Goodbye Nicole. Chapter one, Freedom, Present Day. It's been a while since she's been this high. Freedom wonders when the last time was probably two months ago, when her best friend's brothers scored them some peyote from the huallapies. But this is just weed. Still, it's good weed. She knows she shouldn't be smoking while she's babysitting her little brother and sister, but Hannah should be back soon, and Freedom is good at acting sober when she's not.
Plus, she's up on the roof of the trailer, hidden from view, so no one can see the smoke curling up out of the joint or
hear her cough when she finally exhales. After keeping the weed in her lungs for as long as she can, Freedom has been smoking long enough that she should be able not to cough when she exhales, But for some reason, she hacks up along every single time she looks up at the sky, the back of her head touching the tops of her pointy shoulder blades, wondering if she should put on some suntan lotion as the fiery sun beats down on her
bare legs. She's wearing only a bathing suit today with some daisy dukes. Her pale, freckled skin such a contrast to over ninety percent of the desert people who live in Peach Springs, Arizona. Vanilla is her nickname, given to her by her father's best friend, one of the elders of the Huallapai Native Americans, and used quite freely and frequently by the rest of the tribe. There are a couple dozen purely white people in this town, but Freedom
is by far the whitest of them all. Vanilla just stuck, but Freedom doesn't mind it. Anyone can call her whatever they want, no skin off her back. When she arrived in Each Springs at the tender age of four, she was welcome into the Jones's home as if she were their own flesh and blood. Even though she was adopted, she was not the only one, though her lifetime came with a generous supply of foster brothers and sisters once
her age older and younger ones who would come and go or stay. She had stayed more out of lack of willpower to go elsewhere than anything else. Her mother, Hannah, insisted Freedom call her anything she wanted, which included mom or Mama. Or by her actual name. Freedom chose Hannah. She liked the way it rolled off her tongue. She liked the normalcy of it. Hannah was a half white, half Indian woman who would lived near the
reservation her whole life. She had met Freedom's father, Harry, as he was backpacking in the region with friends when Hannah thirty and Harry was twenty two years old. The fact that Hannah had chosen to marry a white man and a white man eight years her junior caused quite the stir in the community. Harry fell in love with Hannah upon seeing her, or so he claimed, let the friends hike ahead without him, and had been in Peach Springs ever
since. Harry and Hannah had wanted children of their own, but Hannah, due to her severe polycystic ovarian syndrome, had been unable to have them, so they set about adopting foster children, and had been doing so for thirty years. The current ones are Lydia, who is five years old, a two, also five, and Summer, the baby, who was only six months old. Hannah has run to the trading post to pick up some groceries and Freedom figures her own weed as well. Hannah and Harry are hopeless hippies
who enjoy their weed themselves and let Freedom smoke with them. After all, she is an adult and that is the way of life around these parts. Freedom doesn't know why they have to be so strict about not letting her smoke around the kids. She is twenty eight years old and can handle herself. It's not like anything has ever happened when the babies are in her care.
