Suburban Dangers

by Megan Whitson Lee

  Somehow, he thought this would be a neater scene—more of a dirt mound in the woods, not the exposed body of a young woman, partially buried, partially eaten, sprawled in the woods behind the secondary school. He hadn’t expected to taste the acidic bile rising to the back of his throat.

  Abbie’s phone was instantly against her ear. “Yes, we’re going to need the coroner over here. And homicide.”

  Tyler continued to back away, pulling Katherine with him.

  Her gaze remained glued to the area where the police stood, but she showed no emotion.

  “Animals have already been at her. Probably been dead a couple of weeks,” Mendoza said.

  “Saturday, December tenth,” Katherine said, her eyes fixed, trance-like. “She died on December tenth.”

  Officer Mendoza was in full investigative mode, seemingly unaware of Katherine’s role. He pointed. “They dragged her from here to here.”

  “Yep,” Abbie said, stuffing her phone into her back pocket. She paused and looked around before directing the other officers. “We need to get this whole area cordoned off.” Her gaze shifted to Tyler and Katherine. “Tyler, you want to get her out of here? Wait for me back at the car.”

  Tyler tried to pull Katherine away, but her gaze was still on the officers stretching out their caution tape. “Come on, honey. Let’s get back to the car where it’s warm.” Her body was stiff, but he finally turned her away, and they made their way back to the parking lot.

  Standing by the passenger side of the car, Tyler fumbled his keys with shaking hands.

  Katherine collapsed.

  ~*~

  For the second time in two days, Tyler sat in the lobby of Reston Hospital. He should’ve called Christina, but he just didn’t want her frantic, crazy energy adding to the chaos. Katherine’s collapse and non-responsiveness was terrifying. He assumed it had been due to viewing her dead friend’s body. He shouldn’t have let the police take her out there. He should have told them to check the woods themselves. But he hadn’t thought the girl…Sydney…would be unburied and so out there—for all to see.

  Rubbing his forehead, Tyler absently gazed at the television. He snapped to attention. A local reporter was interviewing the principal of Runnymede, Penelope Miller.

  “Do we know why the girl wasn’t attending school? Did anyone contact her parents?”

  “Initially we called her house, but her mother had moved, and her aunt said Sydney claimed she was living elsewhere.”

  “According to her mother and aunt, Sydney’s disappearance wasn’t unusual, and they didn’t want to involve the police. From the school’s perspective, after two weeks of no attendance, students are automatically dropped from the roster. We don’t generally pursue it, since it usually means they were pulled to go to an alternative school, or their family moved away without telling us. It’s not all that unusual.”

  “So this girl just fell through the cracks?” the reporter asked.

  Penelope held up her hands. “We have twenty-five hundred students in our school. We do the best we can.”

  With voiceover in play, the camera cut to images of Runnymede Secondary and the woods where yellow caution tape stretched across the entrance. Then there was a shot of Josh speaking, his voice finally came up in the audio. “Right now, the police are conducting a full investigation. We don’t have a lot of information other than the body was positively IDed by the family. If anyone in the community knows anything, let the county police know.”

  The reporters voice came on again as more images of the school, kids boarding buses flashed across the screen. “…was positively identified as Sydney Diaz, a seventeen-year-old sophomore formerly attending Runnymede Secondary School. Diaz was found partially buried in the woods adjacent to the school, leaving the neighborhood shocked and fearful. The cause of death is yet to be announced, but foul play and gang activity is suspected.”

  Local resident interviews followed, the first of which was a middle-aged housewife—a parent Tyler had seen frequently jogging around the neighborhood. She looked as though the reporters had caught her in the midst of a morning jog, dressed in her black, spandex pants and heavy fleece sweater. Her face was reddened with the cold, and tufts of condensation puffed from her mouth as she spoke. “It’s really frightening. I mean, I have two kids who go to Runnymede, and…I just…I just don’t know what to think about what happened. I mean, you wonder—was this another student who did this, or an adult, or what? Who should we be watching for when we’re walking around our neighborhood?”

