Promises

by Aleatha Romig

What?

  “No, not yet,” I said.

  Sterling didn’t need to answer, not verbally. The answer was crystal clear in his dark eyes and set chiseled jaw.

  “Please, I want to hold her, just for a moment. Then we can go. I know there are a million fires in Chicago. I want to know what’s in that box, on those CDs and floppy disks, and in the documents. I do. But...give me a half hour.”

  Sterling’s gaze went to Patrick. And while he didn’t say a word, Patrick nodded.

  “The plane will be ready in an hour,” Patrick said. “Marianne needs to file the flight plan back to Chicago.”

  I sighed. “Thank you.”

  As I started to step away, I stopped. “After we go...will...will there still be people watching them?”

  Sterling nodded. “Yes, they’re all safe and they’ll stay that way.”

  He’d said that before the horrible incident with Louisa. Nevertheless, he’d also told me that since that episode, the number of eyes on them—the number of Sparrows—had increased. “Thank you.”

  Through the window, the sky was lightening. It was morning and we’d all been up for the entire night. Hell, we’d started the day by flying to Cambridge. I’d knelt at the empty grave of a small baby, and now I was going to hold another with a full life before her.

  Going back into the waiting room, I sat beside Winnie. “I can’t wait to hold her.”

  She feigned a smile in my direction. Maybe it wasn’t forced. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. “I-I was nervous to see you again, to see him.”

  “Him? Do you mean Sterling?”

  She nodded. “May I tell you something?” Her voice was a low whisper.

  I scanned the room around us, thankful that Sterling and Patrick were still in the hallway. With those who were around us, it truly didn’t matter our volume. Everyone else in the room was talking, looking at the same picture we’d all received, and discussing Kennedy’s information. It was then that I noticed Calvin, Louisa’s father, and Jason’s parents were missing from the room.

  Of course, the grandparents would be back with their precious new granddaughter. My mind fluttered to an unknown place, an image of me holding a dark-haired baby with Annabelle and Genevieve present. Maybe it was my lack of sleep encouraging my imagination. However, if this were an unreal dream and I could make alterations, I also wanted to add Josey to that room.

  It didn’t matter.

  The image was purely fiction.

  First, Sterling and I weren’t that serious—or were we? And then I couldn’t in a million years imagine Genevieve Sparrow welcoming me or a child of mine, even if it were also Sterling’s, into the Sparrow family.

  “Kennedy?”

  “Um,” I said, dismissing my imagination. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “He contacted me again.”

  “Who?”

  “Agent Hunter.”

  I let out a long sigh as my pulse kicked up—again thankful Sterling and Patrick were not in the room. “Seriously, Winnie, there is so much going on. You can’t talk to him. I’m not asking you to lie. Just don’t talk to him.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “I thought I was helping you. I know now that was wrong, but that doesn’t mean the whole thing with Louisa didn’t scare me.”

  I reached out and laid my hand upon her jean-covered knee. “I’m sure. I was scared and I wasn’t here. But don’t you see that it was Sparrows who saved her? He does good things.”

  “Real estate,” Winnie said, “you mentioned that.”

  “I wish I could tell you more. I do. I can’t. For the rest of this week, I want you to close everything down with Sinful Threads—all operations across the country.” Sterling had told me and Jana to work from home. Extending the order nationwide was my idea; after all, Sinful Threads was my company. Perhaps I was learning to live in this new world. “I promise this is for a good reason. Tell all the managers that everyone will be paid for their normal time. Tell them that it’s a long weekend bonus in celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Toney’s new daughter.”

  Winnie’s eyes grew wider with each word. She looked at her watch. “Immediately, for the next two days. You want production stopped when we’re already behind on the dress orders? We have crews planned to work Monday, too. They’re expecting the overtime.”

  “Two days, Winnie. That’s all. No one works on Labor Day. We’ll be in full swing on Tuesday.”

  “What’s happening? Can’t you tell me something?”