Then again, she hasn't smoked weed like this in a long time. She puts out her joint, crushing the saliva soak tip of the paper against the roof of the house, and attempts to stand up, almost losing her balance and falling over in the process. Great, she thinks, that's just what she needs, to fall off the roof and break her neck when she's supposed to be looking after the babies. She steadies herself, slaps herself four times on the cheek, and tries again, this time making it up and hopping
effort lessly off the roof without breaking anything. She makes her way toward the sound of children playing through the brushy desert sand, narrowly missing the spines of a cactus as she attempts to jog toward the noise. They're not playing. She realizes they're fighting. A two, the smaller and weaker of the five year olds, is crying hysterically while at the same time swinging a bright red plastic bat in the air, narrowly missing his foster sister, who is trying
desperately to wrench the bat out of his hands. The only way Freedom can see this ending is with A two hitting Lydia in the face or accidentally smashing himself with the bat. The latter happens. A two whirls around in a circle trying to hit his sister and ends up on the ground in a heap, a large welt forming in the place where the bat smacked him over his right eye. A two screams, kicking his legs and flings the bat to the ground. Lydia stands with her arms crossed, victorious, smirking at the
pathetic scene before her. A two, what the Jesus, Freedom says, kneeling down to investigate the boy's bruise, already deepening to a purple hue. She tried to take my bat, he wails, wriggling out from under Freedom's vice grip. On his head, ow that hurts. Hold still, Freedom yells, grabbing him by his torso and turning his tiny body to face her. A two is a runt. At thirty five inches and thirty one pounds, he is smaller than most girls his age, including Lydia, who beats
him up on a daily basis, or at least threatens to. A two was born to young Hualipie parents on the main reservation sixty miles to the north, who were addicted to meth. A two came out squealing and squirming like so many meth addicted babies, and once he withdrew from the drug, was placed under the care of Hannah and Harry. The fact that he was born addicted to meth led to a lot of problems, such as the fact that he is too small for his age and he learns more slowly than the other
children. Lydia is the opposite of a runt. She is big and tough and tall, as is her actual baby sister, Summer. Both girls are half Wallapie Indian and half white, born to parents who gave Lydia up for adoption and then thought it would be a good idea to have another baby. Even though they were too young and too broke to care for the first. The parents skipped down, but before doing so left the baby on the Jones's doorstep with a note that simply read Summer, Thank you. The Joneses had
been caring for the three ever since. You smell, decides Lydia, uncrossing her arms and pinching her nose with her thumb and forefinger as she looks up at Freedom. Are you smoking weed? Not currently? Freedom retorts, exasperated, hauling E two up in her arms and heading for the porch door. Why you're going to tell Hannah on me? Maybe, Lydia replies, running after them. Just go check on your sister in her crib. She's not in her crib. Lydia is inside now, reaching for a purple popsicle from
the freezer. What do you mean, Freedom feels, Panics start to rise in her throat, Her body gets hot and sweaty, and she places A two down. Distractedly A two, who has stopped crying, lunges for the popsicle in Lydia's hand. Mommy took Summer with her to the store, Lydia says, jam most of the popsicle down her throat. So A two can't get to it. You're stupid, Freedom breathes a sigh of relief. Is
she really that high that she forgot Hannah took the baby with her. She needs to lie down and sleep it off, but she has to be at work in twenty minutes. Hopefully Hannah returns in the next few minutes so she can make it there on time. A two is crying again, but Freedom has no patience for it. She goes to the fridge to grab a beer, chugs half of it, then jumps up to sit on the counter. She is working on the second half of the beer when Hannah walks in the
door. Little help here, Hannah says, balancing the baby on her hip and swinging a grocery bag in her hand. Freedom casually glances over in their direction, then finishes the beer. A two, Lydia, go help your mother. They obediently walk up to Hannah and balance the bag between them. What happened to A two's eye, Hannah inquires, a Freedom, he hit himself with a bar bat? What bat? The red thingy? I don't know. Freedom starts to giggle and grin before she can stop herself. That's
a dead giveaway. She thinks, not like she cares. Are you high? Hannah sticks her nose in Freedom's face. Are you? Freedom sets down the beer can and wills herself to focus on the woman two inches in front of her. Jesus Christ, Freedom, I told you not with the kids. I'm not not what freedom is? Silent. Hannah goes about putting groceries away, slamming down condiments as she opened the fridge. Your eyes are bloodshot, your pupils are huge, and you smell like weed. Oh and the
beer. Really, don't you have to go to work? I'm fine, Freedom jumps off the counter and reaches for her purse. I'll see you. You're going to get fired, Hannah yells after her. One of these days, mark my words. You've been saying that for years. Hasn't happened yet, has it? Hannah waves her hand distractedly, signaling she is done with the conversation. Freedom grabs a tank top from the dirty clothes basket that is
