Published: 12 May 2022
From Previous Chapter:
Miriam was now scared and she demanded Billy tell her why he needed to do that.
Billy gave her the Cliff Notes about Kaden being arrested with three men and that he was being charged as the drug supplier at the high school he attended. The teen added that now that he thought about it, he’d bet Kaden was the one responsible for the drugs being placed in his room, but he had no idea how he could have done that.
As Mark reached the top of the stairs, he heard a lot of commotion coming from downstairs near the front door.
Because it was getting late, Miriam had Levi go to the front door to see who it was. When he opened the door, a teenager was there and he asked if he could see his friend, Billy. Levi asked the teen how he knew his foster son. The teen, who was actually Kaden, told the man he knew Billy when he lived at The Cove, with Mr. Ken, and he’d gone to high school with him.
Levi immediately recognized both key words, The Cove and Mr. Ken, so he figured the teen had to know Billy. The man then told the teenager that it was getting late and he should have stopped by earlier. Kaden said he did, but no one answered. Levi then mentioned they had gone out for dinner.
Mr. Golderson then asked the teen how he knew where Billy lived. Kaden told the man that he called Billy’s cell phone the other day and his son, Mark, answered it and told him when he asked. Kaden didn’t go into any further details about telling Mark to not tell Billy he’d called, and that he had the boy delete the call from the history of calls.
Kaden then asked if he could see Billy for just a few minutes and then they could make arrangements to meet later in the week. The teen asked if he could get Billy to come outside, so they could talk for a few minutes.
Levi saw there was someone sitting in a vehicle parked at the curb. The man asked Kaden who that was. Kaden thought fast and said it was his ‘dad’, and he was waiting on him. Levi told the teen to have the man come inside with him, and they could all talk together.
Kaden went to the car and told the drug dealer that he told the foster dad that he was his ‘dad’ and he wanted them to go inside the house together. The drug dealer smiled at the foolishness of Levi Golderson, and he readily agreed to go with Kaden to the front door.
What Levi hadn’t noticed, since he never went outside, was that two more men were hidden at the corners of the house. They were there and were ready to rush the front door as soon as the man opened it for their junior drug dealer and when Billy came outside. But they were both surprised when they saw Kaden go out to the car to get the other man.
Kaden and the ‘dad’ walked casually to the front door. Kaden introduced the man, Bennett, as his ‘dad’, and as Levi unlocked the door and opened it the man and Kaden pushed Mr. Golderson into the foyer. Then, as Kaden and the man began to enter the home, the other two men came rushing up and forced themselves into the foyer area and quickly shut the door.
Bennett, who was introduced as Kaden’s ‘dad’, grabbed Levi and pushed him into the area where Miriam and Billy were. The other two men, with guns drawn, followed and while waving their guns told the three family members to sit down. Kaden just stood by and watched everything unfold.
Mark was at the top of the stairs when he heard lots of yelling from men’s voices. Mark knew there was trouble, so he went to the ‘Safe Room’, closed it up tight and then pushed the Panic Button. He knew the security alarm company would get the signal and call the police.
“Where are your guns?” demanded Bennett, when all of them were in the Family Room.
“We don’t have any guns,” answered Miriam. “It’s because we have a nine-year-old in the house and we don’t want any accidents to happen.”
The man, known as Santiago, went over to Mrs. Golderson, pointed his gun at her head and then demanded to know where the guns were. Levi reacted immediately and rushed the man, grabbed the man’s gun arm and pushed it away from his wife.
Santiago threw the lighter man off of him and he beat Levi across his head with his gun. Levi didn’t get up right away. Miriam went to him and helped him get to his feet. Her husband staggered some, as the blow to his head was swift and hard coming from the whole side of Santiago’s gun.
“Go ahead and kill her. That won’t change the answer,” asserted Billy, who got a backhand slap across his face from Bennett.
“They don’t have any guns, I’m telling you,” continued the foster teen. “I asked about them when I first arrived, since Mr. Ken had them in his house because of who he was. But now with me, the unknown foster kid, they told me they didn’t have them because of their son, Mark, and they probably wouldn’t until he was much older and they could trust me.”
