by Dale Mayer
“Where is your sister?”
“She died of a drug overdose a few years back,” she said. “She gave her daughter to a friend of hers, but, by the time we went and contacted the friend, there was no way to find her, and the little girl had disappeared.”
“What was the friend’s name?”
“Trish Bell,” she said. “But she was another druggie on the street, so I don’t know why the hell my sister would have thought her daughter would be safe with her.”
“And how many of you opened your arms to accept this little girl and raise her as your own, so your sister would be sure her child would be safe?”
“Not one of us,” said another woman, young, leaning against the wall off to the side. “Not one of us gives a shit.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I live and stay with Mom, and she says I have to come.” She pointed at Susan, the big-breasted angry woman, as the young woman chewed bubble gum, blew a big bubble in front of her, popped it, and said, “But don’t kid yourself, nobody here cares.”
“You’re all here,” Kate said, “so something matters.”
“An inheritance,” the young woman said.
Susan turned and said, “Shut the fuck up!”
“Ah, so the inheritance falls to this little girl, is that it?” Kate asked. “So whoever gets to look after the child in that hospital bed gets a hold of the money?”
“So much more for us to figure out now,” Susan said, with a groan, acting like it was all too much.
“Nothing to figure out at all,” said one of the other men. “I don’t know anything about an inheritance, but that little girl, she was family.”
“Was?” Kate raised her head, her gaze pinning the other man in place. “Why do you say was?”
He tried to backtrack, but it wasn’t working.
Shaking her head, Kate said, “All right. Every one of you stretch out your left hand, please. I want to see your wrist.” They all looked at her in confusion. She popped her own out and held her wrist so that they saw. “Like this.” Frowning, they all did it. She was pretty sure the women wouldn’t be involved, but she’d seen the lesser dregs of society and didn’t want to make an assumption here. Then she went through each of the men. Not one of them had the mark. She nodded. “Good.”
By the time she had everybody’s names and address, she asked Susan, “Who is the lawyer handling the inheritance?”
“Terry something or the other,” Susan said, with an angry shrug, just getting angrier.
Kate faced Susan, her feet planted apart. “What’s his name?” she repeated. “Now.”
Susan just glared at her.
Then Kate said, “Fine. Let me do a full rundown on your history and see what else we’ll come up with.”
“It’s Terry Masters,” Susan said, “but I don’t know anything about an inheritance. It’s just my daughter making up shit. She’s always doing that stuff. She’s pissed off at me right now because I wouldn’t let her boyfriend sleep over last night.”
Kate wasn’t too worried about their reasons because it was usually deception like that which brought out the truth. “I’ll be checking it out regardless,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “It’s all bullshit.”
“Maybe. And one other thing,” she said, “we need DNA from everyone here.”
Silence.
Kate gave a brief smile. “I know how absolutely thrilled you all are,” she said, “but not one of you could claim to be family in this case without a DNA match. Particularly if an inheritance is involved. The lawyer should have mentioned that to you in the first place.”
“It’s my sister’s daughter,” Susan said, her tone consistently angry and frustrated, but no fear was there.
“Understood,” Kate said. “That’s why we do DNA testing to ensure she is. A lot of children go missing. The fact that we have found one with no family we can hand her off to means that we must be very careful that she goes home with the right people,” she said quietly. “Anybody here have a problem with that?”
“You don’t need to test all of us,” the big belligerent guy said. “The only one you need to test is Susan.”
The others nodded in agreement and stepped back a little.
Kate smiled. If anything set corrupt people’s back on edge, it was DNA testing. It had a way of revealing all kinds of shit about people. She looked at Susan. “Is that a problem?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not a problem at all.”
“So, you’ll be here when I get back in five minutes with the DNA kit from the doctor, correct?”
Susan gave her a solemn nod. “As long as you’re fast,” she said.
“Five minutes isn’t fast enough for you, huh?” With that, Kate turned and strolled to the front reception area. She got a kit and headed back to the little girl’s room. Thankfully they were still out in the hallway, not inside the girl’s room, because not one of them seemed like family at this point in time. At least not as far as Kate was concerned. She would talk with the doctor to see what he’d said to them too.
As soon as she collected the DNA from Susan, she put it back into the tube and labeled it. “Thank you,” she said. “I will get this tested, along with that of the little girl.”
“How long?”
“I can’t say,” she said. “But, given the circumstances, we would put a rush on it.” And then she deliberately stepped past them all and went into the little girl’s room, closing the door in their faces. She walked over, not surprised to see a doctor standing there, over his patient. “How is she doing?”
He turned to look at her, just as she flashed her badge at him. He asked, “Are you the one who found her last night?”
She nodded. “I am.”
“She’s coming off the drugs in her system,” he said. “She was given a heavy sedative, and, from the amount in her system, I think it’s been a regular occurrence.”
“Of course, by keeping her sedated, he could do whatever he wanted.” She studied the sleeping cherub. “How’s her general health?”
