Chapter 2

Saturday morning, I woke and rolled over to look at the clock on the bedside table. Somehow, I wasn’t all that shocked to see it was barely five in the morning. My dreams had been filled with Jake Reilly. Sometimes he was fifty feet tall and breathed fire, sometimes he was regular sized, but the voice that came from his mouth was his son Everett’s. In one dream, the man just broke down and cried. Nothing he said made sense and it caused him to cry even harder. The whole time, Rene sat there smiling, nodding, with her hands in her lap and her fingers tapping like she was listening to a favorite tune.

I lay there for several minutes before deciding that I wasn’t quite brave enough to go back to sleep and chance more dreams like those. Whatever was going to happen today was not going to be influenced by wishes or dreams, so there was no sense getting worked up about it all. Easier said than done, but maybe if I repeated it enough, I would even start to believe it!

By the time Rene shooed me off to get dressed for our drive downtown, my stomach was in knots. I felt like I had an ulcer the size of my fist gnawing on my spine from the inside. I was so unsettled; I hadn’t even eaten breakfast.

Rene, seeing how shaken and nervous I was, sat me at the table and made me some toast. She sat and watched until I had eaten a piece, then handed me a shot glass half-filled with clear liquid.

Okay, I was shocked a bit at this, and looked at her, trying to figure out what she was up to. She just smiled and mimicked me sipping it, not drinking it all in one go. With a deep breath, and more than a few misgivings, I picked up the shot glass and did as she wanted, taking a small sip.

It was ... it tasted like ... kind of like licorice? At first, there was a bit of a burn, but then it was like liquid sunlight traveling down my throat. By the time I was done with the small glass, it was sending tendrils out through my whole body!

“It’s called Ouzo, and it’s a Greek drink. Pretty good, huh?” Rene asked with a smile. “My grandmother, and then my mother, used to give us that if we were particularly upset about something or if we were feeling under the weather. Not much, mind you, just a spoonful, but I thought you needed a bit more and you are a big guy so ... You are supposed to drink it over ice, but you aren’t getting enough to even worry about it.”

I just nodded at her and took a mental inventory. Okay, I was still totally freaked out by this pending meeting but she was right, I did feel a bit better, physically anyway. It was probably just, what did she call it? A Placebo! Still, it worked. Besides, it felt good, all warm like, in my stomach.

It was a thirty-minute drive from Rene’s place in the suburbs to the downtown area where the River Walk wended its way through the city. Luxury was as much a bar as a restaurant and served a variety of very good pub food both inside and outside on the concrete banks of the man-made river. We arrived about ten minutes early and Rene was about to ask for a table outside when the hostess called her by name.

“You are Ms. DeBlasio and party?” the hostess asked expectantly and, when Rene nodded, she smiled warmly and continued. “Mister Reilly asked us to look for you. He has a table just over here if you would please follow me?”

She led us to an area near the water, a half-dozen picnic style tables under a cover and some trees. The area was roped off with a sign that said reserved and, on the other side of the rope, halfway down the covered area, was Jake Reilly.

He looked ... nervous? Why would he be nervous? I am the one who should be nervous.

I flashed back to the first time I came to the River Walk, more than a year after I was rescued. I had been terrified to go outside by myself and, for more than a year, I had refused to leave the building, even accompanied by people I knew. It was one of the first places I went to when they finally coaxed me out of the group home.

I had been taken to the River Walk and almost immediately, a drunk had bumped into me and cursed me as if it was my fault. I didn’t so much freak out as I did go catatonic, unable to move. They had to carry me back to the car. I had been ten, going on eleven?

I shook my head, trying to get rid of the memories of that first trip. Maybe the River Walk was not the best place for this? I glanced sideways at Rene and she was looking back at me, concern on her face, but a resolute expression in her eyes. “You can do this, Jack.” she whispered, her hand comforting on the small of my back.

The hostess smiled at us, a little confusion evident in her face as she waited for us to move forward again. She unhooked the rope on one end and gestured us forward, hooking it again after we were under the shade cover.

