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“Yes. You’re not going to like it.” He looked at the people in the beds and then back at his boss. “I need someone to watch over them until they’re healed enough to take care of themselves. And I have the perfect spot for you to do it. You get to meet up with your long-lost family, too.”
“Caleb Anderson.” Charles nodded. “Why him? I mean, there has to be a better place than a family member’s home? Don’t you have any safe houses that I could stay at with them? I mean, I’m not even sure that the two of us are related.”
“You are. You’re his half-brother.” He took the paperwork that was being held out to him. “You remember his mother, don’t you? Abigail Anderson?”
“Yes.” He did, too. Abby had been a good friend of his when— “She’s his mother? Caleb is related to Abby Anderson? Christ, now I know why he’s like this, not leaving shit alone when he couldn’t find me. He’s just like her.”
“Thank you.” The large man came into the room with him. There was no mistaking that they were related. When Caleb sat down, he looked at Charles. “He called me early last week when he found out that I’ve been looking for you. I had to pull a few strings to even get as much information that I had on you to come through. Then, about two hours ago, he called me again and told me that not only were you in town but that you needed me to help you. Welcome to the family, Daniel. We’ve all been waiting for you.”
“Do you have any idea what we’re doing here? Why I’ve been trying to avoid you? I’m an undercover FBI agent that is about as close to death as anyone gets on a daily basis who works with bad people. I could very well get your entire family killed.” Caleb told him that they were his family, too. “Look, this is a bad idea. I don’t know these two people here, but they’ve been targeted to be killed, and the kind of people that do that sort of shit in broad daylight won’t give a shit if you have six or six hundred people protecting you. They’ll plow through you like you’re nothing.” Charles got up and left them there. It was then that he looked at his half-brother when he laughed.
“We have help.” Daniel got up and started to pace. “My mother, she knew about you. I found some information about you that I didn’t with the rest of them. Just notes on things. How you became so good at your job. She said that you have an ability that no one knows about.”
Daniel stopped pacing and turned to look at the other man. Then he looked around to see if anyone had heard. While he knew that the room was being recorded, it wouldn’t get shit while he was there. Not any mikes, cameras, or cell phones would work. It’s why he didn’t carry one. Nor wear a watch.
“What did she tell you? I’ve not seen her in a long time. How is she doing?” Caleb told him that she had passed away seven months ago from cancer. “Oh, I’m so sorry. She was a brilliant woman and one that I loved more than my own mother at times. I didn’t know. I had no way of—You have my deepest condolences, Caleb. She was a wonderful woman.”
“She was. And she made me promise that I’d find all my brothers. You were the last one.” Caleb laughed. “You’d not believe the shit that we’ve gone through with each of them. Sebastian was the last to join us before you had a mobster after him. Whatever we need to do, Daniel, to keep you safe, we’re going to get through it. I promise.”
He didn’t bother telling him that it wasn’t good to make promises like that when he didn’t know what was going on. It was like the brother and sister that he was watching over now. Who knew what sort of shit was going to come about with having them around too.
“It’s going to be hell. I hope you understand that.” Caleb said that he’d been told it was going to be the worst yet. “That’s about as accurate as it can get. I’ve been in and out of places that would make your hair turn white, as the saying goes.”
They talked for the next hour. Not on any kind of plan to get them to his home. Not about what might be coming after the two on the beds with all kinds of shit hooked up to them. Caleb told him about his wife and brothers. The children and what they were up to. How his grandparents were helping out with projects around town that he might have heard of.
Daniel was impressed. All the good works that were going on around town were something that Caleb had a hand in. He’d not even realized that they were in the same town until today. All he’d had to of done was walk down the street from the building he was working in and found his brother. Christ, talk about a small world. They had been together for the last few months, and neither of them knew a thing about the other.
When he was given a note, Daniel waited for him to read it before he let his tension go. Caleb looked at him, smiling when he handed him the note.
