Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  “Oh, she knew him,” Ophelia agreed, waggling her eyebrows dramatically, “and I do mean in the biblical sense. I told you Carl was his son.”

  “But Darlene was such a kind, churchgoing woman,” Ellie protested.

  “Read the next page,” Ophelia invited, brimming with excitement. “Oh, this is good,” she exclaimed, rubbing her hands in ecstasy. “This will put Owen Dulay right where we want him.”

  Ellie barely heard what else Ophelia had to say. Skimming the letter, she realized that Darlene had once loved Dulay, whom she must have known when he was a younger, kinder man. Her plea to him to make Carl a better man must have led him to lure Carl to Georgia. But finding Carl to be a waste of flesh, he’d looked beyond his son to his grandsons, whom he’d gathered to him like so many lost sheep, raising them to be seemingly upright Centurion men.

  No! she thought, shooting to her feet. They are my sons to raise as I see fit. You cannot have them.

  But for the time being, Dulay did have him. The question was, where?

  A knock at the door had both women whirling to face it. They’d been expecting the men to arrive any moment, but it could just as well be Centurion hit men looking for Ellie.

  “Who is it?” Ophelia called, tiptoeing closer.

  “Yo, Adrian. It’s me,” said a voice in a perfect imitation of Rocky Balboa.

  “Vinny,” Ophelia exclaimed, throwing the door wide.

  Three hulking men filled the doorway. Ellie’s gaze flew straight to the man wearing a straw hat and a tropical shirt. His blue eyes burned across the space between them. “Sean!” she whispered, clapping a hand to her mouth, so happy to see him alive she nearly burst into tears.

  He crossed the room in four long strides, pulled the hand from her mouth, crushed his lips to hers, and banded his arms around her, pulling her to him. With her toes scarcely touching the floor, Ellie could have stayed in his arms all day. The room got awfully quiet.

  Just as abruptly, he let her go. “Why didn’t you tell Reno where you went?” he scolded, his expression awfully grim, his complexion unusually pale.

  “I lost his card when I had to pack everything. Maybe it fell into Carl’s box.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay,” he added, stroking her hair. “What’s with the new look?”

  “It’s so the Centurions don’t recognize me.” She gestured to his tropical getup. “Where’d you get these clothes?” she asked.

  “From the person who found me on the beach,” he said quickly.

  “The beach?” Lifting the hat off his head, she gasped at the bandage taped along one side. “Sean, what happened?” The wound explained his pallor, as did the implication that he’d washed up on shore like a shipwrecked sailor.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later,” he promised.

  “The police tried to kill you, didn’t they?” She trembled as she envisioned it.

  “Something like that,” he answered. “I have something good to tell you,” he added, his gravity lightening.

  “What?” she asked, sensing something big.

  Sean glanced at the others. “We might know where the boys are,” he announced with a gleam in his eyes.

  Her legs wobbled. “What?” she cried. “Where?”

  “According to Hannah, who spoke to the undercover division that Drake works for, Owen Dulay has visited the Centurion Boys’ Home. It might be a long shot, but there’s a possibility they might be there.”

  A rash of goose bumps rippled over her. “Where is it? Let’s go get them!” she cried.

  “Slow down, sweetheart. The FBI’s working on a warrant to search the building. We can’t just go in and look for them. But my buddies and I are going to check the place out,” he promised.

  “I’m going with you,” she declared, turning to look for her shoes, a pair of Ophelia’s pointy-toed high heels.

  “I have a better idea,” Ophelia interjected, her eyes sparkling with conjecture. “Why don’t I go to this boys’ home and tell the people running it that I want to adopt a baby? They’ll have to give me a tour, right? I’ll wear my brooch with the hidden camera—”

  “We’re not here to do a story,” Vinny countered, cutting her off.

  “Just listen. My camera will show you what the building looks like inside. Maybe I’ll even get to film the boys. You plan on sneaking in later, right?”

  The men did not deny that possibility.

  Vinny glanced helplessly at Sean and Solomon.

