Shattered Lives Read Online Free

take each morning before their breakfast and shower.  One was something to keep them in submission and under control.  So while they stood in line waiting for their turn in the shower, Johnny and Tim had devised a plan and had coached the boys to fake taking that pill.  They ended up fooling the guards.  It was just a matter of finding an opportune time to spit the pill out and dispose of it without getting caught.  Risky, but the boys took that risk.  They felt they needed to.
                  The doctor at the hospital had told Brett he was lucky.  Had the bullet been from a larger caliber gun and had struck an inch or so to the right, it would have hit his lung or heart.  As it was, if he had listened to Skip, he wouldn’t have been shot at all.
    Brett turned slightly, opened his eyes and looked at Skip who was curled up on two chairs at the side of his bed, sleeping with what looked like a grimace on his face.   Evidently the dream he was having wasn’t a very good one. 
    Brett was an expert on bad dreams.  For him, every night ended with a bad dream and was a prelude to a bad day, one bad day after another, one bad day leading to one bad night and over and over and over on permanent rewind and repeat for twenty-two months.
                  He watched Skip sleep under only a flimsy white blanket, knowing that even though he had worn his clothes, he must have been cold.  The hospital seemed to not have any warmth at all, and ever since arriving, Skip and Brett and the other boys had had a chronic case of goose bumps.  No cure for that except warmth, and the hospital didn’t believe in that.
                  Skip Dahlke was a forensic scientist in Wisconsin up until yesterday.  He had been recruited for the siege on a building in Chicago that would eventually free thirteen boys held in captivity, and he had been an almost constant companion of Brett ever since.  Brett wasn’t sure why he had spent so much time in his room or why he chose to sleep there, but he welcomed his presence.  He felt reassured somehow, and more importantly, safe.  The fact that there were cops guarding either end of the hallway helped too.
                  All of the major networks and CNN had carried the story of the boys’ rescue: thirteen boys in Chicago, four boys from a motel in Kansas City and twelve boys from a building in Long Beach, California in three separate but simultaneous raids by a coalition of FBI, police and sheriff deputies.  The raids also brought the arrest of 123 men from across the country, but that number was in a state of flux.  Originally, there were 147 warrants issued, but the FBI had figured that by the time it was all said and done, there would be more because the initial reports put the number at 117.  Several had committed suicide upon hearing the news reports, while still others couldn’t be found or located.  U.S. Marshalls and police departments had arrested those they could find, many of whom argued and objected that it was a misunderstanding and a mistake. 
    Not a mistake, but a human trafficking ring run by Victor Bosch, AKA Gary Sears, or The Dark Man as the boys had called him.  These men had taken part in the kidnapping, abuse and torture of the boys who had been saved, along with the murder of others who hadn’t been as lucky.  Some of these same men were actually responsible for identifying and targeting the boys. 
    Just as Brett’s uncle, Detective Anthony Dominico, had done. 
    Brett couldn’t wait to confront him.
    Bosch had a horse ranch outside of Conway, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, but his real business was the human trafficking of boys in Chicago and Long Beach, as well as a mobile component that moved kids around the country.  He and two former FBI agents were confronted in a Sheraton restaurant in downtown Chicago.  Bosch and Agent Douglas Rawson were arrested and taken away in handcuffs, while Agent Thatcher Davis