Firestone (14 page)

“
She would,” Sam
said.

“
So we agree?” Aden
asked.

Aden looked from person to person. The men
were nodding. Aden raised his hand and the waitress came over.

“
We’d like more pie,” Aden
said. “That is what we agreed on, right?”

The men laughed.

~~~~~~~~

Monday evening — 5:50 p.m.

“
Hi!” Tink
said.

“
Hi!” Charlie leaned in to
kiss her. Tink’s kisses were really nice. He smiled.

“
I only have a few
minutes,” Tink said. “Heather and I stopped by on the way to pick
up Chet. He’s coming to dinner at our house tonight.”

He took her hand and led her into his study
room off the main Castle living room. He closed the sliding door,
but Mike opened it less than a minute later.

“
Nice try,” Mike said, and
continued onto the kitchen.

“
I thought you were coming
over earlier,” Charlie said.

“
Yeah, I did too,” Tink
said. “Sorry.”

“
Did something happen?”
Charlie asked.

Tink shook her head.

“
I had to go to the
doctor,” Tink said.

“
Are you okay?” Charlie
asked. “Did something happen?”

“
I’m okay,” Tink said.
“Heather wanted me to see the brain doc today because I’ve been
really stressed out about . . . you know, court and
stuff. The brain doc wanted to do a scan of me when I was stressed
out to see if they could find the source of the
seizures.”

“
Any luck?” Charlie
asked.

Tink shook her head. She looked so cute that
Charlie kissed her again. She kissed him back.

“
No screwing in your
school room,” Noelle said from the living room.

Tink stepped back.

“
Hi, Tink,” Noelle
said.

Tink turned to say “hello” but Noelle was
gone.

“
They’re on dining room
duty tonight,” Charlie said.

“
Oh.” Tink nodded. “So,
the brain doc said something funny.”

“
Oh yeah?” Charlie
asked.

“
He said my brain is
better,” Tink said. “Like, he can see the scar, but he can’t see
the injury anymore.”

“
Wow,” Charlie
said.

“
Yeah wow,” Tink said.
“It’s like a dream come true. Heather was really excited. Blane
too.”

“
Will you still have
seizures?” Charlie asked.

“
They don’t know,” Tink
said. “But he thought it was a very good sign.”

“
I think so too,” Charlie
said.

“
Heather told Blane it was
’cuz of Jill.” Tink nodded. “I had my headset on, so she thought I
couldn’t hear.”

“
Jill?” Charlie shrugged.
“What’s that mean?

“
No idea,” Tink said. “I
don’t care how it happened. I’m just glad it did.”

“
Me too,” Charlie said.
“You have a great forever-family, and you’re not going to have
seizures anymore.”

“
And they might adopt Chet
too,” Tink said.

“
Perfect,” Charlie
said.

“
You’ll be there tomorrow,
right?” Tink asked. “Ivy said this Grand Jury thing was pretty
brutal. They had pictures of her and everything. Since I was the
worst hurt, she thinks mine will be bad too.”

“
I’ll be there,” Charlie
said.

Tink gave Charlie a rather dazzling smile.
He pulled her to him.

“
Tink?” Heather called
from the living room. “We have to go pick up Chet.”

Tink gave Charlie a little wave and ran out
of his study room. Charlie took a second to adjust his “private
business” before entering the flow of dinner at the Castle. From
the doorway, he watched Tink follow Heather out of the Castle.
Everything was working out so well that he could only grin.

“
Wipe the grin off your
face,” Sissy said. “You look stupid.”

“
I can look stupid if I
want to,” Charlie said.

“
Only if you set the
table.” Noelle put the silverware in his hands.

He smiled and went to work.

Tuesday morning — 8:25 a.m.

Charlie swallowed hard and looked around. He
saw Aden, who smiled at him. Charlie licked his lips.

He was there supposedly to help the
prosecutor figure out what happened and who to charge and a whole
bunch of other things that Sandy had told him.

He hadn’t been listening. He’d been thinking
about Tink and her brain and basketball and school and his first
Christmas in the Castle and Keenan and . . . He