  “Mr. Jones?” The doctor’s voice drew him away from the television screen. Dr. Branigan was a young, petite woman with dark, messy hair that she had pinned flat against her head.

  Tyler stood immediately. “Yes, how is she?”

  “She’s in shock…and she’s in withdrawal.”

  “Withdrawal?”

  “From drugs.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Yes, her system is full of narcotics. We don’t know what kind, we’d have to do further testing to determine that. But I think the most important thing right now is to get her into a treatment program. Like tonight.”

  Tyler didn’t think he could take another thing, or he would end up in a treatment facility.

  “I’ve called ahead to one in Winchester. They have availability there…or if you have another place in mind. We also have some people on staff who can help you find an appropriate place, one that will take your insurance if this one doesn’t.”

  “Yes, I understand.” How much more could his heart break? How had he not realized that his daughter was addicted to drugs? Because you weren’t paying attention. The voice rang in his head as clear as a bell. Because you were too consumed with your own problems, your own desires…Oh, God. His heart gave a wordless cry for mercy. If ever he needed God’s supernatural peace it was now. He needed it like a lifeline.

  “OK,” Tyler said, surprised by how resolute his tone sounded. “I’ll call her mother, and we’ll get her where she needs to go.”

  Taking a deep breath, he hit Christina’s speed-dial. No matter how much she drove him crazy or how much he didn’t want to involve her, she was Katherine’s mother. Katherine needed both of them now.

  28

  Tyler

  Thursday, January 19

  The entire task upon which Tara Pickard worked was moved to an office in Crystal City.

  If Tyler had been a singer, he would have been belting out an aria. Relief. That was one problem solved.

  There were still other problems. He kept finding vodka bottles hidden all over the house—at the back of a drawer in the bedroom, another behind some books in the living room. How had he missed what was really going on? Easy. Just like he’d missed Katherine’s double-life, his son’s addiction, he should have seen Lana’s problem.

  Some days he didn’t know how he managed everything. Learning a new job, taking care of two little kids, attending counseling with Brandon, and figuring out who would watch Micah and Celia in the afternoons when they got home after school consumed him.

  When Molly and Josh offered to help watch the kids, Tyler nearly cried with gratitude. One more problem solved. He could never repay them for opening their home and their hearts to his kids—especially when they had none of their own.

  Tyler kept in constant contact with Christina. Neither of them were allowed to visit Katherine at her treatment facility, but they both checked in frequently with the clinic and each other. She had even been supportive of Brandon’s counseling, the men’s group, and Tyler’s educational plan for the kids.

  “I want Brandon on homebound until the end of the school year. Next year, we can talk about alternative education plans for both of the kids. I don’t want either of them going back to Runnymede.”

  He braced himself for Christina’s tirade, waiting for a stream of expletives, accusations, and threats delivered in a glass-shattering decibel. Instead, she remained quiet. Finally, she sniffed. “Whatever. I guess it’s abo
ut time you started acting like their father.”

  As offended as he wanted to be, as much as he wanted to throw her remark back in her face and accuse her of being a sorry mother, he stopped himself. Humility. Taking responsibility for his actions. No escapism. All things he was learning in his men’s group. He hadn’t been much of a father. He’d been self-consumed and absent. It had taken Lana’s departure, the near loss of his son, and the ongoing battle to retrieve the soul of his daughter to realize that he was a lousy father.

  God had been trying to get his attention for some time. Well, now You have it, Lord. I hear You loud and clear. Everything had been ripped out from underneath him, leaving him in a fast free fall.

  Tyler and Brandon attended counseling together every week, and on Thursday evenings, they went to a men’s group led by Nick. There, they met and prayed with other fathers and sons struggling with the same weakness. There was a difference in Brandon—his eyes were brighter, he smiled more, and his face was beginning to lose that burdened, pained expression. But it would take time—years, perhaps—to completely heal from all that had transpired.

