Free The Devil's Dream: Book One by David Beers

child knew nothing of it. At fifteen, Joe's
father had been ripped from him from him, the elder Welch murdered by
Brand. Now Joe was twenty-five and living just a few miles from where
Matthew lay. He lived there with his wife and his child, a three-year
old boy whose name Matthew could not find in his searches. His
mother, Don Welch's widow, was still alive, still living off the
money that came to her through the pension and death pay. If
anything, that should be Hilman's money, and thus Matthew's. She
wouldn't be receiving any of it if her husband had left Matthew's son
alone.
    No matter. What he
needed to figure out was who he would take. Four options. Mother,
grandmother, father, or child? There were two goals, and after those
ten years spent with his brain full of icicles, the second one seemed
a bit more important this go-around. The families needed to feel
pain, just as he had. They needed to understand what he had gone
through, what Rally had gone through, what it felt like to not just
lose someone close, but to lose your world. To lose your future. To
lose what gave your life meaning.
    The child was three and
that meant small. How much power could a child of three generate? How
much life could it sustain? Twenty years ago he worked out the
formulas for grown men, intent on taking the lives that had taken his
son. Now, he might need to redo those formulas a bit. He might need
to see if a child could perform the same tasks.
    Because if he could use
the little boy, the whole endeavor became just a bit more satisfying.
Self-fulfillment, that's what this was about, at least partly. Losing
a child that young, the boy's parents would never recover.
    Sand scattered across
his chest and Matthew looked to his right, the direction of the sand,
ready to bolt.
    "Sorry, sir,"
a young teenager said. He was a black kid, with long, smooth muscles
and light skin. He picked up the football that landed a few feet from
Matthew. He turned around ready to run back to his friends, but
paused and looked back at Matthew. "Sir, sorry to bother you,
but you're getting really red. Need some sunscreen?"
    Matthew smiled, glad
that no one here needed to die. "I appreciate it, but I'm
actually leaving."

Part II
Appropriate
Measures

Chapter Eleven
    "How serious is
this?" Patricia Welch asked.
    The thing was, Joe
didn't have any idea. He knew of the man, knew what he had done to
his father, had attended the funeral and then, somehow, moved on with
his life. He left Matthew Brand in a horrible past, mourned his
father, but eventually the pain had...dulled? Not disappeared, that
wasn't possible, but it had certainly become something manageable.
Something he thought about more on certain days than others, and
could he expect anything else? He wasn't the same person he had been
when his father died. He was a father himself and a grown man now. He
never thought of Brand any longer. The man had been taken from the
world and put in a suspended hibernation, and the world—as it
always did—kept rotating.
    Now, the same man was
walking around somewhere and Joe had a police car sitting at the end
of his driveway.
    "I don't know,"
Joe answered. "I don't have any idea what he could be thinking."
    "What if he's
thinking that he wants you?"
    Joe picked up both
their plates and took them to the sink. He turned around and looked
at Jason, sitting in his high chair, making a mess with his food. "I
don't know," he said, unable to grasp the type of man that would
break out of jail just to start another murder spree. They caught him
once and without a doubt would catch him again, especially if he
tried to restart everything. His face was everywhere, on every
channel, on every news program and morning show. "He can't be
thinking about that. He'd be an idiot. If he shows his face anywhere,
someone is going to recognize him."
    Patricia turned her
chair so that she could see him at the sink. "Maybe, but maybe
he's just fucking nuts. Your mom hasn't stopped calling all day,