  “The idea has merit,” Solomon conceded with a shrug.

  “Fine,” Vinny allowed, “but you’re not going in alone,” he said to Ophelia. “You need a husband.”

  She cocked her head to consider him. “In that case, Senior Chief can be my husband, because you’re way too young to be a father.”

  Vinny’s dark eyebrows shot together. “You just had to point that out, didn’t you? How long are we going to be mad at each other?”

  “I’m not mad,” Ophelia insisted. “I’m just stating facts.”

  “Enough,” Solomon cut in with authority. “I’ll go into the building with her.”

  Vinny shut his mouth against a ready retort.

  “Hold on a sec,” said Ophelia, turning to rummage in her luggage. “Let me have Reggie make sure this thing even works.”

  As they waited, Sean pulled Ellie against him for another long hug. With her ear plastered to his chest, she could hear his heart beating fast and hard. The tension in his body told her something was troubling him. She clutched him back, holding him as hard as she sensed he needed to be held. Her heart swelled with intense affection, and suddenly she knew. She loved him.

  God help her, she loved this man to pieces.

  When had it happened? she wondered. Was it way back when he’d changed Colton’s diaper? Was it when she realized that he was acting as her warrior, willing to take on anyone or anything on her behalf? Either way, she was in too deep now to back out.

  “I missed you,” he said gruffly in her ear.

  Ellie’s eyes stung at how close those words came to what she was dying to hear, at how far short they fell. “I missed you, too,” she whispered. She couldn’t possibly tell him how she really felt. Nothing was more guaranteed to send him running than a confession of love. She knew him well enough to know that.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Ophelia declared, returning from Reggie’s room next door with the brooch clipped to her collar. “Let’s go find these boys.”

  The possibility of being reunited with her sons pulled Ellie out of Sean’s arms. This whirlwind experience wasn’t about falling in love with Sean. It was about getting her boys back and taking on the most frightening entity she’d ever encountered—Owen Dulay and his Centurion followers.

  The Centurion Boys’ Home gave Ellie the creeps.

  The three-story stone structure looked as if it might have served as a prison back during the War of Northern Aggression. A wall of the same dark stone flanked either side of the building, turning to enclose a yard at the back. Not a single tree cast shade on the flat, green lawn out front. Ellie suspected the Spartan appearance carried over into the interior as well.

  As Vinny parked the black sedan along the curb on the far corner of the expansive grounds, Solomon and Ophelia continued past them in the Chevy Caprice, turning in to forge the long, gravel driveway. While they would make inquiries inside the building, Sean and Vinny planned to acquaint themselves with the grounds. Without the cover of night to cloak their movements, they were forced to keep to the tree line set a good fifty feet from the wall.

  “Let’s wait five minutes and see if they get in,” Sean advised, keeping them in their seats.

  They watched as Solomon and Ophelia got out of their car. Ophelia clutched her “older husband’s” arm as they strolled up the stone steps to knock at the double doors. They waited for what seemed an eternity before they were admitted.

  Watching them, Ellie chafed to join them. Imagining her
sons behind the cold gray walls made her want to leap from the car, tear up to the building, and pound on the doors.

  “Sean, I want to go with you and Vinny,” she begged, sitting abruptly forward. “Please. I won’t get in the way.”

  With a sigh, he twisted in the seat to reason with her. “Sweetheart, you’re wearing high heels,” he pointed out.

  “So? I’ll take them off.”

  “And go barefoot in those clothes?”

  Ellie seized his muscled arm. “I can feel the boys here,” she insisted, straining to see through the distant, glinting windows, hoping for a glimpse of their faces.

  “I understand,” he said patiently. “But we gotta do this right. We’re here to look around, not be seen.”

  “But I want to know what you’re seeing,” she tried again.

  “Here. Vinny, give her your cell phone. I’ll call her on mine.”

  “I thought the police confiscated your phone,” she said as Vinny surrendered his cell phone wordlessly. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve got another one,” Sean replied, patting his shirt pocket.

  “They’re in,” said Vinny.