  As the meeting ended that Thursday, Nick Melioni suggested they take prayer requests.

  Going around the circle of seventeen men ranging in age from thirteen to seventy, the prayer requests varied from needing help to stay off of the Internet to prayers that their wives would take them back.

  “I’ve got one.” Tyler’s voice shook, and he cleared his throat. “My daughter’s in trouble. She’s uh…she’s at a treatment facility…for drugs and…um, other stuff.”

  “How’s she doing there?” Nick asked.

  “Well, they had a hard time with her at first. She was asking them every day to leave, and trying to run away. She had a…a sort of boyfriend…except he wasn’t really a boyfriend…” Tyler was too embarrassed to tell them the real story. He couldn’t hold back the tears that waited at the rim of his eyes. As soon as they spilled over on to his cheeks, he pawed at them. “Actually, her boyfriend was a gang member who was prostituting her.” The words muffled as they stuck in his throat.

  The other men stared at him with expressions of horror, sympathy, and anger.

  “What?” One of the men asked, his eyes wide. “How old is she?”

  “She’s sixteen.”

  A groan resounded from several of the men. Many others shook their heads or gaped with enlarged eyes and furrowed brows.

  “Are the police involved?” Nick asked.

  “Yes. They arrested at least one of the guys, and there’s a warrant out for the other one. There’s a full ongoing investigation.”

  “The same thing happened to my daughter.” Luis was around Tyler’s age, although Tyler didn’t know him well. Luis had been relatively quiet the last few weeks in the group, doing more listening.

  “When?” Tyler asked.

  “Three years ago. She ran away with her boyfriend to New Jersey. He was in a gang, too. He was giving her drugs, pimping her out...”

  “I didn’t know that, Luis,” Nick said. “How long was she missing?”

  “We looked for her for a year and a half. All over New Jersey.”

  “Did you find her?” Tyler asked, hopeful.

  “We didn’t find her,” Luis answered simply. “The police did.”

  “Where did they find her?”

  “In New York City. In a dumpster.”

  The room surged with the men’s expressions of horror—slight, chuffing sounds as they processed Luis’s words, his matter-of-fact confession. A father’s unimaginable grief. Then, a blanket of silence. Bile rose in Tyler’s throat. He wanted to say something, but his tongue wouldn’t work.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Luis,” Nick said.

  Luis nodded, his facial expression unwavering. “When Karla ran away, that was the last time I ever looked at pornography. Her mother found Karla’s pictures online. When I saw it, I thought of how I’d looked at pictures like that for years. When the pictures didn’t do it for me anymore, I’d even thought of calling an escort service—just like the one that was advertising my daughter. When we’re young, we all think pornography doesn’t hurt anyone. But now, we all know that’s a lie. Look what it has done to us. Look what it’s doing to our children.”

  Images of Katherine dead in a dumpster flickered in Tyler’s mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to squelch the vision. He couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “I want to pray for your daughter,” Luis said. “I want to pray she does not end up like my Karla. What’s her name again?”

  “Katherine…Kaki…I used to call her Kaki.”

  29

  Kaki

  Monday, March 20

  Two months had passed since Kaki had arrived at Whiteway Rehabilitation Center. Her physical need for the drugs was gone. But the emotional noise still flooded her mind at night. The memories of what she’d done were much worse than the symptoms of withdrawal. And she could not shake the fear that someone was looking for her.

  Damien was still out there. Would he show up at the facility in the dead of night and make her go with him? Would he kill her family while she was at the rehab facility?

  For the first few weeks, she hadn’t been allowed any contact with family. She chewed all her fingernails down to the cuticle worrying about what was happening at home. And she struggled with strange, inexplicable desires to contact Damien.