scratched his head and wished he had been listening.

Anyway, he thought he was there to help
them, but so far the attorneys hadn’t been very nice.

There wasn’t a judge. He was sitting in
front of twenty-three adults. The prosecutor ran the show, mostly.
Right now, the attorney lady from the Denver Police seemed to be
the boss. The thought made Charlie uncomfortable and he squirmed in
his chair.

“
What confuses me
Mr.
Delgado . . .” It made Charlie nervous that
the Denver Police attorney always emphasized the “Mr.” It was
almost like she wanted everyone to know that she thought of him as
an adult, and not in a very good way.

Was he on trial?

Was she going to charge him as an adult?

For what?

Charlie swallowed hard again.

“
Can you repeat the
question?” Charlie asked.

The prosecutor turned to look at Charlie.
Feeling her eyes, he looked up at her. The prosecutor had smart
eyes. She looked like she’d seen everything and then some. Although
her face had no expression, her eyes encouraged him.

“
Ms. Francisco wants to
know why you didn’t contact the authorities about these crimes,”
the prosecutor said.

“
Oh,” Charlie said. “I
did. I mean, we did.”

“
And?” the prosecutor
asked.

“
Well . . .” Charlie shrugged. “They didn’t
listen. To us, for sure. But even Tim’s parents. They went to the
police a bunch of times. I mean, it was a big mystery where his
sister was . . . uh . . . hurt, you
know, but their car was sitting a few blocks away at the Pepsi
Center.”

“
Which means?” the lady
attorney asked.

“
Means, the police weren’t
trying very hard. I mean, no one listened to me or Tink or Ivy or
any of the other girls until Raz and Sensei . . .
uh, Agents Rasmussen and Hargreaves got involved.” Charlie nodded.
“They got involved because my sister knows them and they helped her
with . . . I don’t know if I should talk about that,
but . . .”

The prosecutor held up her hand to Charlie,
and he stopped talking.

“
That’s what I thought,”
the prosecutor said.

“
I mean, I probably
wouldn’t have listened to us,” Charlie said. “We were mostly high
and . . .”

He licked his lips.

“
Sorry, did I cut you
off?” Charlie asked. “I do that when I’m nervous. I mean Sandy
tells me to slow it down but I get so freaked out
and . . .”

“
No, you didn’t cut me
off,” the prosecutor said. “Why don’t you take a few moments while
I talk to this attorney?”

“
Okay,” Charlie
nodded.

“
Ms
. Francisco,” the prosecutor emphasized the Ms. in the same
aggressive way the attorney had with Charlie. “I want to remind you
of what we’re doing today.”

“
Ma’am—” the attorney for
the Denver Police started.

“
Just a minute, let me
finish,” the prosecutor said. “Today, we are not putting together a
case to prosecute
Charlie
. We’re not building cases
against the
victims
. We’re working through the evidence to see which of the
perpetrators needs to be charged and with what.”

“
Ma’am—” the police
attorney started.

“
I get that you
desperately want the police not to be at fault here,” the
prosecutor said. “I want that too.”

“
Me too,” Charlie piped
up, and then felt stupid.

“
You see,” the prosecutor
said. “It’s what we all want. The problem is, the police
are
at fault here.
Detective Red Bear was assigned to this case who, for reasons yet
unknown, was unwilling to do his job, while his partner, Sergeant
Aziz, who was protecting his little brother.”

The prosecutor gave the police attorney a
hard look.

“
For reasons unknown,
there was no oversight,” the prosecutor said. “No supervisor asked
about the ever-increasing number of gang rape cases, if only to
find out why there was no movement. Young Charlie here is correct.
No one paid any attention to this case until DHS got
involved.”

“
Ma’am . . .” the police attorney
started.

“
You’re trying to put the
blame on everyone else,” the prosecutor said. “No. The Denver
Police bear a burden of guilt here.”