sitting by the door and bangs it shut behind her. Freedom marches to the white, shiny Chevrolet Silverado pickup that she, Harry and Hannah all share and thinks, how funny it is that the car is a hell of a lot nicer than the sorry excuse for a house behind her. That's how all these desert people are. Red's whites. Whoever fuck what the house looks like live in a trailer no problem, But God forbid you don't own a nice,
new four wheel drive truck. She hops up into the driver's seat and slowly turns out of the trailer park, making sure to follow all driving laws. She gets paranoid when she drives high. She points to Silverado in the direction of Root sixty six, crossing over the rickety iron bridge on her way southwest
to where sixty six meets with Root forty at New Kingman Butler. It is there where she works at the sprawling truck stop where the roads converge, one of the nice truck stops with showers and a lounge, and a massive convenience store and gift shop where all sorts of Hualipie made mementos are for sale. She works in the diner there at the truck stop, serving coffee and breakfast twenty four hours a day to truckers who sit and smoke cigarettes and hit on
her. Most of them tip pretty well, so that's a bonus. Freedom can take a little sexual harassment if it results in enough cash at the end of her shift. Today, she is working a double. She picked up the afternoon shift for one of the other girls, and her regular shift starts at six pm, so she will be there from one pm until two am. She has exactly two minutes before it the shift starts. Freedom leans against the side of the truck stop, slinging her bag to the ground, and
lights a cigarette. Just then, Dakota opens the front door to the convenience store and yells out to her, get in here, Vanilla, we're all backed up. You're late. I got two minutes. Relax, Freedom size exhaling cigarette smoke now. Dakota slams a door shut and retreats through the stop. Dakota is the manager of the restaurant in the truck stop, technically Freedom's boss. Dakota's family has owned the truck stop for years, but Dakota is
the only one who currently manages the day to day operations of it. Her brother Akoul, will come by every so often, but besides that, no one sees much of the others. Rumor has it that Dakota is the only functioning alcoholic in the family. Freedom dutifully releases the cigarette from between her fingers and follows Dakota through the convenience store to the back where the diner is located. She is too high to argue with her. The beer she chugged is
also finally hitting her system, making her even more drowsy. Dakota snaps her fingers and Freedom's face, pulling Freedom out of her reverie. High again, Dakota slaps her wrist and makes a dissatisfied clucking sound with her tongue. Drunk again, Freedom says under her breath. Luckily, Dakota does not hear her. She is too busy expediting on the line. She shoves a sideplate of hash Browns into her hands and waves Freedom in the direction of the dining room.
Go away. If I didn't need you here, i'd fire you. White girl is so ungrateful to have a job. I've had this job for ten years, Freedom points out, also under her breath. A decade is a hell of a long time to be ungrateful. Freedom carries on with her day, avoiding Shane, one of her regulars, for the good part of an hour. Shane is getting all worked up. She can tell even talking to Dakota about Freedom's absence at his table. Shane can be high maintenance at
least as far as truckers go, and demands a lot of attention. Freedom is not in the mood today, so she hangs back in the kitchen as long as she can, and when she sees Dakota had toward her most likely to give her a talking to, she holds up a cigarette to no she is taking a smoke break and ducks out the door. Once outside, she leans against the side of the building in the only sliver of shade she can
find. The heat is oppressive today. She observes a black sedan pulling up to one of the parking spaces, not ten feet from where she is standing. The parking lot on the side is completely empty save for this new arrival. This is not the kind of car they typically get here at the truck stop. Usually it's Semis or Ford F one fifty types. The car pulls up slowly and the driver kills the engine and sits in the car, unmoving
for a few seconds. Freedom cranes her head around to look through the windshield, but this is difficult because the sun is glancing off of the car in such a way that it almost blinds her. Plus she doesn't want to look too obvious, like she is trying to get a look at the driver. She moves ever so slightly, and the sudden blockage is gone. She sees him now it's a man. He plomps his head back against the headrest in a dramatic way and exhales visibly. He uses his fingers to make a steeple
and brings it up to his mouth. It almost appears as if he is praying. Because he stays this way for what seems like an eternity. Freedom gets bored and is about to turn her head when the man abruptly reaches for the door handle, pulls it, and quickly shoots up out of the car. The sudden motion makes Freedom jump. The man is average height and looks to be in his late forties, hiss thick dark hair, and is wearing a blue tshirt over which he is wearing a black leather jacket much too warm
for the weather, and blue jeans. He is muscular, that much Freedom can tell, and he looks around found him as if he has lost Finally, his gaze turned toward her. Aviator. Sunglasses cover his eyes, but even so freedom knows who he is. He has returned Chapter two. Martin past nineteen ninety had been a good year. Nineteen ninety had been the most recent year Martin could remember that he had turned a prophet and didn't have to lie about it on the books, and quite a prophet. It had been
dubbed the Wonder Boy by his fellow stockbrokers. Martin had made a killing in the market because of Worlds of Wonder, an American toy company founded in nineteen eighty. He knew a couple of the guys who had founded it, Donnie and Mark. They were previous employees at Atari who had left to start Worlds of constantly bragging about how huge it was going to become. Martin had had
