by Alec Peche
Olivia leaned a little less into Natalie and the terror level in her eyes seemed to drop and she nodded.
“To you remember trick or treating with me on Halloween? You were a big fluffy butterfly and I was an ugly bumblebee.”
“You weren't ugly daddy, you were just trying to be a bee,” Olivia said as she leaned into her father for a hug.
Natalie was wiping tears from the corner of her eyes, convinced that this child belonged to this man after those stories. She looked down the street to see a woman running toward them with tears streaming down her face. Natalie tapped the father so he could brace for the mother practically flying at them. She was sure that the mother had the same briefing as the father and so stepped into the woman's path saying, “Olivia, this is your mommy, and she's going to tell you some stories just like your daddy did.”
Jessica Roth paused and knelt down to be below the level of her daughter's eyes and said, “Remember that Saturday when you and I went for manicures and pedicures? I got a boring color of red, but you had lime green glow in the dark fingers and toes?”
With this final memory the damn broke for the child as she was reunited with her real parents. There was a road ahead as these three rediscovered their lives, each other, and themselves. There would be psychologists to help, but first, they needed to get a statement from Olivia as to her experience with Jennifer Shields.
After a long emotional evening, law enforcement had surprisingly matching stories from Olivia Roth and Jennifer Shields. The girl had not been harmed or abused during her stay with Ms. Shields who had abducted her in revenge to Jessica Roth. She had no intent to harm the child, instead she wanted to cause the mother to have emotional distress. It seemed that Jessica Roth had been an attorney involved with the case of Tammy Shields, Jennifer's mother. Jennifer had been living abroad and hadn't realized that her mother had suffered from a sharp decline in her health. The county had been unable to reach Jennifer and forced her mother into a skilled nursing facility where she died two months later. Despite the evidence of severe and fast dementia, Jennifer blamed the government for her mother's death. She targeted Jessica Roth as she was the attorney that filed the paperwork on her mother to transfer guardianship to the government. She had stalked Jessica for awhile watching her routine and understanding what was important to her so that Jennifer could take it away as her mother had been taken away.
Everyone believed that Olivia Shields was Olivia Roth, but law enforcement went a step farther to confirm through DNA testing that they were indeed related. Olivia had been home-schooled and seemed to meet all of the child development milestones, and there were no signs of abuse. Jennifer Shields had no criminal history and her behavior was hard to understand. She said she quickly began to regret stealing Olivia, but couldn't figure out how to return the child without being arrested and so she'd lived with the ax about to drop on her head at any moment for the past five years. She'd been deep in grief over the death of her mother when she developed the plan to steal Olivia, and once she looked back at her theft of the little girl, she'd been horrified at her own behavior.
Natalie just shook her head over the senselessness of the crime and the damaged lives. She was happy to go home to her husband of over thirty years and her lucky family. Lucky because despite some of the horrible things she'd seen through her years as a detective, none of it had befallen her family.
Chapter 14
Damian and the two women arrived home at nearly one in the morning, but the bone-weary tiredness was worth it. Hermione declared the day, her best ever. That pronouncement was followed by immediate guilt.
“I don't mean to say that I didn't have great days with mom and dad.”
“We know what you mean sweetie,” Ariana said. “Fantasialand is rather special, and you had a wonderful time there as did Damian and I.”
“If I'd known how much you would love the park and the fact that you had never been there, we would have taken you sooner,” Damian said. “At the moment I just feel guilty over taking you out of school.”
“Actually, I'm probably speaking for all of my classmates by saying we're willing to be held at knifepoint by a stalker every month if we know a trip to Fantasialand will occur over the next few days.”
“I'd rather not risk your life again,” Ariana said, “but since you're a teenager I get your meaning that you would sacrifice a lot for a visit to Fantasialand. We'll plan a trip again when you're not in school. Your teachers and soccer coach gave you this one mental health day, but they won't give you another unless it's for another tragic event, and Damian and I would be lousy parents if we allowed that to happen to you on a regular basis.”
“Yes, I know and for your information, I'm fully recovered. I had no nightmares about your stalker last night.”
“It's not always that easy. You might have flashbacks in the future, like maybe when I'm cutting up fish for the cats and see the knife.”
“Maybe, but I haven't had any flashbacks from the men breaking into my parent's house and taking them away. I wonder where my parents are, but I don't relive the terror of running into the safe room.”
“You're an amazing kid,” Ariana said. “You'll be even more amazing if you're awake for school in five hours.”
Hermione just smiled and headed to her bedroom, Miguel following her to take up watch at the foot of her bed.
Ariana gave Damian a hug and he exited her home walking toward the dock where his boat was parked. It had been a very long day for him, and she hoped he wouldn't fall asleep while steering his boat. Fortunately, he had the fast boat and would be home in less than fifteen minutes.