“Speaking of the boy, where is the little shit?” demanded Bennett.
Billy quickly answered and said, “We dropped him off at his friend’s house on the way home. He’s spending the night.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy!” angrily snapped Bennett, who then backhanded Billy across his face once again.
“Go ahead and beat on me. It’s not going to change anything. Search the house. He’s NOT here! I told you. We dropped him off at Kieran’s house on the way home,” countered Billy.
“Oh, we’re going to beat on you, Billy. We just need to make sure no one else is here in the house,” snickered Bennett.
The man, who was apparently the leader, told Santiago to search the upstairs, while he had the other man, whom he called Weston, search the downstairs. Two minutes later both men returned to the Family Room and reported that there was no kid there in the house.
The man who was introduced as Kaden’s ‘dad’, and was also the hotheaded one of the group, told Kaden to go out into the garage and find something they could tie the three people up with. Kaden hesitated a few seconds and then the man grabbed the teen and told him to go and do it, and then he pushed the teenager in the direction of what he hoped was the garage.
Levi and Miriam looked at Billy with concern in their eyes, but they were also happy that Billy had told that story that their son Mark was spending the night at Kieran’s. They also hoped that the men wouldn’t call over there to verify that was where their son was.
A few minutes later, Kaden came back to the Family Room with some nylon zip ties and duct tape. Bennett told the teenager to tie the woman’s hands behind her. He told Santiago to watch Billy while he and Levi went to his office and take care of some things.
Once in Levi’s office, Bennett told him to go to his computer and open up the folder that has the security camera footage. As soon as the folder was open, Bennett had Levi play back the latest security camera footage. When he was satisfied that the file footage didn’t show him or his associates on it, the man had Levi delete it and the rest of the files and then the folder.
Bennett then wanted Levi to access the Cloud where the footage is also stored. Levi made some keystrokes to get to the internet, but it would not come up. Levi tried three times and then he then told the man that the internet was not connecting. Bennett smacked Levi across the head where Santiago hit him, and that made the man see stars and almost fall out of his chair.
Bennett took the man back to the Family Room to be with his wife and Billy. Miriam saw her husband was bleeding some more from where the first man had hit him and wanted to tend to him, but she couldn’t as her hands were tied behind her back.
Bennett then quickly pulled Weston aside and asked him if when they cut the internet cable would it mean they couldn’t get access to the Cloud storage to have it erased. Bennett wasn’t happy when he learned that was what happened when they cut the line.
Levi then demanded to know why they were there and what they wanted with them. The three men laughed.
“If you just had let Billy come outside to talk with Kaden, we … we, ahh, wouldn’t be in here right now,” snickered Bennett. “But, be that as it may, you invited us in and here we are. We’ve been watching Billy ever since … ever since Mark told us where he was living.
“You see … we’ve been looking for him … for Billy, that is, … ever since he was sent away from that big estate on the lake. But in reality … we’ve been looking for the person who ratted out a man named ‘Smokey’ and got him killed. And that person is your own foster son, Billy, here,” continued Bennett.
“I didn’t get ‘Smokey’ killed,” protested Billy.
“Oh, yes you did. You also got your dad killed that night too,” spoke up Weston, who then pointed his gun at the teenager.
“He wasn’t my dad; he was my step-dad. And, I wouldn’t have done that to my mom,” objected Billy. “Why would I want to have my step-dad killed? Tell me!”
“You were the only one who knew that ‘Greaser’ was involved with ‘Smokey’ and that your step-dad went to meet up with ‘Smokey’ the night the police raided his stash house. So, don’t tell me you didn’t rat the man out!” declared Bennett.
“I didn’t rat on anybody that night. I didn’t know where ‘Greaser’ was going when he left the house that night. He probably told my mom, but I know she wouldn’t have called the police because she was in just as deep in the drug dealing as my step-dad was. But ‘Smokey’ … he probably did it to himself after what he did the night of the 4th of July!” argued back Billy.
“What do you know of what ‘Smokey’ did last 4th of July?” questioned Weston.
“Yea, kid … what did ‘Smokey’ do that would have led the police to his stash house?” asked Santiago. “And how would you know about it?”