his doubts from the beginning. The guys were pompous, greedy idiots who had no idea how to run a company, and Martin had a knack for the stock market. He had an innate ability to determine whether a company would hit it big or completely tank it was a talent, and more importantly, his livelihood. In nineteen eighty five, Worlds of Wonder introduced Teddy Ruxpin, an
animatronic kid's toy in the form of a talking, moving Teddy Bear. The audio cassette tape built into Teddy's back read stories to millions of hopelessly beguiled children. As the bear's eerie looking eyes moved back and forth. It was almost as if America's favorite Teddy Bear was having a seizure. Every time the string in his back was yanked. People went wild. The markets went crazy, with world stock shooting up sky high. Martin's clients predictably wanted in. Martin
wasn't so sure. He simply had a bad feeling about this company. He conjectured, because of Teddy Ruxpan's unprecedented popularity, that other companies would soon follow suit and produce talking, moving animatronic toys just like it. Because of this unforeseen problem that Martin felt only he could foresee, he did the best he could to convince his clients to take a short position instead of a long one on worlds. This essentially meant that instead of his clients becoming rich because of
the company's success, they would instead profit if the company tanked. Not surprisingly, ninety nine percent of these clients laughed in his face. One of his wealthiest was convinced his stockbroker was pulling an early April fool's joke on him and reminded him almost every day after what a moron he thought Martin was. The client thought that that was the stupidest yet most comical thing Martin had ever said to him, Still riding high on Teddy Ruxman's popularity, Worlds introduced laser tag
in nineteen eighty six. This was the earliest form of laser tag and also concerned the toy market that year. Now even more of Martin's clients wanted in on Worlds, and they thought Martin was even more crazy to suggest they take a short position or stay out of it altogether. Martin soon gave up trying.
His fellow stockbrokers all thought he was crazy as well. They all had a lot of money in Worlds. Confident that the company would stay high or get higher, Martin put his client's money all into long positions like they asked, but took a huge short position himself with his own money. He felt that strongly that this company was going down. He felt it in his bones, and the company did go down. It went down big. All it
took was for one guy to die in Rancho Cucamonga, California. In April nineteen eighty seven, nineteen year old Leonard Falcon was shot and killed by a deputy after he and several witnesses saw him playing with what they thought was a real gun. It turned out to be a laser tag gun, which was made of plastic and completely harmless. The deputy quit his job soon after, and Worlds of Wonders stock plummeted. That was only the beginning of the company's
demise. It was about to get worse. Panicked World started offering stock in the company that was next to worthless to try to bolster its financial situation, but that turned out to be a moot exercise. The stock market crashed. In October of that same year, Worlds filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy, and soon it was ceasing production on any new toys and operating in receivership until it closed its doors for good in nineteen ninety. By that time, Martin had
already made a fortune. That day in April was the day Martin had been waiting for. As soon as he heard that kid had been blasted for carrying a laser tag gun manufactured by the company he knew was an over hyped piece of shit. He went to the car dealership and bought himself a brand new Mercedes Benz because he had always wanted one. That was the day Martin became
rich, really really rich. All of his clients and colleagues had lost it all, most of the country had lost it all, and Martin had reaped the benefits of their losses in a huge way, all thanks to some flash in the pan Kittie's toy and to the fact that Martin had taken a chance and ceaselessly shorted some shitty stock like a motherfucker. He was a go big or go home kind of guy, and in this case that Mantra had paid off. Wonder Boy was born, and the guys at Merrill gave him his
very own Teddy Ruxman doll that stared at him with his creepy eyes. Into his stuffed animal hands, Martin placed the laser tag gun the guys had also given him as a congratulatory gift. Congrats on becoming a multi millionaire, is what those toys said to him. Teddy Ruxman remained on his desk for many years. That was the beginning of things. Martin felt he had outgrown Merrill Lynch, and so he left to start his own brokerage firm. He had a wife and a baby at home, and he needed to get away from
them. Martin was never especially interested in being a father. His wife had wanted children, though, at least three, so Martin set about giving them to her dutifully. He then set about aggressively avoiding both of them. He named his brokerage firm, Essential Management and set about collecting clients, which wasn't hard because everyone wanted to follow wonder boy and have him invest their money. Martin was like the pied piper leading the flocks to riches. Everyone needed their
money invested, essentially, that was Essential Management's motto. Things went pretty well at first. Many of Martin's former Merrill Lynch customers had joined him in this venture, and he soon got the attention of professional athletes, including Redskins players like Deacon Jones, Mark Schlareth, and Mark Ripen the starting quarterback. Others soon followed suit, along with more heavy hitters in the DC metro area.