“
Ma’am, if Mr. Delgado has
a grudge against the department because his
sister . . .”

“
Enough,” the prosecutor
said. “There’s enough evidence to get through without you making up
more bullshit. Are you done with this witness?”

“
Ma’am . . .” the police attorney
started.

“
I’m going to take that as
a yes,” the prosecutor said. “You may sit down Ms.
Francisco.”

The police attorney gave the prosecutor a
hard look before sitting down.

“
Does anyone have
questions for Mr. Delgado?”

“
Charlie,” he said. “Mr.
Delgado was my dad.”

“
Charlie,” the prosecutor
said. “And your father was Detective Mitch Delgado. He was a great
man, and my friend.”

Charlie blushed and looked down at his
hands.

“
Yes?” the prosecutor
asked.

Charlie looked up to see a mousy woman with
glasses that covered her whole face who had her hand up.

“
Go ahead,” the prosecutor
said.

“
I
guess . . .” The woman’s voice was so small and meek
that the prosecutor gestured for the bailiff to bring her a
microphone. The woman cleared her throat into the microphone. “Oh,
sorry. Um, Charlie.”

“
Yes?” Charlie
asked.

“
I guess I was wondering
why you didn’t recognize more of the boys who raped these girls,”
the mousey woman said. “I mean, you played basketball with some of
them and . . .”

“
That’s exactly what I
mean,” said Ms. Francisco as she popped to her feet. The prosecutor
pointed the bailiff to the police attorney and she was escorted out
of the room.

“
I’m sorry for the delay,”
the prosecutor said. “Charlie? Do you understand the
question?”

“
Yes,” Charlie said. “She
asked why I didn’t recognize the guys on my basketball team.
Um . . . It’s a good question. I’ve actually thought
about it.”

“
And?” the prosecutor
asked.

“
I guess it sounds weird,
but the guys who did this . . . I mean, when you’re
out on the street, there’s no difference between those guys and the
pedophiles or the drunk frat boys or even the horny police. When
you’re my age and you’re on the streets, you’re on the very bottom
of the pile. If anybody thinks about you, they think you’re out
because you’re a bad kid or you did something bad. They don’t think
your parent is crazy, or drugged up, or dead, or abusive, or tried
to kill you because you’re gay, or because Satan told them to
or . . . No. When people see a kid like me or Tink
or any of us, they think we deserve to be there.”

Charlie shrugged.

“
Those guys?” Charlie
shook his head. “They aren’t any different than everybody else.
They were just using us because they had a need and, as the bottom
of the pile, they figured it was our job to fill it. You think
anybody cares if we die? Think again. Go to Denver Health any night
of the week and see how many kids like me have the shit beat out of
them on a regular basis.”

Charlie nodded.

“
I didn’t care about the
abusers,” Charlie said. “They’re all the same — sick fucks who
think the world revolves around their dicks.”

“
What did you care about,
Charlie?” the prosecutor asked.

“
I cared about the kids,”
Charlie said. “They mean something to me. They might be sick or
stupid or ugly or gay, but they mattered to me because they
mattered to no one, like I mattered to no one. And you’re right. If
I saw some of that shit now? I’d remember.”

“
Why is that?” the mousy
woman asked.

“
Because I live with Sandy
now,” Charlie said. “I have a warm place to live, as much food as I
want to eat, and a forever-family that loves me. They’re
my
family that’s never
gonna give up on me, no matter what.”

Charlie gestured to Aden, and the jury
looked at him.

“
But then?” Charlie asked.
“My priorities went like this — safety first, warmth next, a place
to sleep where I won’t get beaten up in the middle of the night or
raped or captured by Saint Jude, friends to spend my time with, and
then, maybe some food. Those guys were really far down my list of
worries.”