  Ellie looked back at the building. Sure enough, Solomon and Ophelia had been welcomed inside.

  “Time to go,” Sean declared, opening his door. “If someone asks you what you’re doing parked on the street, tell ’em your husband went in the woods to take a leak.”

  Rolling her eyes, Ellie kicked off Ophelia’s high heels and slouched in the seat to avoid being seen. Vinny and Sean darted into the woods and, within seconds, disappeared behind a screen of foliage.

  “My husband,” Ellie murmured, feeling out the words on her tongue. For a brief moment, she gave her mind liberty to conjure what having Sean for a husband might look like. As she pictured him fathering her boys into adulthood, teasing blushes from her for the next fifty years, a sharp, deep longing made her heart bleed.

  What were the odds that Sean would ever want to settle down, especially with her? Ellie Stuart wasn’t anything special. He probably thought of their intimacy here in Savannah as just a temporary madness. Not even Carl, a one-time all-state quarterback, had loved her enough to stay faithful. Sean, with his laughing blue eyes and easy smile, could have any woman he wanted. He wouldn’t ever choose a small-town Mississippi girl to be his one and only.

  She’d get nothing but heartache thinking about happily ever after.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I’m afraid we don’t have any babies,” said the kind- faced, gray-haired matron who’d introduced herself as Myrtle Banks. “Our youngest available child is four. His parents died in a terrible fire. It took every member of his family, including two older siblings.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” Ophelia replied, feeling for the child despite their purposeful agenda. “But I thought I heard a baby crying when we came in.”

  The woman sent her a blank look. “Oh, that baby,” she said, looking away quickly. “No, no, he’s been reunited with his father. He’s not available for adoption.”

  “Would that father be Carl Stuart?” Ophelia asked, and the senior chief’s biceps flexed with surprise beneath her palm. Leaning on the man was like hovering next to a ticking bomb.

  Miss Banks appeared flustered, which was exactly Ophelia’s intent. “How do you know Mr. Stuart?” she asked.

  “Well, he’s Mr. Dulay’s chauffeur,” Lia replied, implying that Carl had driven her about in Mr. Dulay’s car.

  “Oh, I see,” said the woman thoughtfully. “Yes, I believe he’s the father,” she admitted.

  Lia squeezed Solomon’s biceps to convey her excitement. The boys were here! “Could you show us around a bit?” she requested, waving a hand to encompass the central flight of stairs and the dark and dreary hallways on either side. The building smelled of Lysol overlying the dreary odor of an aging institution.

  “Of course,” said the woman, having concluded that Ophelia was a family friend and should therefore be accorded every courtesy. “The boys are in their classrooms now, so we can’t do more than take a peek,” she warned.

  “That’s fine,” said Ophelia. “I wasn’t aware that they were educated here instead of at a public school.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the woman, trudging ponderously up the steps before them. “They receive a rigorous classical education far superior to that of the public schools.”

  Ophelia and Solomon shared a knowing look, both of them realizing that the “classical education” Myrtle touted was actually a thorough form of brainwashing.

  “How long have you been here, ma’am?” Solomon surprised Ophelia by speaking up suddenly.

  “Thirty years,” Myrtle answered proudly. “I came here shortly after Mr. Dulay’s father founded the home. Here’s the first Mr. Dulay’s portrait,” she added, pausing to indicate an oil painting hanging at the top of the stairs. The cold gray eyes of the home’s founder implied he’d been a forceful, powerful man. Like father, like son.

  Only, in the case of Carl Stuart, that proved not to be the case.

  As they headed toward the east wing, the sound of children’s voices behind closed doors became audible.

  “This is our upper elementary classroom here,” said Myrtle, allowing them to peer through the glass inset. “These boys are all eight to twelve years of age.”

  “How did they end up here?” Ophelia asked, fiddling with her brooch to capture images of studious boys bent over their desks.

  “Oh, many of their parents are too poor to look after them. They leave them here knowing their sons will have a brighter future.”