Damian steered across the dark bay. It was brisk and beautiful. A rare night with a full moon and no fog to spoil the view of the San Francisco skyline. The bright lights of the Bay Bridge on his right, the Golden Gate Bridge behind him, and the Richmond San Rafael Bridge were guiding his way home. He'd read the account of Olivia's reunification with her parents in a brief email from Natalie, and was very satisfied with his role in solving the kidnapping. He and Mark were happy that Natalie had been able to keep their names and methodology out of the press.
He felt the need to say a few words to Jen and his girls about his days' accomplishment. He stopped his boat a moment to look to the stars. The silence was calming and so gazed at the stars above imaging a star for his wife and two girls. He silently transmuted a message to them. They were loved, they were in his thoughts, he had a great day taking another little girl to Fantasialand, and most of all they'd be proud of him for finding the data to reunite Olivia Roth with her parents. He finished his message, wishing them a great future in heaven or on the stars wherever their souls were now located. He stared a few more seconds at the sky and thought he saw the stars in the Scorpius constellation twinkle back at him in acknowledgment. He laughed aloud at his imagination restarted the boat and continued his journey home to the island in a lighter frame of mind than perhaps he'd been in years.
After docking his boat and bringing it inside his watercraft boathouse, he walked through his lab and ascended the stairs. Opening the front door, he found Bailey and Bella nearby standing sentry duty on his island. He invited them inside for a fish dinner and twenty minutes later found them curled up on the window seat in his bedroom ready to tuck it in for the night.
Chapter 15
Damian went to the warehouse the next day. He knew he needed to visit the Superior Court building in San Francisco to confront James Spinnaker, but he lacked the energy to get up early to travel to San Francisco to be there at James Spinnaker's usual arrival time. After checking in with his employees, he had a team meeting to discuss Olivia Roth. He played a news station's coverage of the case.
“If we can get this dye right, we could prevent the agony parents and children go through during their separation. We need a way to create a code of some type that sends out a signal worldwide for five years, and that can be used where ever the child lives. So if a child is abducted to Mexico, Canad
a, Europe, or the Caribbean, our technology will still work. So imagine the factors here – unique to each child, works in all geographies, and stays in place for say five years.”
“Does it work off satellite technology or cellular?” Chris asked.
“For it to work in all geographies it needs to be connected to a satellite I think,” Haley replied.
“For the team that works on this, I don't want you to have any restrictions, so I would say it needs to work with satellites. Parents want a guarantee that it will work in any location barring something like a cave or mine. We can't control for that. We also likely can't control for steel or other materials that block the GPS signal. Let's not create a design that will work in all situations all over the world rather let's design for the recovery of say fifty to seventy percent of the missing kids,” Damian said.
“Speaking as a parent, I'd be happy to know that I can't lose Jacob to the world for the most common situations. I'd rather get a fifty percent product on the market and have some peace of mind now, then waiting five years and my boy's been in captivity for some reason, and I've not known where he is,” Lily said.
There was silence in the room before Haley said, “I think those are pretty clear cut marching orders from Jacob's mom.”
“You know Damian, I would take some of that green dye now and slather it on Jacob every day until a better product comes along.”
“You're that worried?” Angus asked.
“I am. This world is filled with crazy people,” Lily replied.
“Well the dye has only one signal, so I can cover one kid, but maybe I'll cover all of the kids whose parents work here. I can supply the product and for privacy's sake, I'll keep the signal detector pass-coded and in my safe so that I'm the only one watching the id's location.”
“Since I'm the team lead and I need to observe the properties of the current version, I say that I get the passcode to the signal,” Lily said.
Damian thought through her request and nodded, “Okay I'll turn the technology over to you and you can make arrangements to distribute the product to the staff that works here. I'll use my current bottle for Hermione, but I'll leave the recipe for you to manufacture and distribute while we work to improve the product.”
Lily gave him a blinding smile and said, “Awesome. Thank you for trusting me. I won't let you down.”
“I know,” Damian replied quietly. Lily had worked for him less than a year and had served time for a bank robbery conviction. She'd done her time, was very smart and wanted to raise her son Jacob. He had no worries about her trustworthiness as she wanted a future as Jacob's mother.
The meeting ended shortly and he decided to hack into the phone company while he was at work to see what James Spinnaker's phone's usage had been recently. He thought about going over to the office building that afternoon, but that could be a complete waste of time. The cellphone carrier data showed he was far more consistent on his arrival time than his departure time.
It was interesting how the phone traveled around the bay area over the past couple of days. In addition to visiting a home in Oakland, Mr. Spinnaker also visited the Ports of Oakland and San Francisco. Damian wondered if those were meetings or if he had employees that he was supervising. He also made several visits to an address in the Mission District that looked like a thrift store.
Damian opened Google Earth to view the storefront and thought it was odd, but Mr. Spinnaker had an unusual job as a Department of Homeland Security supervisor. Maybe the Department was looking for space to expand offices. The more he thought about it, the more he felt he was wrong. It looked like a run-down building, not near any Homeland Security activity in San Francisco. Perhaps he should find out what the interest was at that location. It was the only site that was repetitively visited. Was it possible that this was where Hermione's parents were living?