“Jake, did you reserve the space just for us?” Rene asked playfully, stepping forward and laying a hand on Reilly’s forearm. However, Jake Reilly’s eyes were on me and he seemed surprised that Rene was there. He glanced sideways at her quickly, then grinned.

“I thought we might want some privacy. I wanted, well, I didn’t want others disturbing us while we talk. Besides, there has to be some perks to ownership, right?” He took half a step forward and held out his hand.

“Can I call you Jack?” he asked, his eyes on mine.

I felt like there was ... I don’t know, something invisible, some force or field or something, between us. His words were slightly muffled and I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I reached out, quite automatically, to shake the offered hand. The second our skin touched, the whatever it was disappeared, like a bubble bursting and, for half a second, the ambient noise was really, really loud!

“Yes sir. I mean, that is okay with me. I don’t use my first name anymore, it wasn’t safe to be a Danny or even a Daniel, not for a while anyway.” I said, stammering just a bit. I actually felt a little bit bad when he winced at that.

“Yes, I imagine it would have been. Still, Jackson is a good, strong name. Please, sit. Can I get you something to drink? Are you hungry?” Jake asked, still lightly gripping my hand and pulling me, lightly but inexorably, towards the table. He let go as we sat down and I was surprised when he blushed, then jumped right back up again

“Dr. DeBlasio, please forgive my manners. Won’t you join us? Can I get you something? A cocktail, something cold to drink?” he asked, gesturing to a spot on my side of the table.

Rene grinned at him and shook her head. “Relax, Jake. You too Jack. No one here bites. You are both nervous so let’s all just take a deep breath and let it out. Just relax and talk, be honest with each other. I am just going to sit over here and listen, okay?” she said, taking a seat at the far end of the table. The separation wasn’t far, physically, but it was real and enough to get the point across. This was about the two of us, not about her.

Jake Reilly sat down again and ran his fingers through his snow-white hair. For a moment, he looked every bit of his seventy-one years.

“Jack, I spent hours, days, writing down what I wanted to say. I practiced over and over until even my dogs would run from the room. Now that we are here, now that you are here, none of that seems all that important.” He sounded tired. Earnest, but tired.

“There is absolutely no reason for you to trust me, but I hope I can convince you that if I had known, if I had had an inkling of what Everett had been up to, I would have drowned that boy at birth.” he said, the anger and heartache in his voice enough to make my breath catch in my throat. “I cannot, even now, years later and after years of therapy, I cannot even comprehend what might have caused this, what happened in his head to make him do those horrible, horrible things.”

I sat and stared at this ... poor old man. I watched the tears track down his weathered and wrinkled cheeks, and I saw the anguish in his eyes. I saw pain and loss, horror and fear, I saw a man deeply troubled by this and I believed him. I did. I came here today, prepared to tell this man that I wanted nothing to do with him, that I hated his whole family, his entire bloodline, but now?

You can imagine that I am not a touchy-feely kind of kid. Yeah, I can do the social thing and shake hands, a hug for a kid or an old person, even a kiss on the cheek if I absolutely have to, but it is all a chore for me. A distasteful chore. So, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself reaching out and patting the hand of my would-be enemy.

“I believe you.” I said.

His head snapped up and, through tear-filled eyes, I saw something new. Maybe a little relief? Perhaps even a glimmer of hope?

Mumbling something about allergies, he pulled out a handkerchief; wiped his cheeks & blew his nose before taking a deep breath and sitting upright again.

“Jack, you don’t know about this, but I was told that you need to be informed because some decisions have to be made. There is a trust in your name; the trustee is a lawyer here in the city, not me. While you are still a minor, the trust explicitly states that your wishes, as long as they are legal, are paramount in any distribution or disbursement or in any substantive changes to the assets in the trust.” He paused, seeing that I was confused. I was shaking my head and holding up my hands, trying to get him to slow down.

“Trust?” I managed to interject.