  What would make her want to return to a man who drugged her, beat her, and forced her to have sex with other men? But once she received phone privileges, she fought the urge to call him. Insidious thoughts wormed through her brain—wouldn’t it just be better if you went back to him and got it over with? Wouldn’t everyone be safer that way? Aren’t you worthless to anyone else at this point anyway? Who could ever love you knowing what you’ve been?

  She stared into the mirror in the communal bathroom. She no longer looked like herself. Her hair was dull—stripped of all its shine from washing it every day since she’d arrived here. She couldn’t get clean enough. She looked down and touched a finger to the black tattoo upon her wrist. She might have been removed from Damien’s presence, but his brand was still on her body.

  “You know, I know someone who can help you take care of that.”

  Kaki spun around and looked into the face of one of her counselors, Darienne.

  In her thirties, Darienne had short, spiky hair and eyes that swirled and sparkled like green marbles. But most importantly, Darienne had once stood in Kaki’s shoes.

  “You know someone who can remove tattoos?”

  Turning on the water at the sink, Darienne stood beside Kaki and began washing her hands. “They’ll remove them, or they’ll tattoo over them. Either way, they make those brands disappear. See? Here’s mine.” Darienne pulled up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal a purple butterfly. Underneath it, a verse of scripture. “It used to say Rokk—my pimp’s name.”

  “Romans 6:18?”

  “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Darienne pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and dried her hands. “God takes what was meant for evil and turns it for good. I figured that I’d been a slave to my pimp for long enough, and that hadn’t gotten me anything but a drug addiction, a messed-up head, and a bunch of sexually transmitted diseases. After I got away from him, I chose to become a slave to righteousness—to the One who chose me first. To the One who really loved me. Jesus.”

  Although Kaki didn’t really understand, it was obvious that Darienne really meant what she said.

  “Once you’re out of here, I’ll give you the name of the organization and the contact person. They’ll get that brand off of your wrist one way or the other. And you’ll feel so much better once they do.”

  “Isn’t it expensive to have a tattoo removed?”

  “They do it for free. They’re a ministry supported by donations. The woman that started it is like us. She was in the life too. God had a purpose for her life…just like
He has for yours, Kaki.”

  Kaki shook her head. “I just can’t imagine ever living a normal life again.”

  “You’ll do it,” Darienne assured her. “With the grace of God, you’ll do it.”

  Kaki gazed at Darienne. “How did you do it?”

  Darienne smiled almost as though she had been waiting for that question. “I was a runaway. Out of the house at fifteen because my mom’s boyfriend kept messing with me. Oldest story in the world. I was already doing some drugs anyway, but once I was on the streets—well, I needed to eat. I needed a place to stay. I met a guy who promised me all that and drugs, too. I was with him for three years—until he nearly killed me at a truck stop one night after a john complained. Another trucker there took pity on me and called 9-1-1. It’s the only reason I’m alive today.”

  “Did you ever want to go back to it?” Kaki asked.

  “Sure. My trafficker was the only person I knew anymore. Once I was out and realized how alone I was, I nearly did go back to the life several times. Those are the feelings you have to fight, Kaki. You have to fight them like your life depends on it. Because it does. It’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome. You ever heard of that?”

  Kaki shook her head. “No.”

  “Stockholm Syndrome is when the one who’s been kidnapped, trafficked, or oppressed falls in love with their victimizer. It’s a coping mechanism when you realize you’ve lost all control. Outside the life, you have to deal with those feelings and recognize them for what they are—a lie from the pit of hell.”

  It felt so good to hear Darienne talk. Kaki’s heart soared with relief, and she soaked in every word of wisdom. She had gotten so used to hearing Sydney’s “pep talks”—all lies and propaganda about how normal stripping was or how much money she could make working for Damien—that she’d forgotten how it felt to really connect with and trust another person.

  Darienne wasn’t in any rush either. She leaned against the sink, talking as though they were side by side on a soft couch with a bowl of popcorn between them. “You have to pray to know that nothing good will come of going back. It’s a process, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It happens through God’s patient, healing hand. You done any praying on your own?”