Road to Redemption Read online

  Road to Redemption

  LOST & FOUND - BOOK THREE

  Michelle Dalton

  Contents

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Author’s Note

  Simple Truths

  Forget Me Not

  Other Books By Author

  About the Author

  You can connect with Michelle Here:

  Copyright © by 3 Umfana Publishers

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  First Published 2020

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  * * *

  Cover design by: Bookcoverology

  Edited by: Lauren Clark and Anna @ CreativeInk

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  3Umfana Publishers

  * * *

  All rights reserved

  https://michelledaltonauthor.com/3-umfana-publishing/

  To those who deserve a second chance—and those who don’t.

  Glossary

  Augrabies – ( ow-g(gravel sound in back of throat) r (roll the r) – ah-bees) or Augrabies Falls is a national park located in the Northern Cape Provence of South Africa.

  Boet – (boot) brother

  Boerieroll – (boo – rie – roll) a South African sausage (Boerwors) on a bread roll

  Bokkie – (boh – ky) term of endearment, like dearie

  Bobotie – (boh-bohti) a Malaysian South African dish

  Bliksem/ed – (bluhk-sem) to hit

  Bakkie – (bah-kie) ute or truck

  Baas – (bahs) boss

  Boesman – (boo-s-maahn) bushman

  Crim/crims – criminals

  Chookie – Colloquial for jail

  Doos – (do - u - s) A very naughty Afrikaans curse word

  Eina – (ay-nah) ouch

  Gwaai – (g-why) colloquial term for a cigarette

  Gabba – (gah, bah) close buddy, pal

  Gevok – (ge fok) swear word—fucked

  Grub – colloquial for food

  Goedigge vok – (g (a gravely sound at the back of throat) oo-dig – uh f-oh-k) very naughty way of saying ‘good grief’

  Intombi – (In-toh-m-bi) Zulu for girl

  Jy’s a Kaffirs kind – A very derogatory term.

  Jaapie – (Yaaapie)

  Koeksisters – (kook-sisters) a deep fried sugary pastry

  Kom Boessie – (k-ohm boosie) Come, Boosie.

  Klein – (kl – ay – n) small

  Larny – colloquial for fancy

  Lossiepop – Term of endearment.

  Larny – South African Slang for fancy or smart.

  Liefie – (l-ee-f-ee) Lovie

  Melktert – milk tart

  Mevrou – (me -fr-ow) missus

  Ne - (n-eh) hey

  Nitro stick – Colloquial for Glow stick.

  Nooigedacht – (n- oi – t – g (gravel sound)- eh – dah – gt) Name of a place meaning never thought.

  Omie – (oh – mi) ouma – both mean grandmother, but are pronounced and spelled a little differently.

  Oupa – (oh-pah) grandfather

  Oakes – (oak-s) guys/men

  Oom – (ooh-m) Uncle

  Possie – (poh-sy) place

  Piece job – colloquial term for part-time or casual job

  Springhaas – (spru-ng-hahs) jackrabbit

  Toe maar Boesie – (Too mahr Boosie) It’s okay, Boesie.

  Vokoff – (f-ohk off) F off

  Prologue

  The scent of China roses in full bloom. Silky satin skin beneath his fingertips … Eyes the shade of Earth’s richest soil sprinkled with hints of copper, and lips as red as ripe pomegranate, so sweet, so hot, so …

  The bus jolted and Raymond Le Roux found himself once again in the present.

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Lullu giggled as she rode past Mina on horseback.

  Mina twirled the rose between her index finger and thumb. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d not been able to resist the bunch of lilac blooms when she’d visited town early this morning. They’d been her favourite, once upon a time.

  Thoughtfully, she slipped the rose behind her right ear and glanced at her daughter. Lullu flashed Mina one of her bright grins as she passed her a second time in the arena.

  A soft ache trotted across her heart, as it always did and always would when her daughter smiled. She was the spitting image of her father.

  Mina plucked the rose from her hair and dropped it to the ground.

  1

  Wiping a hand down his face and adjusting his jeans, Ray shook his head.

  He focused on the ever-changing vista as the bus cruised down the narrow road. Here and there, they passed a donkey cart or a farm house. The ocean, to his left, ebbed and flowed, blue, pristine, and inviting. Holiday homes sat atop white dessert dunes with their matching whitewashed walls, thatched roofs, and fancy four-by-fours parked out the front.

  A fellow inmate offered him a gwaai.

  “You can’t light up in here, boet, but thanks.” He waved away the offer. The man simply shrugged and tucked the it behind his left ear.

  The cigarette was tempting, the dream lingering.

  The hunger for the long lost, of a time gone by, and the ever-demanding need for a hit fought for first place.

  “Ssss.” Ray sucked in a breath as his dream faded, leaving his nerve endings frayed and overwhelmed. A hit. Would the desire for oblivion ever go away?

