Chapter 8 - The Man Behind Curtis
Curtis fell behind the motorcycle.
Hank could not tell if he was hit.
Lena’s tactical lights ignited at the edge of the grain yard.
“State police! Drop the weapon!”
Preston Vale fired once toward the lights and disappeared through a side door.
Hank pulled Eric behind a concrete barrier.
“You hit?”
Eric shook his head.
“Curtis?”
A groan came from beside the motorcycle.
Alive.
The bullet had torn through his upper arm.
Lena’s team moved in.
Curtis was handcuffed before the paramedics reached him.
He kept looking at the black cylinder on the ground.
“Don’t let Vale get that.”
Hank almost laughed.
“Now you want help?”
Curtis’s face was gray.
“You think I’m the monster.”
“I don’t think. I know.”
Curtis winced as a medic cut his sleeve.
“Vale made monsters.”
“That doesn’t excuse what you did to Ellie.”
“No.”
The answer surprised Hank.
Curtis looked away.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Lena bagged the cylinder as evidence.
Eric sat in an ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
Dan arrived after Lena finally allowed him through the perimeter.
He climbed into the ambulance and hugged Eric hard enough that Eric grunted.
“Uncle Dan.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Good.”
Hank stepped away to give them space.
Curtis called to him.
“Hank.”
He ignored him.
“Hank, Caleb knew.”
That stopped him.
“Knew what?”
“Vale was dying.”
“So?”
“So Caleb thought time was on his side.”
Curtis laughed bitterly.
“It wasn’t.”
“What did you do to my brother?”
Curtis met his eyes.
“I scared him.”
“How?”
“I took his oxygen tank once.”
Hank’s body went rigid.
Curtis looked ashamed for perhaps the first time.
“He was in his trailer. I wanted the card. I shut the valve. Made him think he was dying.”
Hank stepped forward.
A trooper blocked him.
Curtis continued.
“I turned it back on.”
“You expect credit?”
“No.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did Vale?”
Curtis looked toward the grain elevator.
“Caleb died because his lungs were failing.”
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
Hank stared.
Curtis said, “But Vale made sure he died believing Ellie was next.”
Hank wanted to hit him.
Instead he turned away.
That choice felt harder.
At the hospital, Eric finally told his story.
His birth name was Jonah Reed.
His mother died when he was nine.
His father disappeared.
He entered foster care.
At twelve he was sent to St. Gabriel after running away from a placement.
Curtis was twenty and worked nights.
“He liked being useful to Vale,” Eric said.
Dan sat beside him.
“What does that mean?”
“Vale would visit. Kids who complained about certain foster homes came back to St. Gabriel. Curtis called them liars.”
Eric’s eyes went distant.
“One boy tried to run. Curtis caught him behind the gym. He beat him with a broom handle until the kid couldn’t stand straight.”
Dan closed his eyes.
Eric continued because silence had been forced on him long enough.
“I told a nurse. She wrote it down.”
“Diane Hale,” Hank said.
Eric nodded.
“She was kind.”
Mara had entered quietly.
“My mother.”
Eric looked at her.
“You look like her.”
Mara sat.
“What happened to Diane?”
Eric hesitated.
“I was a kid.”
“Anything.”
“Vale was furious she documented injuries. A week later she stopped coming.”
Mara’s eyes filled.
Eric continued.
“Caleb showed up months later asking questions. He said Diane was missing.”
“You knew my father?”
“Not then. Later.”
Hank frowned.
“When?”
“When I was twenty.”
Eric explained that Caleb found him after his adoption.
He asked Eric to document what he remembered.
Over years, Eric helped locate other survivors.
“Why didn’t you tell Dan?”
Eric looked at his uncle.
“Because Vale knew the adoption family.”
Dan went pale.
“He knew us?”
“Everyone who took a St. Gabriel kid got screened.”
“By who?”
“Vale.”
Mara whispered, “He controlled the placements.”
Eric nodded.
“Some families were good. Yours was.”
Dan looked wrecked.
“Why would he place you with my sister?”
“Maybe to make me easier to watch.”
Hank felt cold.
Mercer Motor & Cycle.
Eric working there.
Hank owning Caleb’s old motorcycle.
Nothing about their lives had been as accidental as it looked.
Lena arrived with preliminary analysis of the black cylinder.
“It contained microfilm.”
Hank blinked.
“Microfilm?”
“Old-school. Photographed documents.”
“What documents?”
“Birth records. Placement records. Payments.”
Mara stood.
“Diane?”
Lena nodded.
“One file is hers.”
They viewed scans.
Diane Hale had not died in a car crash.
She had entered witness protection under another name.
Mara stared.
“My mother lived?”
“For at least twelve years after she disappeared.”
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
“And Caleb knew?”
“Looks like he learned later.”
Mara began crying.
“Why didn’t she come back?”
Lena scrolled.
A letter answered.
Diane had been told Mara and Caleb would be killed if she broke cover.
She sent money through intermediaries.
She watched from afar.
Mara whispered, “Everyone loved me from far away.”
No one knew what to say.
The final microfilm image showed a handwritten roster.
ST. GABRIEL SPECIAL PLACEMENTS.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
One line was circled.
MARA HALE — LINEAGE VERIFIED.
Sponsor: P. Vale.
Hank frowned.
“What does lineage verified mean?”
Lena’s face tightened.
A laboratory code appeared beside Mara’s name.
Genetic testing.
Years before consumer DNA kits.
Someone had tested her blood.
Mara looked frightened.
“Why?”
Eric whispered, “Vale used to talk about blood.”
Everyone turned.
“He said some families paid to keep certain bloodlines clean. Others paid to acquire heirs.”
Hank felt sick.
“This isn’t just abuse.”
“No,” Lena said.
“It may be trafficking, illegal adoption, inheritance fraud, medical fraud.”
Mara stared at her own name.
Then Ellie’s eligibility review made sense in the worst possible way.
Ellie was turning eighteen in less than two years.
Someone planned to test or claim something through her.
Curtis, under guard in another hospital room, requested to speak to Mara.
She refused.
Then he sent a message through his attorney.
Three words.
ELLIE IS VALE’S.
Mara read it.
Her face emptied.
“What does that mean?”
Nobody answered.
Then Lena’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression hardened.
“What?”
“Preston Vale’s house is empty.”
“Where did he go?”
“We don’t know.”
Another officer entered.
“Ma’am, we pulled toll cameras.”
He handed her a tablet.
A black SUV leaving the county.
Passenger seat.
A woman.
Older.
Thin.
White hair.
Mara took one look and dropped the tablet.
“Mom.”
May you like
Diane Hale was alive.
And riding away with Preston Vale.
