Chapter 11 #2
“I had to do some serious hacking to discover that Gunner Watson’s birth name was Morgan Baxter.”
“Interesting that the family who adopted him chose to change his first name. I’d understand it if he’d been a baby, but eleven?”
“Considering what happened, I’m almost not surprised.
” He rolled his neck. “Morgan Baxter, aka Gunner Watson, was born to two homeless addicts. Until he was six years old, he lived between the streets, shelters, and the occasional low-income housing, barely scraping by, until his mom died. His dad couldn’t take care of him, and a few months later, he was taken into child services.
He went from one foster family to the next, and he didn’t fare well in the system.
At first, he was a shy, quiet kid, not saying or doing much.
He didn’t act out, but he barely spoke, making it hard for anyone to want to adopt him. When he was ten, something happened.”
“What do you mean?” Savvy found the documents regarding Gunner’s adoption on the tablet and swiped at the screen while Locke tossed a few curse words at Patch in the background. “Was he abused? Sexually assaulted?”
“Not sexually,” Darius said. “The foster family he lived with took on kids for the money. They didn’t treat the kids well. Withheld food, snacks, even basic hygiene if the kids didn’t do what they wanted around the house or with their small business.”
“That’s horrible. How do people like that stay foster parents?”
“The system is highly flawed,” Darius said. “Anyway, Gunner had been acting out in school. In the report I read, the psychologist believed it was in response to what was happening at home.”
“Jesus, this article says he helped save all his foster brothers and sisters during a fire.” Savvy lifted the tablet, bringing it closer to her face.
“That’s the official story, but I dug a little deeper and there are some issues with that,” Darius said.
“The fire was started in the hallway by a candle. The older children swear that the foster parents never left the candles burning after they went to bed, but the autopsy showed they were drunk and stoned.”
“It could have been one of the kids playing with them.”
“Fair enough, but one of the neighbors said they saw Gunner helping all the younger kids out of the house before the flames burst through the window. They didn’t know what Gunner was doing and were contemplating calling the police since they’d seen some shady shit go down in that house.
They’d always been concerned, especially since the family recently had a child of their own.
But then the flames burst through the upstairs window.
That’s when they saw Gunner run across the street to a different neighbor, asking for them to call for help. ”
“Okay, but he was a scared kid. And he did save everyone but the parents.”
“That’s true. However, the cops and the fire investigator had some issues with his story.
The upstairs was engulfed in flames. It was so bad they wondered how long the fire had been going on and how Gunner managed to get the kids, including the baby, since the kids’ crib was in the parents’ room.
They couldn’t prove anything, but they constantly showed up at his new foster parents’ home asking questions.
These were the same foster parents who ended up adopting him.
Once that went through, they legally changed his name, asked the judge for a special circumstance to seal and redact his record.
Because there was literally no evidence regarding Gunner and the fire, the judge buried Gunner’s previous name from almost every database to protect him from media outlets and further harassment.
If I go looking for Morgan Baxter, I’ll find all sorts of things on him until right before his eleventh birthday, and then the trail goes completely dark.
I mean ghost dark. It’s like he vanished without a trace. ”
“But you found him.”
“It took some doing, and only because I know what rocks to uncover,” Darius said. “That brings me to the second interesting fun fact of the day.”
“I’m not sure I like the way you said that.”
“Did you know that Patch was adopted?”
“Yeah.” Savvy nodded. “He doesn’t talk about it much.
His biological parents died when he was an infant.
Only three months old. Obviously, he has no memory of that at all.
His aunt on his mom’s side and her husband adopted him.
They’d already had Hannah, who was ten. Tragically, his adoptive parents were killed in a car crash when he was fourteen.
It was an accident, but whoever hit them drove away, and they were never found.
Hannah died about two years ago after an active shooter shot up a grocery store.
Three people died and four others were injured. Shooter was never found.”
“That’s a lot of death under strange circumstances for a young boy and man to cope with.”
Savvy nodded as the memory of that conversation flooded her brain… “His parents died in a house fire.”
“That’s the second interesting fact I wanted to share. Patch was in that house with Gunner,” Darius said. “Those were his biological parents.”
“Jesus, that’s one hell of a coincidence.
” Savvy glanced over her shoulder. Patch paced in the small room in front of Locke while her brother sat in one of the wooden chairs, back to her, facing Mendoza and Riven leaned against the counter.
“Okay, but why save Patch only to want him dead years later?” she whispered.
“I mean, I get Gunner was just a kid himself, but what’s the connection? What happened?”