  For the first time in more than a decade, he was completely sober. Not even the acrid bitterness of nicotine had come close to his lips in over six months. He was dry, free of any sort of drug except his longing for her.

  He could cope with the dreams of a distant, happier past, but the memories of what had robbed him of a life he could have led gnawed at him with poisoned, hungry fangs.

  Ray was determined not to relapse, but only God knew how he would ‘work through’ the bottled up regret.

  Drugs had kept him numb for so long. Actually feeling something was like being stung by a thousand hornets at once.

  The constant stench of guilt hovered over him like a rotting corpse. Ray only just kept his head above the surface of the black hole he fought to keep from falling down once again.

  He only had one person to blame: himself. He had so much to make up for—he would need three lifetimes to come anywhere close to redemption.

  Ah … the word reverberated through his soul. That was exactly where he was heading—Redemption. A farm for scum of the earth who’d been allowed a second chance.

  He did not believe he deserved one, nor was he about to squander it.

  The small Western Cape town of Tatensrope was the holiday possie for the rich, and the coast’s gem—one of the few untouched landscapes left in his beloved country.

  It was odd that this would be where a rehabilitation centre for crims was also located.

  “Lullu! Will you please put on your hat?” Mina scolded her fair-haired daughter. The frown on the teenagers face deepened as she contin
ued working her pony in the lunging ring.

  “Ja, Ma,” she replied as she slowed the Basotho gelding and beckoned to him.

  Unlike Mina’s darker olive skin and dark brown locks, her daughter took after her father’s family in every respect, but for her eyes. Those, at least, she shared with her.

  Mina glanced at her phone. The bus with ten new inmates was running late, as usual.

  Africa time—a sense of things happening as and when they did—was something that Mina would never understand even if Africa was the blood coursing through her veins.

  They’d also still not emailed her the paperwork—something about load shedding affecting their systems. Hopefully, printed copies of the new inmate register would accompany the driver.

  “We’re almost ready for Nationals.” Lullu smiled as she strolled up to her with Boesman at her side. The pair were inseparable. Many a night, Mina would find her daughter asleep beside the horse.

  Lullu had learnt to ride before she could walk thanks to one of Mina’s old university buddies, who had a penchant for horses.

  “Drina’s trained you well,” Mina said, “The nationals will be lucky to have you.”

  “We’ll see.” Her daughter said.

  “Agh, look!” Lullu stopped and picked the rose up out of the dirt. “You dropped your flower.” Lullu dusted off the waxy petals and handed it back to Mina.

  A chill ran down her spine. “It’s dying. Throw it away.” Mina waved her hand as though to chase away a fly.

  “Waste not, want not,” her daughter mimicked words Mina would often throw at her. “I’ll put it my bible and press it.” She slipped the bloom into her shirt pocket. “Kom, Boessie.” She tugged on her horse’s halter, leading him off to the stables.

  A soft wind blew from the inland, pushing against the humidity of the afternoon. A strange sensation snaked its way up Mina’s spine as a memory from another life faded in and out of her mind’s eye.

  Ray pulled his bottle of soda from the pocket of the seat in front of him, unscrewed the lid, and gulped down the lukewarm, flat, sugary drink.

  The psychiatrist in the dry-out ward of the prison had spent many sessions talking him through the choices he’d made. Doctor Eksteen had understood the trauma he’d had to deal with in silence. The day he’d shunned the girl he’d loved to protect her, and the devastation when his Ma had gotten ill and died. The anger and self-loathing that had eaten him alive from the inside out.

  Once the drugs had finally left his system, Raymond had begun to understand the sacrifice his pa had made over the years, and that it was his pa who had saved him from a prison sentence. Six months rehab and six months on Redemption Farm before being released on parole. If he was lucky.

  He had to make this work. It was his last chance at some semblance of a life, a life he would now devote to making up for all the evil he’d committed in the past.

  The bus screeched to a halt. Through its large front window, the deep blue, froth-laced Atlantic greeted them as it curled, waved and receded. Out the side windows to his right, a number of stone cabins with grass roofs stood stacked in neat rows of three surrounded by what looked like a communal barbeque area and hall. This was paradise compared to the prison’s rehab facility in Cape Town.

  To the left of them, rows of solar panels drank up the sun’s heat and beyond, warehouses where Raymond assumed the abalone was farmed and processed.

  A ripple of fear rolled over him. He didn’t want to stuff up, but what he knew of abalone was less than the dew found on a desert rose in the morning.

  The farm was all about rehabilitation, but cleverly incorporated cheap labour too. The abalone, he assumed, was to keep the institution afloat.

  On a hill in the distance, opposite the farm and cabins, stood a beautiful house designed in the same Cape Dutch-style as his pa’s on Nooitgedacht wine farm. A deep emerald lawn and an immaculate garden, larger than the smaller one near the cabins, spread out around it with tall date palms reaching for the heavens. Ray squinted. Behind the abode stood a row of stables.

  “Alright, Oakes! This is where you get off. Grab your bags and move it.” The skinny weather-worn Afrikaans driver ordered.

