Job Hunt (24 page)

Clive considered the broad-shouldered man who seemed to be guarding Jack’s back. Was he the reason Jack was different? Or had Jack become a different person months earlier, with the kidnap case that prompted his career change?

“Don’t look at me as if I know what you’re all talking about,” Gareth said when Baxter raised an eyebrow in question. “I served with him. Now he’s working for me. I have no idea what he did in between.”

“You’re full of shit,” Baxter decided after one look at the tiny smirk that curved Gareth Flynn’s full lips.

“If you say so.”

J
ACK
HAD
seen the disbelief on Baxter’s face when Nico lunged at him, but he ignored it. He had tried to explain, in the past, why teenagers like Nico and Daniel responded to him while ignoring Baxter or even Gillian Kent, who was one of the gentlest, most empathetic women he’d ever known.

Clive had listened to Jack’s careful words, but he’d never gotten it. He continued to question and demand responses. He let his frustration show, both in his face and his movements. Worst of all, though, Clive Baxter showed his disgust. The children had no way of knowing that Clive’s disgust was directed at the perpetrators—or maybe himself for having been unable to remove the threat in time. They only saw disgust, and since they’d been told they were
filth
and
worthless
and
nothing
, they believed that Clive was disgusted with them.

Clive Baxter would never understand that.

Jack tightened his arms around Nico, who was shaking so hard his teeth rattled.

“I stabbed him,” Nico repeated over and over. “He tried to take Daniel, and I stabbed him.”

“Nico, listen to me.” Jack’s soft voice cut across Nico’s litany. The boy wasn’t hearing him right now, but hopefully some of his words would sink in, to resurface later when the nightmares came calling. “If you hadn’t stabbed him, then Daniel would be gone. You wouldn’t ever see him again.”

He smiled at Daniel, who rubbed Nico’s back with one hand and held on to Jack’s sleeve with the other.

“Remember what I told you. The first rule of survival is sticking together. Holding on to each other doesn’t make you weak. You can’t put your arms around a memory, remember?”

He said it over and over, voice quiet and gentle and full of conviction. He’d repeat it all night if needed, the reassuring tone never slipping while his mind processed at a million miles an hour.

He made lists of people who had known where the boys were, lists of people who might have connections to the pimp… and he planned how to chase them. Every now and then he thought about Gareth’s promise of finding a safe place for Nico and Daniel. Whenever his thoughts strayed that way, he pulled them back. He’d made his choice. He was trusting Gareth with the arrangements.

It was almost an hour later when Jack’s phone buzzed. The caller display was blank, and Jack put the phone to his ear with a frown. “Horwood.”

“Hey,” Rafael Gallant greeted before Jack was able to draw breath to ask who was calling. “Your boss called my boss for help with hiding the boys.”

“Lisa?”

Gallant scoffed. “No. The other one. We have a safe house set up, and I’ve handpicked the guards. You and Baxter can move in if you want, but I’d not recommend it, just in case someone’s keeping tabs on you.”

Jack wrapped his arm tighter around the shivering boy in his lap. Nico’s breath came fast and shallow. He clutched his knife and clung to Jack like a drowning man clings to a lifeline. No way would Jack be able to leave him with strangers right now.

“Yeah, no,” Jack said into his phone. He
was
being watched, just not by the people Raf had in mind. “Baxter and the two uniforms need to see a doctor,” he said instead, voice neutral. “We’re ready to move.”

“I’m right on that.” Raf’s cheerful growl reached his ear a moment later. “See you in five.”

C
HAPTER
SIXTEEN
S
AFE
H
OUSE

T
HE
HOUSE
Raf Gallant took them to was in no way remarkable. Like hundreds of other properties in Golders Green, it sat on a small plot composed of driveway and patch of grass out front and a small garden in the rear. Jack noted bricks, tile, a double garage, and a few late roses around the front door and guessed at four bedrooms, maybe five if the developers had been greedy. At first glance it looked as if they had been. All the properties were detached but crammed so close to one another that Jack could have jumped from roof to roof without straining himself. The small back garden was no doubt overlooked by the neighbors. He had to keep that in mind. He had plans for the boys that included fresh air and sunshine, but not at the cost of their safety.

