Summer at Eagle Mountain by George Goldthwaite

Author:George Goldthwaite [Goldthwaite, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fawkes Press
Published: 2019-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

VINNY SPENT THE night tossing and turning on the couch. He dozed in and out, the events of ten years before returning as nightmares. But it seemed like only last week.

How did he ever get involved in such a horrid business? He’d seen the grief such crimes brought to his own family. He now slept on the sofa of the very cousin who was so affected by a similar crime.

Smuggling babies! They came across the border from Mexico to a crooked adoption agency that made huge profits from couples desperate for children. At first, he’d thought he did a great service, finding homes for orphans and making people happy. Too late, he learned that some of the children weren’t orphans at all. They’d been sold by their parents or even kidnapped from poor homes across the border. Adoption papers were forged, and the children delivered to loving but unsuspecting families. Bribe money paid to local officials ensured the crimes were never solved.

On that fateful night, he was delivering a baby strapped in a car seat behind him. The boy cried, wouldn’t shut up. Vinny tried to shove a bottle into the tiny mouth, but when he looked back, his sedan crossed the center stripe and sideswiped another car. In his rear-view mirror, he watched it careen from the highway and slam into a tree.

He couldn’t stop. Being caught with the baby in a human smuggling ring would send him to prison. And if delivery of the child was late, the people he worked for would be ruthless. Anyone willing to kidnap babies for sheer profit wouldn’t hesitate to take him out of the picture. Only after making the delivery did he call his employer and tell what happened.

“Ditch the car,” the man said. “And make sure it’s never found.”

Finding himself not far from Maria’s house, Vinny fled there. The lake gave him an idea and he forced her to help. Afterwards, he wanted nothing to do with that gruesome business and never returned. After all, he had a story to tell, and his employer would stop at nothing to keep him quiet.

Morning sunlight at last streamed through the cottage windows, and not waiting for his cousin to awaken, Vinny tossed off his blanket and sat up. He yawned, scratched his head, and wandered into the kitchen. He found a coffee maker, but the coffee can in the cupboard was almost empty. Disgusted, he pulled on his shoes, ambled out to his car, and drove down the narrow road, headed in the direction of last evening’s lights. He’d been to Eagle Mountain earlier in the spring, but that trip didn’t turn out well. He’d fled in a rush, his business unfinished.

Near the edge of town, he spotted a convenience store and wheeled into the parking lot. He bought a local newspaper from a machine near the entrance and strolled in. The smell of burnt coffee filled the air. From the bored-looking cashier, he bought two doughnuts and a cup of bitter coffee.

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