  Raymond gripped his duffel bag from the rack above. Inside, were the only possessions he had to his name—two pairs of denim pants, a pair of board shorts, three pairs of socks, four T-shirts, and his toiletries.

  They all stumbled out of the bus and onto the soft white sand of Redemption Farm.

  Raymond looked up, cupping his free hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the sharp sun. A tall coloured man stood on a mound glaring down at them.

  “My name is Benjamin Meintjies. You will address me as sir or Mr Meintjies. I am not your buddy, gabba, or mother,” a deep, angry voice bellowed. “This is not a holiday resort!”

  A young boy stood beside Mr. Meintjies as the driver handed him a sheet of paper. The burly man scanned it, looked up and gave each inmate a stern look. His beady eyes fell on Ray. A chill wrapped itself around his spine. Ben nodded, handed the paper to the boy and pointed toward the farm house on the hill before returning his attention to them.

  “You are now at Redemption Farm. You’re not here to waste my time or fuck around. This shit is real. For some reason, God, the judge, and the good owner of this place have decided you are worth their effort, and are entitled to a second chance.” He fisted his hands and pinned them to his thighs. “I do not! You’re all a bunch of washouts. A waste of space. So while you’re here, you will follow my law and if you don’t, I’ll see you back behind bars before you can say sorry. And FY blerrie I … that’s where ninety percent of you will wind up anyway.” His eyes travelled up and down the two rows of men and once again landed on Ray. Ben’s words felt almost personally aimed at him.

  Ray shook the feeling. He’d not fail—not this time. He had too much to make up for.

  “Right, place your bags at your feet. Open them, take a step back, and stand at attention … and for those of you who don’t know what attention is, you’d better figure it out, as in yesterday, or prepare to run the circumference of this farm which is a decent ten kilometres.”

  Ray dropped his bag and zipped it open before straightening his body, eyes forward and placing his arms rigidly beside his body. Memories of high school cadets flooded back. Every Monday morning, come rain or shine, their platoon would drill for an hour before school. They’d been the champs of the west coast.

  “Name, inmate.” Mr. Meintjies’ face suddenly appeared before him, his nose a hair’s breadth from Ray’s.

  “Raymond Le Roux, sir.”

  “Ah, army background. Well, haven’t you fallen from grace.” Ben smirked.

  Raymond didn’t bother to correct the man.

  The man knelt on the ground and began to rifle through Ray’s few possessions, not caring that clothes and toiletries fell into the dirt. He then proceeded to search Ray, “Spread your legs and arms.” He barked as his hands slapped and grabbed their way around Ray’s body. “Lift your shirt,” he ordered, “Right, get your things. You’re in cabin two.” Mr Meintjies pointed toward the living quarters.

  While it was obvious he was stern as a drill sergeant to keep the men in line, there was a part of the man Ray recognised—an arrogant, power-hungry bully lurked just beneath the surface. Best he kept on the man’s good side. Men like Mr. Meintjies could make life hell for blokes like Ray.

  Mina’s house manager’s son, Piet, trotted up to the office window. “Here, miss. The list from the driver. He said all their network is gevok.”

  “Klein, Piet! Mind your language,” Mina chastised as she pushed open the large window and reached through the burglar bars for the sheet of paper.

  “Sorry, miss. I mean, their stuff is broke.” The boy looked to his feet. There were times he looked older than his sixteen years, but then, that was what a hard life did.

  “What you mean is, their system is offline,” she corrected him.

  “Yes, miss. O
ffline.” His cheeky grin irked Mina, but she took it with the good spirit it was intended.

  “Thank you. Get back to work then. I’m sure Mr Meintjies needs help with the new inmates.” She waved her hand in a way that told the boy he was dismissed.

  Mina swivelled in her chair and placed the crumpled sheet of names on the desk beside her computer keyboard. She’d copy it into her computer so she had both a printed and digital copy.

  Her eyes scanned the list of names and froze. Her heart stumbled and her breath caught. She reached, without looking away from the page, for her reading specs. She rarely wore the things.

  Slipping the titanium frame on her face, she leaned forward, as though a closer look would prove her wrong.

  Impossible!

  Mina stood so fast her chair tipped over. Her vision blurred then righted as she gripped the paper, ripped the spectacles off, dropped them on her desk, and stormed outside. She only slowed her pace when she reached the edge of her garden. From here, she had a clear view of the camp and the inmates Ben was lining up and berating.

  She knew his words were harsh and often cruel, and more than that—true, but with every intake, they managed to set two or three of her visitors on the right path. For Mina, that was enough. She didn’t want to save the world, but that was no reason to give up on it.

  Ben spoke their language; he’d been one of her first success stories. In all her years counselling criminals, she had come to the understanding that they knew no other language than the one Ben spoke. Hopefully, during their time at Redemption, she could teach them a new one. But that was not important now. What was important was finding the face which matched the name on the list.