Page 60 of Dream a Little Dream

“What happened to the boy?” Kenny took a drink to keep his face under a professional mask.

“Why are you interested?”

“From a psychological perspective, it’s fascinating. He’ll now be an adult and I’d be interested to know what came of him.”

“For research?”

“Perhaps.” Kenny kept to a more professional stance, knowing that’s where he’d break in Harry to reveal what he needed. When this was all personal. “A child growing up in that environment would have affected him. It’s not just about the violence they could have witnessed. But the emotional conditioning, the manipulation, it leaves a mark. We’ve seen it in other cases, but this one. Well, this is different. As we know. And it would be beneficial to study.”

“You’re the expert there but, if you ask me, those kids were experiments.”

“Experiments?” Kenny kept his tone casual, reading Harry’s every reaction.

“Probably testing the limits of their own depravity. See if they could nurture what they didn’t have themselves—a conscience.”

Kenny bit the inside of his cheek. The idea wasn’t far off from what he’d suspected during the original investigation, but hearing Harry voice it so plainly made it more real, more horrific. The Howell case had become his obsession. And one of the many reasons he and Jack had torn each other apart.

Because Jack wouldn’t tell him a damn fucking thing.

“It must have complicated things for social services?” Kenny said, treading lightly. He didn’t want to ask outright. He needed to butter the ex-chief up. Tiptoe around it. Make him relaxed enough to spare the details Kenny knew he wasn’t privy to. The whisky was helping, too. “Considering his background? Wherecouldthey place him?”

Harry let out a heavy sigh, tension edging through his shoulders. “We were thorough. They had a hard enough life to begin with. No one wanted to add to it. But you know as well as I do, there’s no such thing as a clean slate. Not after coming out of that.”

Kenny nodded. The more Harry talked, the clearer it became that the child’s story was far from straightforward, and he leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs, waiting to see what else would come.

Harry fixed him with a look that held both caution and curiosity. “I’d hopedhe’dhave a chance, at least. He had the better one, and we took him far enough away. Gave him no access. New identity. Was that not enough?”

“It all depends. Sometimes, there’s a ripple effect. We hope a child can rise above their circumstances, but inherited trauma, even unwittingly, can leave its mark. Patterns repeat, identities come back to haunt. And they can look for answers where perhaps they shouldn’t.”

Harry added more whisky into his cup. “I’m going to assume you think there’s a connection here?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to look into it. Can you find out where he is? The new identity? His foster home? Anything about him.”

“Last I knew, he’d moved because of some trouble with the first family.” Harry winced, sipping his now mostly whisky. “I believe they discovered who they had in their home and let their feelings be known about it. To him.”

Kenny clenched his jaw. “Physical?”

“Oh, yes. Rather nasty, too.”

“How old was he?”

“Ten? Eleven? He’d had two years stable at that point. Unsure how they found out, but the foster father…well, he was jailed for what he did to him.”

Kenny closed his eyes, letting that sink in. “Did he get support?”

“The father?”

“The child.”

“I don’t know. As I said, they moved him and I lost contact. He popped up again in his teens. Another beating. This time I believe it was a…let’s sayfriend?”

“Who beat whom?”

“Oh, they beat him. Not justbeateither.” Harry shook his head as if ridding himself of the horrific images. “After that, he went back into the system and now he’s an adult, so it’s up to him. A need to know. I’m retired. I don’t need to know.”

“So, whodoesneed to know?”

“There’s a case for allowing him the anonymity he deserves. But there’s also a case for those in immediate contact with him to be aware. He’ll have someone in his circle who knows.”

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