Really rich businessmen, really rich no one's and corrupt politicians all wanted in on what Martin was selling. He had a hedge fund on his hands, and he was getting even richer by the day, hell by the hour. Martin only accepted qualified investors, meaning his clients had a net worth exceeding one million dollars. He put their money into anything he thought would be a gold mine, and sometimes this included actual gold mines in Africa. Martin had his clients
and realist date derivatives, currencies, anything that was risky and alternative. The riskier the better was another of essential managements mottos. Martin still did his due diligence, of course, and the money kept rolling in. In early nineteen ninety one, Martin got win of the Oldsmobile Global Positioning System, or GPS as it was referred to, for its eighty eight model car to be unveiled the next year. The first of its kind, the computer chip was touted
as the tracking device of the future. The chip was an optional feature that would be sold as an add on to anyone buying the car. The GPS would allow vehicle operators or anyone else who had the tracking device chip number to follow the car wherever it would go. It did so by picking up high frequency waves that would bounce off satellites orbiting the Earth. Way up an outer
space. The satellite would then shoot those waves down to the individual's personal computer, allowing the person to track the car by pinpointing its location on a map. Oldsmobile spent a fortune on producing and marketing its new chip of the future, betting that everyone who purchased an Oldsmobile would want in on this technology, and that was way ahead of its time. The car company spent the better
part of a year and a half perfecting this technology. Martin knew a guy who knew a guy at Oldsmobile. He was a former broker who had worked with Martin in a boiler room in DC years ago, who had a cousin who was in house counsel for the car company. A few months after research began on the GPS system, Martin's guide told him about this new fangled technology and promised Martin it would be huge. Martin was excited. This was not some stupid teddy bear kid's doll. This was the wave of the future.
He could feel it, he could feel it in his bones. Martin promised the friend a hefty cut of the stock options for his insider information and wasted no time talking it up to his hedge fund clients. Martin had no idea what it actually was or how in the world it could actually work, but he sold that motherfucking stock like there was no tomorrow. His clients had listened
to him because he was the wonder boy again. All of them went all in on the Oldsmobile GPS tracking device in a very long position, not even caring that no one had any clue as to what it could possibly be. There was no way this could fail. Martin promised his sharehold. The technology was way before its time. The problem was the technology was way before its time. When Oldsmobile finally unveiled the car GPS, everyone was too confused by
it to buy it. Confusion, coupled with the fact the device costs two thousand dollars, was enough to send Oldsmobile consumers running for the hills when offered the chip. No one wanted that in their car. In the early nineteen nineties, no one cared where anyone else had been, was or was going,
and most wanted to keep it that way. Not many satellite towers had been erected during that year, so the coordinates were hazy at best, and the device one was tracking could be quite far from where the computer said it was not many households had personal computers anyway. The GPS chip was a complete failure, a total flop, selling only a few thousand units a year into its release. Half of the units were bought by the Avis rental car company
in order to be installed in their vehicles. Martin had purchased four of the GPS tracking devices personally, only one was put to any use. He had also taken a personal long position in the company, putting way too much money into its stock. Besides losing his own money in Oldsmobile GPS, Martin lost a lot of client money. Quickly. His investors were pissed. Wonder Boy became dunder boy, as many began referring to him just like that. Martin
was no longer to be trusted. He had lost his edge for picking out fail proof stock. Investors demanded their money back, and Martin had no choice but to pay them back for a while he could, and he did. After some time, the money became scarce. That is when he decided to wiggle some funds around, just a few hundred thousand dollars here and there. The few hundred thousand dollars became a million dollars and then multiple millions. Martin
