Chapter 1

Hunter Black had found the perfect property. Situated on 120 acres, backing onto a forestry reserve, with a small private lake, a year-round flowing creek and the closest neighboring house was five miles away. The small city of Regal, boasting twenty-thousand people, where he grew up, was fifteen minutes away. It was the first solid step towards executing his plan.

He had a beautiful main home built. From the quiet country road, he set the house back one-hundred yards, setting the driveway winding through a one-hundred-year-old evergreen forest, resting on a bed of ferns, as wild and untouched as a forest could be these days.

At the same time, he had had the carriage house built. It was a cozy, two bedrooms, with a kitchen and a living room, a front porch for sitting out of the weather and a back deck for a barbecue and sunbathing. He had invested over five-million dollars into it all, over the course of a couple of years. The house and landscaping were finally complete.

With the main house incorporating an indoor swimming pool, fully functional gym, modern kitchen, living room or great room, movie room, spectacular master bedroom, den and more. He had all of the most modern toys, cameras, speakers and intercom throughout. From his den, or home office if you prefer, over the three computer screens in front of him, he could see every square inch of interior and exterior areas of both houses and cleared property. He could monitor it all from the comfort of his desk chair.

A flip and click of the mouse and he could see all of the cleared forest area he had created for the building site. He had additional plans, but for now, he could see fifty-yards in any direction from the house. The wall of forest at fifty-yards prevented seeing beyond.

Next, he set about finding the perfect tenant. He was patient and he retained a big city housing manager to cull tenant applications under the auspice of being a Good Samaritan, looking to provide a leg up for an unfortunate mother.

Twice a week he culled through the tenant applications they thought may interest him. The applications contained the usual stuff, tenancy history, employer contact info, references, plus a photo of the applicant. Half way through the second month of the search one applicant finally generated enough interest. His triggers were, job, sick child, no emergency contact and her photo was pretty good too.

He sent the application off to a private investigator he knew from past business dealings. He knew the PI well, some of their dealings had been in the grey areas of the law, ‘almost black’, he remembered. He knew the PI could be trusted to keep quiet about anything because to do otherwise would be to invite his own disaster.

A week later the PI’s report arrived. It wasn’t that thick so he started reading it.

Subject

Jen Radner

Twenty years old.

Natural light brunette fading to blond in the sun.

Measurements, Thirty-five-Twenty-three-Thirty-six. C cup, excellent health.

Height, Five feet five inches. Weight One hundred twenty-five lbs.

Smiling he wondered to himself how in hell the PI got that info.

She is the mother of a one-year-old boy, Brian.

Brian suffers from a debilitating condition, macrocephaly, that has made him none verbal, his head is outgrowing his body, other health conditions arising. He sleeps as much as sixteen hours a day on average. Surprisingly, the boy is generally healthy, it’s just his brain won’t stop growing. Considered very easy to care for by visiting nurses and child care workers, for now.

His life expectancy is five to seven years.

Subject was raised in Regal, with a normal small-town life. Her parents were killed in a car accident three years ago. She didn’t take it well. Dropped out of school, fell in with a bad boy and a worst crowd.

The bad boy, Brian’s father, was one, Terry Owen, who was a year older than Jen. Terry grew up rough, alcoholic parents, domestic violence, with heavy drug use since he was fourteen-years-old. In and out of juvenile detention for B&E, drug dealing, possession. No violence charges nor reputation of violence. Just your typical home grown junky trying to survive in a small town.

The investigator was unable to find any legal source of income for either of them during this time and neither of their parents had anything to pass on. Welfare had stepped up but she rebelled after meeting Terry.

Looks like she got pregnant but kept using until birth. Kid was messed up and daddy couldn’t handle it and ran. Mama pulled herself together, sobered up and has been trying to care for the kid as best she can.

They, mom and kid, reside in an eightplex, low income, housing unit on the south side. Welfare has provided the housing since the birth of Brian but having now achieved full time employment, her welfare runs out at month’s end. This is motivating her rental search.

‘South side, rough place,’ Black was thinking.

Presently employed, last three months, as a receptionist/secretary for two-thousand dollars per month, with a commercial painting contractor. No known familial ties to company or staff. Employer does considerable DND work but most staff must hold valid security clearance. Subject’s application is still in queue.

Bank account of two-hundred-sixty-five dollars with Bank of America. No loans, credit card debt of four-thousand-six-hundred-seventy-three dollars, making negotiated monthly payments of four-hundred dollars. She got in way over her head buying some special medical equipment for her son.

Well liked at work, although passes on all invites to extra-curricular events, including lunches and after work bar stops. Couldn’t find a neighbor who could say they knew her.

Suggests total dedication to something or someone outside of work. Her child?

Summary

The lady has had a rough ride since her parents’ death. Her drug use while pregnant was probable cause of baby health issues, her guilt is well documented within welfare reports. Father left after birth wanting nothing to do with baby.

‘Nice girl who could use a break’, was Black’s thought.

Next were a series of photos, a profile, face on, and full body shot. She was quite attractive. Baby, frontal and facial. It was easy to see his head was much larger than normal. ‘Still not a bad looking kid’, he thought.

Next step.

He reached out through the agency to arrange a face-to-face interview. He was thinking, ‘Her free rents up, she needs to get her own place, I imagine she will take just about anything to get out of where she is, she has to find something soon’. ‘From Southside to here?’ he found himself smiling as he was feeling the anticipation begin. It was Friday, he had them set the meeting for this Sunday, for four p. m.

