Shattered Lives by Joseph Lewis Read Free Book Online

the men who had kept him and the boys captive.  But instead of just taking out one guard, he tried for two and was shot in the left shoulder for his effort, leaving Skip to finish off the other guard.
    So Dahlke suffered from a large case of the guilts.
    After getting up and seeing Brett’s bed empty, he gathered up some clothes and a towel and showered, shaved what little whiskers he had, brushed his teeth and then stepped out into the hallway.  He saw that cops were still posted at either end of the hallway, and he walked over to the nurses’ station.
    “Um . . . Good morning,” he said, smiling at the nurse at the computer.
    “Well good morning yourself,” Dee said.  Then she looked over her shoulder and said, “Hey, Carol . . . look who’s awake.”
    Skip smiled and blushed scarlet.
    “Oh, Hey.  Good morning,” Carol said, coming over to the counter.
    “Um . . . Hi,” he answered, smiling shyly and blushing some more.  “Have you seen Brett?”
    “He got up about a half-hour . . . forty-five minutes ago,” Carol said, looking down the hallway.  “The other guys aren’t up yet, so I think he went down to see Johnny.”
    “How’s Johnny doing?” Skip asked.
    Dee and Carol exchanged a look that said it all.
    Dee shook her head and said, “Not too well.”
    Carol added, “I’m worried about him.”
    Skip nodded, wondering how the boys, Brett and Tim in particular, would react if Johnny didn’t make it.  He glanced down the hallway in the direction of the boys’ room.
    “I’ll look in on Mike and Tim, then head down to see Brett and Johnny,” Skip said already moving down the hall at a slow walk.
    His cell went off and he answered it as he stood in the hallway leaning against a wall near Tim’s and Mike’s darkened room.  An aide pushed an empty gurney one way, and another aide went the other way carrying an armful of blankets and boxes of supplies.
    “Dahlke.”
    “Skip, this is Kelliher.  Where are you?” 
    Dahlke noticed an edge in Pete’s voice and answered, “At the hospital . . . third floor.”
    “Are cops still on the floor?”
    Skip looked to his left and saw a young looking cop who had rocked back in a chair as he read a folded sports page.  Then he turned to his right and saw an older cop with a graying crew cut and with arms folded on his chest, head lowered, perhaps dozing.
    “Yeah, they’re here.”
    “Agent Vince Cochrane out of the Chicago office will be up there in five, maybe ten minutes.  Watch for him.  I’m about twenty out because of the damn traffic.  Find Cochrane when he shows up.  I gave him your number.  Don’t leave the boys.”
    “What the hell, Pete . . . what’s happening?”
    “Where’s Brett?”
    “On second with Johnny, why?”
    “It’s probably nothing. Get to him but don’t alarm him, got it?”
    “Pete, what’s goin’ on?” James asked as he began moving to his right, towards the nearest stairwell.
    “His uncle’s in the wind . . . gone.  They fucked up in Indianapolis, and we don’t know where the fuck he is.”
    Dahlke reached down and touched the .45 holstered on his hip.
    “I’ll find Brett.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Between Indianapolis and Chicago
     
                  Victoria McGovern sat in the front passenger seat of the blue Dodge Durango staring out at nothing in particular.   Houses turned to farmsteads, and beyond that, turned to nothing but country.   Various billboards advertized this and that.  Cars and trucks either passed by or were passed by.  She saw all of it, but none of it, lost in her thoughts, worrying about what her son would be like, how he had changed, if he still remembered them.
    She had given up hope of ever seeing Brett again long ago, perhaps at the one year anniversary of his disappearance or perhaps even earlier than that.  In her mind, that made her a terrible mother.  She suspected that her husband, Thomas, had given up hope too, but she didn’t know