by Bev Elle
That was a tall order, but Trevor would deliver, because the alternative was seven years of heartache for her.
“Trevor?”
“Hello, Shanice.” He knew his response was lame, but he wasn’t ready to let go right off the bat.
“You’ve been in jail over a month and the first thing you say to me is ‘Hello, Shanice,’ like nothing’s happened?”
“I was doing this for us. Two orphans who got screwed over by the system. Don’t you see? I thought I was smart enough I’d never get caught, but I messed up, okay?”
“Are you even listening to yourself, Trevor? You make it sound like we’re victims, but we stopped being victims the moment we were both adopted by loving families.”
“My loving family died, remember. I had Philip Kyle as a foster parent for three years.”
“Okay, living with Phil hasn’t been a cakewalk, but you were still cared for by us. The years you had with David and Elena had to have made some impact on your life. This isn’t what they taught you. All this comes from Phil’s influence, doesn’t it?”
“That’s just it, Shanice. You had the cakewalk. I had a nightmare.”
“Then why didn’t you let my Dad help you? They asked you so many times about Phil, but you made it seem like everything was okay.”
“Well, that’s neither here nor there, now. I’ve done this and now I have to pay my debt to society.”
“But if you were coerced by Phil, the lawyers can help you.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Shanice. I’m not a minor and I’ve confessed. Phil didn’t write the programs, or move the funds. I did that. Now I have to pay for what I’ve done.”
“Trevor... ” She sniffed, and that gave away that she was crying.
“Shanice, you have to go on with your life.”
“No.”
“Yes. You have to live like you never knew me, because I’m going to be here awhile.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“No, you won’t. If you care about me, you’ll do this for me.”
“No, Trevor. I love you, I can’t let you go through this alone. One for each other and each other for one... right?”
“No, Shanice. That was a dream. A fantasy created by two poor little orphan kids who’ve now grown out of it. This is the real world now, and you and I have to live in it.”
“Trevor, please.” She said this through a gut wrenching sob.
“It’s for your own good. You have a bright future ahead of you. Don’t snuff it out for a convict.”
“You are not a convict and I’ll never think of you that way.”
“Yes, I am, and I have the number to prove it. You have a chance to graduate with honors and be that nurse you’ve always wanted to be. Take it.”
“Trevor, I’ll never give up on you.” Shanice was sobbing openly now.
“I have faith that you will be the man David and Elena hoped to raise.”
Trevor had to say the words that would give her the clean break Isaiah wanted. “Then you’re the only one.”
Shanice proved to be as stubborn as she was beautiful. Although he never wrote her back, Trevor got a letter from Shanice almost every week until about a month before he was tried and shipped off to his destination.
Eighteen months after that heartbreaking conversation with Shanice, Trevor was transported to the federal prison at Victorville, California. The terrain surrounding the facility looked nothing like Trevor was used to in Florida, where there was lush vegetation and lots of green space. The area surrounding the complex was mostly asphalt, concrete and gravel. The trees and greenery that made up the landscape dotted the area like sad punctuation marks.
Trevor didn’t know a single soul when he arrived, except one. The first day, Trevor was escorted to meet the FBI agent assigned to his case.
“Hello, Kyle.” Special Agent Donald Hemphill in the flesh greeted him.
Trevor was oddly happy to see the agent, but he wouldn’t dare let him know this. “How’d you pull this off? I thought I was going to get to start fresh with a new suit.”
“It’s called a transfer, inmate. Sort of what you just experienced, except I get paid to do it as a free man. Unfortunately, you don’t.”
Trevor pulled out a chair and plopped into it.
Hemphill’s eyes blazed in a glare that might scare a lesser man. “Did I say you could sit?”
“I figured I’d save you the trouble,” Trevor said. No sooner had the words left his lips than he found himself jacked up against the wall. The agent was surprisingly strong even though he was about the same height and build as Trevor.
Hemphill’s nose was centimeters from Trevor’s as he spoke. “Listen, Kyle. I don’t have time to play games with you. I’m here for one reason and one reason only. That’s to retrieve the billion dollars you stole from the fifty state government coffers you saw fit for rob for your own perverse pleasure. I am not your friend or your goddamn babysitter, and the sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better.”
Trevor didn’t know why he pushed Hemphill the way he did. Maybe it was because he felt completely alone for the first time in his life. He’d finally pushed Shanice away, or that’s what he currently believed, because he’d not gotten a letter from her in about a month.
Isaiah and Brenda didn’t write, but they made sure he had money in his commissary account, and would send holiday cards with their ministry newsletters attached, giving him updates on them and their family. Sometimes there were also pictures of their children, and this included the woman he loved more every time he read her letters and saw an updated photo of her.
Trevor raised his hands in an act of surrender. “Okay, okay.”
Donald let him go and took a seat. “Now sit down and let’s talk man to man.”
