Chapter 19

As the limo cruised through the gates to the compound, Vince said, "Is this home?"

"Yes," David said.

"Swell!" Vince said.

David told the lad about the three homes within the walls and the amenities built into each home.

"You'll be living in our home," Nora said, "David's and mine. A while back I met with the probate attorney for your parents' estate, and he allowed me into the house where you used to live. I packed up all your things. Your clothes are hanging in the closet in your room here, and your other things are on shelves or in drawers. Everything else in your parents' home has been moved to storage. Later when you feel like it, you can go through the items in storage and keep whatever you wish. The probate attorney says there won't be much money left after probate, but what's left will be yours, Vince."

The limo stopped in front of David and Nora's home.

"Would you like to see your room?" David asked the boy.

He nodded but didn't speak. When Nora mentioned his parents, sudden tears had stung the boy's eyes.

Nora patted his hand. "It's all right to miss them, Vince."

He nodded again and squared his shoulders. "Let's go see my room," he said.

After lunch, Vincent Crawford sat in his room staring out through a window that gave him a view of a small mountain, but he didn't see the mountain. He was watching a scene in his mind: the last minutes of his parents' life. They were fighting, arguing. About money, as usual. His mother had spent the afternoon shopping, and his father had just found out what she'd spent.

"Return everything tomorrow," his father said, taking his eyes off the road. He was furious, red in the face, his voice strident and demanding. "Get our money back."

"No!" his mother screeched. "Tightwad! I just bought a few things for Vince, a few things for me."

Vince remembered thinking: one thing for me, the rest for you, Mom.

"Shoes!" his father bellowed. "You bought shoes, didn't you?"

Shoes. His mother liked shoes. She must have had a hundred pair of shoes.

"Watch the road... !" his mother screamed.

Then Vince didn't remember anything else until he woke up in the hospital.

He blinked and saw the mountain. Did David and Nora fight about money? He looked around his large room. It was twice the size of his old room, and it had a walk-in closet, and a door to the bathroom located between his room and the next room down the hall. It was as big or bigger than his parents' bedroom.

He heard a knock at his door, which surprised him. His parents never knocked on his door. They just barged in.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened and Patty walked in. Golly, she's pretty, Vince thought.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said.

"How far can you walk?" she said.

"Huh?" he said.

"I asked David if I could show you around the compound, and he said I could, but it's a big place, takes a lot of walkin', and you've been in a hospital," she said without taking a breath.

"Oh. I don't know how far I can walk," Vince said. "Let's just start, and if I get tired, we'll sit down and rest for a while."

Patty smiled and held out her hand. He took it.

"We'll start in this house. It has a gym with all sorts of exercise equipment. Flint and Dwayne exercise in the gym everyday." They walked out of his room hand in hand. She looked up at him. "Will you be my friend, Vince?"

He looked at her and nodded.

He felt her small hand squeeze his. "Good," she said. "Up until now, I've been the only kid here, 'cept George, and he's a baby, so he doesn't count."

As they walked down the hall, Vince said, "Does Nora have a lot of shoes?"
Patty giggled. "I don't know. That's a silly question, Vince."

He chuckled. "It is, isn't it?"

"Let's find out," Patty said.

"Huh?"

"Let's look in her closet and see how many shoes she has."

He frowned and said, "I don't think we should do that."

"Why not?" Patty said.

"Bedrooms are private places," he said.

"Oh. Okay, we'll ask Janice. She cleans their bedroom. Maybe she'll know."

Later when they were strolling on the running path, Patty said, "Why do you want to know now many shoes Nora has?"

Haltingly, he told her about his parents' last fight. While he spoke, he started to cry, not gulping sobs, mostly silent tears, but some of them escaped his eyes and streaked his cheeks.

"Why did they have to yell at each other, Patty? Why... ?" he said.

She pulled at his hand. "Come. There's some chairs over in those trees."

Vince recovered quickly. After all, it wasn't manly to cry, especially in front of a girl.

Sitting side by side, Patty took his hand again. "My mom and dad had fights, too, 'cept they didn't just yell at each other. Dad hit my mother, hit her with his fists, Vince. Sometimes he hurt her so bad that she had to go to the hospital. I don't know why parents fight. They just do, I guess."

"Do David and Nora fight?" he said.

"I don't know. I've never seen them fight. They're always very loving with each other, kissing and touching, you know, affectionate, but they might fight sometimes." She giggled. "David and Darla are loving with each other, too. They kiss and..." She blushed. "And Nora and Darla kiss each other." She paused and reflected back in time. "You know I haven't seen anyone get into an argument here. But I've seen a lot of kissing and hugging." She looked at him and dropped her eyes. "Let's make a pact, Vince."

He said nothing.

"Let's promise not to argue and fight or hit each other."

He nodded. "That would be swell."

"And let's kiss and hug each other, not all the time, just when we're alone like this," she said.

"Oh, golly! Patty, I've never... well, I..."

She scooted over onto his lap and kissed him quickly. "Hug me now," she said.

He wrapped his good arm around her and hugged her.

"I kissed you. Now you've gotta kiss me," she said.

He pressed his lips to hers. She squirmed and twisted on his lap as her arms wrapped his neck, and she kissed him back, but not like he'd kissed her. She opened her mouth a little, and he felt her tongue on his tight lips. When he relaxed his lips, her tongue darted inside his mouth. He moaned and his tongue touched hers, and she sucked it into her mouth.

Then the kiss was over, and Patty was standing in front of him, holding out her hand for him. He couldn't get up. If he did, she'd see his hard-on. But then she knew he was hard. She had to know. She had to have felt it when she was on his lap.