decided he wouldn't tell his hedge fund clients just yet. He would figure it out, make them even more money on a better venture, and in a few months they would all laugh about it while toasting with Scotch and smoking cigars at Congressional Country Club. This would not be the demise of wonder Boy, no, sir, yet. It kind of was. The hit from GPS punched Martin hard, and to cover his tracks, he started skimming off the books. How is Martin to run a hedge fund without paying himself? He
also started paying off original investors with money from new ones. Luckily, his name still meant something in DC, so people were still clamoring to invest with Martin. At one time, there had been a waiting list a mile long, but Martin had exhausted that waiting list because he was in desperate need of new cash coming in. The money scrambling and skimming and all the other shit he was doing had morphed into a full blown Ponzi scheme within a mere couple
of months, and Martin realized he was desperate for a miracle. That miracle came in the form of Senator Ricardo Hernandez Chapter three. Ryan passed. Ryan was born in Park City, Utah, may as well have been born on the actual ski slopes themselves. His father was a wealthy businessman who purchased real estate in one of the richest ski towns in the world like he was gobbling his breakfast. He then turned around and sold them to the highest bidder,
who subsequently turned those into ski chalets and sparkling glass condominiums. Ryan's father would be in the office by seven am after waking at five to work out and read the paper, and would hit the slopes by three. By the time
Ryan could crawl, he would join him. He learned the sport by standing atop his dad's skis, holding his chubby little arms up to the sky so his dad could grab them, and shooting down the bunny slopes, wind and snow in his face, his mouth shaped and a perpetual o as his father swooshed down the ice. One of his first memories was of his father pointing down the hill marked with a green circle at his mother at the bottom,
let's ski to her son. Huh. His dad whispered, shaking his arms in preparation, and then seconds later they were beside her, as if by magic. Ryan was hooked. He spent every free minute he had skiing. He loved the thrill of it. He felt invincible. He loved the cold weather, the snow, the moguls, the sound of swooshing skis, the equipment, and everything else. He never wanted to be anything less than the best skier on the mountain, and once he hit adolescence, he typically was.
No one was faster, no one was more graceful, no one was more committed, and no one took more risk than he, which is why when his ski instructor suggested he try out for the World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships in nineteen eighty four, at the age of sixteen, he crushed the competent Titian. Ryan won gold at Sugarloaf in Maine, and that meant he was well on his way to the Olympics. He returned to Utah to be heralded as the hometown hero, the ski prodigy with a heart of gold, the
boy who could go all the way. He kept going, kept pushing, convinced himself he wanted an Olympic gold medal more than anyone ever had before, and spent every minute he could training until he dislocated his left knee, required surgery and would need to heal for six months. The day after the accident, Ryan was laid up on the couch, feeling sorry for himself, eating
a ham and cheese hot pocket and watching Child's in Charge. The minute his dad hit the floor of his office dead of a massive heart attack in twenty two seconds. This occurred not fifty feet from the couch on which Ryan was
lying. Oblivion to the fact. Ryan found it somewhat odd his dad had been holed up in a study for two straight hours, never coming out even to use the bathroom or to yell out to him to turn the volume down on the TV because I can't ever get that A Name theme song out of my head, God damn it. But brushed any thought of something being wrong aside. It wasn't until he heard his mom screams hours later that he realized
those niggling thoughts had any merit. He remembered blaming himself if only I had heard something, he'd say to his mother over and over again, but the television had been too loud. He knew that it had been, even though she would constantly reassure him it wasn't if only I'd gotten up to check on him. He'd lament to anyone who would listen, but those people mostly responded with but you couldn't have Your knee was dislocated. See it wasn't your fault.
Stop beating yourself up about it. The problem was Ryan wasn't sure how he was supposed to do that, so he dealt with it the way any seventeen year old kid would who didn't know how to deal with it would. He acted out. He stopped going to high school. He was in his senior year, but no one really expected him to concentrate too much on his studies because he was going to be an Olympic athlete. That would have been fine except for the fact Ryan had also stopped trying to become an Olympic athlete.
