Dark Guardian (Black Hoods MC #3) - Avelyn Paige Page 0,8
an eye for a deal and a steady hand for renovations.”
She stands back as each of us moves around, looking into the different rooms, assessing the potential of making this a lucrative business for our club.
I try to focus and keep my mind on this piece of club business, but all I can think about are the kids. I wonder how they’re doing, and if that bitch in the office gave them a hard time about not having birth certificates.
“Everything okay, boss?”
Hashtag’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, but also gives me an idea. “Not really,” I admit. “Hash, you think you can hack into the school computer system?”
He frowns. “Do I ask why?”
I explain the missing paperwork and my lack of proof for being a legal guardian to Kevin and Natalie.
“Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll work on it as soon as we finish up here.”
“Well,” Sharon says, approaching the two of us with a smile. “What do you think?”
I glance over at Karma, who nods his approval, and say, “Guess we’re makin’ an offer.”
“I’ll draw up the paperwork. How would you like to pay if they accept it?”
“Cash, sugar. Cold, hard cash.”
Grace
My phone rings the second I sit down at my desk.
“Grace Halfpenny.”
“Hi, Grace, it’s Lisa in the call center. How are you?” she chirps cheerfully. How someone can be that happy at seven in the morning on a Monday is beyond me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lisa crack a frown once since I’ve known her. She’s just one of those cheery people.
“Fine, thank you. How can I help you?”
“We just received a call on the anonymous tip line regarding two children at the Lake Travis School District.”
Looking for a pad of paper and a pen, I jot down the details as she rattles them off.
“Caller said two kids, a boy and a girl, were enrolled at Lake Travis Secondary School on the first day without any paperwork to prove guardianship. No birth certificates, transcripts from their old school, or shot records.”
“Odd,” I comment.
“The caller stated they got a bad feeling from the man with them and noted he was a bit old to have kids of that age.” Being a later in life parent isn’t as uncommon as it used to be, but it’s interesting that the caller mentioned it.
Something in this caller’s description sets off a wave of uneasiness inside of me. Who is he? And why doesn’t he have the paperwork to prove these kids are under his care?
I write this on the notepad and underline it.
“Did the caller provide their names? Address? Descriptions?”
“Kevin and Natalie Tucker. They were registered as siblings.”
“Did the caller mention anything else?”
“That was the gist of it. They didn’t stay on long enough for the call center to ask anything else.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lisa. I appreciate it.”
She hangs up, and I fire off an email to my supervisor to alert him to the call.
Flipping open my computer, I search for the school contact information. Speaking to these kids as soon as possible is essential, but according to the school website, the central office won’t be open for a few more hours. Until then, I have to bide my time, looking through our old records for a possible connection just to be sure.
Switching to our internal database, I type in their names, and with a stroke of the enter key, two case numbers with those names associated pop up.
I start with the oldest record. Clicking on the date, it pulls up a case file with two images across the top. The boy has dark hair and dark eyes, and the nearly identical little girl with blue eyes is clutching a teddy bear to her chest. My heart sinks the longer I take in the images on the screen. What had happened to them to make their faces so full of fear and sadness?
Could these be the same kids? Without seeing them in person, I have no way to be sure. I send the images to my printer to add to my file.
Anger stirs inside me when I scroll further down into the history of the case. Their mother was arrested for prostitution, and they placed the kids into foster care. Custody was returned to the mother a year later.
The last file is almost identical. Mother loses custody after a second arrest for prostitution, forcing the kids back into foster care a second time. However, they were separated after the foster family requested an