  “I can tell you that you’re safe, and if you meet again with Agent Hunter, we’ll know.”

  “Am I being watched?”

  “Not in a bad way. After this weekend, we’re hoping it’s all done. Life will go back to normal.”

  “Kenni, what’s normal for you anymore?”

  My cheeks rose. “I can’t tell you that either, but I can say that I like it. I’m comfortable and safe.” I looked into her gaze. “I’m loved. I really am. And I love him too.”

  “I can see that. I can. But you should know that I didn’t reach out to Wesley. He cornered me while I was at the market. We didn’t talk long. I can’t control where he finds me.”

  I looked her directly in the eye and spoke low. “Winnie, you know what happened to Louisa and Jason. This is serious stuff. Involving the FBI will not help. It will make it worse. Let Sterling handle this. He’s on it. Stay home or with Louisa until after the holiday.”

  Her lips disappeared between her teeth as she looked down and then back up. “Wesley told me to make a deal and save myself. He said there’s something about illegal activities and Sinful Threads. Could someone in Sinful Threads be working for Mr. Sparrow?”

  My head shook from side to side. “No, not in a nefarious way.”

  “I told him I didn’t know anything.” She sighed. “I liked Wesley. I really did. Now I don’t know who to trust.”

  I knew that feeling. I’d had it. “I trust Sterling and Patrick implicitly. I’ll tell them what Agent Hunter said. We’ll get to the bottom of that.” Or should I say we’ll add it to our growing list of to-dos.

  The double doors opened and all four smiling grandparents came through. Lucy spoke, “They have paper gowns back there and before you touch her, you need to sanitize your hands, but if you girls want to go back, they’ll let all three of you.”

  Girls?

  I guess that was what came from one generation to the next. The younger, no matter how old, were always younger.

  My gaze went between Winnie and Lindsey. “Let’s go.”

  A few minutes later, covered in a blue paper gown, I sat in a large glider as Jason came toward me with Kennedy in his careful grasp. “Aunt Kennedy, we’re very happy to introduce you to Kennedy Lucille Toney.” He placed the beautiful baby wrapped in a light blanket in my waiting arms.

  Her little face scrunched as her eyes opened and closed.

  “It’s bright out here, sweetie,” I said.

  Unwrapping the blanket, I peered down at her perfect little body covered only in a tiny diaper. As I opened her grasp of one fist, she wrapped her long slender fingers around my one finger. With tears in my eyes, I looked over to Louisa.

  She was smiling my way with Jason at her side.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, my voice filled with emotion. She was also wearing a tiny stocking cap. “May I take off her hat to see her hair?”

  “Yes,” Louisa said. “It’s light, like Jason’s.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Like yours, Kenni.”

  It was. Her hair was a fine, soft yellow coating, barely visible, and as soft as silk to the touch.

  “Hello, Kennedy,” I whispered. “Your aunt Aran—Kennedy is going to spoil you rotten.”

  I didn’t want to give her up, to pass her on to Winnie or Lindsey, yet I knew Sterling was waiting. Finally, I looked around. “I can’t be selfish. Who is next?”

  Once Kennedy was safe and secure in Lindsey’s arms, I went to Louisa. “I love you...both...all of you. I have t
o get back to Chicago, but I promise I’ll be back.”

  Louisa reached for my hand. “Jimmy Hoffa?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Nope, no idea where he’s buried.” Considering he went missing in the 1970s, I was certain that he wasn’t one of Sterling’s skeletons.

  His father’s or my uncle’s?

  Now those were genuine possibilities.

  “Stay safe,” Jason said.

  “I will. You too.”

  Jason nodded. “We have help and...” He looked to Kennedy in Lindsey’s arms. “...we’ll take it.”

  “All I can tell you is that you’re important to me. That makes you important to him.”

  After giving a round of hugs, I made my way out of the room. The nurses’ desk was much busier than it had been, men and women in scrubs coming and going, watching monitors and typing information.

