Chapter 21

In his office, David phased out and connected with Gordon Wilson in the present. Wilson was taking a shower, his head soapy with shampoo. David created an invisible hand and turned the faucet to cold. Wilson bellowed and jumped, quickly adjusting the temperature of the water. When it was the correct temperature and after Wilson stepped under the water again, David turned the faucet to scalding hot. Wilson screamed and cursed, and then adjusted the water so he could get the soap out of his eyes and rinse his hair. After two more twists of the faucet, David left Wilson to towel himself dry while David roamed his house.

Great, David thought. Wilson is a neat freak. This is going to be too easy.

In the violent man's closet, Wilson's suits hung perfectly aligned with approximately one inch between each suit. David jammed them together on one side of the closet, throwing a couple of them on the floor. The dresser drawers were equally neat. David dumped one drawer into another, shook up the contents, and dumped half the jumbled mess back into the first drawer. He did the same to the drawers in Wilson's home office, and then rearranged the plaques and framed photographs on the wall, leaving them crooked and dropping a couple of them to the floor. He unplugged every cord connected with the computer, hiding one of the cords in a box in the garage. Back in the office with a black magic marker from the desk, David wrote on the wall: Cancel your contract with Pete!

When David returned to his body he was smiling.

"Harried men make mistakes," he whispered.

While David was composing the e-mail listing James Peck's character flaws and crimes, it occurred to him that some of the girls in Peck's fire would be returned to the frying pans from whence they came, which would be better than Peck's fires of hell, but then again, maybe not.

He found Eileen having breakfast with Vince and Patty. He greeted the children warmly and asked Eileen to come to his office when she finished eating. She lifted the last forkful of egg to her mouth, swallowed and said, "I'm finished now, David."

In his office, David said, "Nora told you that we planned to take James Peck down hard, right"

"Yes," Eileen said.

"That's immanent," David said. "When he's arrested, the girls in his string will also be taken into custody. Some of them will be identified and returned to their homes. The balance will be placed in the foster-care system. Is this a problem for you?"

Eileen thought about his question for a long moment before she said, "Yes and no. No, because most of them would like to get away of the creep no matter what. Yes, because... well, because one of them, like me, ran away from her home for good reason. A couple of them ran from foster homes. I think they'll be happy to be back in foster homes again. The rest were... well, they were delinquents, bad kids, David, drug addicts, thieves, what have you. As far as I know, their parents didn't want them and are not looking for them."

David cocked an eyebrow. "You said most would like to be free of the creep. Were you implying that one or more would prefer remaining under his thumb?"

She nodded. "One. Alice. She... I don't know how to say it, David. It's like she enjoyed the violence, sort of got off on it. Oh, not if she was on the receiving end, but I think she liked watching Peck beat on one of the other girls. It's like her eyes shined, if you know what I mean. A couple of us figured she ratted us out so she could watch him punish us."

David nodded. "Okay, can you name the girl who ran for good reason?"

"A girl my age named Bella, although that probably isn't her real name. She ran because her father and uncle raped her, not once, but a bunch of times, and her mother watched sometimes."

"How about we arrange to have Bella placed in a foster home in protective custody rather than returned to her parents?"

Eileen smiled. "That'd work."

Then David questioned her in detail about each of the girls. She responded to his questions openly and honestly. Her answers, he soon realized, would give him more ammunition for the e-mail he was composing.

"Got a call from the private investigator I hired," David said. "Not long after you called your mother yesterday, she packed up and left your stepfather. She didn't confront him, Eileen. Like you, she merely ran. She's staying with a friend in Phoenix."

David watched tears well in Eileen's eyes. "She believed me."

"That's my take on the situation," David said. "You should call her today, and although I assume you'll want to live with your mother again, I think you should stay here until we bring Peck, Robert Hummel, and all of Hummel's pedophile friends to justice."

Eileen looked like David had whopped her across the head, and then more tears flushed her eyes. "What if I want to stay here with you?" she said.

"Then you'll be welcome, but your mother will have a say in the matter. She'll also need my protection before this is finished, Eileen. Hummel hired a skip tracer to find her. She'll be easy to find. Most people don't know how to truly disappear."

"All right," Eileen said. "I'll call her today. When will Peck be arrested?"

"Tomorrow, the next day at the latest."

"Good," she said.