“Look, I lived where ‘Smokey’, ‘Greaser’, ‘Spider’ and ‘Butcher’ … where they crashed the carnival last year. They all got taken to jail, but only ‘Smokey’ … he was able to bail himself out. My mom … was she ever pissed that ‘Greaser’ … that my step-dad got himself arrested that night. And then … and then she had to wait to go to the bank the next day to get the money to bail Jody out.
“What I heard was that Smokey … he came back to the carnival after he made bail and then he tried to grab someone from the carnival, but was almost caught. He used a stolen boat from the dock across from The Cove and he got away. But after that, they were looking for him, big time. That was how ‘Smokey’ got on their Watch List along with the other three people with him that night.
“How would you know that Smokey was on their Watch List?” demanded Weston.
“Look … Mr. Ken … he was good friends with Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dan Fischer and they used to talk all the time. I heard them talking about what happened on those two-nights last year, just before this latest carnival, and they hoped that nothing like that would ever happen again.
“They said that they couldn’t find out where ‘Smokey’ was … but that they began following the other three people who were with him. They said he stole a boat from the house next to The Cove to make his escape the night of the carnival and … and that they found him on that same boat the night of the shootout going around in circles,” replied the foster teen.
“But I … I didn’t rat out anyone that night. I’d tell you to go ask my mom … but … but she’s in prison for a long time, so I guess you won’t go and check out my story with her, will you?” demanded Billy.
“I’ll even bet that you three … that YOU are probably on the Sheriff’s watch list yourself after being arrested, what two weeks ago, and you also got a high school student, Kaden there, involved,” finished the teen.
Smart mouthing Bennett caused Billy to be backhanded once again. The man said for the other men to tie up the man and put him and his wife in their bedroom. He, in turn, said he was taking Billy up to the boy’s room to get better acquainted. The man then laughed. He told the men to leave Kaden to watch the man and woman and to join him upstairs.
Santiago asked Bennett if he thought the kid could handle them. The leader told Santiago that they were both tied up and had tape on the mouths, so they weren’t going to be any trouble. Bennett then looked over at the Goldersons and asked them if they were going to cause Kaden any trouble. Both adults shook their heads and mumbled through their tape that they wouldn’t cause any trouble.
Bennett dragged Billy up the stairs by the collar on his shirt. Weston and Santiago quickly followed. Once there, Bennett threw Billy onto his bed while he had the men search the room for anything of value.
Billy told them all he left The Cove with was his clothes and cell phone. The teenager told the men that Mr. Ken wouldn’t let him have anything else, including the brand-new desktop computer he’d just bought for him.
Satisfied there wasn’t anything of value, there in the room, the men started asking Billy why he did it. Billy argued he didn’t do anything. When he didn’t say what the men wanted him to say, he was smacked or punched by one of the men.
They asked the teen once again why he called the police on ‘Smokey’. Billy told them he didn’t make any phone calls and again one of the men hit Billy. The teen was beginning to feel the pain from the blows they’d given him.
The questioning of the teenager by the three drug dealers went on for at least an hour. And every time Billy gave them a ‘wrong’ answer that got the teen more and more beatings. The men didn’t care where they hit him and each man took their turn in delivering the pain. It was now going on 10 p.m.
Back in the ‘Safe Room’, Mark heard everything that was going on in his ‘big brother’s’ bedroom. The almost ten-year-old pressed and pressed the Panic Button and nothing ever came of it. He wondered why the police never came. He knew something was wrong, but he had no idea what it could be. He now wished he hadn’t left his cell phone down in the Family Room when he was sent up to the ‘Safe Room’.
The men continued to berate Billy for his ratting out ‘Smokey’ and ‘Greaser’ and they held him responsible for their deaths. They told him on many occasions as they beat him that he would suffer the same fate, but they hadn’t decided on when, yet.
Through his numb and bleeding mouth, Billy mumbled a question that asked the men how they were able to get the drugs into his room. He told them that he wanted to know before they killed him.
The men laughed at Billy’s persistence to resist their questioning and then, on top of that, his wanting to know how they got him sent away from The Cove. It was Weston who took the question and answered the teenager.