It was no surprise to Trevor that they first discussed another deal. If he was able to retrieve the funds in three months, the agency was willing to give him an early audience with the Probation Board, and to sweeten the deal, they would consider restoring his civil rights.
Trevor knew three months would only put him on the streets again only to put the Bailey family in danger, and he’d be manipulated by Phil and his mob connections to help them get the money. Then they would disappear to some country where they couldn’t be extradited back to the United States, and he’d be left holding the bag. Literally.
Trevor’s only option was to stay in prison until he devised a plan that worked to trap Phil and his co-conspirators, and to safeguard the Baileys and secure his freedom. Until that time, he would have to bullshit Special Agent Hemphill enough to keep him interested until the right opportunity presented itself.
“It’s impossible, I can’t override the program in three months, but I can write a new program.”
Hemphill nodded. “What timeframe are we talking?”
“With a couple hours of computer time a day only, I’m guessing five years.”
“Five years?”
“And that’s the most conservative estimate. That’s not taking into consideration testing time, and reworking if the tests fail.”
“We only have the manpower to allow you two hours of computer time a day, Kyle. The FBI has other important cases to work on besides yours.”
“I know, which is why I’m trying to be straight with you about how long it’s going to take.”
“You created the program that took the funds in two years.”
“And I had more computer time after classes, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, or was just plain bored.”
“If that’s what we have to work with, then I suppose that’s what we have to work with.” Hemphill stood. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Kyle, you’ve got a visitor.”
Trevor had been at Victorville over a year before he heard those words. He was giddy with anticipation, because he purposely didn’t try to make any real friends in the joint. He figured he’d learned enough bad
habits from his Uncle Phil and his associates to last a lifetime. He didn’t need any more.
The officer led him through the labyrinthine hallways until they came to the visiting area, a place he’d yet to spend any quality time since he’d been incarcerated. Other than Isaiah Bailey when he’d been in Florida, he’d had no other visitors.
Because she was a minor at the time he was convicted, Shanice wasn’t allowed to visit him without parental permission. And knowing Brenda and Isaiah the way he did, he knew they wouldn’t have allowed her to visit, partly because they didn’t want her exposed to the prison experience, and neither did he.
When they entered the visiting area, Trevor swept the room looking for someone, anyone he might recognize. No one fit the bill particularly, but then something looked familiar about the petite, exotic beauty in the corner who suddenly came barreling toward him.
“Ma’am, no physical contact... ” the officer escorting Trevor began, but her arms were around him, and her scent invaded his nostrils before the officer could step between them. Trevor fought back tears as he held Shanice in his arms, an experience that he’d only gotten to emulate in his dreams since he’d been incarcerated.
“Trevor, it’s been too long.” Shanice stepped back only when she got good and ready to, swiped under both eyes with her fingers, then addressed the officer. “Sorry, officer. I just haven’t seen him in three years.”
“First warning. Any further infractions and your visiting privileges will be terminated today.”
The officer got them settled at the table in the corner where Shanice had been sitting when they came in and went back to his post.
Trevor was full to overflowing, and this visit meant the world to him, but he couldn’t allow it to continue, no matter how desperately he wanted to. Since she was there, he would allow this visit, but there would be no more if he could help it. Trevor didn’t know how far Phil’s mob friends’ influence went, but he wasn’t willing to find out.
“What are you doing here, Shanice?” He asked in as neutral a tone as possible.
She folded her arms. “Good to see you, too, Trevor.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.
Even annoyed, she was beautiful, and Trevor lost the stoicism and chuckled. “You are amazing.”
“I know, right? I was wondering when you would finally acknowledge this.”
“Cocky, too. What happened to the little girl who idolized me most of her life?”
“She grew up. The better question is what happened to the handsome nerd with the heart of gold, and how did he end up here?”
“That’s so much water under the bridge, ‘Nice. I accepted that when the U.S. Attorney’s office accepted my plea.”
“Fair enough.”
“So, what brings you to sunny California?”
“Didn’t you get my last letter before they shipped you off, and the graduation pictures I sent you?”
“No, I didn’t. The last letter I got from you was in April of last year. They moved me here at the end of April, and all I’ve gotten since I’ve been here are Isaiah and Brenda’s holiday cards and newsletters with personal notes every once in a while.”
“I’m a student at Stanford.”
Trevor’s jaw dropped. “You’re in Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“Wow! Shanice, that’s ... I knew you were in college, but I didn’t know it was such a good school, and that you were so ... close.”
She frowned. “If you call six hours away close.”
His eyes grew wide. “You drove six hours alone?”
“No, a friend and I flew to LA together, and I drove a rental here.”
“You and a friend?”
He didn’t ask the obvious, but she rolled her eyes and answered anyway. “It was a girlfriend. Lisa.”
Trevor decided to change the subject, since he’d been so blatant about the identity of her friend. “So, how’d you end up at Stanford? I thought you were looking at Florida schools.”
