Wild Aces (28 page)

“And do I want to know how you made sure of that?”

He finally looked away even though the light was still red. “Probably not.”

“But he’s mobile?”

“They still have both their legs, yeah.” The car was moving again. “But they’re bad fucking people, and they deserve to have them cut off. Their arms, too. But I didn’t do that, so don’t worry.”

If they were raising that little boy in that environment and treated him as badly as I feared, then maybe I agreed. No kid deserved that.

We were out of the city now and in a suburb. Although I knew the town, we were in an area I didn’t know that well. I tried to pay attention to the turns he was taking, but I was having a hard time pulling my eyes off him. There was something different about Trapper today. He was still all edge and roughness, still very much in control. But after he had showered at his place and met me in the kitchen, his hair all wet, smelling like sandalwood and fall, there was a thin layer of vulnerability in him. I felt it even more now that we were in his car.

His hand touched my leg. It only stayed there for a second, as if he were trying to get my attention. “You don’t have to look away, Brea. I like it when your eyes are on me.”

He’d felt my stare. I wasn’t surprised by that. I also wasn’t going to talk about it.

“How do you know Max Dawson?”

“Dawson was a client. We’ve worked something out where he gives me tips.”

“Tips…on the children who live there?”

“Yeah, and their parents or guardians, not that you can really call them that.” He glanced at me again. “We research them, get to know them on paper to make sure they’re right for us. We find out what they need, and then we proposition them. Once they agree, we set up a date. Rarely do we have surprises…but we obviously ran into one that night.”

The car came to another stop.

“Trapper, I don’t understand.”

“You will.” He pointed out the windshield and toward the two-story building in front of us. It was all brick with almost no windows, sitting at the bottom of a dead-end street. It looked like a small factory or a storage facility. “Welcome to the compound, Brea.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer. He just got out of the car and opened my door, holding out his hand for me to grab. I clung to it as we walked across the path toward the wooden door.

“I’m nervous,” I said. “I’m not even sure why.”

“I am, too.”

I stopped moving, not liking the sound of that. “Trapper, what am I about to walk into?”

He looked down at his feet, and I could almost see him processing my question. Then the storm was back and staring at me, the vulnerability even thicker now.

“It’s a place that I wish someone would have taken me to when I was a kid. But instead, I went from hole to hole, my world getting uglier and darker each time. No one wanted me. They just wanted someone to beat on, someone to scream at, someone to treat like shit. I had no way out of the system.”

“Oh my God.” I shivered and started to wrap my hands around my stomach, but I stopped and wrapped them around him. Snow hit my face, trickling into my eyes. The wind was burning my ears. My teeth chattered…and I didn’t want to move. As difficult as it was to hear, as much as it hurt to know this, I didn’t want to leave this moment.

He pulled us under the overhang to stop the snow from hitting our faces. “I’m happy Cody was the one who was saved, that his childhood was nothing like mine. I wouldn’t change that. I don’t wish he had been out there, living in those holes with me. If one of us had to go through it, I would want it to be me.” He squeezed my sides, as if he were emphasizing what he was saying. “It makes me feel better, knowing the other half of me had something good going on and a better life. That he was a real hero.”

“So are you.”

I didn’t know what really went on in that building behind him, but anyone who survived a childhood like his had to be heroic.

He shook his head. “Nah, I’m no hero, Brea. Believe me. I’m only doing what’s right. Those imports deserve a shot at a real life; they deserve food and shelter, love and attention. Not the abuse and all the suffering they had before they came here.”

“Imports?”

“I’ll show you.” He punched a code into the pad near the door.

Once we were through it, we were greeted by another door that required another code. And through that door was what looked like a living room. There was a huge TV, a sectional, and lots of bookshelves filled with colorful children’s books. Toy baskets aligned the walls, overflowing with stuffed animals, balls, and games.

A woman approached us. It was one of the women who had been at the apartment that night. She and Trapper kissed on the cheeks before she reached for my hand.