“Relatively okay. Some of her deficiencies are nutritional, as if she’s lived on mostly carbs, without vitamins, healthy foods, or vegetables.”
Kate said, “That’s consistent with what we’ve seen on a lot of these types of cases. Have any family members showed up yet?”
He nodded at the hallway.
“I mean, besides those who just say they are,” she said. “I’ve pulled DNA from the so-called aunt, but I’m not so sure that any of them are family.”
He looked at her, dumbfounded, so she continued. “One of them mentioned an inheritance for a child missing in their family, so they are all jumping on the bandwagon.”
He made a sound of disgust. “Of course they are,” he said. “People are just—” And then he stopped, as if words completely failed him.
She looked down at the little girl and reached over to turn her left wrist upward, so she saw the mark for herself.
“I saw that mark,” he said. “Are you the one who called to have the nurse look at it?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’ve got children in the morgue, both sporting the same mark, plus others from older cases,” she said. “We also have a murdered pedophile with the same mark.”
“Jesus,” he said. “I can’t believe this little girl is even alive then.”
“I don’t think she was supposed to be for too much longer, or, if she was, she’s very lucky to be here right now,” she said sadly. “We need to find some real family for her.”
“We don’t even have a name,” he said suddenly.
“No, we don’t.” Then she quickly explained what they knew about her being offered for sale.
“Such sickos in this world,” he said. He turned and studied the doorway, leading out to the group. “Do you think they are a danger to her?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I want to make sure they don’t get in here. Nobody
but verified family is allowed in here, and, until they are proven by blood to be family, even then, I need to make sure they didn’t have anything to do with her ending up where she did.”
“That is just sad,” he said.
“If they did this,” she said, shooting him a hard gaze, “I’ll nail their asses to the back wall of a jail cell.”
“Do that.” He turned and looked back at the little girl. “No matter where she ends up, she’ll need a lot of therapy.”
“How much damage physically?”
“Long-term sexual abuse,” he said, his voice low. “Most of that would eventually heal,” he said, “but the rest?” He shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Sometimes they just don’t recover.”
She couldn’t help but think about Simon. “That doesn’t sound too good,” she said. “You’d like to think that, if we save them, they can have a decent life again.”
“It’s possible,” he said, “even though I wouldn’t think it’s very realistic. But we must keep trying. She’s young and, with any luck, she’ll forget a lot of this and move on to something that’s much better.”
“I hope so,” she said. “It’s pretty traumatizing for everybody involved.” With a final look at the little girl, Kate turned and walked out.
*
Tuesday Evening
Simon worked his ass off for the rest of the day, bluntly trying to forget what he’d been through and the childhood memories dredged up. As he went from project to project, to the bank, and then back to another project, swearing and cursing at problems, most of the men around him ducked and avoided him. He knew it wasn’t fair, but it’s what he needed to do, as he straightened out things that had gone wrong. By the time he made it home, it was after seven.
He was more than pissed off and fed up. He opened the front door to the building himself and saw no sign of a doorman around. He headed to the stairs, too tired to go up them, yet knowing he still had more of the same frustrating anger driving him. He strolled up the stairs, flight after flight after flight, and, by the time he got to the top and headed into his penthouse, he was beyond exhausted.
He stripped off right from the front door for his second shower of the day. And he knew the demons wouldn’t let up anytime soon. When he came out, he dressed again in jeans and a T-shirt, poured himself a stiff drink. Nursing it, he headed to the front window, where he sat down and stared at the incredible view before him. But he didn’t see the view. It was his history; it was his past; it was everything bad. All he saw was the mocking darkness hidden underneath all those bright lights. And something was so wrong about it all. When his phone rang, he grabbed it, check the Caller ID on his screen. It was Kate. “What do you want?” he barked.
“You have a right to snap,” she said, “but I’m bringing dinner, so let me up.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Too damn bad,” she said. “Let me up.” Her tone was as inflexible as his.
He gave a snort. “Your funeral,” he said, and he buzzed her in. He could just imagine her walking across the front foyer, and he wondered again for a moment where the hell the doorman was. But didn’t waste any more time on that issue. He got up and walked to his doorway, then leaned against the doorjamb and waited for the elevator to open. When it did, she strolled out, and he looked down at the bag in her hand. “There should have been leftover Chinese still.”
“I left that at my place,” she said. “I haven’t been home yet. I stopped on the way from the hospital.”
“That sounds like a lovely visit.”
“It should have been,” she said. “Two children were saved. But somehow it just leaves me with that terrible feeling inside.”
He nodded in understanding, realizing her mood equaled his. He watched as she walked into the kitchen and took out containers. He didn’t recognize the brown paper bag or the smell coming from the containers. Some sort of Middle Eastern dish. “Smells interesting,” he said cautiously.
“It’s good, but don’t eat it if you don’t want to. I don’t give a shit,” she grumped. He gave a bark of laughter and brought plates over. She quickly served two platefuls, pulled up a stool, and sat down right where she was. He repeated the move on his side, and the two of them munched through some food.