He gave up skiing. At first. It was easy to do because of the knee. But the knee healed, Ryan still had no interest in getting back out on the slopes. His mother tried to convince him to get back out there, get back at it. Your dad would have wanted you to, and you owe it to us, your town, and yourself. She voiced. These tactics halfheartedly for a few months, until she realized they were falling on deaf ears, so she stopped. His mother never really cared
for the skiing anyway, not like his dad had. His mother thought it was dangerous and impractical, in a waste of time and energy, and she was still grieving the loss of her husband, so she gave up trying to convince Ryan otherwise and just left him alone. That was fine with Ryan. His mother leaving him alone left him more time to experiment with drugs and alcohol, to hang out with the wrong crowd, and to be completely immersed in
not being immersed in anything at all. He did this for about two years until right before his twentieth birthday. His father had left him some money, so Ryan stayed at home without a job, smoking pot and popping oxy, which he had been prescribed for his knee pain. His mother, who had gotten over her grieving period very quickly, too quickly in Ryan's opinion, kept
herself busy with luncheons and fund raisers and charity work during the days. At night, she typically went out on a date or to cheek restaurants with friends. Ryan's older brother had left home the minute he turned eighteen, which was two years before. Ryan was bored and lonely. He missed skiing, and he missed his dad, but he didn't miss skiing enough to take it back up again. It just wouldn't have been the same without his father. It
was the boredom that led to his career choice. One day, he was watching a movie on TV where federal marshals took down a would be hijacker on a Boeing seven forty seven. Ryan thought that was just about the coolest thing he'd ever seen and decided to go for broke. He needed a bachelor's degree, so he enrolled in community college and worked night as a bus boy in
a restaurant outside of town. He didn't really need to, he had the money to pay for education, and the community college was cheap, but he liked keeping busy. He would attend classes, go to work at the restaurant, and when he got off work, he would study until the wee hours of the morning. He and his mother were like ships passing in the night, essentially glorified roommates. That was fine with Ryan. He had his life and she had hers. He knew it was prudent to stay active and fit
the federal Marshals he had seen in the movie had been jacked. His knee had healed completely, and because he was in his early twenties and still accustomed to working out for skiing, he hit the gym hard and produced excellent results. He was bigger than he'd ever been in his entire life. He looked the part of a beefy cop, no longer the skinny, weak, unmotivated,
bordering on drug addict he formally was. He graduated with his bachelor's degree from college in three years, quit his job at the restaurant, and set out to find a real one. He was barely twenty three years old. His life was on track, and that felt good. He spent a few years as a rookie cop in Deer Valley, Utah, which was predictably underwhelming.
It was mostly locking up drunken disorderlies and domestic disturbances. Ryan needed excitement in his life, and while he attempted to figure out how he could achieve this through his professional life, he managed to achieve it through his personal life instead, in the form of Jenny. He met Jenny at a friend's wedding in Denver. She was a bridesmaid. He a groomsman. They hit it off after a few shots at the bar and spent the whole night dancing and
making out in the closet. Next thing he knew, they were banging in his hotel room. Or was it hers, He could never remember. He woke up with a splitting headache and a vague recollection of the previous night's occurrences. They said they're awkward goodbyes, and Ryan put her out of his mind. He got a call from Jenny three weeks after the wedding. He was just about to leave for a night out with the boys on the Force when his land line rang. Ryan almost didn't answer because no one ever called his
landline, but at the last minute he grabbed for the receiver. At first, he had no idea who she was. He tended to forget the names of women he slept with. It wasn't until she mentioned the names Jason and Mary, the bride and groom of the wedding they had both attended that he made the connection. Jenny was wedding bang girl. Her girlfriends had teared her to call. She made sure to mention, and she wanted to let him
know that she would be coming to Valley. The next weekend for a friend's bachelorette party and what he liked to meet up maybe, Ryan said sure. Fourteen months later, they were married at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church in Deer Valley. Ryan continued his job on the forest for five more years until he made the executive decision to move he and Jenny to Washington, d C. Jenny was very much averse to the move. Ryan was ecstatic for a change of
scenery. One of the reasons Jenny was averse to the move had to do with the fact that she was in a deep depression at that point in her life. In the five years she and Ryan had been married, Jenny had suffered four miscarriages. She was devastated. Jenny had always wanted a big family. Ryan wasn't sure, but he realized fate and genetics were deciding against that big family for him and big time. Jenny was nothing like the vibrant,
sexy, twenty five year old he had married. She cried all the time, didn't eat enough, slept all day, and refused to keep up with her friends. She only talked to her sister, and she lived states away. So Ryan decided that he and Jenny would move to Washington, d C. He had always wanted to be a federal marshal in the capital of the country, and he figured there was no better time to make the move than the present. He was thirty years old and ready to fulfill his dream.
