Chapter 1
HAWKE
“You’re lying,” I snapped even though in my gut, I knew he wasn’t.
I couldn’t explain how I knew, I just did.
And I’d learned long ago to trust my instincts, even when my head was telling me not to.
But I kept my gun pointed at the man – Tate – because I also knew he was my only link to the men I was looking for.
“I swear, I’m not,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Daddy,” the little boy whispered with a tug on his father’s shirt.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Tate murmured as he reached behind himself to put his hand on his son’s shoulder. But his eyes never left mine. “Please,” he begged.
But I didn’t just hear his plea. I heard hers too. How many times had the same word fallen from her frightened lips as she was being brutalized? And it just hadn’t been her life she’d been begging for…
“Sir…”
I hadn’t realized I’d dropped my eyes to the little boy until Tate’s shaky voice got my attention. I knew without question that the kid was the linchpin…even a subtle threat against him would get me what I wanted.
“What’s your name?” I asked the terrified little boy .
“Sir-” Tate said again, but a hard glance in his direction had him falling silent.
“Matthew,” the kid said, his voice soft and uneven. “But Daddy calls me Matty.”
Matty had stuck his head around his father’s body to answer me, but even before he finished his last statement, Tate was gently pushing the kid back behind him.
“Please sir, I’m begging you…”
I finally lowered the gun and settled my eyes on Tate. “Where are they?”
A slight shudder went through Tate’s body. “I…can I put Matty to bed? It’s…it’s really late.”
I studied the younger man for a long moment.
I was pretty sure I was right about him being in his mid-twenties and though he wasn’t quite as tall as me, he appeared more muscular than I’d first guessed.
His brown hair was just a little too long and I found a sudden and very disturbing urge to push back a few of the strands that kept falling over his forehead.
I shoved the errant thought away and took in the rest of him.
He had a rangy look to him but more than anything, I noticed the strain that made him appear to have lived every single one of his young years and then some.
His body said he was in his twenties but his eyes said he was much older… that he’d seen much more than most.
“Give me your phone,” I said.
“I…I don’t have one.”
He must have seen the irritation in my face because his eyes fell to my gun and he said, “I’m telling you the truth.
I had one of those disposable ones where you buy the minutes, but I couldn’t afford to reload it so they turned it off a couple days ago.
” Tate swallowed hard when I rubbed my finger over the trigger on the gun.
It was a habit on my part more than anything else, but I didn’t mind if he thought the move meant something else.
“The phone is in that drawer,” he said as he pointed to a small single drawer table by the door. I kept my eyes on him as I checked the drawer and pulled out an older model flip phone. I had to turn it on and sure enough, when I tried to dial, I got a message saying the phone had been deactivated.
“What about a landline?” I asked.
Tate shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
I wondered how the hell someone managed to go this day and age without any kind of phone, but didn’t give voice to my thought.
I tossed the cell phone back in the drawer and went back to stand in front of Tate and his son who was peeking around his father’s leg to watch me with curiosity.
“Where’s his room?” I asked.
“Back there,” Tate said, motioning behind him with his head.
I nodded and Tate quickly turned around and picked his son up.
He stripped the backpack the kid had been wearing off and dropped it to the floor and then cast me several glances over his shoulder as he went to a small room on one side of the cramped apartment…
although apartment was a generous term for the confined space.
From what I could tell, the kid’s room was the only actual room besides the bathroom.
The rest of the space was open and there was a tiny kitchen with a small table jammed against the dingy window.
The living room had one couch which was covered with a sheet and on one end was a single pillow and a folded blanket.
There was a small, old fashioned TV on a TV dinner tray table in the corner.
As shitty as the apartment was, the kid’s room was a whole other story.
It was painted bright blue and there were all sorts of posters covering the walls, most of them depicting some kind of superhero.
There was a laundry basket full of toys in the corner and the bed had several stuffed animals sitting on top of the Iron Man comforter.
Next to the bed was an old milk crate stacked high with books.