After Eileen left his office, he phased out and connected with Paul Fisher. He was in an office, but not at the Johnson Center. Good, David thought and found an empty office with a computer that had been left on. From memory, he retyped the e-mail about Peck's crimes that he had composed in his office, but added more facts that he'd learned during his question and answer session with Eileen. He forwarded the e-mail to Nora, and returned to his body.

Nora answered his call.

"I just sent the e-mail," David said.

"Hang on," she said. "I can read it now."

He waited.

"That ought to do it David," she said five minutes later and gave him the e-mail address of the FBI agent who would act on the anonymous accusations in the e-mail.

David left his body, connecting with Fisher again. The office he'd used before was occupied, so he found a different empty office, retyped the e-mail and sent it to the e-mail address Nora had given him. He deleted the sent file, and then deleted the deleted files, which could be recovered, he knew, if the FBI made the effort. With a ghostly shrug, he returned to his body. He doubted the FBI would make the effort.

Wilson was on the phone in his office. David, on yet another quick flight of consciousness, grinned when he realized Wilson was speaking to a house painter asking about painting a room in his home. With ghostly fingers, David disconnected the telephone from the outlet in the wall behind the credenza. Wilson was in mid-sentence when the phone went dead. The beleaguered man depressed the receiver a couple of times to get a new dial tone. When nothing happened, he cursed loudly and said, "What else can go wrong today?"

A lot, David said silently. I have just begun.

Using a conjured digit, David turned off Wilson's computer and went roaming through Wilson's plush offices. He plugged up the toilet in Wilson's private john, turned off his secretary's computer, and disconnected her telephone. In the executive kitchen, David pulled the plug behind the refrigerator, scattered an open can of coffee over the floor, and poured a bottle of orange juice on the coffee grounds. After he turned over a table in an empty, small conference room, he wrote, Cancel your contract with Pete, on a white board at one end of the room.

In the cubicle area in the offices where a dozen men and women labored, David turned off all the computers and disconnected all the telephones. Realizing that Wilson rented the entire floor of the office building for his business, David located the equipment room and turned off the electrical power for that floor. Then he returned to his body, smiled and said, "Are you having fun yet?"

He reached for his telephone.

"Kyle, it's David." Kyle Hanks was his personal and corporate attorney.

"Hey, David, what can I do for you?"

"I need the name of the best divorce lawyer in town."

The silence stretched out.

Finally Kyle said, "I'm sorry to hear that, David."

David chuckled. "Not for me, Kyle. Got a woman working for me. Her husband beat her. I hired her out of a battered women's shelter."

"Oh. Will you be paying the legal fees?"

"I'll cough up the retainer, but my employee's husband is wealthy. Unless there's a prenuptial agreement, I figure the lawyer June and I will hire will get his cut from hubby," David said.

"Okay, call Charles Denver." He gave David a phone number.

David hung up, dialed the number, and ten minutes later he had a meeting set up at the compound for early evening. David planned to introduce Chuck Denver to June, at which time the three of them would fashion a winning strategy to counter Gordon Wilson's plot to lure June and Patty out of the compound.

David was still in his office when Flint returned from the ranch. He flopped into a chair in front of David's desk.

"You said something about preparing a package for the authorities about Gordon Wilson," Flint said.

"I changed my mind," David said and told Flint how he'd been hassling Wilson.

While David related specifics, Flint started laughing, and before David finished Flint was laughing so hard tears had come to his eyes.

"I figure five minutes of my time, four or five times a day will break him in five days to a week," David said.

"I love it, David," Flint said, using his handkerchief to wipe his eyes.

"Did my mother and Molly click, or were they cool toward each other?" David asked.

Flint frowned. "They clicked. Why did you ask?"

"When you came in my office you looked like you'd been rode hard and put away wet," David said.

"Oh. No, my frustration didn't come from Carol and Molly clashing. I'm worried I gave Molly more than she can handle. When it comes to security at the ranch, Molly's starting from scratch. As we walked what I refer to as the secure area, and I told her what I had planned, I could see that she was becoming more and more agitated."

"How tight are you holding the reins?" David asked.

"Huh?"

"Did you tell her what you wanted done, and then get out of her way so she could do it, or does she have to confer with you every thirty seconds?" David said.

"Oh," Flint said and looked reflective. He grinned. "I'm holding the reins too tight. She's fighting the bit."

