by William Mark
Michael, numb to the scene he just witnessed, snapped to and ran up behind his wife and daughter and hugged them both, failing to hold back a river of tears.
The heart is a strong muscle built to endure many hardships in the physical realm, but watching the reunion brought forth feelings from within that seemed to surpass any physical strain. This was the pinnacle of joy, and the team who made this possible watched for their own benefit and their own gratification, for they knew there would be no press conference, no fanfare, and no acknowledgement. There would be no recognition of the heroism that brought this family back together…so this was it. But it was all they needed to continue in their mission, for this family—and for Charlotte Morgan—they were able to stop the tears of the lost.
Alexis gave the overjoyed family ample time to enjoy the moment all parties had dreamt about since the awful day Charlotte went missing. She explained that the Society dinner and concert were a ruse and that the real reason they were brought to the city was to reunite them with their daughter. They quickly forgave her misrepresentation and begged for repayment, for a favor, anything, for she had given them their life back. Alexis refused any kind of payment and explained that this was her gift to them without consideration, and it was her pleasure. The only thing she asked for in turn was to protect their anonymity. Without hesitation, the Morgan’s agreed and thanked her over and over.
“So what do we tell the rest of our family? Our friends? I mean, about how she is suddenly now back home?” Michael asked, worried about how to hold up their end of the bargain.
“That’s up to you. You can go on late night talk shows if you want, or you can quietly explain to your family that she just simply returned one day; just keep me and my team out of it…that’s all.”
“But won’t the police come around and start asking questions?”
“Probably, but who’s to say Charlotte is too distraught to answer any questions?” Alexis hinted.
Michael Morgan understood what Alexis was asking but didn’t understand the reasoning. He simply granted the wish without question, for he was given the best gift of all, his daughter safe and with him and his wife.
Alexis waved the team on, and they piled back into the van and left the area, satisfied at witnessing the beautiful moment of the reunion. She stood outside the hotel and scanned the nearby parking lot. After a minute, she found what she was looking for. Curt was sitting alone in the Crown Vic watching from the corner of the street.
***
Curt Walker sat quietly in his car, focus again held on the smiling brown-haired boy in the tattered picture, waiting to see the reunion he helped bring to fruition. He watched as Alexis pointed the Morgans in the direction of the van and as the mother went to her knees with outstretched hands and the young girl run up for a climactic embrace. He needed to watch the reunion, to feed the small shred of hope he desperately clung to. He didn’t bother to wipe away his tears that always followed, so he sat alone and wondered if he’d ever know that same feeling the Morgans felt at holding their child.
After watching the family walk back into the hotel, he saw Alexis Vanderhill stand out front and search for something. He figured she was looking for him. He didn’t bother to hide; he wasn’t hiding from anything. He just had to do this part alone. She smiled at him in the distance and returned to the hotel. He watched as she pushed through the huge revolving door but saw Charlotte Morgan pop back out and ask Alexis something in a near panic. Her parents were not more than five feet from her as they watched, concerned. Alexis leaned over to listen and nodded at her request. She stood up straight and pointed directly at Curt sitting alone in his car. Charlotte searched with her young eyes, and when she found the dark sedan, she took a few steps toward it and waved. Curt’s heart sank a degree at her thoughtfulness, and he cracked a smile.
The girl finished waving and turned back to her proud parents. She was no longer Charlene Bennett. She was Charlotte Morgan.
Chapter 5
Celebration wasn’t what the team did after a successful operation. They celebrated quietly in their own way, separate and alone. Curt sat alone at the hotel bar, removed from anyone else, and drank his bourbon quietly. The picture he kept on the dashboard was now tucked safely in the inside breast pocket of his trench coat.
Beth and Melinda were sitting together in the back of the bar waiting for Rachel’s decision to choose whether she was going to be a part of the team or not. She had met with Alexis upstairs in her room to finalize the deal. Beth got up and walked up to the bar. She stood next to Curt and ordered another drink.
“You didn’t have to pull the gun,” she said condescendingly. Beth abhorred any violence and hated that Curt even carried a gun.
Curt, used to the criticism, finished his sip of bourbon and set the glass down while stretching out his leg. He felt a bruise forming where Francine Bennett mistook his kneecap for a baseball.
“She had a baseball bat, and she was going to bash my head in. It was necessary,” Curt answered, but he obviously didn’t care for her opinion.
“It’s dangerous. You could’ve just snagged her from school.”
“Beth…” Curt snapped annoyingly, “…we could’ve done a lot of things different, but you know what? Taking her from school would’ve set in panic from anyone if we were seen, just like it would from anywhere else in public.” He took the last pull of his drink and set the glass down with authority. “The girl’s on her way home safe tonight; that’s all that matters isn’t it?”
“We could’ve waited longer. That woman would have left her at some point. I get the feeling you wanted a confrontation with that woman.”
Curt stood up and hovered over the smaller Beth Young to make a point. “You’re right. I did.” Beth backed away but didn’t give in. “But make no mistake about it Beth, I was not about to let that girl stay in that house one more second if I could help it. Put yourself in the parents’ shoes, and get your head out of your ass!”