  There was a normalcy about the medical center, now that it was morning that was reassuring. In the waiting room, I said my goodbyes to Lucy and Calvin, wondering how these people would fit into my new world.

  What was normal?

  I wasn’t sure I knew anymore.

  And then as I opened the door to the outer hallway and a devilishly handsome man turned his dark stare my way, I knew.

  Sterling Sparrow was my new normal.

  “Sunshine,” he said, “we need to get back. Reid has cracked the first CD.”

  “Broken it?” I asked, aghast.

  “No, he’s got the data. Only eleven more to go.”

  Josey/Rebecca

  Present

  “Do you ever think about her?” I asked Neal one morning as I woke after a vivid dream starring our daughter. In my imagination she was still sixteen, beautiful with so much life ahead.

  He reached for my hand. “I do. I think about searching for her, but I’m sometimes afraid of what we’ll find.”

  “We’ve been disconnected from everything for so long.” I looked around our two-room cabin. The door to the bedroom was open to the larger room, a space shared by a living area and a small kitchen. The wooden floors were clean as were the windows and our simple furnishings. We had a fireplace for heat and windows that opened for cooling. The community where we’ve lived for the last ten years could be considered a cult, but to us it was simply our home.

  The people within had welcomed us, no questions asked. They’d taken us in and given us our own space. The people here came from all walks of life. Rarely did we discuss the world outside of our bubble, yet when we did, most of us were content with our decision to become one with the land.

  We learned their ways.

  The most important rules were kindness and participation. No acts of violence were tolerated. It meant immediate expulsion. And we all worked together to keep food on the tables, logs in the fireplaces, and clothes on our backs.

  The community in northern Maine was completely self-sufficient with few exceptions. Every quarter, a group of the men went to the nearby town. They sold our crops or our creations and purchased supplies.

  Under the covering of a religious organization, our community was exempt from certain laws. That allowed the residents to live off the grid, so to speak. We had no taxes, no bills, and no credit cards. No anything that connected us to the world we’d left.

  When we’d moved here, we took back our real names.

  It was a risk. It was the name Allister Sparrow knew if he ever believed we were still alive.

  Neal’s friend had supplied us with other identifications.

  Our fear was that his friend knew the names he’d given us. He also knew the name he’d given Renee. By returning to Neal and Becky Curry, we cut all of our ties to Renee. That was how I still referred to her.

  Renee.

  She should be set as Kennedy Hawkins by now, but to me, she’d always be our Renee. The daughter we’d watched grow up. The one we’d had the privilege to love.

  Sterling

  Reid, Patrick, and I were all on two as Thursday afternoon grew into Thursday evening. While the lack of sleep over the last thirty-six hours had our nerves on edge, having Araneae and Lorna, as well as the three of us, safely secured within our current lockdown gave me a small amount of comfort. That along with the constant eyes on Araneae’s friends in Denver and Boulder and it almost seemed as if we might find the light at the end of this tunnel.

  Seven CDs were opened.

  Five to go.

  And four floppy disks.

  Daniel McCrie had hit pay dirt, at least for when he did this. Technology was nothing like it is today. He copied screenshots of online auction sites with photographs of boys and girls that had been up for sale and rent. I’d heard when I was young, by eavesdropping when I shouldn’t, that most kids lasted a few months to maybe a year in what my father’s men called the stables. Once their usefulness was done, they were sold, oftentimes out of the country. It was an elaborate operation.

  When I closed the doors on Sparrow’s ring, I had complaints from all over the world. What Rubio had said about me doing it too abruptly was almost right. My father’s disgruntled middlemen, the ones who skimmed their profits in the exportation, began to revolt. It could have been noticed if I hadn’t taken care of it when I did. After a few associates wound up in acid baths within barrels near the shipyards, word spread fast.

  Upon two CDs there were even snippets of a live feed. Unfortunately, the capacity of storage on a CD was significantly lower than what we had today with flash drives. The total capacity of the average home computer around the time of Araneae’s birth was less than a single flash drive today. The snippets were only a few seconds long, yet they showed enough.