“Tabby is my wife. You’ll learn not to mess with her. Or not. She’ll love you anyway. But she’s sort of firm about things. Well, you’ll figure it out. She said that the basement has been converted into your lab of sorts and that you should come home with me and the other two.” He asked him where he was going to be staying. “With us. Everyone in town knows that I’ve been looking for you. Most of the people won’t even equate you with the man at the newspaper office. You didn’t get out much, I’m to understand.”
“No. I was working.” Caleb stood up. “We’re going now? To your home? I mean, this is a huge undertaking. How will you get the young couple there into your home?”
“It’ll be a piece of cake.” He wished he had the confidence that Caleb had. He’d never had an easy move in all his life and was sure that this wasn’t going to be any different. Going out to the garage, he started laughing when he saw the setup that was going on. Yes, he thought, it was going to be a piece of cake with this man in charge.
Chapter 8
“Mister, I’m not coming down outta this tree until you swear to me that that cur dog is out of sight. He already done did bite me once. I don’t like donating my blood to nobody, especially not cur dogs.” Daniel let himself laugh at the little boy in the tree. “You just go on now, Mr. Sebastian, and I’ll be fine and dandy.”
“Can I help?” Daniel had yet to meet any of the others but Caleb as his family, so he put out his hand to Sebastian, a man who could be his twin. “I think that we’re brothers.”
“You don’t know that you’re brothers? Sheesh, Mister. I got me five sisters, and they make for sure that everyone knows that they’re related to me. They’re all bigger and older than me, too.” The little boy looked at him. “Yeah, I can see that you’re his brother, so don’t be thinking nobody else is gonna notice it.”
“I didn’t get to meet him when I came to town yesterday. We all have the same father, but we’ve not been together before.” Luke, he found out the boy’s name and said that was nice for them all. “I guess. Where is the cur dog?”
As if he’d summoned the pooch, he came barking at them from around the corner. As soon as Sebastian told him to lay down, it did. Daniel was trying to hold back his laughter when Luke told the other man that he only minded big people, not little kids with teeth holes in his leg.
“He thinks you smell good to him.” Luke told him that wasn’t helping. “No. I suppose not. I’m not saying that you did anything, but could he have a reason for wanting to chomp on your legs? I mean, he doesn’t look to me like a mean dog.”
“I had to do it. My momma,” Luke looked at Sebastian, then back at him before continuing again. “She’s having herself a bad day. Dad, he knocked her around a bit and took all the money in the house again. I’m not asking for money, Mr. Sebastian. I’m just telling this man here, your brother, why the dog hates me. I was feeding him, you see. Putting out the scraps for him to munch on. You don’t know what he looked like before I started doing that. All his ribs were fighting to be on the outside of his skin rather than where they’re supposed to be. But momma, she got it in her head that we couldn’t feed a cur dog—I don’t even know what that means—no more on account of dad taking all the food money. Again.”
“Is your momma all right?” Luke told him that she was in the hospital with his sisters. “All right. We’ll come back to that. This dog, he’s usually friendly to you, is he?”
“He is. Sometimes, when it’s raining out, I bring him into my room and hide him away. My daddy, he’d have himself a conniption if he were to hear about that part. Woo Eee doggie. I’d be hurting.” Daniel was having so much fun that he didn’t want to leave, so he said he’d help the little boy and dog out. “The dog don’t need much in the way of help, mister. He just needs to not be chomping on the hand that feeds him.”
“Do you think perhaps you smell like your dad, and he’s smelling him instead of you?” Daniel looked at Sebastian while Luke was thinking things over. “I was looking for Caleb and Tabby. I need to talk to them about something important. Do you know where they might be?”
“I know where Tabby is. She’s with the other women out looking for a building to have the school’s fair days in. They’re just down the street at City Hall getting permits and standards that they’re going to need.” He asked about Caleb. “He should be with Joey. That’s the last place I knew anything about either of them.”