He slid forward on the seat as Raf opened the rear passenger door.

“Come on, guys, we’re here,” he coaxed, keeping his arm around Nico and a hand on Daniel’s elbow as the boys climbed out of the car.

The worst of the shivers had passed during the journey, but Nico had yet to let go of Jack. They settled on the large double bed in the master bedroom, Jack’s back to the headboard and Nico’s head in his lap. Daniel slid close on Jack’s other side and pulled Jack’s arm around himself.

Jack gazed down at the two teenagers in something close to wonder. That the two were willing to come to him for comfort when he wasn’t just a stranger but also a man who could easily overpower them…. He wrapped his arms around the two and sighed, anticipating that the next few days would be harder than he’d expected. Much harder.

“What happened to you?”

For a heartbeat or two, Jack’s thoughts turned to the intercom. They hadn’t discussed it, but Raf wasn’t a newbie at this game. He and his team would be recording every word the boys spoke in the hope of learning details of their ordeal without having to ask.

They would hear what Jack had to say too, and Jack was suddenly very aware of Gareth’s presence only a few rooms away.

But then Daniel looked up at him from deep blue eyes full of fear, and all thoughts of embarrassment faded.

“What happened to me? My mother.” He hugged the boys closer. “She turned tricks for drugs. One day she sold me to her pimp for a fix.”

Nico’s gasp was loud in the quiet room, but it was Daniel’s response that caught Jack’s attention. The blond boy merely nodded and burrowed closer against Jack’s side.

“Daniel’s dad did almost the same when he found out Daniel wasn’t his,” Nico confided.

“He wasn’t… kind, was he?” Daniel asked, voice muffled by Jack’s sleeve.

“He was a rat bastard,” Jack replied. He did not intend to share the details of his months of imprisonment, but Daniel surprised him once more.

“Were you caned to make you submit?”

The medical report had noted extensive scarring on the boys’ backs and thighs. Even stripes, laid deliberately by a man with skill, with control and precision—who was a dead man walking if Jack had any say in the matter. Jack had been luckier, in that way at least. The pimp who had owned him liked to hit, but he hadn’t wanted to mark his youngest and prettiest toy too badly or damage him permanently.

“Yeah. Sometimes, that was the easy way out.”

Nico nodded, and his grip on Jack grew painfully tight.

Of the two, Nico had taken more of the beatings. The boy’s lower back was a fearsome mess of scars upon scars, and the doctors were worried that his back would give him trouble as he grew. Jack rubbed softly over the rough skin on Nico’s wrists and felt the shudder that ran through the teenager.

Jack wasn’t that worried about Nico’s recovery. Nico had drawn strength from Daniel and comfort from his ability to protect the other teen. He’d fought when it counted while Daniel disappeared into his mind when he couldn’t handle reality. Daniel would be the one battling nightmares and flashbacks, the one who woke up screaming.

“Did he rent you out to other men?” It wasn’t a question as such, merely a confirmation of facts.

“Yes. One of the men carried a knife. I’m not sure why, but I took it. And I got away,” he said, skimping on the details. His fingers tunneled through Nico’s dark curls, moved to soothe. “I know you were scared today, Nico, but you did good. Really good. Clive wouldn’t have got to you in time if you hadn’t stood up to the bastard.”

“I hurt him.”

“Yes.”

“Will I get in trouble?”

“No, but he will.” Jack didn’t mind that both boys could hear the promise in his voice.

“What happened after you got away? Did you go home?”

It had never occurred to Jack to go back to live with his mother, odd as that seemed. “I lived on the streets for a while. Then I met a man called Rio. I was squatting in his basement, and he caught me.”

“Was he angry?”

“No. Rio was the best thing that could have happened to me. He let me stay at his house, he taught me about computers… and he never once asked me questions I had no answers to.”

“The pimp who had you… where is he now?”

“Dead. Just like my mother.”

“Did you kill him?”

Jack huffed a laugh and shook his head, the familiar feeling of regret in his heart. “I only helped to put him away. He died in prison.”