  As minions of the Centurion empire, Ophelia thought, concealing her disgust. No doubt the Boys’ Home had churned out doctors, lawyers, police officers, and even government officials, all of whom pledged allegiance to Owen Dulay.

  “And farther down the hall, we have two classrooms for younger children,” continued Myrtle, oblivious to Ophelia’s private thoughts.

  These rooms were much noisier, with children out of their seats and milling around. One boy sat in the corner, his face to the wall. Ophelia felt Solomon tense as his gaze alighted on the blond head. “That boy there,” he said, calling Myrtle’s attention to him. “Is he in trouble?”

  The boy under discussion turned his head to one side, and Ophelia stifled her gasp. Solomon had just found Caleb Stuart—or at least a boy who looked just like him. Solomon, she recalled, knew the Stuart boys well. In fact, for several years, Ellie had raised Solomon’s son, Silas, along with her own three boys.

  “Oh, that one,” said Myrtle with a sad shake of her head. “He’s a troubled boy. It may take him a while to settle in with the others. But don’t worry. His teacher will get through to him eventually.”

  Beneath his black mustache, Solomon’s lips thinned.

  Suddenly, the boy under discussion glanced their way. Solomon stepped abruptly out of his line of sight, pulling Ophelia behind him. “Let’s not be the cause for further disruption,” he murmured.

  Sure enough, the sound of running feet preceded that of the doorknob jiggling. A little face jumped up to peer out the window.

  The teacher’s voice cracked like a whip through the murmur of voices. “Mr. Stuart, return to your chair this instant!”

  Ophelia overheard a struggle as the teacher presumably dragged Caleb from the door. Solomon all but hauled her toward the stairwell with the vision of Caleb’s hopeful blue eyes plucking at her heartstrings.

  “What else is on this wing?” Ophelia asked, recalling her purpose for being here. Having seen Caleb with her own two eyes, she was more determined than ever to spring the boys free.

  “The staff live there,” Myrtle indicated, heading down the stairs.

  “Where do the children sleep?”

  “With me, on the third floor,” she answered impatiently.

  “Could we take a look upstairs?” Ophelia pressed, pushing her luck.

  “I assure you the living conditions are excellent,” she answered,
continuing doggedly downward. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m expected in the cafeteria at this time.”

  Ophelia and Solomon shared a look. With Ophelia’s persistence Myrtle had realized they weren’t friends of Owen Dulay but were probably members of some social or health services organization. And now she was quietly but firmly sending them on their way.

  Convinced the woman’s heart was in the right place, Ophelia reached into her bag for a printout of the FBI Web site for missing persons. Caleb’s, Christopher’s, and Colton’s pictures were circled in red.

  “Thank you,” said the senior chief tersely as Myrtle hauled open the heavy front door.

  As it groaned on its hinges, Ophelia thrust the paper at her.

  “What’s this?” the woman asked, frowning down in perplexity.

  “These children were kidnapped, Mrs. Banks,” said Ophelia, ignoring the senior chief’s glare of outrage that she’d just revealed the purpose behind their visit. “They were ripped away from their mother and brought here against their will.”

  “That’s a lie,” Myrtle protested, her sallow complexion paling. “I was told their mother was dead.”

  “She is very much alive,” Ophelia countered. “Those children belong with her.”

  As Myrtle gaped at Ophelia in mixed denial and shock, Solomon tugged the paper from her hand. “Don’t pay her any attention,” he assured the woman, holding the page behind his back. “She’s too nosy for her own good.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Lia snapped. “Don’t you watch the news?” she demanded of Myrtle. “Haven’t you seen the boys’ photos and the pictures of their poor, heart-broken mother?”

  “I don’t watch television,” Myrtle answered. “It’s forbidden here.”

  “Enough,” Solomon growled, propelling Lia forcefully out the door and down the steps.

  With her appeal made, Lia allowed him to lead her away. Yes, she may have just blown the SEALs’ chances of sneaking in tonight and stealing the boys back, but why go to the trouble if Myrtle could be convinced to do the right thing?