Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

And this was why, in 1986, this guy suddenly came into existence.

“Did the other wives come with him?” Boone asked.

Hawk shook his head. “No. He cut himself loose. Including from five children he’d fathered on two other women. He was also careful to keep the past in the past and not just by changing his name. And incidentally, that would be the second time he did that. He was born Jonathan Clyde Bottoms. Jorge hasn’t had time to get into that one. That name is back to you.”

Hawk said the last with a nod toward Auggie.

And more reason why Aug hadn’t found much on him.

The guy wasn’t young, but three name changes in seventy-five years were two more than most people had.

And unless you did it when you got married, most people did it to leave a life behind.

Sometimes for reasons out of their control.

Sometimes for shit that was entirely in their control that got out of it.

Hawk kept talking.

“He was hard to gather history on because he put shit in place to make it hard to find him. He’s used three different socials, one for each name. Now he’s using the social of a man who died in 1985. But along with that, he changed his appearance, dropping forty pounds, getting contacts. Until fifteen years ago, he also didn’t have his name on anything. Contracts. Rental agreements. Credit cards. Deeds. Nothing.”

Well, shit.

Hawk kept going.

“His wife, that being his fourth one, but his first in Colorado, had her name on everything. Until three years ago. Jorge found two properties purchased by Jonathan Bottoms with his own, that being personal, not church, funds. One is a mountain house in Park City, Utah, and the other is a high-rise condo in Fort Myers, Florida.”

“He’s preparing for retirement,” Axl guessed.

“Maybe,” Hawk allowed. “But Jorge activated some connections we have to poke around in both areas. And according to some locals, the properties are in use. In other words, he isn’t hiding he has them, or that he uses them. Someone is on both properties regularly. The head pastor of a church doesn’t take that many vacations. Definitely not to high-end accommodations. Or he shouldn’t. They have to know where he’s going. Or at least those closest to him likely do.”

Hawk took a second.

Then, with his attention on Auggie, he finished, “So, either those closest to him, his deacons, understand the long con he’s on and support it, and him, or they’re so deep under his influence, they’re happy to give up what little they have just to get him closer to God. Even if that means his high-rise or his three-thousand-square-foot mountain house.”

Heard loud and clear.

Pepper’s father was fucked up even more than they already thought he was.

“You want me to run with that Bottoms information?”

Auggie was surprised this came from Billy.

“This is a personal project, man,” Aug said. “I’m diving in when I have—”

“You’ve also started seein’ that woman. And she has a kid,” Billy cut him off to tell him something he already knew. “I don’t have either. I got more time on my hands. And I’m good to run with it.”

Aug didn’t take his eyes off Billy.

The syndicate of dirty cops they were investigating started as a personal project on the heels of Evie getting dragged into that situation and Mag’s commitment to getting her out.

This happened on their first date.

That ended with them making affiliations with the guys of Nightingale Investigations, as well as two motorcycle clubs (Chaos and Resurrection), and a handful of good cops because…dirty cops.

That would normally be enough said, but it had gone extreme and had involved intimidation, frame-ups, faked suicides, and murder.

So in the end, it wasn’t personal.

It was a job that had to get done.

This situation with the Tabernacle of the True Light wasn’t the same thing.

But even so, it was a shocker that Billy was offering to help.

“Billy—” Auggie started.

Billy interrupted him.

“Kids need good men in their lives, and no one should have to go it alone.”

Whoa.

That was deep coming from Billy.

Auggie shut his mouth.

Hawk opened his.

“Billy, you take Bottoms. Aug’s got other shit he needs to be doing. Connect with Jorge. He’ll give you a game plan.”

Billy nodded to Hawk.

Hawk moved the meeting to paid work.

And he ended it as they always seemed to end their team meetings these days.

With Hawk reporting on the dirty-cops case, a brief that usually shared not much to nothing was happening.

This time, though, Hawk began this with, “You all know that B delivered the message that they got to her to share the intel with us that they were standing down.”

He got nods, because they all did know that one of their informants, a low-level drug dealer, but mostly information-peddler, Brandi, aka “B,” had told them just that.

“You also know that since then, B has been vapor,” Hawk went on.