G
ARETH
LOUNGED
on the sofa in the living room, head against the cushions. The intercom Raf had installed was top-of-the-line. Every sound from the master bedroom came through with utter clarity. Jack’s voice was soft, at odds with the horrors he discussed with Nico and Daniel. Gareth closed his eyes against the burn and swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. He’d learned more about Jack in the last ten days than he had in the ten years before, and it scared the shit out of him.

He’d had Jack under his command for five years, and he’d barely caught a glimpse of what lay beneath that enticing surface. The more he found out about Jack’s past, the more he wondered how Jack had grown up even remotely sane, though some of Jack’s more unexpected reactions now made sense. His refusal to sleep unless he was in a defensible position, his issues with restraints of any kind, the stubborn need to do everything himself, the need to help everyone who asked—and those who didn’t—the long silences, and the way he lost himself in his work to the exclusion of even food and sleep. Just hearing Jack fight to give Daniel and Nico new hope changed everything Gareth thought he knew about Jack Horwood.

A soft touch on his arm startled him from his reverie. Gareth opened his eyes and took the mug of tea his mother held out to him with a grateful sigh.

“He’s the one,” she stated as she settled into the nearest armchair with her own mug of tea. “Jack Horwood. He’s the one. Right?”

Gareth answered with a half nod, half shrug and a tiny smile. “It’s complicated.”

“It will get worse. He’ll feel fifty shades of awkward tomorrow, knowing you’ve heard all that.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I’ve been listening,” his mother disagreed, relaxing as if she’d spent the last twenty-five years in this house, rather than the last two hours. “He’s cutting his heart out to help those boys, and he didn’t strike me as the sort who likes to show off his scars.”

“Definitely not,” Gareth scoffed. “I had him for five years, and I had no idea.”

“And that bothers you.”

“Yes, it bothers me. A lot.”

He’d always thought that Jack was special. Now he was sure. Jack had not only gotten out of a hell not of his devising, he had then turned himself into someone who cared for others, almost to the exclusion of his own safety.

Alex Marston had briefed him about Jack’s last case, a kidnapping just before the London Olympics. Jack had hated the political maneuvering and deal making that had gone on behind the scenes while the victims’ lives hung in the balance. He’d shown remarkable patience with all the shifting and meddling around him, but in the end, he’d ignored protocols and policies and had gone rogue to find and free the kidnapped family. Then he’d tendered his resignation, right there in the hospital corridor.

The style of narrative had made it clear that Alexandra didn’t just condone Jack’s actions. She entirely approved. And knowing how hard it was to gain her unequivocal approval, Gareth realized that he’d heard maybe a third of the whole story. If that.

“He’s bound to want to stay here, isn’t he?” Gareth mused, work schedules and leaks and missing data bouncing around in his mind.

His mother’s smile was soft. She’d fostered troubled teens for years and always stepped in to help when there was need. Strange to think that Jack Horwood would find a kindred spirit in his mother.

“I would imagine so. He makes those two feel safe. It’s important that he keeps his promises, at least until they’re settled.”

“I’d better go and get him his laptop. That way we can talk, and he has the option to work if he wants to.”

“He has lots of work to do?”

Gareth nodded, thinking of the conversation he’d had with Jack just before lunch. “An awful lot,” he admitted. “Time-sensitive stuff, and stuff I can’t even farm out.”

He knew he sounded plaintive and frustrated. It was a good thing that his mother knew him too well to tease. And she always understood more than she was told.

“I’ll make sure he gets time to himself,” she said, before Gareth closed the door on the way out.

D
INNER
HAD
been a palaver with Daniel and Nico too agitated to even look at food without throwing up and Jack starving after missing lunch. For once he’d appreciated Gareth’s need to feed and coddle him. Without the gigantic breakfast and the hot, sweet coffee the man had plied him and Frazer with during the morning, Jack would have been nursing a migraine of epic proportions. Instead, he just had to tune out a moderate headache while pondering how to get out of the room long enough to talk to Gareth.

Daniel and Nico were fast asleep, but even in sleep, they clung to him like limpets. Jack growled quietly when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to extricate himself without waking them.