  I’d heard of the live feed, but had never seen it.

  Patrons were able to make their requests and pay to view in real time whatever they requested. The snippets included text bubbles of customers making suggestions and bids. As moneymakers go, it was a brilliant setup. Instead of satisfying one customer with one kid, thousands could tune in and watch. As a moral—even in my immoral world—human being, it turned my stomach.

  With all I’d seen, it took a lot of sick shit to make me queasy.

  This did it.

  This crossed the line.

  “Do you think you can track the patrons?” I asked as we replayed the snippet. “Look right there.” Reid paused the snippet and I pointed at the bubble near the bid.

  Reid shook his head. “Eventually, maybe. This was twenty-six years ago. Those accounts are undoubtedly gone. The IP address could get me to the region, city, or town, but I’d venture it will tell me that the user was in the greater Chicago area.”

  “Not narrowing it down much,” I said, disheartened.

  Even in my nearly thirty-three-year-old mind, as the pictures came up on the screen, I found myself transported back to my father’s office, complete with the dark surroundings, the reeking stench of cigarette and cigar smoke, and the revolting laughter of his men.

  I fucking hated that sensation. Everything about this made my skin crawl.

  With each discovery, I reminded myself that I wasn’t that petrified young teenager. I was a man, the ruler of Chicago’s underground, and the one who took down my father and others who made the decision not to follow me. I was also the man who’d put a stop to the Sparrow side of this horrendous ring, helped the victims I could—the ones I could find and who wanted saving.

  The pictures themselves wouldn’t lead to the downfall of McFadden or Sparrow. The victims couldn’t even be identified conclusively. The children were numbered not named. And then we saw it, a URL link within the live-feed snippet.

  “Look at that,” Reid said, enlarging a still shot of the live feed. In the lower-right-hand corner was the link to place bids. That link should have led to either one of the outfits.

  No longer active, it was at least the beginning of his current search.

  Silently, I hoped it went to McFadden and not Sparrow.

  That wasn’t to save Sparrow Enterprises or my memor
y of my father—Sparrow Enterprises was diverse and solvent and my memory of Allister Sparrow was already tarnished. My hope was for one reason: I didn’t want to have to explain the concept to Araneae and admit it was my father’s ring.

  “McFadden,” I said, “told me that McCrie gave him six CDs and my father six. Do you think that in this box we have a copy of each one?”

  “If that’s the case,” Patrick replied, “then six of these incriminate each outfit.” He looked to me. “I’m sure at the time he knew which was which.”

  I leaned back in my chair as Reid’s fingers continued to fly. On another screen, the computer was working out the encryption scheme of the next CD. Each one had a different one. He’d definitely taken his time to do this as thoroughly as possible.

  “Rubio didn’t say,” I said, “but if I were to theorize, I’d speculate that McCrie took each man his own dirty laundry, to prove he had it. He thought it would bring him something in payment.”

  “It fucking killed him,” Reid said.

  Who knew Reid was listening?

  “Not immediately. It bought him time,” I said, standing and pacing a small trek. “Why did McCrie give Araneae up at birth?”

  “Do we know he did?” Patrick asked. “We know for almost certain from the good judge that she believed Araneae was dead. She gave birth and they handed her a dead baby.”

  My head shook as one of the computers emitted a chime. We all looked that direction. The screen that had been rolling with thousands and hundreds of thousands of schemes was now still, a string of numbers and letters on the screen.

  “Number eight,” Reid said confidently.

  “I keep going back,” I began, “to my father saying that Daniel McCrie owed him. I can’t imagine my father helping McCrie out of the kindness of his heart.” He didn’t fucking have a heart.

  “Maybe it was quid pro quo?” Patrick offered.

  “McCrie gave my father the CDs that implicated Sparrow. He gave Rubio the CDs that implicated McFadden. He hid copies. Eventually, McFadden killed him.”

  “You have a sixteen-year jump in there—a hole,” Patrick said.