Free Daniel by Kathi S. Barton Page A

looked up at the man and scrubbed at his tears. “You won’t, either. I can’t
let that man have what he wants. If I do, there ain’t nothing left for me to
keep him away. If he knows what I have, he’ll let me go if I give it back to
him, right?”
    Daniel didn’t answer, and Benny was sure
it was because he was trying to figure out how to get rid of him before that
man came here. He pulled away and felt as if someone had taken a warm blanket
from his heart.
    “I’ll go back to the house now, please. There
are plenty enough boxes of stuff there for me to eat until she comes back.”
    “You’re not going anywhere. Christ. You
and your aunt are the most…why do you think I want you to go? Because I don’t. But
as I’ve told your aunt, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on. Who
is this bastard, and why is he threatening O’Reilly?”
    “He’s calling her? You think…. Oh gosh,
he was the one who was in the gate that day. She said it was a glitch, but I
told her someone stole the remote thingy. Now he can…she changed it. That’s why
she puts it on fry all the time. To keep him out.”
    Benny was suddenly terrified for his
aunt. He started down the stairs, thinking he could probably walk to the
hospital; it couldn’t really be that far. When the man was blocking the door,
Benny thought maybe he’d hit him and leave, but he was handing him his coat.
    “Come on. We’ll go and keep an eye on
her together. I have a few friends and family to call in to keep her safe when
I can’t be at two places at once. You okay with going to the hospital with me?”
    Daniel made a lot of calls on the way
over to the hospital. And this time they rode in a big SUV.

Chapter 8
     
    Humberto Carver twirled his knife on its
tip round and round as he thought about what the man in front of him had said. He
couldn’t get past the gates again. Berto, as he was called by those brave
enough to consider him their friend, looked at the pictures that had
accompanied the man. The dead man, it now seemed.
    “I took him over there and had him try
out the fence, like you told me to. He was right. It was fired up, all right.” The
other man, Micky Lynch, laughed at his own joke. “I don’t think anybody is
going to figure out what it was that hit the fence, much less who it was.”
    “So there isn’t an opening?”
    Micky said, “No.”
    “How am I supposed to get what this
sister has of mine if she doesn’t come out of her cave and there is a hotwire
around the place all the time?” He didn’t expect an answer, and wasn’t
surprised when none was forthcoming.
    “There aren’t even any cleaning services
or nothing coming in either. I tried to find out if they had a cook or
something, but there ain’t nobody. I’m thinking they’s a lot more domestic than
her big sister ever was.”
    That was true. Meagen couldn’t boil
water without making a mess and using every pot in the kitchen. And she was
worse at cleaning up said mess. No, they were nothing alike when it came to
that. He laid his knife down, steepled his fingers in front of his face, and
tried to remember if Meagen had ever mentioned she had a sister.
    Meagen had been his main woman in his
harem of fifty-plus bitches. She’d keep them in line and high enough that they
never cared about how badly he hurt them when he fucked them. Berto liked it
rough, and not only that, he liked to fuck women until they were dead. It was a
turn-on for him.
    Then she’d disappeared. He’d thought
about letting her go with just her death but…well, he didn’t like it when
someone decided they were through. That was his decision. He’d found her
coming out of a clinic less than a year later. A clinic that was known for its
abortion practices.
    She’d admitted that she’d waited nearly
too long to have the abortion and now was paying the price. She’d been bleeding
badly when he brought her back, and it had taken her nearly two months to get
over it. Then when