Tesla, Jason Walker [reading cloud ebooks TXT] 📗

“This will let you into our house. Take whatever you want. Don’t go into your parent’s house, though. It’s contaminated with something radioactive. That’s what killed your sister and your mother and your father. Do not take Dana to that place. I’ve already had it tested and the results came back positive. It needs to be demolished,” he told her. Darren nodded his head. “You knew who your sister worked for, right?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Are you saying they killed her for what she knew?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying, and if you want Dana to stay alive, you need to separate from me while I go off in another direction to lead them away from her.”

Elizabeth was stunned. She looked at Dana and then up at Darren. “Are you sure? There’s going to need to be lawyers involved. You can’t just pick up and leave or Anna will be taken away and put in foster care.”

Darren hadn’t thought about that. “Okay, I’ll go to a lawyer and sign custody over to you. I’ll be in touch in the next twenty-four hours while I sort things out,” he said.

“Where are you going?” Dana asked her father. Darren kneeled down and looked at his daughter. Tears streamed down his face as he readied himself for the biggest lie he’d ever told somebody that he loved.

“Dad’s got to go to work, love. I’m going to be gone for a while. Elizabeth is Mum’s sister. You’re going to be staying with her for a little while okay?”

Dana wasn’t happy about the news and started crying. He picked her up and held her close for several long minutes and then kissed her on the cheek and handed her over to Anna’s sister. Dana immediately began crying as Darren walked away. It was a heartbreaking moment that Darren would never forget.

Just as Darren was getting ready to leave, a familiar voice called out to him. “Darren! Just a moment.”

Cold fury shot through Darren.

It was Alan Schiff. The bastard had turned up at his wife’s funeral.

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” said Alan.

It took all of Darren’s self-resolve not to punch the man right then and there. He had little doubt as to whether or not Alan was involved in this. In fact, he was fairly certain that Alan had been the one to call for the hit.

Darren turned his shoulder to the man. “Sorry. I don’t have time to chat.”

“It’ll just take a moment,” insisted Alan.

Darren ignored him and kept walking toward the car. He couldn’t deal with Alan. Not right now, at least. Grief was still a raw wound in his chest. It would stay open, festering, and sore for a long damn time.

Darren turned toward him and poked him in the chest. “Look, you piece of shit. Don’t play with me. Her death is on your shoulders. You could have prevented her from dying, and we both know it. Leave me the fuck alone. Get out of my way,” Mathews told the man as he walked out of the graveyard and got into his wife’s car.

He had barely pulled out of the graveyard before he was on the phone with his buddies Mitch and Bill. He gave them a brief rundown of what had happened, and asked them to keep their ears to the ground for anything that might have to do with Elizabeth or Dana. Bill felt tremendous guilt because he hadn’t been able to finish making the med bed that he’d started designing and felt like he’d failed his friend. “Don’t worry, mate. You tried. That’s all you could have done. I’m grateful that you stuck with us to the end,” Darren said before he ended the call due to being overwhelmed with emotion. He’d just lost so much in such a short time.

By the next morning, he was at a lawyer’s office signing papers, and then he phoned Elizabeth and told her the details of where she needed to go in order to have proper representation. “I’m signing over Anna’s house to you to sell, and then I want you to move away from the area. Start a new life, and protect my kid. Someday I hope she’ll want to see me again,” he said as he looked around the phonebooth he was standing in.

By 5 p.m., Darren had what he needed from their house and he left with a fully packed car. His next destination was an old silver mine out in Arizona. Anna’s father had owned it. Then, it was handed down to Anna after his death and she had given it to Darren because he was so interested in mining.

It made a good hideout for him while he made plans to leave the country. He knew where Anna’s father had buried a large cache of silver bars there and made several trips to places where he could sell several hundred ounces at a time until it was all gone. Once he had accumulated several hundred thousand in cash, Mathews drove around to find people that had baseball and hockey cards for sale. It was an easy way for him to smuggle small items that were worth a lot of money out of the country without having a thick stack of cash in his bags.

By the end of the week, he’d been able to convert money into collectibles that were small enough to mail out of the country. One by one, he wrapped up each collectible card into cardboard CD mailers and sent them to several locations around the world. His father would be scratching his head when he started receiving the cards that he’d sent to his address, but he’d understand what his son was doing when he saw the Wayne Gretzky rookie cards and the Mickey Mantle baseball card. He’d paid a pretty penny for each one. Each day, he had gone to a different post office and mailed a different envelope to a different location. Some went to Bill Jenkins. Some went to his father’s address. Other cards he kept in his own luggage.

Darren hoped that the stuff he’d mailed to Bill would be sold and the money that Bill got for the cards would help him with his research and development on the med beds because he didn’t want that idea to be stopped. He knew they existed, and he wanted to have access to one if he or his friends were ever attacked in this manner again.

Darren also decided to purchase a few gold coins—not many but enough to mail to his father and to Bill. The remaining gold coins he kept in his car until he decided how he could get them out of the country. He was starting to think he could walk in with a few in his pocket and put a few more in his carry-on luggage when he boarded the plane that would take him to the African continent.

The day finally came, though, when he had to say goodbye to Florida. He drove back to the law office one last time and dropped off a box that contained some cash and some coins and the paperwork for the silver mine since he didn’t see himself coming back there. The rights to the mine were still worth some money, but he didn’t know exactly how much he’d get for the site. It was still able to produce a fair bit of silver and might be worth holding onto, he suggested in a letter he had written to Anna’s sister the night before. After thanking the lawyer for passing on the box to his wife’s sister, he left the building and walked back out to Anna’s car. He still had to get rid of the vehicle, and he didn’t want to spend a lot of time on it. As he drove around, he considered going to a dealership and offering them the car at a rock bottom price, but he didn’t get any interest from the first place he stopped at, which frustrated him. While he ate at a restaurant he thought about his daughter and the life she would now have with Elizabeth. He hoped that they would be able to use the money that he’d left for them to start their new life away from danger.

With his checklist complete, Darren drove around town taking a last look at Florida when he saw a veteran sitting behind a sign on the side of the street. The man said he was looking for a job and so Darren decided to ask him if he’d accept the car as a gift. He explained his situation and after the homeless veteran was convinced that Darren was being sincere he got in the car with him and they drove towards the closest department of motor vehicles so they could get the forms required for a transfer of vehicle ownership. Darren learned that the guy’s name was Carl Hannagan, and he’d been in Iraq in 1991 serving with the Special Forces, which some of Darren’s SAS friends had also been in.

After the car was put in Carl’s name, he was so happy that he volunteered to drive him to the airport. As he drove him, he checked out the vehicle and told him it would allow him to leave the state and drive back to Maine where he could reunite with his father and younger brother. They owned a lobster boat, and he might be able to start working with them. He had hope in his voice and that made Darren feel pretty good.

“Where you going to go now?” Carl asked curiously as he parked the car at the airport parking lot for drop-offs. “I’m going half a world away, mate. Back to Australia, I guess. My wife’s died and there’s nothing more for me here. Take this car and start building your life back up. There’s no way the government should throw you to the curb and leave you outside in the cold. I’m a veteran too, mate. Least I can do.”

The two men shook hands. “Good luck, man. Thanks, Darren. Nobody’s given me this much kindness since I got back from the Middle East.”

Darren got out of the car and waved back at Carl. “Good luck to you, too, mate.” He then took his suitcase and walked into the airport to see if he could get a ticket that might take him back to South Africa, and from there, he’d make his own way back to his father who was going to be in either Nigeria or the Congo. At this point, he had no idea which one it would be.