"Well hell, Flint, turn her loose and let her run. Tell her I'll throw money at her solutions like a drunken sailor."

Flint laughed uproariously. "David, I sure do enjoy working with you. I surely do." He flipped open his cell phone and took the bit out of Molly's mouth. After he hung up, he said, "I could hear happy in her voice!"

"Good. Let's go get some lunch. I need to tell June about the meeting with a divorce attorney I set up for late afternoon. When does Dwayne's daughter arrive?"

"This evening about six o'clock," Flint said. "He's excited out of his mind."

As requested, Grace arrived a full half-hour before the Johnson Center board members.

"David's in the pool having fun," Janice said by way of greeting when she met Grace at David's front door. She guided Grace to the swimming pool.

Grace noticed a boy first. He was standing in the water, and someone had taped a humongous trash bag over boy's cast. David, probably, Grace thought, laughing under her breath. The boy couldn't swim, not with a cast on his arm, but he could get in the water. That'll be Vince, David's foster son, Grace guessed. A bruised and battered teenaged girl with a good body for her age and wearing a modest bikini was giving Patty a swimming lesson. The boy was listening intently to the lesson. Grace heard the words: Australian crawl, and assumed that was what the lesson was about.

Amazed, Grace watched Darla toss her child in the water. The small boy bobbed to the surface like a cork, and his mother watched as he dog-paddled to the edge of the pool. Grace could see he was having fun.

When David saw her, he walked up out of the pool, grabbed a towel and apologized for not being ready to meet her. "Time gets away from me when I'm having fun," he said. "Walk with me to my house. We'll talk while I dress."

Fine by me, Grace thought. Watching David dress will be the highlight of my day, which says a lot about my new boss because, as days go, it's been a pretty good day.

Darla left the water with George. "I'll meet you in my dining room, David," she said.

David and Darla used an outside shower to wash away the chlorine, and Grace strolled with David along a path from the swimming pool to the rear of David's house. "Tell me about the men and the woman I'll be meeting," he said.

"John Delmont has been on the board longer than anyone except Malcolm Johnson," Grace said. "He's sixty years old, thereabouts, overweight but not obese, balding but not vain about it. He's been married to the same woman for forty years; they have three grown children and six grandchildren. He's a general contractor, custom homes. Builds four or five a year. He feels strongly about the Johnson Center. His mother and sister were battered women."

"Sounds like a good man," David said.

"He is. Then there's Malcolm Johnson. He's a sweetheart. He's close to seventy now. His life partner died two years ago. Since then, he's become sort of a recluse, except for the Johnson Center, of course. His grandfather founded the Center about fifty years ago."

"Does he have any hobbies?" David asked.

"I think he paints landscapes."

"Oils or acrylics?" David said as they walked into his house.

"Don't know." She frowned. "Are his hobbies important?"

David chuckled. "Not really. Go on."

"Stuart Connell is forty-five, give or take a few years. Happily married with his second wife, he has a son from his first marriage that he rarely sees. He owns and operates a string of drycleaners. He gained his seat on the board with a large donation, but he's not part of the Fisher clique and preceded Fisher to the board. Stu is passionate about the Johnson Center, David."

Grace followed him into his bedroom. He walked into a large closet and partially closed the door so she couldn't see him.

Darn it, she thought.

"From what you told me," David said behind the door, "Delmont, Johnson and Connell are the current board members who will vote favorably regarding a merger with Tess Sanctuaries, correct?"

"Yes. Beverly Swan is an ex-board member. In fact, she was Chairman of the Board. She resigned the board when Fisher was elected chairman. She's forty-five, a widow, two grown children, two grandchildren. Working for Bev was a delight, David."

"I take it she wants back on the board," David said.

"Yes, but only if we can oust Fisher."

"In that, Beverly Swan and I are alike," David said. "Tell me about the other two board members that Fisher recruited that might be convinced to go against him," David said.

"Carl Willis and William Baker. Both made substantial donations, and Fisher recommended that they be elected to the board. According to Stu, they've been unhappy with the direction the organization has drifted during the last three months."

"Have they voted against Fisher on any issue?" David said as he stepped out of the closet fully dressed.

"Don't know. Not being a member of the board, I'm usually not told who voted for what. They'll be at the meeting. Ask them."

David looked like she'd just driven an ice pick through one of his ears into his brain, which made Grace laugh.