“Ah, well. Jack, my ... Everett was not married and had no children. He had no will and had made no arrangements for the distribution of his estate. The one good decision, at least as far as I am concerned, that he made was to give me a power of attorney in case he was ever incapacitated or unable to make decisions for a whole host of reasons. One of the reasons on the boilerplate was incarceration, though I little doubt he ever thought that particular clause would be invoked.”

“My attorney brought it to my attention and, when Everett was convicted, I was ready. I took all of his assets, all of them, and tucked them into a trust whose sole purpose was equitable distribution to the families of the victims if there was not a lawsuit. If there was one, the attorney in charge of the trust had one job; to make sure that it was handled legally and to pay out whatever the lawsuit decided was equitable, up to the limits of his assets.”

“Of course, Everett, from prison, tried to have the Power of Attorney revoked, but it was too late. Then he tried to sue me for a return of his assets, but he lost that lawsuit and the appeal. The families of the victims were paid and what was left was moved to a new trust.”

I was, despite myself, fascinated by this, but still didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. It sounds like Jake screwed his bastard son but good!

“In addition to all of his evil traits,” Jake continued, playing with his now empty glass, “he had a few decent ones too. He had a real talent for making money. The families of the victims filed a class-action style, group lawsuit against his estate and the estate settled quickly, as directed by the trust. Each of the families of a murdered child received one hundred million dollars. The families of each murdered adult received fifty million dollars and, in one case of a teen that was not a special victim, but rather a casual murder, the payout was seventy-five million.”

He paused and raised his hands, catching the attention of a waitress who was standing just out of earshot. He ordered another drink for all of us and waited until they arrived before continuing.

“Jack, you too.” he said, then waved a hand. “I mean, that you were a victim too, and you were represented by that class-action suit too. Even though you survived, your kidnapping was what led investigators to Everett. I am sure you know now that he made a mistake and a security camera caught a clear picture of him um ... well, it got him. The families of the other victims all agreed that you were the reason that they got closure and the money, so you deserved a share too. A hundred million. That is in addition to the seventy-five for your sister and fifty for each of your parents. That is two hundred and seventy-five million dollars, son.”

Okay. Yeah. This was ... this was a mistake, right? I mean, he said it was in a trust, so it wasn’t like this was all really mine, right? I looked over at Rene and her eyes were wider than I had ever seen, her hand over her mouth in shock.

“Rene?” I said quietly, but she looked at me and shrugged.

“Jack.” Jake called my attention back to him. “That is not the end of it, Jack. When the lawsuits were done, there was a couple of million in liquid assets left. Fifteen or sixteen, I think, mostly in an investment account. And there were still all the real assets too. He owned an apartment building in Austin near the Capitol. He bought that when he was elected to office and kept the penthouse for himself. It was at the lake house where he spent most of his time.”

“The lake house is a small place at Lake Travis and as you probably know now, after the trial, it’s where you were rescued. He bought a business near there, under his charter and rental company, that rents ski boats and other toys. There is a beach house and marina in Galveston. The headquarters for his boat charter company is in Houston. There is a big ranch in Killeen he bought as an investment. I think it’s being run by a ranch manager or foreman. There is a penthouse in Dallas he won in a poker game but never lived in; a small, undeveloped island in the Florida panhandle as part of a land speculation deal, and a ski lodge in Utah. Last, but not least, there is a beach house in San Diego where his boat charter business has a huge marina for deep sea fishing and cruising.”

“The business he owns is really like four businesses under a parent company; Deckhouse Designs. Not all that profitable on paper but poised for growth according to my people. He bought it from my older son when the older boy wanted money for some other acquisition. It looks like Everett just held it as an investment and never did anything with it. He owned it for about a year before he was arrested.”

He paused and reached down, pulling a briefcase out from under the table and laying it on top. With his hand on the briefcase, he paused and looked thoughtful.

“There may be more, but I think that is the bulk of it.”

“Sir, Mister Reilly,” I said, still a bit in shock and not understanding.

“Jake, please, Jack. Call me Jake?”