“Well, Billy … we always blamed you for ‘Smokey’ and ‘Greaser’s’ deaths. And with you living behind those high walls and you never being outside of there alone … we figured … well, there was no way we’d ever get to you.
“We knew, from what Kaden told us, what your Mr. Ken thought about illegal drugs, and what would happen if they were ever found, especially in your room. So, we devised the plan to get you away from there.
“So, since Kaden was already working for us, delivering drugs to the high school kids, and with his knowledge of the house, he was recruited to plant the drugs for us. But we never planned on being arrested and Kaden being banned from The Cove.
“So … after some careful thought, we decided that on the night of the 4th of July, while the fireworks were going off, Kaden … he’d figure out a way to get into the house. And he did!
“He said he walked onto the estate like everyone else did that night. Then, since none of the security guards, or Sheriff’s Deputies stopped him, once he was inside the gate, he was essentially home free.
“He told us he watched a few fireworks and then, making sure no one was watching him, he worked his way to the shed out in the parking corral, next to the garage. From there, he had to hope and pray that the garage side door was still kept unlocked, you know, as it always was when he was there. Kaden said if the door was locked, our plan would not work. But as you know, Kaden did get in, to plant the drugs.
“Once Kaden was inside … he said he went up the back stairs. He told us, knowing that if he used the front ones, someone could notice a shadow inside, when everyone was outside watching the fireworks. That was why he chose the back stairs.
“Your ex-friend … he said he knew which bedroom was yours, so he headed directly there. He told us, at first, he wasn’t sure where he was going to hide the bag of marijuana. He first thought to put it under the bottom drawer of your dresser. But when he looked in the closet and saw that panel in the back, he figured that it would be an even better place to try to hide the drugs.
“It didn’t take our junior partner long to do the dirty deed. After he placed the drugs behind that panel, he said he came outside between fireworks, so he wouldn’t be seen. He then watched a few more shells shoot off before leaving the estate and joining us in our car. To celebrate what Kaden had done, we drove over to Four Corners and had ice cream at Mr. Ken’s Kreamy Kone. We each got banana splits to applaud Kaden for such great work.
Billy wanted to know how they knew ‘Smokey’, but Bennett was tired of stories and began asking the teen again if he didn’t call the police on ‘Smokey’ and ‘Greaser’, then who did. When Billy didn’t know who it was, the men beat on him some more and every time they did that, they hurt him even more.
Downstairs, Kaden kept watch on Levi and Miriam Golderson. As long as they were quiet and stayed lying on the bed, he felt he was doing a good job. Through their taped mouths, they asked Kaden how he got involved with those men, and why he was doing that to his friend.
Kaden was bored and no one had ever really talked with him about anything, so when they asked him to tell them about why he was engaged with those men he told them.
The teenager explained how it was only he and his mom and that he was basically on his own for as long as he could remember. He added that he never had someone to do things with him, or even sit down and talk to him about anything, especially about growing up. The boy told the parents how money was tight and when he had the chance to earn some with Bennett, Santiago and Weston, he took the opportunity.
Kaden told them how he and Billy became friends and when his drug partners learned who Billy was, they explained to him why they thought he had ratted out the big drug dealer ‘Smokey’ last year and his step-dad and began to plan a way to grab the boy. But the teen explained that Mr. Ken never let Billy out of the estate on his own, so they needed to figure out a plan to get him away from The Cove.
Kaden then explained how, after he was arrested and banned from The Cove, he snuck onto the estate in plain view during the 4th of July fireworks display, and knowing they kept the garage side door unlocked, during the day, he used it to gain entrance to the house and worked his way up to his friends’ bedroom and planted the drugs.
The entire time Kaden was talking, Levi had been working on breaking the nylon zip ties holding his hands tight behind his back. The ties were the standard wire ties found in many homes and, when over stressed, they easily broke.
Levi watched as Kaden became comfortable talking to them about his life and, after almost an hour, became complacent about the task he was given. Levi had broken his zip ties and was just lying on his hands as he waited for the right time to jump Kaden and immobilize him enough that he could free his wife and get to his gun safe.