The bartender gave Beth her drink, and she walked away without rebuttal. She was a firm believer in a non-violent way to handle conflict and wanted to express her thoughts.
“Yeah, okay. I see your point.” She returned back to her table with Melinda, and Curt ordered another.
As Beth got seated, Rachel made her way down to the bar and joined Beth and Melinda in the back. She ordered a club soda with lime from the bar.
“That was some unbelievable stuff earlier. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I was thinking hard about Ms. Vanderhill’s offer but after seeing that family together and the immense joy I felt in seeing them hug like that, oh my goodness, it was too much. I told her to sign me up as soon as possible.”
“Well, welcome to the team Rachel,” Beth said with mediocre enthusiasm.
“Thanks.”
“Curt? She said yes,” Melinda called out to Curt up at the bar.
He turned around and looked at the new woman, held her stare for a moment, lifted his glass of bourbon in a half-assed salute, and then turned back to the bar.
“Well, okay.” She didn’t know whether that was customary or an insult but looked back eagerly at the two women with questions she had from the operation.
“So, how did you figure out she was Charlotte Morgan?”
Beth sipped her drink through a long straw; it was some frothy, red, fruit concoction with a pineapple wedge on it. The waitress set Rachel’s club soda down and took another order from Melinda.
“Okay, to let you know, we all have different roles on the team, and those roles coincide with our individual talents.”
“Like Louis the hacker?”
“Yep, like Louis the hacker.”
“So, what’s your strong suit?” Rachel asked of Beth.
“Research.”
“Okay? Meaning?”
“Like, Louis can access the information, but he can’t put it all together. That’s where I come in. I took the name Charlotte and searched all missing child reports in Norther
n California, but I narrowed the search to time frame of when she began showing up on Francine Bennett’s tax returns. I took in account her estimated age, and for all his flaws, Curt is usually right, so of those missing girls I limited the list to those who have blonde hair. That narrowed the search significantly, and from there it was just a matter of narrowing down the possibilities.”
“How long did that take you?”
She thought honestly for a moment, “About six hours.”
“Wow.”
“But that’s actually pretty fast considering.”
“I bet. So why Northern California? Why not the entire U.S.?”
“Huh? Well to be honest with you, she looked like a California girl, especially when you make her a blonde.”
Rachel smiled. “And the hit and run murder…that was a bit of good luck?”
“Yeah, I’ll say. I’m good at digging up dirt on the kidnappers, but that was one helluva skeleton in her closet.”
“So you just dug that up?”
“Yeah, same method. Louis had his work cut out for him because it’s hard to get access to unsolved murders. Curt figured it was a hit and run, and I researched the make and model in unsolved hit and run deaths. We figured it happened before the girl was kidnapped, so that narrowed down the timeframe. Then, it was a matter of tracking her whereabouts back that many years and going through the news articles and police reports. We hit pay dirt when I found the headline of a hit and run death of a ten year old boy. It was a neighbor’s kid playing one Saturday morning when she came barreling down the street…awful story, awful all around.”
“So, now, hopefully, that family will get closure too.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea.”
Rachel sat back in her chair and looked back over her shoulder at Curt who was still alone at the bar.
“But how exactly did you make sure the police would find the car? It’s not like we stuck around and opened up the garage for them?”
“No, you’re right. We greased the wheels of justice, you could say.” Beth took another sip of her sweet drink.
“How so?”
“Well, after we did the morning reconnaissance at the house, I got busy on the computer and found the hit and run report. Knowing we needed to use that to our advantage, we came up with a plan. We needed a way to stay off the police radar but make the search of the garage legit, so it would stick.”
Unaware of Fourth Amendment law, Rachel was lost as to how they would overcome that hurdle. “So, how’d you manage that?”
“Acting, really,” Melinda offered ambiguously. She threw back the rest of her drink and looked at Rachel. “Basically, I went in the police department as Brenda Martin, neighbor of Francine Bennett, who just happened to have been invited over one day and saw the vehicle in the garage. I asked about the damage, and we spoke about it, and the conversation went toward some type of crash back in the past, and she said something about a little boy getting hurt!”
“So, you lied and set her up?”
“Pretty much. The search had to be valid though to make it work. The police needed a witness to establish probable cause to get in that garage, so we gave them one. Once they got in, it was up to them to find all the necessary evidence to make the charge.”
“But what about the police report, the trial? You can’t go back as a witness; they’ll know you’re a fake.”
“That’s why there won’t be a trial. That’s why Curt told her that she would confess. That takes the need for a trial right out from under her. It’s coerced justice but justice all the same.”
Rachel was amazed at the in-depth work the team was capable of on such short notice. She was glad she joined and hoped she was able to keep up and contribute to the mission.
“So, what’s your story?” Melinda asked. “Everyone’s got one on this team.”
“Oh?” she answered evasively.
“Yeah, we all got some unresolved stuff which is what brings us together to carry out this mission.”
“What’s yours?” Rachel turned it around and back to Melinda.