“Brea, this is Adrianna,” he said.

Rather than shaking my hand, she held it softly between hers. It was something my mother would have done if she were meeting one of my friends.

“I wish we had met under better circumstances,” she said. “But it’s wonderful to see you again. I’m so happy you’re here.”

Her brown eyes were so tender. I felt comfortable with her immediately.

“Adrianna was my social worker,” he said. “She was the only person who cared about me back then and the only one who saw that I had more potential than the scum I was living with.”

She brushed a piece of hair out of his eye, and the gesture almost melted me. She was beautiful and fit, classy in the way she dressed. Nothing about her felt threatening. And even though I didn’t know anything about her, I was grateful for her, grateful that she had seen the potential when Trapper was a little boy and cared enough about him to stick by him now that he was a grown man.

“He’s one of the few who stayed in touch with me after he was adopted,” she said.

“When I got the idea for this place, I went to Adrianna and asked her to help me build it.” He looked at the ceiling and at each of the walls. “This is hers as much as it’s mine.”

“You’re giving me too much credit, Trapper.” She looked back at me, her cheeks a little red. “This was his dream, and he’s changed the lives of so many kids.”

Adrianna referred to them as kids, and there was no question that this room was designed with them in mind. But there was still so much I didn’t understand.

“Why do you call them imports?” I asked.

“I’m going to leave you two now, so he can answer that himself.” She reached for my hand again. Her skin was still so warm. “We have a transaction taking place in about an hour. I would love for you to come to it. But if I don’t see you before you leave, it was a real pleasure, Brea. I hope to see you again soon.”

“Yes, same here.”

Adrianna walked away as Trapper guided me down a hallway. We stopped in front of the first door we came to. The lights were on. It was a small bedroom, the walls a light pink with animal decals on them. Stuffed giraffes were in the corner; kangaroos and rhinos lined the shelves. There were lions on the comforter, and a little girl slept underneath it.

“She’s two and a half.” He stared at her as he spoke, “When Adrianna picked her up, she was in the basement of a house that had no heat. It was thirty fucking degrees down there, and she was naked. Hadn’t eaten in days. Covered in her own shit and playing with a dead rat. Our doctor had to treat her for weeks because Adrianna thought she had eaten some of the rat.”

A knot lodged in the back of my throat as I looked at the beauty with the big golden curls, peacefully asleep under the lions.

“She’d been abused by her father, her mother left her, and we’re pretty sure her brother molested her. She screams when she’s in the dark, so there has to be light wherever she is.”

“Oh my God, Trapper, I can’t even…”

“I can’t either.” He was now looking at me. “I can’t understand why anyone would treat them that way. But I was one of them, Brea. I was her at her age, so I know what she went through. I know what she’s feeling. I know…” He shook his head and pulled me to the next door.

The little boy I’d held at the apartment the other night was inside. Now, he was all cleaned up. He was wearing the cutest pair of overalls and a striped shirt, and his little white socks had cars painted on them. He was playing with blocks now instead of a beer can.

“I can’t call them by their names. I can’t refer to them as little girls and little boys because it hurts too goddamn much. Giving them an identity would bring me closer to them, make them more real in my head. I can’t take that risk because I’d want to take each of them home with me. I’d want to get them the best teachers and therapists and give them hope…give them the life I didn’t have. But I can’t do that, so that’s why I don’t get too close and why Adrianna and I came up with the term
imports
. All the employees here use it—not to the kids’ faces, but when we’re talking about them. It’s what’s best for all of us.”

When the little boy looked at us, Trapper smiled and waved. It wasn’t the same smile he gave me. This was one I’d never seen before. It was soft and playful, honest and endearing. The little boy waved back, and Trapper waved again. Trapper was playing a game with him, and the boy loved it, giggling each time Trapper revealed himself and squealing when he hid.

This was who he really was, the man behind all the darkness, the one who had been abused and tortured as a kid and now wanted to save children who were just like him.