“Okay, let’s get jammies on,” Tate murmured as he searched through the drawers of a faded yellow dresser. I wasn’t surprised to see that the pajamas had Captain America all over them. As Tate put Matty down so he was standing on the bed and began to undress him, the little boy kept glancing my way.
“Is he gonna shoot us, Daddy?” Matty asked as he braced his hands on his father’s shoulders to steady himself as Tate worked his pants off and replaced them with the pajama bottoms.
“No, he’s not,” Tate said firmly as he got his son’s attention. “He…he just got us confused with some other people, okay?”
Undaunted, Matty shifted his attention back to me. “Why does he have a gun?”
I could see Tate didn’t have an answer for his son and when he cast a desperate glance over my shoulder, I actually felt a thread of shame go through me. I found myself tucking the gun in the waistband of my pants at my back before I could think too much on it.
“Are you looking for bad guys?” Matty suddenly asked after Tate pulled his shirt off.
“Sort of,” I answered before Tate could.
“Are you a policeman?”
Tate’s moves in getting his son dressed were quick and efficient and I wondered how much of that was related to practice and how much had to do with wanting to get his son away from me.
“No, buddy, he’s not,” Tate said. “Come on, climb into bed.”
Tate pulled back the covers and Matty took a big leap from where he was standing and landed on one of the pillows. He let out a little giggle and then began positioning all of the stuffed animals underneath the covers on his left side.
“Daddy, I forgot to brush my teeth,” Matty said as he tucked a ratty looking stuffed teddy bear next to his body.
“It’s okay, we’ll skip tonight…but just this once,” Tate admonished as he leaned down to kiss his son’s forehead. “Sleep tight-”
“No,” Matty interrupted. “Story.”
“Not tonight, buddy-”
Matty began shaking his head in earnest and I heard Tate let out a rough breath. He gave me a glance and then finally said, “Just one.”
Something deep in my belly twisted when I saw the smile that lit up the kid’s face as he wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.
It was quickly replaced with anger and I had no doubt it was written all over my face as Tate glanced at me before going to search for a book.
A look of trepidation passed over his features as he kept one hand on the edge of his son’s bed as he searched the milk crate for a book – he probably wanted to make sure he was close enough to throw his body over his kid’s if I decided to reach for my gun again.
Admiration went through me because despite the young man’s obvious and well-founded terror, he was holding it together pretty well and I had no doubt it was all for his son.
“Are you an Avenger? Is that how you got hurt?”
Matty’s question caught me off guard and I reflexively reached up to run my fingers over the burn scars on my face.
“Matty-” Tate said.
“I bet he’s like Captain America, Daddy. He’s a secret hero.”
“Maybe,” Tate managed to get out as he snatched up a book and sat down next to his son on the bed.
It took only minutes for Matty’s attention to turn from me to the story his father was telling him, and I had no doubt it was because of the way his father made all the different voices for the characters in the book.
The kid was out within ten minutes, a slight smile on his small mouth and his teddy bear tucked against his chest. I expected Tate to shift his focus back on me, but to my surprise, he seemed to forget my presence as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead.
“Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite. ”
A mix of longing and rage went through me at the same time and I turned away from the doorway. Sixty minutes…sixty minutes ten years ago was the only reason I was here and not at home with my own kid reading him a bedtime story.
Sixty minutes was all it had taken to wipe out an entire future.
I heard the bed shift and I automatically pulled my gun back out and waited. I didn’t really need the weapon, but I always felt better when it was in my hands.
Tate turned off the light as he pulled the door almost all the way shut. I could see a dim blue light coming from the room and I suspected it was a night light of some kind. Tate’s whole body drew up tight as he turned his attention on me.
“Kitchen,” I said as I waited for him to move past me.
Tate did as I said and I followed him to the kitchen and motioned to one of the two vinyl chairs.
The décor of the apartment left no doubt that the dump had either come furnished that way or the man was a thrift store shopper.
The only light that was on in the kitchen was the one above the stove so I flipped on the overhead light and went to sit down across from Tate.
He had his hands fisted on his thighs but his eyes were darting around the kitchen.
“Don’t bother,” I muttered as I laid my gun down on the table in front of me and leaned back in the squeaky chair.