“This all might be a stretch, but I did some more digging.” Darius sighed.
“Gunner Watson got into a fair amount of trouble as a teenager. Nothing big. Nothing that would red flag him for the military in general, but it did put that mark on him for Special Forces and team leader. It’s why when his psych eval came back wonky, the higher-ups went, nope, no way. ”
“But again, he slipped through the cracks. That said, those of us who work in the shadows are all a little left of normal. West has always maintained that doctors, especially surgeons, have to have some kind of sociopathic tendencies because it’s not normal to cut into the human body.
Why would doing what we do be any different? ”
“I don’t disagree with that statement, but we have to understand the difference between right, wrong, and when to dance between the two. That’s a fine line.”
Savvy nodded in agreement.
“Anyway, at first, his adoptive parents believed his behavior was all because of what happened to him as a child. I decided I needed to get an inside view of Gunner, and I looked up a couple of the kids in that foster home and called them.”
“You’ve been a busy beaver.”
“It’s my job.” Darius chuckled. “Anyway, I only got hold of two of them who remember anything of value.”
“And?”
“Here’s the thing: Alice and Charlie Nagel only saw the foster kids as paychecks.
They treated those kids like crap. But Patch, their biological baby, was treated like a prince.
That baby got everything. He might have only been an infant, but they all knew he was special, and they were gnats.
Alice went as far as making homemade baby food and clothing for Patch, but the other kids, they were lucky if they got clothes plucked from dumpsters, and the same went for food sometimes. ”
“Jesus, that’s horrible… and that was his birth mother?
His adoptive mother’s sister? I wonder if she knew?
” Sadly, there wasn’t anyone left to ask.
Patch never felt unloved or unwanted. His aunt and uncle, who became the only parents he ever knew, adored him.
They treated him no differently than Hannah.
And his sister returned home to help raise him the second their parents died. “This is like a bad horror movie.”
“I know,” Darius agreed. “From what I can tell, Gunner had an okay childhood from the time he was adopted, but his parents were strict. Maybe a little too strict based on the trouble he got into. I’m not done doing that deep dive, but I’ve spoken to a few people who’ve said that the Watsons were tough on Gunner.
Demanded he be the best and the smartest. When he wasn’t, he was punished. ”
“What do you mean by punished? Was he beaten?”
“I don’t believe it was like that, but more mental abuse.
His soccer coach said his dad was every coach’s worst nightmare.
Always belittling Gunner from the sidelines.
Yelling at him, comparing him to other kids who were better or working harder.
That kind of bullshit. Add that to the kind of start he had the first eleven years, and it’s a recipe for disaster. ”
“But it’s not an excuse for leaving good men to die or putting a hit out on me.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not.”
She hated being called ma’am, but she wasn’t about to say anything to Darius. Besides, most men in the military used the term. It was a form of respect, and correcting men like Darius would only be considered a slap in the face.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Only Remy and Gerard are heading in your direction via the waterway system to collect those two idiots. Not exactly sure what they plan on doing with them just yet. But they’ll discuss it with you all. Probably turn them over to someone we know and trust in the DoD.”
“Stone and Cross are on their way too.”
“Good. We need a plan moving forward.”
She rubbed her temples. “I don’t know whom I can trust in my network.
I want to believe West isn’t in on this.
He’s always been a decent man. Levelheaded.
Men before the mission kind of thing. Vance is a little more mission-oriented, but I can’t get over the fact that he could be playing both sides. ”
“I hear you and I respect that, but I’ve learned over the years to trust three things.
My gut, my instincts, and data. All three tell me that Vance played both sides of this for years.
But he did so in order to get the job done for the country.
He’s totally misguided in that. However, he never intended for it to be a money-making thing, and I did look into his finances.
The man doesn’t have any accounts linked to any offshore banks.
No weird investments. I’m still digging, but there’s nothing so far.
” Darius held up his hand. “Yes, I’m running those same checks on West, Gunner, and everyone else on your team.
Everyone except West and Hale has hinky income and money trails that make me believe they're on the take.”
“That really doesn’t make me feel any better.”
A splash of water followed by the faint hum of a two-stroke filled the air. “Someone’s coming. I’d best be on my way. We’ll touch base later.”
“Watch your back.”
The screen went dead. She set the computer on the porch, rose, and ducked her head inside.
“We’ve got company.” She snagged the rifle and made a beeline for the brush.
Just because Darius said friendlies were on their way, didn’t mean shit.
Someone put a hit on her, and until that went away, she was on high alert.