“What is it about food,” he said, studying the folded wrapped thing in his hand, “that soothes the soul?”
“And add not being alone,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be in the interview room with you today.”
“Whatever,” he said. “They didn’t do anything that crossed the line.”
She nodded. “No, not yet,” she said. “If they find anything that connects you to any of the cases, they will though.”
He stared at her and then shrugged. “They can waste all their time if they want,” he said. “I don’t give a shit.”
“Good. No sign of your foster father or your biological mother so far,” she said. “We found your birth certificate, but no death certificate for either of them.”
“Check the Jane Does,” he said. “My foster father said she was nothing but a junkie.”
“Maybe,” she said. “A family was at the hospital today, who said the little girl who I found in Richmond was their niece. Missing for a couple years.” She filled him in on the story, and he just stared.
“And they want her now? Even though, when her mother was in trouble and needed a safe place for her daughter, they weren’t there?”
“Family, right?” she said, with a snort. “Something about an inheritance. I’ve started a few searches on my laptop, but I haven’t gotten any further.”
“An inheritance would do it,” he said. “But why so many people?”
“I think they don’t trust each other,” she said. “And they want to make sure they are all in there to grab some money.”
“They want to help spend the inheritance.”
“I’ve got calls in to the lawyer,” she said. “So far, nobody is talking. So we don’t have a connection yet.”
“Sorry,” he said, “that sucks too.”
“It does, but I’m looking for a solution, not more shit.”
“And you are the one who found this little girl?”
She nodded. “And I also saw somebody coming out of a window in the house, but I didn’t get him,” she said, with another snort of disgust. “That same blue truck was stolen that night, and, when I went to talk to the witness, he was gone. I did get a license plate, and so did you apparently.”
“All a little too convenient.”
She stared down at the wrap in her hand, looked over at him, gave a small smile, and said, “That’s what I thought.”
“So why are you here?” he asked.
She studied him, her gaze blank, and then she smiled. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But, when I came out of the hospital, it was instinctive to grab a meal for two. And, when I did, I realized who it was I was supposed to share it with.”
“What is that, like being psychic?”
“Like hell,” she said forcibly. “I don’t know anything about that part of your life, and I don’t really want to know,” she said. “But something is here, and that may be something I need to reconsider.”
“An awful lot of somethings you just mentioned,” he said.
She smiled and nodded. “There is, indeed. Don’t know if that’s good or bad though.”
“Don’t think it matters much,” he said, “because you’re still talking in circles.”
She cleaned her plate, stood, and walked to the sink. There she washed her hands, took his empty whiskey glass from the counter, rinsed it out, then filled it with water and took a long drink, while she studied his face. “Maybe so,” she said. “But I didn’t think you were the kind to beat around the bush.”
He got up, repeated her actions exactly, placing his lips where hers had been, and, by the time he’d swallowed a glass of water, with just the counter between them, she walked around and packed up the garbage.
“I can leave though, if you prefer.”
Grabbing her by the shoulders, he spun her around, cupped her face, and kissed her. Almost immediately her arms swept around his neck and held him in a grip that was harder and stronger than he’d ever felt before. Lips locked, it was as if something had been unleashed between them. Their hands were busy, as they pulled out shirttails, unbuttoned buttons, dragged down zippers, and sent clothes flying.
He dragged her backward, down a couple steps to his bedroom, and, by the time they collapsed onto the bed itself, not a stitch of clothes stood between them. The sex was hard, fast, riveting, and nothing short of wild.
Then she collapsed back down again and groaned. “I know we shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered. He rolled over on top of her and slammed his mouth down over hers. She got the message and pivoted, spinning him over onto his back, where she immediately climbed on top of his already growing erection and rode him, taking them both to the edge of collapse again.
Finally he lay on the sheet beside her. Reaching down, he gripped her fingers with his, lacing their fingers together. “I’m glad you came,” he whispered.
She snuggled close, and, with the lights of Vancouver shining in an odd ethereal array in front of them, she whispered, “So am I.”
Chapter 25
Wednesday Morning
Kate stood on the side of the commercial street, studying the vehicle near Starbucks. It wasn’t the one she had seen at the pedophile’s house on Monday night. But it was registered to the pedophile named Nico, the owner of the house where they’d found the little girl. Somebody had decided to make sure the pedophile drew his last breath, before he’d face justice for that little girl in his basement. Appeared to be another strangulation of a pedophile. A part of her was furious about that. She wanted to see this guy locked up and treated the same way he had treated those poor kids.
In this case it was a saving grace on the taxpayer’s money and the legal system to have Nico put out of his misery permanently. At least this way, he couldn’t get off on a technicality or do his time and be released again to hurt more kids. He’d already done that. Still, did they have a vigilante trying to take down pedophiles on his own? ’Cause that would never go down well.