“Fine, I’ll go first. I was a cop in suburban Atlanta, and my family was proud. My sister was proud too, but she was addicted to crack and couldn’t stop. She couldn’t find a way to leave it behind. That stuff had such a grip on her, she couldn’t shake it. She couldn’t keep a job, so she walked the streets prostituting herself until one day she overdosed and died. She laid on some dirty floor of an abandoned apartment for three days until someone finally found her.”
Melinda relived that moment in her eyes, then added, “It was awful. I get mad at the thought of some asshole John just leaving her there like a piece of trash.”
Rachel was taken aback at the bluntness of the woman’s story, but her heart went out to her. She could relate in a way. Melinda continued, “So, being a good sister and cop, I tracked down the dealer who gave her the shit and tried to arrest him. I was out of my jurisdiction, but I didn’t care. He fought me and pulled a knife, so I shot and killed him.”
The air went still in the small hotel lobby while Rachel listened to Melinda tell this part of her past life.
“So, I quit the day after the grand jury cleared me and started in social work, trying to keep kids like my sister off drugs. But you know from being at DCF that it’s an uphill battle. I knew we were constantly losing, so one day I ran into this rich white lady who offered me a job. She told me that I could make a real difference. I looked into her, thinking she’s either a con-artist or a crazy person and find out she’s legit. So, I struck a deal with her. I work for her, and she donates money into the drug rehab place I worked at for better funding, better equipment, and better accommodations for the patients.”
“Wow, okay. So the acting? Where does that come from?”
“Five years of working narcotics undercover. I worked one long term case for three years and was someone similar to Ms. Brenda Martin. It was a good cover, so I kept it.”
“That makes sense.” She took a sip of her club soda and looked at the much younger and less life-experienced Beth Young. “What’s your story?”
Beth pulled the rest of the fruity drink through the straw as she poked the alcohol saturated fruit with a tiny yellow parasol. She gulped the last bit and looked at Rachel, starting to feel the buzz.
“Not much to tell. I ran away from my parents’ house when I was fourteen…abusive father, alcoholic mother. I ran the streets, stealing anything I could to survive until I tried to steal from some rich white lady....” She mocked Melinda who returned a smile. “And instead of turning me in to the cops, she took me home and treated me like family. She put me through college, so I’m here not out of obligation per se but more of a sense of repaying her generosity to those in need. Paying it forward? Kind of.”
Rachel nodded seeing her point.
“There are so many kids who leave bad homes like I did. I just want to help those kids who are taken from the good ones.”
“So what’s up with the computer whiz?” Rachel asked.
“Louis? Ha! That boy ain’t right. But he’s good. And he ain’t shy about his dirt, so just ask him yourself.”
Rachel let the backgrounds of the two women sink in and finished up her club soda. She compared their backgrounds to that of her own. She wondered if they knew her story already but was positive they didn’t know everything. No one knew, except her. She looked back at the bar and saw Curt was getting up and leaving a tip for the bartender.
“What’s his story?” she asked.
Both women looked at Curt with his back turned to them and avoided answering, especially while he was still at the bar. Curt walked past the table of women without saying goodbye and got on the elevator across the marble floor of the hotel lobby.
Beth looked at Melinda expectedly, like she would have to be the one to tell the story.
“I don’t want to tell his business, but like us, he’s got a rough story too. The difference is he is still dealing with his, whe
reas we’ve been able to move on.”
Rachel looked over at Beth needing more of an explanation.
“Ehh…I’ve only been on the team for a year now, so Melinda knows him better than I do. I’ve had like four or five actual conversations with the man, nothing revealing to say the least.”
Melinda finished her drink and offered a tidbit to the curious newcomer. “He was a cop in Tallahassee for like twelve or thirteen years. He was a detective when his son went missing. He’s been looking for him ever since.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“About three years.”
Rachel sat back in her seat wondering about the details of Curt’s story and how devastating it must be to live with the pain of having a child missing. She replayed the stories of the two women at the table and figured her own tragedy was what caused Alexis Vanderhill to seek her out. A sense of belonging came over her, which was something she hadn’t anticipated.
Chapter 6
A hint of optimism met Rachel Goodwin as she woke up in the extremely comfortable queen-sized bed of the Grand Hyatt hotel. She rolled over and saw the sunlight piercing through the tiny slat in the curtains. She lay on the bed hoping this new chapter in her life would lead to something truly fulfilling. She was losing faith from all the dead ends she managed to find.
She quickly showered, dressed, and packed her belongings. The team was moving on right after breakfast. She took the elevator down to the lobby and found a place to sit in the hotel’s restaurant that over looked the atrium. She glanced over the menu and settled for eggs, sausage, and toast with coffee. She unfolded the Chronicle and curiously scanned the crime beat for any stories of what happened last night. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the booking photo of Francine Bennett on the front page of the local crime section. The headline read: “Hit & Run Solved off Tip Seven Years Later.” Rachel anxiously scanned the article looking for any hint or mention of the team being involved, but after looking it over carefully, she didn’t see anything and relaxed.