The men upstairs decided to go into Mark’s room to talk, so Billy couldn’t hear what they were planning to do to him, and the Goldersons. They all knew that since they invaded the home, they couldn’t leave any witnesses when they left. What they didn’t know was Mark was in the ‘Safe Room’ listening, and the boy began to lightly cry when he heard that the men planned to kill his parents and his ‘big brother’ before they left.
Levi watched Kaden mope around as he talked to them. He noticed the boy was walking a track as he talked and he also looked down a lot, taking his eyes off him and Miriam. The man figured when the boy had his back turned to him, he would take his chances, jump off the bed, grab the teenager and knock him down.
Miriam didn’t know what her husband had planned and when she saw Kaden walk over towards the walk-in closet, Levi jumped off the bed, grabbed the alarm clock off the nightstand and slammed it over the teenager’s head.
Kaden heard the noise of the clock being ripped out of the electric socket and turned to see Levi coming at him. The teen yelled just as the man slammed the plastic clock over his head. With Kaden down, Levi quickly got to his wife and got her released, but when he had hit Kaden the boy’s yelling carried up the stairs.
The three men heard Kaden yell, and Santiago immediately ran down the stairs, gun in hand, and he got to the master bedroom just as Levi got his gun from the gun safe. The two men shot at one another. Both men were hit.
Santiago had taken a position behind the bedroom door frame and shot once more at Levi who withheld his shot. But knowing where the man was, Levi shot through the wall and hit the man once again causing the man to drop his gun and fall over.
Weston came running down the stairs, his gun at the ready, and headed to where the Goldersons were supposed to be tied up. But when he got there, he saw Santiago was lying on the floor and bleeding from two gunshot wounds.
Then, when he looked inside the bedroom and saw Kaden cowering in the corner trying not to get hit by a stray gunshot, Weston got pissed the teen hadn’t done his job. So, the man yelled to the teenager, “This is what you get for not doing your job!” Weston then shot the teen in his back.
Levi used that distraction to shoot at Weston and he hit him, in the arm, which made the man drop his own gun. Bennett heard the extra gunshots and came running down the stairs. He saw Santiago lying on the floor, picked up the man’s gun, laying there, and told Weston to go out to the car and wait for him. Bennett then shot indiscriminately into the master bedroom and continued to fire until the gun was empty. He then ran outside to the car.
The two drug dealers were lucky that Levi didn’t follow them outside and shoot them as they fled. Bennett was able to start the car and drive off to places unknown.
Mark heard all the gunshots and knew the men ran down the stairs as their footsteps all thumped on their way down. He waited for a minute or two after the gunshots were over before he carefully made his way out of the ‘Safe Room’ and into Billy’s room. The boy was aghast at what he saw.
“Billy, Billy are you … are you … OK?” cautiously asked the little ‘brother’.
Billy mumbled something through his swollen mouth. Mark didn’t understand what he said, so he put his ear closer to the teen’s face. The boy then asked his foster brother to say it to him again.
“Mark … go … go and get … get my … my coin,” whispered the teenager.
“But where is it Billy?” excitedly asked Mark.
“It’s … it’s in my … it’s in my … my underwear drawer. Find it. Bring it here,” demanded Billy.
Mark searched for the coin and when he found it, he brought it to his ‘big brother’. He then asked his foster brother what he wanted him to do with it.
“Mark … Mark … the coin … it’s a … it’s a special … it’s a special coin … that … that Mr. Ken … that … Mr. Ken gave me. Take … take it into … into the ‘Safe Room’ and … and squeeze it,” directed the severely injured teenager.
“But … but you told me … you told me not to squeeze it. Why now?” asked the tearful almost ten-year-old.
“Mark … listen … the coin … it … it has something … something in it that … that when you … when you squeeze it … it … will send out a signal that … that Mr. Ken’s … his security company … they will … they will receive it … and … and they … they will call Mr. Ken.
“Do it … Mark! And … and don’t … don’t come out … don’t come out of the … the ‘Safe Room’ until … until you hear … you here Mr. Ken is here. Mark … you gotta … you gotta do this for your parents, and … and for me. And Mark … do not … do not go downstairs for any reason. Promise me you won’t,” whispered Billy, who then went unconscious.
