Rogan opened his palms, showing me his hands. As he sat down he said, “I knew that was you in the hospital. That amnesia thing?”
I shrugged. “Faked it from the start. You drilled down on me pretty hard, though.”
“You got your kid to deny it was you. How’d you pull that off?”
“I didn’t. Matt did that on his own.”
“To protect you.”
“After a fashion. Matt refused to believe that I did those things. That’s why he couldn’t identify me.”
“How’re you gonna explain that one?”
“I already did,” I snapped. “Look, we ain’t got much time. Those cops are gonna start wondering why you ain’t coming round the bend any minute now. This is the laptop I told you about.” I handed it to him, screen open showing thumbnails of the images and videos stored on the hard drive. He took it from me, swearing softly.
I hit return and brought up the video with the judge’s daughter. “This is the one that caught my attention. That’s Rawles’s kid. Looks about the same age as she was in the photograph in her mom’s chamber. I don’t know who the guy is, but I’d start by asking Daddy what he knows.”
“Press is gonna have a field day with this one.”
“And well they should. You had a corrupt judge signing off on taking people’s kids away, putting them in the foster system.” I switched windows to the email chain and showed him the line where BigDaddy08 told Smoothtalker to have Parker collect the kids from the foster families. “From the foster system, this guy Parker would pick up the kids and bring them to Smoothtalker, who was none other than Gill Warner. I’m not sure how BigDaddy08 was involved yet. He might’ve been the ringleader. At one time he worked as a clerk in the county court, so maybe that’s how he was selecting the families. At least at first.”
“How’d you come across all this?”
“That girl I kidnapped from the hospital, Melissa Cooper? BigDaddy08 was her stepfather. He’d been molesting her. I found out about it and, well, you know me and my explosive temper.”
“Is that right?” When I nodded he said, “Next you’re gonna tell me she had nothing to do with it. Her trailer just blew up on its own.”
“No. I did that. After what they did to her, they deserved it.”
He scratched his ear. “Huh. About this Melissa Cooper. How much you know about her past?”
“I know enough.”
“You know she’s got a record?”
“She told me. Drugs. Shoplifting. Breaking and entering.”
“She tell you about her previous families?”
I swear I felt my heart stop.
Chapter 41
“What previous families?”
“She’s had three of them. Coopers are just her latest.”
“What are you talking about?”
He reached into his back pocket and drew out his iPhone. Pulling up a set of photographs, he showed me Mel as a young girl with a different family. “She was born Melissa Anderson. Abandoned at the hospital where she came into the world. No questions asked, due to the Abandoned Infant Protection Act. Three years in an orphanage, she was finally adopted by the Dells. Nice couple. After six months they turned her back in. Couldn’t manage her. She’d set fire to the living room. Psych eval said that Mrs. Dell’s new pregnancy was likely the precipitant. Two years later it was the Maxwells.” He flipped to a new image of an older Melissa standing to one side of a family of four. “She lasted four years. This is what’s left of their house.”
The next image showed the charred carcass of a colonial home.
“Both Maxwells, the two other kids and the family dog all perished in the fire. Little Melissa got out, she said, by climbing onto the roof and down a tree. They found her sitting on the ground about thirty feet away from the house, just watching it burn. Investigators never could determine the cause of the fire, so it was treated as accidental. Still, with her history, a full psychological profile was ordered. They returned a potential diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder with distinct sociopathic features. It seems she was upset they were going on a trip. She assumed they were leaving her behind—though God only knows where she got that idea. Something to do with abandonment issues.”
He flipped to a pdf document showing a diagnosis and treatment plan from a state agency. “At any rate, Melissa was supposed to go into court ordered therapy. But somehow she got adopted instead by the Coopers.”
“Who systematically abused her,” I interrupted, “and were running a porno ring out of their trailer.”
“I don’t know that.”
I tapped the computer. “What the hell do you call this?”
“I call this something that has been in Melissa Cooper’s possession. I don’t know if this is for real or not. Don’t know how clever the girl is or what she might’ve put together. Whole thing could be faked. What I do know is that Melissa Cooper has now had three homes destroyed. And all of them by fire. God help the next home she moves into. Now, you sure you want to tell me she had nothing to do with this last one?”
At that moment, my phone chirped. I pulled it out, studying the text from Melissa. I tasted bile. “She’s got my kids.”
He spun to me. “What?” I showed him the phone. He swore and dialed his men.
“Who’s got eyes on the kids?!” he demanded.
I scrolled through the contacts menu on my phone and pressed SEND. “See you around, Rogan. Be sure you follow up on that,” I said, pointing at the laptop.
He stuck his finger at me. “Wait a second. You’re not going anywhere. You’re under arrest!”
A sudden fizz with sparks flashed from the base and edges of the lion paddock’s glass enclosure. “Wanna bet?” I stepped forward and thrust at the glass wall with my foot. It rocked forward and fell to the ground with a crash. Inside the paddock, the lions sat up and took notice. Three of the females scampered down from their perch to investigate.
