Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

In other words, their cupboards were filled with snack foods or quick fixes that got nowhere near a pan, a stove, an oven or a homecooked meal made with love.

His mother cooked on occasion, and when she did, she made certain you understood it was under duress, or alternately expressed what she considered appropriate gratitude, which meant kissing her ass.

His father’s method of cooking was heating up a frozen pizza.

As far as Aug knew, his mother and father to that day didn’t own a travel mug.

And their coffeemaker probably hadn’t been used since the ’90s.

Which brought him to the fact that Thanksgiving was coming up, the holiday Auggie dreaded only slightly less than Christmas.

Because Christmas was prime time for a big family drama.

With Thanksgiving being second on that list.

“Aug.”

Auggie jerked himself out of his thoughts when he heard Hawk calling his name.

“You with us?” Hawk asked.

Fuck.

Auggie nodded.

Hawk eyed him a beat, and Aug felt that, mostly because he’d never had to have Hawk bring him mentally into the room.

If you worked for Hawk, you were mentally where he wanted you to be when he wanted it.

Needless to say, if he called a meeting, he wanted your head there.

Auggie grabbed his filled mug and took a seat at the table.

“Jorge’s on something, so he’s not coming to the meeting this morning,” Hawk began. “But I just got off the phone with him. He ran some things down for me to bring to the meet.”

As mentioned, Jorge was Hawk’s Number Two, and not only because he’d been with Hawk the longest, even though he had.

The man was married. Kids. Great guy. Solid.

“He’s uncovered some history on Clyde Higgins,” Hawk went on.

And yeah.

There it was.

Jorge was a solid guy.

He was good at everything he did for Hawk, and he had a wide range of talents.

Auggie had slammed into a brick wall with Higgins and the Tabernacle of the True Light that only reconnaissance, bugs and hacking might put a crack in.

Auggie’s dead end was that the man had ceased to exist prior to 1986.

Jorge’d had a day and he had something.

“What’d he get?” Auggie asked.

“Higgins had a flock before he started the Tabernacle of the True Light,” Hawk said. “It was called the Church of the Sacred Dawn.”

“Man can stick with a theme,” Mag murmured.

“It was in Montana,” Hawk kept going. “And it disbanded because one of his wives lost a baby in childbirth. A childbirth he was attending, without any other medical practitioners. No midwife. Definitely not a doctor. Not even a doula.”

“One of his wives?” Auggie asked. “He’s done this bigamy gig before?”

Hawk nodded.

It was then, unusually late, that Auggie noted Hawk was looking grim.

Shit.

Hawk kept sharing.

“The death of this child shed some light for local officials on what was happening at Sacred Dawn. The woman’s parents were not happy. They were this not only because their daughter lost her child. And not only because she was one of three other wives this guy had, something they didn’t know. In fact, they didn’t know she was married at all, much less wife number three. But regardless all that sucked for them to learn, the big thing was that she’d hemorrhaged significantly post-birth without a professional anywhere near to tend to her.”

Hawk took a second to take a breath and none of the men interjected.

This was because all of the men were considering this nightmare scenario.

Including the idea of a man “attending” the birth of the woman he was supposed to love, a woman who was having his child, and there wasn’t anyone who knew what they were doing anywhere near.

But it was more.

Hawk and Gwen’s last baby, a little girl, had been a difficult delivery for Gwen. Hawk almost lost them both.

And Hawk’s history was even darker going back further, considering what happened to his first wife and their daughter while Hawk was deployed.

Auggie had not been around at the time Gwen had Vivi, their youngest, but it was now lore because Hawk loved his wife, he adored his sons, and he doted on his daughter.

You could just say Hawk Delgado was the kind of man that, no matter what shit they were in, or how deep it was, Gwen could get a message to him, and that message could be that Vivi had the sniffles, and Hawk would be gone.

Another reason why he’d assembled the team he had.

Because this very conversation proved where Hawk’s priorities were.

Family first, including the one you made for yourself that wasn’t blood.

Then work.

And no matter what they were neck deep in, you took each other’s backs.

Which was why they were having this conversation first thing at their meeting, a conversation about a case he wasn’t making a dime on, but he was throwing all his resources at.

Hawk carried on.

“And if another member of the church hadn’t gone against Higgins, who was known as Clyde Dickens then, and taken her to the hospital, it’s likely she would have died. The parents were called to the hospital, discovered these things, and did not let it go. The bigamy was outed. Heat landed on Dickens and the whole church. This meant, in 1984, Dickens disbanded it and moved to Colorado. Here, he hung tight and laid low for around two years. And then he started True Light.”