“One of the ladies helped me register for school, and I went every day. I don’t remember anything much before early grade school.”
“Did your mother bring her men back to your apartment?”
“No. She’d leave, sometimes before I got home from school, and sometimes she wasn’t home when I left in the morning.”
Evan felt his temper flare even hotter, an unusual occurrence for him. Randi had basically raised herself, with the occasional help of some prostitutes? “How did you end up in Amesport? What were you dreaming about? Something that really happened?”
She nodded slowly against his shoulder. Her voice was unsteady as she continued. “When I was thirteen, my mother left and never came home. They found her body a week later. She was murdered, probably by one of her johns, but they never found the perpetrator.”
Evan’s anger ramped up another notch. “So you were alone?”
“When social services found out I existed, they took me into foster care.”
Confused, he asked, “So you were adopted by the Tylers?”
“No. I was fostered to a family in Southern California. And then I ran away.”
Evan knew there was something missing from her story. “What happened?” He knew she had a reason why she ran away. If she’d had any sense of stability after her chaotic childhood, she wouldn’t have left.
“My foster father knew I was the daughter of a prostitute. He assumed I had the same skills as my mother,” Randi told him quietly.
Evan felt a rage rise inside of him, a fury that he’d never experienced before. “He forced you? You were a child.”
“My mother was a runaway. Some of the ladies start very young, usually a product of broken homes and abuse,” Randi explained patiently. “He tried to shove his dick in my mouth. I had to fight my way out of the house. I left with nothing . . . not that I really had much as far as belongings were concerned anyway.”
“They could have found you another home—”
“I was scared. I thought I was better off taking my chances on the streets than in foster care.”
Evan could understand why. But it did nothing to calm the intensity of his fury for Randi and her previous circumstances as a child. “Tell me how you ended up here.” He didn’t want her to have to relive her past anymore. She might sound like she was over her childhood, but if she was still having nightmares, she was still holding on to some of the pain. If he could find the man who tried to violate her, he’d kill the bastard himself.
“I lived on the streets for a while, homeless. I stopped going to school. I did what I had to do to survive. One day, I was so hungry, so desperate, that I tried to steal a wallet from a tourist. The last thing I wanted to do was sell my body, but I knew I was getting close to going back to the ladies and begging them to take me in. I would have ended up doing whatever I needed to in order to survive.” Randi’s voice was tremulous as she recounted her desperation earlier in her life.
Evan took a deep breath, trying to focus on Randi instead of his own emotions. The thought of Randi coming so close to needing to sell her body to survive nearly made him come undone. “Did you succeed in getting the money you needed?” he asked, not giving a shit if she ripped off a hundred people to survive. She deserved a better life than what she’d been handed as a child . . . a life that sounded like a living hell.
“No.” Her tone changed, her voice becoming melancholy and reflective. “The wallet I tried to steal belonged to Dennis Tyler.”
“Your foster father?” Evan asked incredulously.
She nodded. “Dennis and Joan were on vacation for their anniversary. He caught me red-handed.”
“He didn’t turn you in to the police,” Evan guessed, hoping he was right.
“Nope. He and Joan took me to the nearest restaurant and bought me something to eat. When they heard that I was homeless and what had happened to me, they brought me home with them to Amesport. Joan was a retired teacher, and she helped me catch up on my studies. It took me an entire summer of studying to be ready to start school here in the fall.”
“But you did it,” Evan replied, his admiration of her accomplishment clear in his voice. “How did Dennis and Joan manage the distance with foster care?”
“They lied,” Randi explained bluntly. “They claimed to be distant relatives who had guardianship. Dennis was a retired principal at the school, and Joan was a teacher. They wanted to keep me here bad enough to do what they needed to do to get me into school.” Randi’s voice cracked, and tears started to fall down her cheeks. “Two people who had been upstanding citizens all their life lied and manufactured what they needed to keep a teenage kid from the streets. They didn’t want to risk me going back into the system. They were already in their seventies at the time. None of us were sure what would happen if they told the truth and had to go through the legal system.”
Evan was guessing probably nothing would have happened since she was an older child, and hard to adopt. Most likely, the Tylers could have adopted her if they’d pushed the system. But he imagined Randi would have had to go back to foster care at some time during the process since they took her illegally and out of state. He found himself being grateful for the Tylers’ sacrifice and their lies. “How did you get their name?”
“I changed it legally once I was of age. They were the only parents I ever had, and I wanted to carry the same last name,” Randi replied adamantly.
“I would have liked to have met them,” Evan pondered, still pissed off that someone as special as the woman in his arms had grown up so rough. But he was in awe of her strength and her will to survive and thrive. How many kids like her ended up a respected teacher? Evan didn’t have statistics, but he was guessing not very damn many.
Randi sighed. “You would have liked them. They were both very sensible people, but they gave me so much love,” she answered wistfully.
“Why do you think the nightmares are back?” Evan barely got the question out, his outrage nearly making him mute at the moment.
“I think it’s because Joan is gone. She was my rock for so long that I didn’t realize how alone I’d feel without her. My foster parents gave me the education and the resources to live a better life, but I miss them so much,” Randi said, sadness creeping into her voice.
Evan knew she wasn’t without people who cared, but her loss was fueling her childhood insecurities. Although he’d never known the fear of not having a place to sleep or some food to eat, he understood that some fears were ingrained during those early years and could never completely be left behind. He was a perfect example to prove that theory.
It was no wonder she loved her food and ate like it was a religious experience. He guessed when you never knew where your next meal was coming from during your childhood, you savored every single thing you ate.
His chest tightened at the thought of Randi ever going hungry.
His gut wrenched as he thought about some filthy asshole trying to force her to perform sex acts when she was still a child.