The Fall and Rise of Kade Hart: A Hart Brothers Novel (2 page)

I couldn’t think straight. Images of my
butchered family kept speeding through my head. My hand clenched my
hair, grasping a handful of it. I wanted to rip every damn strand
of it out. I screamed as loud as I could as I drove. Then it hit
me. I needed money. Dad always said he kept an emergency stash of
cash in his safe. That’s where I needed to go.

My dad didn’t believe in keeping his
valuables at home. Dad was a gemologist and owned a jewelry store.
He always said that keeping his safe at an obscure location was a
much smarter place for it than storing it at home. My next stop was
a storage facility where dad kept the safe. He’d chosen a facility
that wasn’t under surveillance—one that didn’t attract attention.
If you ask me, it looked sketchy, but he said that was the idea. No
one would ever think he’d be foolish enough to keep a safe
there.

I drove to the location and it was dark and
creepy. Under usual circumstances I would’ve been fine, but I was
so freaked out and panic-driven, I wasn’t sure I could make myself
get out of the car. I knew I needed cash to go on, so I had no
choice. The more I thought about it, using my credit cards wouldn’t
be an option. If Dad told me to hide, then whoever did this would
probably know when and if I used them. Then a new surge of fear
almost did me in. What if they followed me? What if they were
watching the house? I craned my neck to see if there was anyone
about, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary, so I opened the
storage unit door and went inside. I ran to Dad’s unit, unlocked
the combination lock, and lifted the door. It was noisy and made me
even more jittery. After I pulled the string that turned on the
overhead light, I noticed the only thing in the unit was the safe.
He used to keep odds and ends in here, but they had all been
removed. I didn’t spend time thinking about it, but went directly
to the safe, unlocked it, and dumped the contents of it in an empty
duffle bag I had in my car. Not even sparing a second to see what
was inside, I closed everything back up and was back behind the
wheel in minutes.

With my heart still clanging my chest, I
headed toward the interstate, to an unknown destination. Then a
thought hit me. GPS! My cell phone. It had GPS. Could I be tracked?
I couldn’t remember. I would dump it anyway, just to be on the safe
side. But I had to delete everything on it, as in my contacts or
they could find me through my friends. Shit, shit, shit!

“Calm down! Think, think, think, Jules.”

I wasn’t cut out for this. I was twenty-two
years old and had just graduated from college with a degree in
computer science for crying out loud. Coming up with a safe house
wasn’t in my repertoire. So I did the only thing I could think of.
I drove to the most obvious place—the police station. I even
thought about walking inside and reporting what I’d found, but a
voice in the back of my brain advised me against it. Again, call it
intuition. As I sat in the parking lot, I quickly did a mass delete
on all my contacts, and texts. Then I drove to a dumpster, where I
ran over my phone several times, effectively crushing it, before
tossing it inside.

Not much later I was on I-10 headed west to
an unknown destination. In less than an hour, my life had taken a
one hundred and eighty degree turn. I had just driven this way as I
came home from LSU, in tears because I was leaving my friends
behind. Now I was in tears for a much more compelling reason. My
family had been slaughtered in our own home and the carnage left
behind would haunt my waking and sleeping hours until the day I
died. Forcing back the tears that threatened to overcome me, I
drove on. I needed to push it all aside and figure out a plan. If I
didn’t, I feared I would be in the same situation as they were. I
had to pull off the road a few times when my sobs and tears made it
impossible to see or drive. But later, my vision blurred for a
different reason—exhaustion. It was right before midnight when I
checked into a Days Inn outside of Houston, Texas. I paid for the
room in cash and took the duffle bag I filled in the storage unit,
along with my overnight bag in the room. I was thirsty and
should’ve been hungry, but the contortions in my guts were so
damned awful, I knew I’d never be able to swallow a bite.