He packed up their car, grabbed the dog, and he and Jenny were off on the two thousand mile journey across the country. Jenny cried the whole way. Ryan found them a nice apartment in Potomac, Maryland, a quiet suburb just outside the city. On the day they arrived, his first order of business was to join a gym. He knew he had to be a near perfect physical condition to be considered for the US marshal position. He had six years to be appointed one by the President, so he set about doing
everything he could to make it happen. He was hired on as a parole officer for the Maryland Department of Patrol and Probation and started his graduate studies in criminology. In two years, he submitted his application and resume, took his competitive exam, and began the pre employment process, which consisted of a complete background investigation, a physical fitness assessment, and a panel interview. During this time Jenny had filed for divorce, Ryan didn't blame her. He was spending
every waking minute at the gym or studying for his Federal Martial exam. He needed to do well on it, as the us MS ranked candidates according to their scores. Only then when he have a chance at being appointed a marshal. He barely paid Jenny any attention anymore, and Ryan certainly didn't want a child at this point in his life. He had his career to worry about.
Unfortunately, Jenny still did want a child very much, and when she realized that Ryan was not about to focus on a family any time in the near future, she gave up and left. Ryan came home one night to find a note on the kitchen table saying Jenny had gone to her sisters in Idaho, that she needed some time away and that she would be back in a few weeks. She never returned. The only thing that showed up in a few weeks were divorce papers. So Ryan had failed at marriage. He
wasn't much surprised by this. He had failed at being an Olympic athlete, and he had failed at saving his father's life. He had, not, however, failed at being a good cop, and he was sure as not about to fail at becoming a Federal Marshal. At least Jenny hadn't ruined his chances at that She gave the background check officers as much as they needed to know, not less, not more. In a few months, Ryan found out he had been appointed. Ryan completed his eighteen week US Marshal basic training
in Glencoe, Georgia. They had not been kidding when they said to arrive in excellent physical condition. No wonder, no one passed the age of thirty six could even apply. Every day he ran ten miles, completed repeated calisthenics including push ups, situps, and mountain climbing, and completed obstacle courses,
sprints and other related conditioning activities. Ryan studied driver training, physical conditioning, firearms training, defensive tactics, legal training, officers, survival courts, purity and protective services training. During the last week of training, he was given a physical fitness test. He passed and graduated. His mother attended his graduation.
Ryan hadn't seen her in a few years, but she was still living the high life in Park City, attending various functions and giving to charities. After an awkward dinner at a swanky restaurant in Georgetown. Ryan bid her goodbye and promised to keep in touch. His late father was never mentioned. Ryan felt optimistic about his new venture. He was partnered with another newbie named Sam, and they set out to catch the most notorious criminals the world had to
offer. Ryan liked tracking the child abductors. He liked tracking sex suspenders. He even liked the mundane work of flying on airplanes, armed, of course, in the day to day protection of US congressmen and senators. What he
most liked, though, was the witness protection work. When he became a federal marshal, Ryan took an oath to provide for the security, health, and safety of government witnesses and their immediate dependence whose lives were in danger as a result of their testimony against drug traffickers, terrorists, organized crime members,
and other major criminals. Witnesses and their dependents got new identities, with authentic documentation, housing, medical care, and basic living expenses provided for them. Federal marshals cooperate fully with local law enforcement and court authorities to bring witnesses to justice or to have them fulfill their legal responsibilities. Marshals provide twenty four hour protection to all witnesses while they are in a high threat environment, including court
appearances, pretrial conferences, and trial testimonies, among other things. One day in early nineteen ninety five, Ryan got assigned to a case, a witness protection case that would forever change him. A little girl named Nicole needed him. He had sworn an oath to protect her from the bad guys, and these particular bad guys just so happened to be members of a Mexican drug cartel and the little girl's own father,