She smirked. “I was, until this idiot I know stole a billion dollars from all fifty states of the union.”
He laughed and she joined him. “So, you’ve been at Stanford since last August?”
“Yeah. I had to get a handle on my studies and it took a while to trust anyone I knew with your story, because Mom and Dad didn’t want me to make the trip alone.”
Trevor loved Isaiah and Brenda for being such caring parents for Shanice. “They’re right. Coming alone would be a bad idea. In fact, coming at all is a bad idea.”
“I did not come to school in the same state as you to be told I can’t come visit.”
“I know, but you’re here to get an education, not visit a convict every weekend.”
“Well, I couldn’t come every weekend anyway, but maybe once a month or so.”
“Not even that much. Listen, as much as I appreciate your visit today, you can’t come here again.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s really no point.”
“No point? Didn’t you read my letters? I meant it when I said I would never give up on you, Trevor.”
“Visiting me could get you hurt.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Well I do!” Trevor’s raised voice caught the attention of just about everyone in the room, so he toned it down. “Shanice, what I did pissed off some very bad people.”
“Is your Uncle Phil one of those people?”
“That’s beside the point.”
“No, it isn’t. You can’t convince me that Philip Kyle didn’t play a part in you landing in jail. Mom and Dad believe that, too. We just don’t have any proof.”
“And you don’t need any. I’m here, paying for what I did. I wish the people who want this money didn’t know how much your family means to me, but they do. Do you want your parents or the twins to be hurt?”
“What do you mean?”
“These people wouldn’t hesitate to use you and your family to get to me. I spent the last couple of years I was in college trying to distance myself from you guys.”
“But I kept pushing the issue,” Shanice said, realization suddenly dawning on her. “Was Mom’s accident caused by these bad people?”
Trevor nodded, his expression grave. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
Fresh tears sprung into Shanice’s eyes. “I lost my baby sister because... I knew there had to be a reason you kept pushing us away.”
“Believe me when I say, I would have sacrificed myself in her place if I could have. I was so stupid in the beginning. I was a dumb kid thinking I was paying my keep. Helping out. Then they asked for more and more, until it wasn’t just Florida stuff anymore. Those men who shadow Phil are no joke. I had to put myself in a place where they couldn’t touch me, and by default couldn’t touch you or your family until I could figure out a way to keep us all protected.”
“Have you figured it out yet?”
“I’m working on it, but honestly, Shanice, it could be years before that happens. I have to get the feds to trust me, then I’ll be hoping they will be willing to reward that trust with a deal that will bring the others to justice, while keeping you and your family out of harm’s way.”
“I know you can do this, and I’ll wait for you. As long as it takes.”
Trevor is shaking his head before she can finish her pronouncement. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You can’t wait for me. You need to live your life. You need to forget about me, because it’s not a given that I’m going to come out of this anytime soon. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me. I said I was, and I am.”
Trevor remembered his promise to Isaiah. “No, Shanice.”
She implored him with her eyes. “Listen to me, Trevor. I love you, and I will always love you.”
“I have three more years and some change in here. There’s a lot of living you can do in three year
s. Don’t let my situation stop you.”
“I won’t.” Shanice sighed. “Listen, do these bad people have access to your mail?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well, if it’s too dangerous and I can’t visit you, I’ll write you, and you have to promise to write me back.”
Shanice had sufficiently worn him down, so Trevor succumbed. “Okay, but we shouldn’t save the letters... destroy the paper trail.”
“Okay,” Shanice said with the biggest grin since they’d sat across from one another. “I have faith in you, Trevor Landon Kyle.”
“What is faith, anyway? It must be blind or stupid to believe in a fuck up like me.”
“My Dad says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
“That sounds about right, because I don’t know how you see any in me. I’ve done horrible things—things that make me undeserving of a preacher’s daughter.”
“There’s nothing you can do to sway my faith in you. I have loved you since I was five years old and I know you’ve loved me, too. Maybe not in the way I wanted you to when I was eleven and trying to be the Amy to your Laurie, but I believe with all my heart we’re destined to be together, so you might as well accept it, Trevor Kyle.”
Trevor felt so bound by his promise to Isaiah, he still couldn’t give her the three little words she craved, but he felt them. Trevor felt them with all his heart.
Chapter Eighteen
Shanice’s first letter ripped his heart out of his chest and he bawled like a baby.
Dear Trevor:
We have loved one another like siblings most of our lives. It is now time for us to come to know one another as best friends, future lovers, and confidantes.
The background we come from does not lend itself to being open, honest, and depending on another person—one can only trust oneself. Our biological mothers didn’t have our backs and that scarred us. My parents sent me to therapy for years, and they showed me so much unconditional love, I am mostly healed of those scars. You, however, lost David and Elena when you needed them most, so your path to healing was interrupted, and Philip did not to help you continue on that path.