Once settled, I dug out the contents of the
duffle bag. As expected, there was a lot of cash. I counted over
fifty thousand. That was good and bad. Good, because I would need
the money to survive on for who knew how long. Bad, because I would
have to be very careful. Carrying that much cash was dangerous.
There was also a metal box that contained loose diamonds. What I
would do with those, I had no clue. I would hide them somewhere and
figure that out at a later time. Then I found an unusual necklace.
It was a black metal chain and some kind of odd-looking
gemstone—one I had never seen before. With it was a folded up note
in a strange script. I couldn’t read it, but there were also notes
in my father’s handwriting. His notes read:

Necklace brought in by customer and left
with me. Unknown substance. Never before seen. Checked all data
entries to date and could not identify. Customer also gave me the
untranslatable note. Took to linguistics professor at Tulane and he
was unfamiliar with the language. Predates anything he’d ever seen.
My best guess—some ancient tribal torque. Stone seems to pick up
unusual traits when exposed to heat, cold, darkness and light.

And that was it. There was also a Bible with
it and a few passages marked. That wasn’t surprising since my dad
was a very spiritual man.

But then as I was putting everything away, a
small slip of thick paper fell out of the Bible. All it said
was:

To the keeper: wear at all times. Let not it
fall into false hands lest ye face universal destruction.

The handwriting was odd and not my father’s.
What did this mean? Why was it so important to wear this all the
time? And if it were so important to be worn, what was it doing in
my father’s safe, obviously
not
being worn by anyone? What
did it mean by false hands? And where did Dad get this? And why
wasn’t he able to identify the stone? He was a gemologist, for
crying out loud. He should’ve been able to identify any kind of
stone. So many damn unanswered questions. I looked at the paper
again. It was yellowed and thick, like old parchment. The letters
were drawn and looked more like symbols, now that I inspected it
more closely. What did this mean? As my fingers brushed across the
surface of the paper, I found that it wasn’t really paper at all,
but a type of stiff cloth. I lifted it up to the light, not quite
sure what I was searching for. As I stared at it, something seemed
to go in and out of focus. I blamed it on my sleep-deprived state.
I’d been up late the night before, partying with my friends. And
now dealing with this, my brain was not functioning properly. I
knew I needed to crash, but I doubted I could actually sleep. I
decided to turn on the TV and see if a movie might lull me into a
calm enough state.

I drifted off and woke up about five-thirty.
As I lay there, I thought I heard someone sneaking around in my
room. I quickly turned the light on and didn’t breathe easy until I
made sure I was safe. Since I was awake, I grabbed my computer and
got on the hotel’s internet. I immediately checked the New Orleans
news and saw there were no murders reported. Since it was still
early, no one had probably realized my family had even been killed.
The idea that they were gone brought another round of body-racking
sobs, but I forced them back. I couldn’t let myself grieve for
them, as much as I wanted to. I couldn’t let myself curl up in that
tiny ball and wither away, even though that’s what I wanted. They
wouldn’t want that. They would want me to push on and survive. So
that’s what I did. I came up a plan. I would drive to Oklahoma
City. It seemed like an obscure enough of a town, and no one I knew
would ever think to look for me there because I didn’t know a soul
in Oklahoma. I stopped in Dallas for a couple of hours and made it
to Oklahoma City by mid afternoon, where I got a room at a Hampton
Inn.

After I checked in, I took a badly needed
shower. Luckily enough, I had organized and packed my bags for
vacation, so all my stuff was in one suitcase. After my shower, I
got on the hotel internet again to check the New Orleans news. I
was shocked to see there were no reports of my family’s murder.
What was going on? Why wouldn’t someone have called it in? My dad
owned a jewelry store and my mom worked there with him. Surely
someone had noticed they hadn’t opened in the last day. What was
going on? I came up with all sorts of weird explanations, but none
of them were solid. And then there were my sister’s friends. Why
hadn’t they come around and reported it? None of this added up.
Maybe I was wrong to have run the way I did. Maybe I should’ve
stayed and called the police. But Dad’s note was clearly meant for
me. He wouldn’t have written it in his own blood as he died, if he
didn’t think I was in danger.

