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Chapter One
Birdsong filled the air while the rustling of wildlife echoed from the shady woods nearby. They’d been eating breakfast for the last half hour, and it was peaceful where they sat on the picnic bench high above the lakefront. Since the three of them had arrived at Angel’s Way yesterday, Lex had felt an unusual sense of well-being and security that he hadn’t experienced in like…forever, he suddenly realized. As the sun gradually ascended into the sky above Crystal Rock Lake, prisms of golden-rosy light rippled across the waves like sparks of fire.
Little Caleb had a look of anticipation on his face, but Lex was nervous as his friend Zane approached from the house with Izzy, the daughter of the man who owned the property.
Izzy—whose actual name was Isabella—swore that the three of them would be safe here at Angel’s Way and had insisted on informing her parents that they needed help. Both, she seemed sure, would welcome them into their home.
As crazy as she seemed, Izzy had earned their trust. Yesterday, rather than turn them in, she’d allowed them to stay overnight in her hideaway that had been incorporated into one of the caves along the beach. At one time an exit from their home, Izzy’s dad had helped her transform it into a place where she could entertain friends.
And the fact that their other friend, Harry, who had disappeared three years earlier from the farm where they’d been held, had somehow ended up being adopted by Gabe and Lucy Giordano, had sealed the deal. They were so tired of running and it had seemed like fate had led the three of them here.
Lex and Caleb had just finished cleaning up after themselves and had stacked all the dirty dishes back on the tray that Harry had left on the picnic table earlier.
“How did it go?” Lex asked.
“Good, I think,” Zane replied. “They’d like to meet you guys too. Come on. Let’s get this tray of dirty dishes inside, along with the extra food.”
Lex reached for the tray, picking it up, while Caleb grabbed the jug of orange juice he’d enjoyed so much. As Zane wrapped his hand around the coffee pot handle, Izzy scooped up the remaining odds and ends before they made their way to the house.
Their friend Harry opened the solarium door to let them inside. The woman who must have been Harry’s adoptive mother was smiling, standing there to greet them, and her eyes softened as they rested on Caleb.
“They’ve all had showers,” Izzy reassured her mom. “Caleb and Lex were scratching their heads quite a bit last night, so I had them wash their hair with that concoction you made up for Amy and Harry after they came to live here.”
Her mother squeezed Izzy’s shoulder. “Thanks, sweetie.”
Izzy grinned. “You’re welcome, Mom.”
Izzy’s mother turned to the boys. “Hello. You must be Lex and Caleb. I’m Lucy Giordano. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, definitely reassuring. “Izzy? Why don’t you cover the couch with that old blanket so the boys can sit there while we talk with the three of them. Harry? Why don’t you take the dishes into the kitchen?”
“Sure, Mom,” Harry replied, winking at Lex, who probably looked the most anxious out of the three of them.
As they waited while Izzy covered the couch with a blanket, a younger girl, probably a few years older than Caleb, peeked into the solarium from what appeared to be a hallway that led into the room.
“Come on in, Amy,” Mrs. Giordano called out. “I want you to meet the boys.”
A tiny little thing wearing a purple t-shirt and denim shorts, with a sparkly purple headband holding back her long white-blond hair, Amy smiled widely when she walked into the solarium.
“Hi,” Amy said, looking at Caleb first.
Caleb’s eyes went wide. “Izzy says this place is called Angel’s Way. Are you one of the angels?”
“Me?”Amy laughed.
And when everyone else in the room started laughing along with her, it immediately eased the tension in the air.
Surprisingly, Caleb smiled as Amy dragged him through the room toward what was supposedly the video game setup on the opposite wall.
Glancing around the wide-open space of the solarium as they headed toward the couch, Lex still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. He stood there letting his buddy Zane do most of the talking.
Well, Zane was doing some of the talking, anyway. Isabella Giordano was the one who was pleading their case to her father. Usually, Zane was as cautious as Lex when it came to approaching strangers, but somehow this thirteen-year-old girl, who was nicknamed Izzy, had managed to immediately earn his trust, his reassurance giving Lex and Caleb the confidence to do the same.
Zane, Lex and Caleb had one thing in common—none of them knew where they came from. They were runaways. But not in any typical kind of way. Three months earlier, after managing to finally escape from the farm where they’d been held hostage by a prostitution and trafficking ring for several years, they’d been on the run ever since.
But Lex had agreed with Zane—they were weary. And Caleb was only seven or eight years old. Who knows how much longer they would have been able to survive having to scrounge up food and constantly seek shelter.
So far, this man named Gabe Giordano appeared to be listening intently and taking everything that they were talking about in stride.
The last few days had been really strange. And Lex couldn’t help thinking about how crazy this situation was. Who would have expected that they’d end up at the adoptive home of Harry, who’d been Lex and Zane’s friend at the farm near Milwaukee nearly four years earlier, before Harry had been shipped out from the farm to parts unknown.
