hour before you arrived.”

“As soon as he wakes, call me. I’ll be in your brother’s office.” Liam started to turn away, but stopped. “Have the arrangements been made for his transfer to Metarie?”

“In the morning.”

“I’d rather it be tonight. I don’t want to take the chance of someone coming here looking for Gabriel James. By now, the FBI knows every clinic you or Paddy owns.” Liam pointed a stubby finger at his daughter. “Have him moved tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good morning.”

Annie looked up to find Kyle standing at her breakfast room door. She smiled. “How did the meeting go last night?” The little dog in her arms yapped excitedly and wiggles to get free.

Kyle hung his coat on the hall tree and came to sit at the table with her, shaking his head to Nora’s offer of breakfast. “Ellen fixed a pancake feast this morning.” Patting his lean belly, he sighed. “If she and Virgil don’t get hitched soon, I’ll be topping in at four hundred pounds!”

“Give them time, Kyle,” Nora said and laughed. “Courting takes time, son.” She eyed him from behind her wire-framed glasses. “Something you haven’t been doing of late, I gather.”

Kyle blushed. “Who has time to court?”

“How did the meeting go?” Annie repeated.

Kyle’s dark eyes flicked to Annie’s. “I didn’t realize how many folks in town liked that man of yours, Annie. Didn’t Jake tell you how many people turned out?”

Annie nodded. “But I want to hear it from you. I want to know just what’s being done to find Gabe.” Her eyes were intent on his.

“Well, we’ve formed a team to go to Florida.” He glanced at Nora. “Did you tell her about that?” At Nora’s nod, he turned back to Annie. “There are a dozen of us, who—”

“Us?” Annie questioned.

“I’m taking a leave of absence until we find Gabe.”

“That could take a long time, Kyle.”

Kyle fused his gaze with hers. “I’m not going to rest until I have you and Gabe back together.” He took her hand in his and held it. “Gabe is the best friend I’ve ever had. We told things to one another we’ve never told to another living soul.”

“And yet he lied to you, Kyle,” Annie quietly reminded him.

“About some things, yes, but I understand why.” His fingers tightened on Annie’s. “I can see why he wouldn’t want me to know about his father. He was ashamed of me finding out what kind of folks he came from.”

Annie cocked her head to one side. “What did he tell you about himself, Kyle?” Her eyes narrowed in pain. “I have to know. I feel like I didn’t know him at all.”

Kyle took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He ran his free hand through his thick blond hair, tugged at his scalp, and brought his hand back down to cover the other which held Annie’s.

“I thought about this all night trying to decided what, if anything, I should tell you. How much I should tell you. Wondered just how much of it was the truth and how much was something Gabe might’ve made up. I did some checking before I came here this morning and much of what I’m gonna tell you I know is the truth. The parts that aren’t, well...” He shrugged. “I guess we won’t know the truth about them until we get Gabe back.”

“Go on.”

“How ‘bout a cup of coffee, Kyle?” Nora interrupted, sensing the young man’s need to collect his thoughts.

“That’d be nice.”

When the steaming cup of coffee sat before him, Kyle began his tale.

FBI agent Mark
Sadler sat in his Des Moines office and went over the file on James Gabriel Tremayne one more time hoping to discover something, anything, that might help the Bureau find the missing man. He looked at the 8-by-10 color glossy the man’s wife had provided, compared it to several other photos taken over the last 33 years of Tremayne’s life, and glanced at family pictures of the man’s father, mother, sister, and brothers. There were pictures of his grade school years at Sacred Heart School in Savannah, and photos taken at Benedictine Military School.

“A fate worse than death,” Sadler commented, thinking of his own years at Lyman Ward Military School in Camp Hill, Alabama.

His eyes moved to the photo that intrigued him most—a 5-by-7 portrait of James Gabriel Tremayne taken at Lachland AFB, Texas, in 1971 just before Tremayne had graduated from boot camp.

“We were there at the same time,” Sadler said to the grim-faced young man staring back at him from the photo.

He didn’t remember Tremayne, although they had gone on to Military Police training for their ‘A’ school. Somewhere along the line, he had to have met James Tremayne, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember doing so. The young man in the photo didn’t look familiar, but he and Sadler had had the same instructors through that portion of their military careers.

