“Everybody knew who he was and that you were born on the wrong side of the blanket. To a barmaid. He said the stories made it around town without too much trouble, especially for everybody in the school. Everybody was supposed to keep it a secret, and, as such, everybody soon knew everything.”
“I was only in the damn school for one year.”
“But we all knew who you were. Your foster father was Josh Cameron,” he said. “A businessman. A banker and a married man too.”
“What’s this got to do with anything?” Simon said, completely confused.
“That’s the thing. You don’t get it. Because your mother dumped you in with my family. Your foster father wasmyfather. Heboughtyou off your mother. Your foster father—my father—was a pedophile,” he said, with a broken laugh. “And you were one of his victims.”
“Oneof his victims?”
Yale nodded slowly. “He abused the rest of us,” he said. “I don’t really know how the hell you were rescued, but nobody else was.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes,” Yale said. “Thus the trust funds, remember? For us—not you of course. He disappeared a long time ago and was declared legally dead after seven years. Sometime after he put you in the hospital. Of course we might have had a hand in his disappearance.”
That statement made Simon pause. “But your last name is different.”
Yale gave him a one-arm shrug. “We didn’t want the old man’s curse on us too. When that came out, and he promptly disappeared, looking guilty as hell, we all changed our last names.”
“I didn’t know anything about this,” Simon said, staring at Yale in shock. “After all this time…”
“I was of two minds, whether I should say anything or not, but you didn’t seem to know or to care.”
“Oh, I care,” Simon said in a harsh voice. “I just can’t believe that nobody said anything to me in all this time.”
“You were so young. I was really surprised when you showed up at that school.”
“And you’re what? Eight years older than I am?”
“When you were rescued, you were only six and I was fourteen,” he said. “I was just coming out of it because, as long as you were there, I wasn’t abused.”
“And your brother and sister?”
“Same thing. As long as our dad had a pet, we were safe.”
Simon’s stomach churned at the term. “So you never told anyone, and you never helped me?”
Yale winced. “I stayed friends with you,” he said. “I always wanted to tell you how and why, but I never could.”
“What about your brother? And your sister?”
“My sister is okay,” he said. “She helps my brother.”
“Your pedophile brother? Who owns that blue truck you are driving?”
“Yes,” he said. “But he’s been clean for a long time.”
Simon glanced at the blue truck, then at Yale, and said, “So you and him are abusing the kids?”
“Neither of us,” he said in outrage.
But Simon no longer believed him. “I don’t think that’s quite true,” he said. “I’m pretty damn sure he’s either supplying the kids to you, or you’re paying him for the kids.”
“Oh, well, since you can’t tell anyone after I kill you…” He shrugged. “After you’ve been abused, it’s hard to relate to the world around you,” he said. “I can relate to the little kids. So he supplies them for me.”
“Where?”