Vanished

Kansas

Most people find it exciting to move to a new city and into a new home, but I wasn't one of them. It's possible that it would've been different, and I might have enjoyed it, if I'd gotten to choose where and how I wanted to live, instead of moving to a new place in order to stay alive.

Some people would probably jump at a chance to start over, with a new identity and a new chance at life. But for us it was getting old.

Me and my brother had done the whole starting over thing so many times I should've been used to it. It was part of who we were. But the reality was that having to start all over again this time hit me a lot harder than I'd expected it would.

A lot of it had to do with me not having a job. I wasn't used to not having anything to do, and hated the fact that I was completely dependent on my brother to support us. But most of it had to do with having to leave Ellie behind. Again.

If I was a normal person, I would've considered moving back to Georgia to be close to her. We'd all been happy there. Even my brother. As it was, she was safer without me around. At least until I could figure out who it was after me and why.

Me, my brother, and Bear had only been in the house we rented outside Topeka, Kansas, for a little over three weeks, and I already hated it.

And by that, I meant the situation. It had nothing to do with the place itself or the neighborhood. They were fine, just like any other working class area we'd lived in over the years. In a different circumstance, I may have actually enjoyed it.

The rental house itself wasn't bad. It was smaller than what we'd had in Boston, but it had a much bigger backyard, which Bear absolutely loved. It backed up to open fields on one side and woods in the back, so it was mostly private.

Bear could explore and run as fast as he wanted as long as me or my brother was outside with him. Because one of the negative things with the property was that there was no fence around the yard. Not even around part of it.

Since I didn't have a job, I spent most of my days trying to keep busy. I worked out and explored the quiet suburb by myself or with Bear. All the while, my brother worked out of the house. He once again used the dining room as his home office, which was fine. It wasn't like we'd ever have family dinners or throw any parties. And for once in my life, I wanted that. I wanted to cook for Ellie, and enjoy long dinners with her by my side.

Despite being so far away from her, she was the one thing that truly kept me going. I'd been hesitant at first to keep the contact, worried I'd put her at risk, but soon found out I couldn't stay away from her. I looked forward to every message, no matter how small.

We used the document my brother had set up online to write back and forth several times a day. She gave me updates on her life in Willow, and I tried to reciprocate as much as I could. What we didn't discuss was what happened in Boston.

I realized that in order for me and my brother to have any kind of stable future; I needed to figure out once and for all why we were still in danger. So I spent a lot of time going through the notebook my father had given to me and researched whatever information there was to be found on the internet.

We had never been apprised of the exact circumstances about why we had to leave Las Vegas. All we'd been told was it had something to do with our father's job at the Casinos, and the mob -but not like in the movies, according to our mom- and missing money.

We had witnessed the Police coming to the house on a few occasions before the move, so we knew our dad was in trouble, but it still came as a tremendous shock when we were one day whisked away to our new lives.

From searching old newspapers on the web and reading between the lines, I was able to figure out what most likely happened. The federal authorities had arrested several dealers in some of the bigger casinos, including our father. That came as a result of the mob having taken over the casinos by either making deals with the owners, or by force. They took cuts of the proceeds with promises that the casinos and the owners would be protected from competition, in addition to several other schemes where they stole money either from the casinos or from the players directly.

I couldn't figure out how involved our dad had been before the cops became engaged, but from the notebook, I concluded what took place afterwards.

"So," I said to my brother over pasta dinner one night. "Dad made that deal with the Feds, and if I'm right, he worked undercover for them for about six months. In exchange for his testimony at trial, he got no sentence, and they placed us under witness protection immediately."

"That makes sense," my brother agreed. "That's why he was gone for about a month before we moved from Virginia Beach to Willow."

I nodded. "Yeah, the trial," I responded and took a forkful of the new lemon garlic recipe I tried. It was very good.

"But that still does not explain all these numbers he keeps sending. Have you been able to figure out what they mean?"

"They definitely refer to a location."

"Yeah?" he swallowed and the way his eyes lit up made him seem a lot more interested than he'd been earlier.

"Don't get too excited. I don't know where it is yet."

"What do you mean?"

"The numbers refer to different locations. But not like a town or a state. I don't remember what the numbers equaled without looking in the notebook, but it's like a five refers to the garden, whereas a two means woods."

He put his fork down and laughed bitterly. "Of course. And we're supposed to figure out where that is?"

I nodded, and he rolled his eyes.

"Do we know what it is that we're supposed to find in this location?" he asked and picked his fork up and twirled the spaghetti around it.

"No. Not really, but I think it's money."

My brother's eyebrows shot up at that. "Like that treasure he always talked about? You think that was actually real? Like we could find it for real?"

His sudden interest made me chuckle.

"I do, because it's the only thing that makes sense. Think about it. He got his promotion at the casinos and suddenly, he had a new car. We had a new home, mom had jewelry and fancy clothes and then she had a new car too. Everything was luxury living for that short time, and then when shit fell apart, that jewelry and mom's car were gone in instant."

"Yeah," he nodded slowly. "You're right. But what if that was just the police taking things he didn't have a right to?"

I finished the pasta and pushed the plate away.

"I thought about that, and I don't know if you remember, but dad always had cash, so much cash. There was a stash in his dresser, and he always had thousands of dollars on him."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"I don't think that the cops knew about that."

His eyebrows rose again. "Really?"

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he had money stashed in other places, too."

"Huh. If that's the case, then there is money hidden somewhere in a garden near the woods."

I chuckled because it sounded so stupid.

"Yeah, that's the way I see it, too."

"So that has to be what these men are after," he concluded.

"Yes," I agreed. "But the question remains; Why do they think we know anything about it?"

My brother put his fork down and folded his arms over his chest. His eyes were hard as they met mine. "And how do they know about it in the first place?"