Carrying Hope Read Free Page A

malnourished that she never recovered. I was twelve at the time. From that moment, I swore that I would never be poor again. I would never have to rely on another person. In my young mind, I thought that if I worked hard enough I could find a way to bring her back.
    I worked my fingers to the bone shining shoes, sweeping sidewalks, delivering newspapers, whatever jobs people would give me. I made sure that no one found out that I was living on my own. I was terrified of being placed in a home or in foster care. I wanted to be self-reliant and nothing was going to stop me.
    By the time I was eighteen, I’d made enough money to start my first company. In a year, I sold that company for a hundred million dollars and I never looked back.
    Now I was on the wrong side of thirty, with enough money to buy anything in the world. Anything except the one thing I desperately wanted: answers. My father needed to answer for his crimes against my mother and me. I planned to make him answer me one way or the other, but first I needed to find out who he was.
    So, for the past year, Tanner and I scoured hospital records. Tanner did most of the footwork of interviewing people my mother used to associate with. Those people were difficult enough to track down and once we found them, they normally didn’t have much information for us.
    A thirst for vengeance kept me going when it seemed like we were never going to get anywhere. I didn’t know what kept Tanner going; loyalty to me, I’d guess.
    I swirled the ice around my glass, contemplating another drink. It was the only way I was able to sleep most nights, if I bothered trying to sleep at all. Nightmares of my mother’s illness haunted me. I always blamed myself for her death; if she didn’t have me she would still be here.
    I unscrewed the lid to the bottle, but my pour was interrupted by my cell phone ringing. Tanner. It was late; I hoped that meant he had something for me.
    “Yeah?”
    “I met a guy,” he sounded out of breath; excited.
    “Oh yeah? Are you two going to adopt a Chihuahua and move to South Beach?” I grinned at my own little joke, hoping he didn’t notice the slight slur in my speech.
    “Fuck you. No, he says he has information for you.”
    “Oh yeah? How much does he want?”
    “ Gratis . He just wants to tell you something.”
    I frowned. Nothing in life was free. I learned that the hard way. There had to be a catch.
    “What does he want to tell me?”
    “If I fucking knew that then I wouldn’t be fucking telling you about the man I’d be fucking telling you the fucking info.” His Bostonian accent made every utterance of ‘fucking’ sound more like ‘facking’.
    “Okay, okay, calm down. When does he want to meet?”
    “He said he’ll stay put for half an hour. That was ten minutes ago now, smartass.”
    “Why didn’t you lead with that?” I sprang out of my chair and raced to the garage. I was probably a little over the limit to drive, but there was no way I could pass up on this opportunity. Whatever this guy had to tell me, Tanner thought that it was legitimate, so I had to investigate.
    “I’m texting you the address. Just be careful, it’s a pretty shady neighborhood.”
    “Seriously? Do you know who you’re talking to?”
    “Who are you again?” He laughed.
    “Fuck you,” I replied with a grin, peeling out of my driveway and down the long dirt road that ran through the vineyard.
    “Let’s see if you’re still saying that after you talk to him.”
    I agreed before hanging up the call and setting the address he’d sent me into my GPS. Eighteen minutes to get there and the bar was twenty-five minutes away. It was a good thing I could afford expensive cars.
    I drove like a madman, zooming in and out of traffic, racing through city streets, and burning rubber through turns. It certainly wasn’t my normal behavior, but I was on a deadline. Nothing in the world was more important to me.
    After I parked, I entered the dive bar with