He was sitting on his porch as she drove up in a ten-year-old Ford. It didn’t sound really healthy as it ground to a stop in front of him. He could see her, sitting there, both hands on the steering wheel, looking around. She was pointed north. She was seeing the forest and the mountains fading off in the distance in front of her. Getting out of the car she was looking south across a hundred feet of beautiful lawn, running into a fir and cedar forest, camouflaging the ocean in the background, in turn blending into a blue sky. She came around her car and he saw her in full length for the first time. She saw a magnificent house, large wood timber framing the structure, behind which stood a majestic mountain almost dwarfing the structure in front of her.

The awe on her face was pure and it enhanced her beauty. She was past pretty, growing into beautiful and her chest stood proud, her hips matched her breasts size. He took her all in, but also didn’t want to appear lecherous, so he walked the line.

There was so much to take in so quickly she really hadn’t noticed him checking her out. If she had, it happened so much, she just didn’t really notice any more. It wasn’t important, she wasn’t interested in men, period, all stop.

She was dressed in a blue t-shirt, nothing special, and a pair of jeans. ‘Nice jeans, or should I say, nice fit,’ he was thinking. She walked up to the foot of the stairs, came to a stop and looked up at him. He was in a west coast cedar chair leaning back and looking comfortable with a coffee in his hand.

“I imagine you are Mrs. Jen Radner,” he stated looking down at her. He wanted to see if she would prefer one pronoun or another.

“Ms.”, she said.

He just looked at her as he looked into her eyes. He didn’t say anything but was saying everything, she felt the will power within him, his mental strength, his willingness, actual need to fight to survive. She shuddered and didn’t say anything herself. She just tried to stare back, the moment almost surreal, she shuddered and blinked at the same time.

“Come on up,” he waved her up onto the deck, “would you like a coffee, water, anything?” he offered. She passed. He asked her to tell him about herself, her life. She bucked a little, “I thought we were here to discuss a rent agreement Mr...?” the question hung in the air.

She was sticking her hand out for a hand shake as he responded, “Black. Mr. Black. Or should you prefer, Sir. And how should I formally and casually address you, young lady?”

“Ms. Radner.”

He was staring into her eyes again, the intensity, she had to hold back another tremor, he was waiting, she blinked, “Or Jen, just Jen,” she finished in an almost mumble looking down at his feet.

He added, “Choosing the Ms. pronoun indicates you expect to command respect. I look forward to your earning of mine, Ms. Jen Radner.”

He directed her, with an open hand, towards the chair beside him. She took it almost in relief, not to have him staring into her eyes any more.

“Down to business,” he states, “tell me about yourself, your life, your challenges, your successes and yes, your failures. I have a little time and I would like to hear your story.” He delivered this in a sincere caring voice, emitting nothing but empathy for her.

She didn’t immediately respond, hesitating.

“Please what was your life like say, at twelve-years-old?” he further encouraged.

Alarm bells were going off like crazy in her head. ‘What the fuck was he asking shit like this for,’ she was thinking. She was building towards an explosion of expletives.

He saw it brewing and sternly interjected, “Understand this, young lady, I am interviewing potential tenants, like you, to come live a stone’s throw away from me, in this oasis of natural heaven. I have chosen to make the tenantse available to someone in a special needs situation, because I can afford to and want to do so.”

She was calming down, her pulse calming, as quickly as it had risen a few seconds ago. He could see she had a little common sense, self-control, neither all that common now a days. Something he could work with.

She decided to tell him some of her story. He listened with an open heart, an open mind, constantly supportive, constantly forgiving. She shared more than she meant to. There were tears involved but he was so nice to her and he hugged her at the end.

She wasn’t an angel by any means, she had had some very shitty things done to her and she had done some bad shit to others. She did what she did to survive, to get the drug she so desperately needed, to get by to the next day, somehow, someway, to not kill herself.

She came closest just before she got pregnant. Her parents’ death had devastated her, being left penniless after their funerals, justified the rage she built up towards their deaths.

Prior to killing themselves, while drunk driving, they had been a happy family. Maybe a little too much drinking, weekend partying, but mostly happy, they did things together. She had a lot of school friends, life was good.

Their death, her anger, her dropping out of school, the fighting with the welfare agents, mental health professionals, all of it, was pain that morphed into rage. She was driven.

She met Terry who introduced her to drugs. A little at a time, stronger every few days, she was on the needle within six months of the funeral. She had fallen so low she wanted to kill herself, tried to one night, taking far more H than she knew she should. However, it didn’t work. Some friends of Terry’s had shown up in search of a flap, found her drooling on the floor and called 911.

The nurses got her through it. Terry was there to take her home when she got out of the hospital and get her high on the way home. Life was shit, she took the hit.

Then she got pregnant. It scared the hell out of her. She had never imagined. She was going to die. WTF! Then she saw him through the ultra sound. Saw his little legs and arms and overnight all that rage morphed into love. Love for her unborn child.

Then Terry would wake up, get up, he would crawl about pulling himself together, then light a joint, lay out a line, draft a spoon, whatever he had available to get him going again, he did.

Always encouraging, belittling, coercing, manipulating her to have a little more until the party was on again and for the next day or two, they’d never hit the ground.

She loved it, she hated it, she craved it. She prayed to stop it and her baby paid the price.

Brian was born. She made commitments every morning, commitments not to get high today, to stay straight for her baby, just today.