“Were you hiding from your father even then, Gabe?” Sadler asked the photo.

When Thomas Mark Sadler had enlisted in the Air Force in 1971, he already had four years of college under his belt and a degree in political science. He had joined the military, wanting to go to Vietnam—needing to go—because his older brother, Jerry, had died there. Sadler felt he had an obligation to avenge his older brother’s death and had figured he’d have a better chance of going to ‘Nam as an enlisted man than as an officer.

He’d been wrong. He spent his first two years at McCoy AFB, Orlando, until one of his officers nominated him for Officer’s Training School, and Sadler had jumped at the chance to get away from Florida where he had been born and raised, and felt smothered.

James Gabriel Tremayne had gone to Vietnam. Had served a tour there in 1972 and ‘73. Had been there when the troops were pulling out. Had earned himself an Air Force Commendation Medal and a Bronze Star.

“Not exactly what your father would have planned for you, huh, Gabe?” Sadler asked as he reviewed the distinguished record James Tremayne had made for himself in the military police.

There were commendations from Tremayne’s commanding officers; good APRs from his NCOs; glowing recommendations from community leaders at Chanute AFB, Illinois, where James Gabriel Tremayne had helped tutor school kids. Tremayne had gone to night school, weekend classes, and had taken as many CLEP tests as he could so by the time he left the Air Force, he had a little less than two years left before getting his college degree.

Tremayne had not re-enlisted as Sadler had in 1975. James Gabriel Tremayne had gone back to Florida and taken a job with the Florida State Patrol in Marianna. And in the two years he worked in Marianna, he had earned his Criminal Justice degree from FSU in Tallahassee. Tremayne had graduated with a 3.5 GPA, and one cool February morning, a DEA agent from Panama City came knocking on his door.

“Agent Tremayne is an exceptional law officer. He is well-versed in the legal aspects of his profession, has taken numerous courses to enhance his understanding of the problems we, as drug enforcement personnel, must face in stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the State of Florida, and has instigated several programs into our school system to help draw out underage traffickers.

“He has a firm grasp of the overwhelming odds against us in this profession, but has the drive, the desire, and most importantly of all, the commitment to see those who deal in drugs are brought to justice.”

Sadler’s brow arched in admiration as he continued to read the glowing commendation Tremayne’s superior officer had given him. Setting the letter aside, he read the last report written on DEA Agent James Gabriel Tremayne.

“He has been in and out of several drug dependency units in the last three months. With his past problem with alcohol and now this even more severe problem with heroin, we have no alternative but to discharge Agent Tremayne.”

“What happened, Gabe?” Sadler asked. He had studied every report available. He’d read and re-read Kyle Vittetoe’s statement. He’d read the newspaper article, interviewed via phone Joan Johannsen, who appeared to be a friend of Tremayne’s.

“Jamie Tremayne was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong woman, Agent Sadler,” the newswoman had told him. “It might’ve started out just being a fling, you know? But he fell in love with Kristen Connors. I really believe he loved her. I don’t think he’d have married her, pregnant or not, if he hadn’t loved her, but I think there was more to it than that by then.”

“What do you mean?” Sadler had asked.

“By the time he married Kristen, Jamie knew who her father was. I think he thought that would be a good way to infiltrate the Connors’ organization. He didn’t count on Griffin Connors calling Liam Tremayne into it.”

“Was Tremayne afraid of his father, Mrs. Johannsen?”

There had been a snort of derision on the other end of the line. “Afraid of him? Agent Sadler, I don’t think there was anything that man was afraid of before November 15th, 1986. Jamie Tremayne had guts. He had grit, you know what I mean? He’d just have soon spit in his father’s face as look at him.

“I don’t know what that man did to Jamie when he was growing up, but the boy sure as hell didn’t have any good feelings for the old man. Jamie had a chip on his shoulder a mile thick and I’ll be willing to bet Liam Tremayne carved it there. Fear him? No. Jamie didn’t fear him.” There had been a long pause. “Not then anyway.”

Mark Sadler sat back in his chair. Johannsen told him she thought Tremayne had been responsible for having his son kidnapped in 1986. Sadler was having a hard time imagining a father doing such a cruel thing to his own son.