"We'd better get back before someone comes looking for us," Patty said.

"Go ahead. I'll..."

She grabbed his hand and tugged. "Come on, Vince."

He moved to his feet, his trousers poking straight out. She noticed, too, but she said nothing, just smiled.

As they walked away, Patty said, "That was my first kiss with a boy."

"I don't think so," he said.

Her head spun toward him. "It' the truth! I've never kissed a boy."

"That was a French kiss, Patty."

"I know that. I read an article on the Internet about kissing."

"Oh," he said.

She grinned and squeezed his hand. "I like kissing. You're a very good kisser, Vince."

"Thanks," he said. "That was my first kiss with a girl, too."

"Can we kiss again sometime?" Patty said.

"That would be swell, Patty," he said, grinning.

"You're pretty banged up," Nora said to Eileen.

"I'm all right, bruised mostly," Eileen said.

"How about a short walk around the pool?" Nora said. They sat with David and Ridley in the Holiday Inn coffee shop. The edge of the pool could be seen from their table.

Eileen looked at Ridley. He nodded.

"All right," Eileen said.

Nora helped her to her feet, and they walked away from the men. Outside, Nora said, "You didn't tell David everything."

"No," Eileen said. "And I won't. I won't tell anyone everything."

"Yes, Eileen, you will, but not David, not Ridley, not me. This morning, we took an eleven-year-old boy into our home. Vince is an orphan. His parents were killed in an automobile accident. He lived, but the trauma he experienced affected him deeply, and not just physically. We're not qualified to handle his mental trauma, so we hired a therapist to help him handle his loss. The trauma he experienced pales in comparison to yours. You need therapy more than Vince. We'll provide a therapist for you like we did for Vince, and you will tell him everything, Eileen. If you don't, he won't be able to help you."

"I won't tell him my real name," Eileen said.

"Did you notice that I'm armed?" Nora said. Nora and David had discussed this approach en route to meet Eileen. They planned to use Nora's affiliation with the FBI to let Eileen know that they not only knew her name but other facts that Eileen had not divulged.

Eileen's eyes widened. "No!"

Nora stopped and turned to the side. "Lift my shirt, Eileen."

Eileen gasped when she saw the pistol in a holster on Nora's hip.

"I'm a cop, Eileen, a special agent for the FBI," Nora said.

"Oh, fuck," Eileen breathed. Then her eyes filled with fear. "Are you going to arrest me?"

"Have you committed a Federal crime?" Nora asked.

"No... I don't know. I cut Peck. Maybe I killed him. I don't know."

"You didn't kill him, Eileen. Besides, you were defending yourself. Killing someone in self-defense is not a crime, not in Arizona, anyway."

"How do you know I didn't kill him?" Eileen said.

"I know things. I'm a special agent for the FBI, Sandra Newton."

"Oh, shit! You know my name!"

She turned to run, but Nora grabbed her arm.

"Calm down, Eileen. Neither David nor I will ever speak your real name again. We're here to help you, not hurt you, and neither of us will let your perverted stepfather get his filthy hands on you again. In fact, we're going to take him down, and take him down hard. James Peck, too." Nora grinned. "You got lucky, Eileen. My husband recently acquired an addiction. He's addicted to charitable good deeds. I love him, so I support him and his addiction. He wants to help you, so I'll help him help you. Let's sit in the shade on that bench and figure out how to get you out of the mess you're in."

Flint put Eileen's one suitcase in the trunk of the limo, and opened a rear-passenger door. Nora moved inside the armored vehicle, and David waited until Eileen stepped inside before he sat next to Nora. Ridley had already driven away in his van.

No one spoke until the limo left the Holiday Inn parking lot.

"Tell David and Flint the rules we came up with," Nora said.

Eileen swallowed. "No drugs, no booze, no cigarettes, no sex. No..."

"No sex except what, Eileen?" Nora said, interrupting her.

Eileen blushed. "Except masturbation, and that'll be private in my room."

David chuckled and said, "That's fair."

Flint didn't chuckle. He hooted with laughter. "Eileen," he said, "you don't know how lucky you are that Ridley found you and brought David, Nora, Darla, Joe and Carol into your life."

"Who are Darla, Joe and Carol?" Eileen said.

"Carol is my mother," David said. "Darla is my sister."

"Joe is my father," Nora said. "My father and David's mother are man and wife. You'll meet everyone at dinner tonight. Go on with the rules, please."

"No cussing. No cussing will be hard for me. I'll try real hard to follow the rule, but I'll slip once in a while. I know I will."

"If you slip, and George, Patty or Vince hears you, apologize to them, and tell them you were wrong to do it," David said. "That way they'll know it's wrong."

"I can do that," Eileen said.

"Come to think of it, Dwayne's daughter, Katy, will be joining the household tomorrow," David said. "Katy is nine years old. The same goes for cussing around her."

"Okay," Eileen said. "Who's Dwayne?"

"Dwayne Holt. He works for me," Flint said. "He's a driver/bodyguard."

"Go on with the rules, Eileen," Nora said.

"I've got to attend all the classes at the homeschool and do any homework before TV or other leisure activities. I've got to keep my room picked up. Nora says no slobs are allowed in the compound. That rule isn't necessary for me. I don't like messes. What else? Yes, I have to meet with a therapist and tell him everything so he can help me. The next rule is very important. I've got to treat everyone in the compound with respect. If I don't, Nora says I'll get tossed out on my ear."

"That's it?" David said when Eileen stopped listing the rules.