Mark was crying his eyes out. He wanted to go downstairs to check on his parents because he heard the men say they were going to kill them all before they left. But his ‘big brother’ didn’t want him to go down there. The boy figured his foster brother didn’t want him to see his mom and dad hurt, or even dead.
Mark cried hard as he scrambled back into the ‘Safe Room’ and once in there he squeezed the coin. After a few moments the youngster felt the coin get warm and eventually get too hot for him to handle. The boy now believed his ‘big brother,’ that the coin was special and was sending out a signal.
Downstairs, Levi was bleeding really bad, and so was his wife. She’d been hit several times by the spray of bullets that Bennett sent into the master bedroom. The man knew he needed to do something, so he crawled to the ‘Safe Room’, located in their master bedroom closet, and pressed the Panic Button.
Levi Golderson wondered where his son was and he hoped and prayed he was safe up in the upstairs ‘Safe Room’. The last thing the man remembered was that he wondered why the boy hadn’t pressed the Panic Button himself and called for the police.
Outside the Goldersons’ home, the neighbors, who had Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) Permits, cautiously approached the house. Three men formed a wide approach to the front door, which they saw was wide open. Other neighbors had called 911 and told the operators about all the gunshots that came from the Goldersons’ home.
Sheriff’s Deputies came racing to the house and as they did so, they saw the three men with their guns out and approaching the house. The Deputies used their PA System and told the three to stay where they were, drop their guns and get on the ground. The men did so immediately.
More and more Deputies were dispatched when the call went out of three armed men outside the house. No shots were fired, but the delay in having to deal with the three-armed men might have caused additional harm to anyone inside the house.
Once the perimeter was cleared, the Deputies did a systematic approach and entered the premises. Once inside they found Santiago lying on the floor just outside the master bedroom. They also found a teenager inside the master bedroom and saw that he’d been shot in the back. They also found a man and woman, who were both shot, still alive, but unconscious.
Deputies searched the rest of the house before they would allow EMTs to enter the home and take care of the injured. Upstairs they found Billy lying on his blood-soaked bed and he looked like he’d been severely beaten. After the Sheriff’s Deputies cleared the house, three ambulance teams were brought into the house to take care of the injured people.
Outside, the commotion of all the Sheriff’s Deputies arriving with their siren’s blaring, brought out most of the neighbors from many blocks away. The three men who were detained by the Deputies proved who they were and that they had the CCW Permits. They explained why they were there and were told they would be contacted once more when the investigation was in full out analysis.
Once the Deputies identified who the owners of the house were, and what position Levi held at his bank, they immediately called Sheriff Barnes. The news media, who monitored the police and fire radio bands arrived, almost as fast as the EMTs and ambulance companies, and began setting up their remote camera vans. A circus atmosphere was beginning to develop, down the street from the Goldersons’ home.
Inside the house, the EMT’s declared Santiago dead and they went on to triage the other four injured people in the home. And because of the severity of all of the people’s injuries, they requested an air ambulance to take the worst of the four to the hospital.
As soon as the EMTs had stabilized the patients, they loaded them onto gurneys and took them out to the waiting transportation. Miriam was placed in the air ambulance, while the other three were placed into waiting ambulances.
When they put Billy into his ambulance, he woke up for just a few moments and told the EMTs that his little ‘brother’, Mark, was waiting for Mr. Ken to come for him before he would come out of hiding. The boy then passed out. The EMTs quickly told the closest Deputy what the teenager had said, and then they drove off, siren blaring, to the nearest hospital.
Back at The Cove, Ken Thomas had lain down early that evening. He felt he needed the extra rest and, with all the boys up in their rooms, he felt comfortable in getting a few extra winks himself.
The man had felt he had just fallen into a deep sleep when his phone rang. He woke with a start to the ringing phone. He gruffly answered the phone, and he was going to tell the person to call back in the morning, when he learned it was Jules Diamond Security.
The man at the main office was calling to tell him that they just received a signal from one of his coins. Hearing that information, immediately woke Ken Thomas right up. He sat up on the edge of his bed and asked the man to explain everything to him.
The saga of Three Finger Cove continues. Let Chowhound know you are reading his story: Chowhound at CastleRoland dot Net
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