Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 62710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Yes, Western was paying for the boys Bill was selling, and then selling them for more. I got that loud and clear when I just discovered what I did. My mind is racing to come up with a plan. Something that will get me out of this alive. All I need is to free myself and run, then I can find a way to put them all away, right where they belong. In prison. Rotting.
“I don’t know how he was doing it for so long, buying those boys off me and acting like an outside buyer, and then sending them off to start a new life with a new identity. I didn’t follow up, why would I? I got my money, got my sale, and the boys stayed gone...until they didn’t. When one returned, I knew something was going wrong. A little bit of digging lead me right to your biker.”
Wait.
What?
What is he saying?
That’s not...
That’s not what I thought.
No.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be true.
If he’s saying what I think he’s saying, then Western has been saving them all along.
I’ve made a mistake. A big mistake.
How could I have gotten this so very wrong?
15
Bill makes me drive past the town and out the other side. My phone rings the entire time, vibrating in my pants. I’m desperate to grab it, to answer it, to tell Western how sorry I am. I can’t believe I thought he was the bad guy in all of this. I can’t believe I didn’t trust him. Of course he has been saving the boys, it all suddenly makes so much sense to me now. He is the hero and I branded him a monster.
My heart screams in pain.
Bill continues to talk as if we’re on a casual date.
He brags about how clever he is, about how Western is going down, about how he has enough proof to bring the entire club down for life. Then, he’ll just move to another town and keep his little ring of terror going. Only this time, he’ll be earning more because now he knows that he has been earning far less ‘selling’ the boys to what he thought was a buyer taking them overseas, when all along it was Western setting it up to come back to him.
Now he can make double the amount.
He thinks he has won.
I have to outsmart him.
I have to get out of this car, get to the club and warn Western.
This has to end, and it has to end now.
“It won’t matter,” I say, trying to throw him off. “If the club goes down, people will become far more aware of what’s happening and you won’t get away with it. Your little plan will be out in the open and you’ll fail.”
Bill chuckles. “There are towns far enough away that I can take my business to where it’ll be like chopping fresh meat, untouched.”
He makes me sick.
“Western was in prison for twenty years. He was being accused of having something to do with it back then. How can it have possibly gone on for so long. If they had ‘evidence’ back then, they would have charged Western and the club.”
“We threw that in for good measure, a bit of town gossip. There had been talk of the missing kids, but there was no proof. Why not throw it out there for people to wonder about when it comes to Western? After the shooting, people were more concerned about the monster in town than they were about the few missing teenagers that the police had already announced were runaways. I was more careful after that, scattering my sales between five or six different states. Can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
This is what power gets you.
Bill and whoever he’s working for own the police in this town, and no doubt many others. That means, they can spin a story whatever way they want. They couldn’t pin the foster kids going missing on the club, but they could make sure the town thought it was them. They could make sure Western’s name was ruined, and in doing that, they would be covering their own tracks to keep their own little plan going.
It's genius.
Bill continues talking when I don’t answer.
“The only thing that club did that was smart, was to become a buyer for the boys. They started saving them, like they’re some sort of fucking heroes. They couldn’t have honestly thought I wouldn’t find out. I find out everything. That’s why Daniel is lying in a grave right now, his son beside him, because he dared question me when it was his child on the line.”
Is that why Bill killed Daniel, because he threatened to bring what he was doing to light?
“I don’t understand how you can take boys so easily, and nobody notices.”
Bill grins, all proud of himself. I know he’ll brag because he thinks he has won. He is certain this is the end of the line for me. I want him to brag because I want as much information as I can get.