Rogan stared at the lions, swearing loudly.
“I think you’ll find the predators are loose,” I said as I turned up the path. “Might want to evacuate.”
With that, I hurried away.
Around the bend I leaped over the barrier to the Alpaca’s compound, stumbling down the embankment and rushing across the grass. On the far side rose the outer fence, beyond which lay a tree-lined slope and then a side road where, I hoped, Melissa waited in the car with my children.
As I stretched my pace across the field, Rogan’s words burned in my brain. I’d just put my children into the care of a sociopath, someone who’d killed her first two families and begged me into helping her do the same with her last. Unless, of course, Rogan was lying to me. There was only one way to find out.
I hit the chain-link fence at full speed and clawed my way to the top. Three lines of barbed wire ran in parallel rows angled away from me toward the ground below. The wire was meant to keep people from climbing in, not getting out. Behind me I could hear shouts and screams. I guessed the lions and other animals had found the breach I’d carved for them in their enclosures. I heard distant sirens wailing.
Grabbing the top wire, I didn’t hesitate, but vaulted over the side. My momentum swung me around to rebound against the other side of the chain link. I barely found purchase with my fingers before losing my grip, sliding toward the ground. I hit the earth and tried to roll, but struck a tree that knocked the wind out of me.
I lay there a full minute, groaning in pain, before hauling myself to my feet and picking my way down the embankment. At the edge of the trees beside the road I stopped. I put my hands on my knees, panting, and looked both ways down the street.
I didn’t see any sign of Mel.
Anxious, I pulled out my cell phone and called her. “Where are you?”
“I’m coming. It’s a little crazy out here. I guess some of the animals got loose?”
“Yep.”
“You have anything to do with that?”
“You remember how you said
the lions shouldn’t be caged up? Now they’re not.”
“Oh my God, you didn’t!”
“Guess what? You were right. They didn’t want to be caged up. You got my kids?”
“They’re safe.”
It wasn’t exactly the response I’d been hoping for. More of a non-answer, and it spoke volumes. “Where exactly?” I pressed.
“Hang on.”
She hung up on me. I was about to call her back when I saw the white Civic sweeping around a bend in the road. She pulled to a stop in front of me and threw open the door. I scrambled inside, slamming the door behind me. She left rubber on the road as we tore away from the zoo.
We were alone in the car.
“Where are my kids, Mel?”
“I told you. They’re safe.”
“Safe where?”
She gave me an apologetic smile. “I ran into a little snag. I couldn’t get them out.”
“What?”
“But it’s totally cool. I followed them to the CPS worker’s car. I got her license plate, make, color and model, and I’m pretty sure they’re headed back into the city.”
“Totally cool? What about that is totally cool with you?”
She hit her palm against the wheel. “They wouldn’t come with me! I tried, Gerrold. Honestly I tried. I told them I was with you, and your son took one look at me and sorta freaked out. I think it might’ve been the hair,” she added.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see her or the car, or the road peeling away ahead of us. How could I have come so close, risked so much, and wrought such destruction, and still be denied my kids?!
An ugly thought teased at the edges of my consciousness. What if Mel was doing this deliberately? What if everything Rogan had said about her was true, that she really was this sociopathic monster he’d said she was? I didn’t want to believe it. Refused to entertain it.
The thought persisted.
Maybe she was keeping my kids from me out of some sick desire to have me for herself. After all, she’d been the one to ask me to kill her family. She’d made advances on me in the motel room. She might’ve meant that kiss to be something more, and, stupidly, I’d thought it innocent and sweet. What a fool I’d been!
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We can catch up to them on the highway. I know a shortcut.”
I still said nothing. I didn’t dare give voice to my thoughts.
Mel pushed the accelerator to the floor, taking the curves in the road at such speeds that centrifugal force pushed me into the door. I found myself bracing against the dashboard in an effort to stay in my seat.
“There,” she said, pointing up the road. “Six car lengths past that bridge. The blue station wagon. See it?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, weaving through traffic in a bid to catch the station wagon, “what happens after you, you know, get your kids back?”
“We’ll go underground. Hide until my license arrives at Gill’s dead drop, and then get the hell out of Dodge.”
“And what about me?”
I looked at her, wondering where she was going with this. Was this the abandonment thing Rogan had mentioned?
“I’ve left you my house, so you can stay here and finish school.”
“I know, but… here’s the thing. Matt—what if Matt doesn’t want to come with you?”
“What?”
“I told you. He freaked out. He knows you’re coming for him and—he doesn’t want to go. Sara either. They said so.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was she making this up? “It’s not like he’s got much choice. I’m his father.”
“Yeah, but what are you going to do? Wrestle him in the car?”
“If I have to! Look, what would you suggest?”
“Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe we could just take off. You and I?”
I glared at her, my nostrils flaring. “We’re going to get my kids. And then we’re going to be done with this. I don’t want to hear another word of it.”
Mel opened her mouth to say something further, but a single shake of my head silenced her.