“Yes sir, I mean, okay Jake. Why are you telling me about all this? About how rich he was and all of his stuff? I don’t understand.”

He looked surprised, his eyes darting to Rene, then around the open area where we were sitting, before settling back on me again.

“Jack, I am telling you all of this because it all belongs to you now. Every last bit of it. All the houses, the property, every remaining penny he had in any bank anywhere in the world. I stripped him of all assets. Every last thing he ever owned. Once the lawsuits were settled, the trust was dissolved as instructed and a new trust was created in your name. It’s all yours.”

“Why would you do that? Why would you give it all away? If he was your son, shouldn’t that go to you, or his brothers and sisters or something?” I asked, sure this was all some huge, horrible mistake.

“Jack, I have more money than, well, just about anyone in the country, except Jeff Bezos. Everett’s net worth was about three billion or so when he was jailed. I’ll make that much in interest on my investments this year. Each one of my kids had a trust fund that paid a third when they graduated high school, a third when they graduated college and a third when they turned twenty-five. They could have all retired when they graduated high school and lived the rest of their lives in luxury.” He said waving off my questions.

“My daughter is a surgeon and a damn good one. My oldest son is an oilman like me and my middle son is a computer guy, making his own billions out in Silicon Valley. They don’t need or want Everett’s money. They all agreed when I brought this up, that whatever is left should go to you. I think they all feel as guilty as I do about this. Even the youngest is a decade older than Everett, my youngest was a bit of a late life surprise, you know, but they feel guilty that they didn’t spend more time with him, maybe catch this early and prevent, well, you know.”

My mind? Yeah, absolutely useless. I couldn’t complete a single thought, much less put together useful, meaningful questions.

“Jake, what the hell am I supposed to do now?” I asked, trying not to hyperventilate. I sound horrible when I am whining while I hyperventilate. Then I pass out and, well, it’s not pretty.

“Let’s order lunch.” he said, waving for a waitress.

So, we did.

The briefcase turned out to be full of paperwork. There was a complete copy of the trust documents, a recent accounting of all assets in the trust including pictures, descriptions, even maps along with a who is who in the Deckhouse Designs corporate structure. The three subsidiaries for Deckhouse Designs were D&D Charters LTD., D&D Rentals LLC and D&D Properties LLC.

The McCoy Trust was created by Jake, and it was an irrevocable trust. That meant I couldn’t just refuse it and have it go back to him. If I abandoned it, Jake said it would eventually go to the state. A second trust for the lawsuit money was created as dictated by the courts and overseen by an appointee from the Department of Justice.

“Sorry, but I am having a hard time with this, Jake. I don’t know if I want anything at all from him.” I said, pushing my plate away. Suddenly, I wasn’t all that hungry.

Jake looked thoughtful for a moment, then remorseful.

“Damn it, Jack, I am sorry. I never considered that. Maybe it would be best to just have the trust sell it all off. You don’t need any of it, and you sure don’t need anything that is going to remind you of... , um, about the bad times. Look, if that is what you want, just say the word and I can have your lawyer here in about twenty minutes. You tell him to sell it all or to just burn it all to the ground if that is what you want. They have to do it unless you tell them to do something illegal, I made sure the trust was set up so you have control. You will be richer, but without the company or the properties to remind you.”

“Jack, let it ride for now, okay? Big decisions, and this is a big decision, should not be made on the spur of the moment. Sleep on it. Think about it. The property will still be there next week, or next month.” Rene said, laying her hand on my shoulder. She had been absolutely quiet during my talk with Jake, though it had been comforting knowing she was there.

“Okay, Rene. Did, um, well, did you know? About all of this?” I asked, suddenly afraid of the answer. I kind of hoped she did and was ready for the emotional fallout. On the other hand, that she knew and withheld this from me, that would have been as bad as the other was good, right?

“No, Jack. This is quite a shock.” she said, her voice a bit brittle. I looked up and saw that she had locked eyes with Jake. Jake, on the other hand, blushed a bit.