When I’d left the apartment that night, I had thought Cody was the hero for saving those kids who were playing in the street, and Trapper was a monster who sold them. That wasn’t the truth at all. He wasn’t selling them. He was saving them…saving them from becoming him.

Trapper gave him one more wave before we moved on to the next door. There was a crib in this room with a baby sleeping in it. There were ladybugs painted on the walls and flowers woven in the rug.

“Do I want to know?” I asked, pointing at the crib.

“No. It’s bad…they’re all bad. That’s why they’re here.”

We continued moving down the hall, passing more bedrooms and several bathrooms, and we stopped at a large kitchen at the end. Trapper grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, and we sat at one of the tables. It was child-size and low to the ground. I honestly didn’t know if he’d fit, but somehow, he did.

“The way it works is, we bring the imports here and get them ready for adoption. Some take days; some take weeks. We research the hell out of the buyers. We check financial records, and we go to their homes. We make sure they’re going to give the imports a good life. Then the transaction takes place in a room on the other side of the building. We don’t bring anyone in here.”

“But you brought me here.”

“I’ve shown you the living room and a few of the bedrooms and now the kitchen, but I’ve been real careful about where I’ve brought you. Most of the kids are in the playroom right now.” He ran his thumb over one of the books on the table; it looked so small and delicate under his large hand. “They get attached real quickly to kindness and attention. They’ve never had it. Once they get it, they don’t want to let it go. They’re used to the staff here, but outsiders shake up the whole house, and it turns into one hell of a mess.”

I leaned forward, so I could rest my hands on his knees. “We don’t have to go into the playroom.”

“I only told you that last bit so you would understand what you’re walking into. I plan to show you all of it, like I told you I would. But to protect them, I’m only going to have you look into the playroom real quick. I can’t take the risk of them feeling abandoned by you.”

“Will they remember any of this?”

He shrugged. “Some are too young to remember; some will never forget.”

“Like you.”

“Yeah.” He lifted my hand to his chest. “Like me.”

“Max can’t be the only person who gives you tips.”

“He’s not. We have people all over the country who give us leads, like Max, who are looking out for the best interests of the imports and not their own pockets. Most come from out of state; very few are from here. We don’t like to do pickups where our business operates because we don’t want to take a chance of getting recognized on the street.”

Trapper had said Max was a client. I’d met his wife several times, and he’d even brought his young son to my office. Max had told me he was their only child.

“So, Max’s son Calvin is…”

“Yeah, he’s one of them.” He looked down the hallway, as though Calvin had stayed in one of the rooms we’d passed. “We found Calvin when he was three months old. He was in a house in Baltimore that was a meth lab. He had burns on his stomach, and the chemicals had singed off all his hair.”

“Jesus, Trapper.”

I wouldn’t have known that by looking at Calvin. He’d been dressed in his baseball uniform and smiled when he answered my questions. He was loved, and he had hope…and that was all because of Trapper.

“Adrianna told you there’s a transaction happening today. The buyer is a friend of mine. His name is Jameson. He also happens to be one of my poker sponsors. I’d like it if you stayed to be a part of it.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I was already feeling emotional over the thought of seeing one of these kids go to a good home. “I would love to. Yes, of course I’ll stay.”

“We’ve got some time before he gets here, so let me take you to the playroom.” He attempted to stand, his long legs trying to get traction on the fuzzy alphabet rug beneath the table. “Christ, this thing is little,” he said. He held on to the table and pulled himself up.

I stood and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I don’t want to go to the playroom and risk one of the kids seeing me. I don’t want to hurt them any more than they already have been.”

He reached behind his back and squeezed my hands.

“What you do here is absolutely amazing, Trapper. I never want to leave, yet a part of me never wants to come back. But what’s become so clear is who you really are and how much I want to be with you.” As I gazed up at him, I felt the vulnerability lift, and in its place was hesitation.

“You need to know something else,” he said. “What we do here is illegal, Brea. It’s off the books. It’s all done in cash. The imports are given new identities and—”