The station wagon was only two car lengths ahead now. A lane opened up on the left, but Mel stayed back.
“What are you waiting for? Get alongside her and force her to pull over.”
“Gerrold, please don’t do this,” she said. She was crying. I felt heat flush my cheeks. Those tears might’ve worked before, but they weren’t going to do anything for me now.
“Either pull alongside her or pull over and let me out. I am done with this. I am not your father. You have no claim on me. They do!”
“Gerrold—”
“Now!” I pulled the gun out of my pocket for emphasis. Mel’s eyes flashed briefly in anger, and then registered disappointment. She pressed her lips into a thin line, but still they quivered.
The Civic lurched forward into the left lane, and we came along side the station wagon. I tapped my revolver against the window when the CPS worker looked at me and bellowed, “Pull over!”
She looked frightened, glancing back at my children, who both stared at me from the back seat in equal fear. Mel sped up a bit more and veered in front, forcing the car off the road.
I dashed from the seat as soon as we came to a stop and pointed my gun at the woman behind the windshield. She put her hands up, surrendering.
I hurried alongside the vehicle, bellowing for my kids to get out of the car. Neither Matt nor Sara moved from their seats. Hot tears stained their cheeks, and they clung to each other, recoiling from me. I felt my insides turn to ice.
And I didn’t want to scare them anymore.
Dimly, I became aware of shouting. Voices calling out to me. Telling me to put down the gun and step away from the car. Matthew continued to stare at me, raw fear etched in his eyes. Sara, too. That same expression. How could they have turned against me? After all I’d done for them? How could—?
“Put down the gun now!”
I turned my head, looking left, then right. Surrounding me on all sides stood men with guns and badges.
I blinked and released the gun. It was over.
Epilogue
The trial came and went more quickly than I’d thought possible. It still took a year, but it felt like no time at all. My own son took the stand and testified against me, giving the jury a fairly accurate recollection of my phone conversations with him. Sara was deemed too young to testify. The worst cut of all, I thought, was when he allowed the prosecution to portray me as a domineering, authoritarian personality who never showed love. Matt didn’t raise a syllable in my defense. I don’t know if I can forgive him for that. As it turns out, my sister and brother-in-law failed in their bid to win custody of my children. Someone in the system must’ve guessed or figured that I gleaned information about the Bauers from them. Regardless, my children were still in the care of the State, and I could do nothing more about it. I only prayed that they stayed off the radar of the pornography ring. Maybe I’d spooked those roaches enough that they’d at least leave my kids unmolested.
My lawyer, Bill Jefferson, highlighted my glowing military career, and attempted to explain my actions as a consequence of undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, exacerbated by the death of my wife. He suggested privately that I submit to a psychological evaluation, but I refused. I didn’t want some State-funded shrink poking around in my head.
Melissa testified against me as well, though I could tell by the way she spoke that she didn’t want to. Her pink hair was gone now, replaced with a sensible auburn color, probably on the advice of counsel. She faced charges of her own and in the end was sentenced to a downstate treatment facility. I didn’t see her at the trial again after that.
I think now that she was trying to warn me in the car. The FBI had leaped at her as soon as she’d knocked on Misty’s door that night after leaving the motel, threatening all kinds of charges against her if she didn’t cooperate. Everything
that happened at the zoo after that was some part of an elaborate sting operation. That was why she’d come back. Since I hadn’t told Mel my plans for opening the lion paddock, the feds had to stay at a distance in case I’d wired the place to explode.
Her offer in the car was genuine, but she was wearing a wire and couldn’t risk telling me anything openly.
I don’t blame her. In the end, she did what she needed to do to survive. I only hope she’s able to have something resembling a normal life once she gets out.
I waited in vain for any sign that Rogan acted on the information I gave him, but the few newspapers I was permitted to read made no mention of the child sex trafficking ring I’d uncovered. I learned later that he’d come into money and retired to Palm Beach after testifying against me. I have lingering suspicions about that, but it’s out of my hands.
So now I sit in an orange jumpsuit in the back of a van, being driven to the maximum security penitentiary in Auburn. I’ve earned three consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.
A sudden explosion tears the wheels off the van and it tips over onto one side, hurling me against the wall. The back door pops open, and in the bright sunlight, I see Melissa standing there, pink hair glistening, holding the detonator in one hand, just like I taught her. My heart swells with pride as I step out to freedom.
I blink, and it’s gone. The van continues on its way, and soon I’m frog-marched into an eight foot cell. To my right is a steel frame bunk bed with a thin, woolen blanket and lumpy pillow. I have a sink and a toilet, and a small table that is fastened to the wall. Everything looks barren and cold; and I don’t want to be there. The clang of the bars sliding shut tells me I’m never getting out.
My fate was sealed the moment those agents showed up at my door with that damn warrant, threatening to dump my son’s milk. As I think of it now, I feel like crying, but there’s no point. Instead, I climb on top of the bed and lie down, and stare at the ceiling.
This is my life now. I’d better get used to it.
***
Spilled Milk, no. 1 Page 24