“This was supposed to be a very low-key meet and greet. I wanted you to not be afraid and I wanted him to see that you were okay, that you were healthy.” she said, the humor in her voice returning. There was no doubt in either Jake’s or my mind though, that a reckoning would be had somewhere down the road.

“I was aware, of course, of the lawsuit against Everett, the whole world was atwitter about the amounts at stake. There was a gag order on the payout and the people who were paid were kept anonymous at the order of the judge. I knew nothing about the second trust. I would have thought, as your court appointed therapist, I would have been informed.” She had that ‘Someone is going to hear about this!‘ look in her eye I had seen a few times before.

The rest of our meal was less ... tense. We chatted a bit, just the usual ‘getting to know you’ kind of chatter that two strangers will go through. He told me a lot about himself, his youth and his family. His grandfather had lost it all in the great depression but his father had done a lot to turn things around, ranching and raising cattle here in Texas. By the time Jake was old enough, there was plenty of money for college and his dad was affluent enough to be a big wheel in regional politics. Jake decided to go into the Navy, and college was paid for by them afterwards.

He studied geology and chemistry but chose mechanical engineering as his major and, when he graduated, he was hired by the Dutch to work down in South America. He went to work discovering and developing the oil resources there. He spent several years learning and then struck out on his own, taking the money his father had set aside for his education and using that to wildcat. He partnered with several other men and his very first well hit black gold.

By the time he was thirty, he had made his first billion and branched out, diversifying. It seemed like he had the Midas touch and everything he turned his hand to, turned eventually to gold. He wasn’t miserly with his newfound wealth by any means. He felt truly blessed by what he had and gave back an astonishing amount of money and aide to the people in the areas where he worked.

In Belize, where he owned almost a third of the oil wells off the coast, he had built schools, hospitals, and water & sewer treatment plants. He had hired engineers, doctors and scientists and lured in other businesses to help the local people.

Everywhere he went, he tried to leave the place better than when he arrived, focusing on helping people to help themselves, not just handing out gold coins to the poor! Job programs were his favorite. He would help set up a manufacturing base or invest in an agricultural program with modern methods. Whatever it was, he made sure that the locals were hired and trained and, in the end, received the majority of the good things that came with better standards of living.

It might sound like he was blowing his own horn and, I suppose, he kinda was. But it was more in the form of a lesson, or many lessons, for me. I think he was telling me, indirectly, how I could spread some of the love around. I could share what I had been given and use that to make the lives of other people even better.

By the time we left, it was already getting dark. He gave me his business card, though it had his home and mobile numbers too, and he gave me the card for the lawyer who was watching over the property trust.

“Jack, the guy on that card can put you in touch with the lawsuit trustee. Now that you know about the trusts, he won’t have to be so secretive. He was afraid your caretakers would find out or someone would use it to track you down, see. The last thing we wanted to do was to expose you to the public or the press.”

“Too late for that.” I muttered. I managed to put that out of my mind but it was something that I was going to have to deal with, somehow.

“Wait, what was that, Jack?” Jake asked, sounding concerned.

I told him about the reporter, about what she had said and how that had totally freaked me out.

He looked livid. His face was red and his fists clenched. In a quiet voice, one I definitely would not want directed at me, “I will find out, you can count on that, and that ... that woman will not bother you again.”

Jake took a deep breath and rubbed his chin. “Jack, you might not like this, but you are going to need some protection, I think. If they found out that you are you, well, you know what I mean. If they could track you down, then there was a security failure somewhere. Several places, most likely, since they had to have gotten your address from family services.” He said thoughtfully.

“The Judge that Rene talked to said that if the reporter got in to the prison, that he could have given her my name.” I said and Jake looked thoughtful but nodded.

I wonder how Jake was tracking me ... I guess if you had his money, you could do just about anything you wanted. That thought made me shiver. If I now had ‘Fuck You‘ money, then Everett used to have ‘Fuck the world‘ money and Jake has ‘Fuck the UNIVERSE‘ money!