I needed a reality check. Was my mind lucid?
I went back and ticked through the facts as I remembered them. Left
school and all was fine. Talked to my mom that morning and texted
her in the afternoon as I was leaving. Got home to a macabre scene.
Found Dad’s note next to his body, telling me to hide. Left home
and went to the storage unit to retrieve the contents of his safe.
Then I hit the road. How could I not be lucid? I was as sane as
ever.

Then something nagged at me. I grabbed my
computer and Googled Dad’s jewelry store. Nothing came up. That was
odd. He’d had a website forever. I revamped it two years ago and
would help him whenever he had issues with it. I just did
maintenance on the thing a month ago. His business should’ve come
up in a Google search. Next I entered his website’s address, which
was only his business’ name. That directed me to a search page, as
if the website didn’t exist. I
knew
the website existed,
damn it. What the hell was going on here? So I tried it again and
the same thing happened. I entered “Bressan’s Gems” into Google
again. Nothing showed up. It was as if the store had never existed.
I went to Yellow Pages to look them up. There was no listing. Okay,
this was really weirding me out. How could that be? How could all
this be wiped out in a matter of a couple of days? A business can’t
just disappear. That’s not possible.

Or is it? Whoever killed my parents must
have ties to the government or someone really powerful to be able
to do something like that. You can’t erase stuff from the internet
like that. Not unless you know people. Powerful people.
Shit.
I’m in deep ass trouble.
What the hell did my
dad do? Who was he mixed up with? Was he involved in diamond
smuggling or something? I couldn’t believe my dad would do anything
like that. Dad was as honest as the day is long. He and Mom
emphasized that no matter what, never ever lie. No, Dad wouldn’t do
anything illegal. This was something else. And I wasn’t sure I
wanted to find out.

I slammed my computer shut, packed up my
stuff, and left. I needed to get the hell out of there. If they
were tracking anyone Googling the store, they could track the IP
address where I Googled it from. I had no time to spare.

Nine hours later, I pulled into Albuquerque,
New Mexico. There would be no hotel for me this time. Instead, I
headed to an outdoor and camping store and purchased a tent,
sleeping bag, and sleeping pad. I also bought a bunch of other
equipment, such as a lantern, cooler, and items one would need for
camping. Dad used to take us camping when we were young, so I was
familiar with the basics of it. Then I asked the sales clerk where
a good campground was. He gave me several options and off I went.
That tent became my temporary home. During the evening, I also
devised a new a plan. I didn’t know if I could pull it off, but if
I knew if I didn’t, I would most likely die because I had no doubt
the people who killed my family would find and kill me too. It was
a huge risk, and I would have to be as convincing as I’d ever been,
but if it worked, it would be the key to saving my life.

Present Day

The Narcotics Anonymous meeting is about half
over. As I stare across the circle we have formed, I take note of
the attendees’ faces. Some are apathetic; some are hopeless. It’s
the faces with the hardened looks—as cold and unbending as the
metal chairs on which we are seated—that I worry about the most.
The others I can help. I’ve been there and can relate. The ones who
know in their minds, who’ve constructed an impenetrable wall and
have convinced themselves they’re right, are the ones that I have
the most difficulty with. They never believe.

One of them speaks up. His name is Drew and
he tries to antagonize Jen. Jen is mild mannered and has been drug
free for six months. Drew isn’t clean. He argues with her about
some inane thing, just to upset her. It’s beginning to piss me off.
This meeting isn’t about this. It’s about trying to help others
beat their addictions.

It’s time for me to step in. “Drew, is there
a point to your comments?”

“I think so. Jen can’t know about my
suffering.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s mine and not hers.”

“That’s true, but Jen has dealt with a great
many of her own issues. This is a meeting where we come to share
and learn from each other, and not tear each other down, so we can
put it to use—to perhaps help us either stay clean or get clean.
It’s understandable that you feel no one knows your suffering. But
do you know theirs?”

His anger surfaces but he tries to hide it.
He’s fighting an internal conflict that manifests as a clenching
jaw and twitching muscles in his cheeks. How do I know this? I’ve
experienced everything he’s going through. He’s dying to make some
kind of remark, but he knows the rules and can’t.