He decided he would drop in on the storefront in the late afternoon to see what was happening there and to look for Hermione's parents. He needed that information before he confronted James Spinnaker in case it was a part of the scenario. He did a search of the address to see if anything came up in the news – perhaps a sale of the property or an announcement of a new business opening. Instead, he found police and news reports of an illegal casino. Did Homeland Security monitor illegal gambling operations? He looked at the data and decided it was likely that James Spinnaker was a gambler himself. Why else would he spend hours inside a dilapidated storefront. Still Damian planned to visit the site in the late afternoon. He'd wear some different clothing, sunglasses, and try to look like a tech employee gambling in the off hours. Checking the times that Spinnaker usually dropped by, he calculated he would have to leave in about three hours to make it to the location in question.
His phone rang and he connected the call. “Hi Natalie, it looks like your case concluded with an optimal ending.”
“Yes it did. No one was injured, the child is safe with her parents and the suspect confessed. That's all a cop can ask for. I'm being pressured by the department to arrange a meeting with you so that we can revise our procedure of how we go about looking for lost children. I know you don't want to be identified, nor does Mark, but it's such a spectacular closing of a cold case that I'm having a hard time resisting the FBI and my chiefs.”
“Well, keep trying Natalie. I'm still not interested in being identified.”
“I knew you would say that, but you looked at this case from a completely different angle than any of us. You read the approach we take to locating lost kids. I think we could learn a lot by understanding how your brain works.”
“Sorry Natalie, not interested.”
“Okay, would you allow me to interview you tomorrow about the process you went through in thinking about where the child could have gone and how 'big data' as I think you call it, plays a role in locating kids?”
He sighed and said, “Okay, but you don't need to interview me. I'll send you the names of the computer resources that the FBI and perhaps the SJPD can use to find the next child along with a few thoughts.”
“Thank you Damian. I know you didn't want to be involved, so I'm just trying to find a tidbit to throw at my colleagues.”
“I understand the pressure you're under, but I'd rather spend all of my time preventing abductions than chasing after every missing child.”
“Got it and thanks.”
Damian sighed after he ended the call, but went to work creating the cheat sheet for Natalie's needs on where to look and who to hire. Thirty minutes later it was on its way to Natalie.
He was about to turn back to see if there was anything more he could learn about illegal casinos in San Francisco when he saw a call from Pete.
“Hi Pete.”
“I know it's been less than a week since you told me about your first-floor warehouse space, but I'm ready to sign a lease agreement with you.”
“Really, that was quick!” Damian said. “Did you have enough time to research the location?”
“Since we talked, I've been doing nothing but that! New condos are going up a block from your warehouse, and I spoke with people in the neighborhood to find out where they eat and drink, and there's a real need here. Just as important, you've been a great business partner for my liquor software and with an excellent partner I can build a business almost anywhere.”
“Pete, this is a big venture, but you sound ready to march forward. Let me have Ariana draw up a business contract. I'll specify the square footage in the lease cost and a start date and we'll take it from there.”
“Thanks, Damian, for suggesting your warehouse; it was a brilliant choice. Once I get your contract, I'll work out a plan for the opening of the bar.”
“Sounds good. I could lend another resource to you once you're in that planning stage. Lily on my staff does project management and she could sit down with you and plan out what it will take to open the restaurant. Speaking of which, do you mind if I tell the staff about your second location?”
�
��Go ahead! Tell any of them that the beer is on the house tonight if they want to drop in and toast. They're exactly the people I want to appeal to with this new location, and it will be good to pick their brains, and I'll take Lily's help whenever you can release her for a few days.”
Damian ended the call and called Ariana to tell her the news and to get the contract for Pete going. He'd told them about it at Fantasialand, and Hermione especially was looking forward to eating at Pete's when she did her summer internship. As it was the end of January, he was pretty sure the restaurant would not be open in time to serve her in June. Pete had permits and construction ahead, and all of that would take time.”
It was time to leave to go and explore the casino and so he stopped by his staff before leaving.
“Guys, I have good news. We're moving upstairs within the month. Pete is going to build a second location of his bar on this floor.” Damian announced but before he could finish there were hoots and cheers at the good news.
“How did that come about?” Haley asked grinning. “I didn't realize you were planning to rent the bottom floor of the warehouse, not that I'm not pleased! We need to have Ariana set up a deduction in our paychecks to pay Pete on a monthly basis as I'm sure we'll be hitting both the restaurant and the bar.”
“I stopped in on Saturday to look at our progress on the various projects, but first I swung by Pete's for a cheeseburger. He told me he was looking for a second location and I just sort of volunteered the bottom floor here cautioning him to research the neighborhood as just the eight or ten of us can't solely support him. So he did the research and just told me he wants to build here. I'm a little worried that he didn't do enough research, but when we chatted he seemed to know this neighborhood and the changes that are coming. Lily, I offered him your services as a project manager to help him set up an opening date. I have to run over to San Francisco to do some research and so if you want to knock off early and go congratulate Pete, he said drinks for you guys are on him today.”