Rene had a thoughtful look on her face and reached into her purse, pulling out her cellphone. Her eyes were wide when she looked at the screen. When she turned it to face me, I could see she had missed thirty-eight calls and had almost that many messages.

She paged through the listings and hit the dial button on one. “Sylvie, it’s me. What? Oh shit, that’s not good. Are you okay? You did? Good for you! I will be home soon ... wait, screw that, I don’t want to be in the middle of that. I will get a room in town and call you. After work, see if you can switch cars with someone and you come to the hotel. Let them wait in front of our house for us. Okay baby, I love you too. Be careful!”

Rene disconnected and shook her head.

“Cats well and truly out of the bag. The Carvers tried to call me a dozen times and finally texted me. Instead of going to Austin to see her sister, they have gone to New York to visit his relatives, all to escape the news people camped out on their lawn and the flood of phone calls. Sylvie says there are four news trucks in front of my house and she caught three different paparazzi sneaking over the fence in the back yard. She called the cops and has had three arrested already and the rest warned. The San Antonio Police Department has two cars there now. Everyone is looking for you, Jack.”

I turned to look at Jake, but he had stepped away and was having a low, but very angry sounding, call on his cell. “Arturo, I know you think your records are secure but we have talked about this, about D ... Jack and you need to be damn sure. They got his therapist and his caretaker now so it is not just a prison visit, there is a leak. Thank you, old friend.” he disconnected and, without even looking our way, called another number.

“Dave, it’s me. Sierra. Call it now.”

He looked up and gave us a half grin, half grimace. “Dave is my head of security, and Sierra means a there is a serious security breach. Not an eminent threat, like someone holding a gun on us or shooting at us, but still pretty serious. His eyes focused over my shoulder, then shifted left and right, his head nodding.

I turned to look and could see a half a dozen guys, all wearing light jackets or windbreakers and all with their backs to us, their heads swiveling. They acted like the secret service guys in the movies did. One man, a very fit guy with a military style haircut and no-nonsense set to his shoulders, stepped over the reservation rope at the end of our little pavilion and approached.

“Mister Reilly, we have your car out front.” he said quietly, his eyes scanning the river behind us.

“Dave, these two people are coming with us.” Jake said, holding up a hand to forestall Rene. “Dr. DeBlasio, please. Let me give you a ride for now and I can have one of my people pick up your car. If they know what you drive and have enough people combing the city, they might be waiting for you.”

Rene looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes turning to me, then she looked back and Jake and nodded.

“Fine, fine!” Jake said, nodding. He turned to the big man. “Dave Foster, this is Jack McCoy and Doctor Rene DeBlasio. You know the doctor, of course, or of her anyway, since you have been driving me to her office so often, but you haven’t met Jack.”

Dave turned and locked eyes with me for a moment. When his eyes flicked, just for a fraction of a second, to my left hand and then back to my face, I knew that he knew who I was. He just nodded a bit, then turned to look back at the river, his face revealing nothing. He was one focused dude.

We filed out through the restaurant, all eyes on the procession that included seven or eight very fit, very alert guys! Outside, right in front of the door, was a black suburban and we were being guided inside. It was interesting to see that the doors were super thick, like, a foot or something, and the glass looked odd too, like you see in a bank.

When we were all seated in back, I asked Jake.

“Is this thing bulletproof? The doors looked weird, really thick, and the glass too.”

Jake nodded, then cocked his head. “My crew told me that the proper term was bullet resistant. If you shoot a big enough bullet, even a battleship is not enough, but yeah. This is designed to stop just about anything except maybe those armor piercing 50 caliber rifles, and they tell me even those would take more than one hit in the same spot to penetrate. Hard to do on a moving target. Even the wheels are bulletproof and the bottom is armored against mines. They use these things in the middle east to protect ambassadors and people like that.”

I was fascinated and pushed my face up against the glass. From a distance, it looked faintly blue tinted but clear and you could see through it just fine. If you got real close, and smushed your face against the glass, you could see that it was more than an inch thick! Pretty neat!

Hey! No geeking out, fifteen, not five, remember?