I heard voices and footsteps, and soon the room was full of people. Boomer dropped down next to me, nudging me aside. “Hey, kid, whatcha got going on here?” he asked.
“She’s really hot, Boomer; I crushed up some Tylenol, but that’s all I knew how to do.”
He winked at me. “You did great, Gia, now introduce me to this beautiful lady so we can get better acquainted.”
“Maria, this is Boomer, and aside from his good looks, he will make you feel better real fast, I promise.”
“Gia, I’m gonna be sick,” she shrieked, trying to raise up. I slid an arm behind her, sitting her up just in time for her to vomit all over. It sprayed out of her and kept coming ‘til she was dry heaving, slumping over, and moaning in pain.
Boomer looked at me, and I said, “Sarah thinks Momma kicked her in the belly. She said that she spotted blood in her pee.”
He gently probed her belly, and she screamed. “Let’s get a line going and then let’s get her out of here as fast as we can. Someone Google the nearest hospital.”
Fighter replied, “I’m on it, Boomer.” Murph was ripping open packets for Boomer. “Breech is outside.” I could hear a car as he pulled up to the side door; he left the motor running.
Dukes was on the phone, and so was Sonny. I don’t know who they were talking to, but both of them had serious expressions, and Dukes looked pissed.
Maria didn’t even cry out when Boomer stuck her for the IV. Once the line was running, he scooped Maria off the floor and, with Murph holding the bag, walked quickly out the door to the waiting SUV. It took off with Breech at the wheel, Murph riding shotgun, and Boomer in the back with Maria.
Sarah slipped her hand in mine, looking up at me with a tear-stained face. “Maria’s gonna be ok, isn’t she, Gia?”
I wiped the tears from her cheeks, hugging her close to me. “I don’t know, Sarah, but we are going to get her the best doctors we can find to help her get better.”
Another SUV pulled up, and Danko got out. “Dukes, Gears will drive, and I’ll take Breech’s bike.” Dukes raised his hand that he heard Danko but continued his conversation on the phone. Sonny came out of the house carrying Petey. He opened the back door and strapped him into a car seat that the guys had remembered to bring. Sarah got in on the other side but started crying.
I slid in next to her. “What’s the matter, Sarah? Are you hurt anywhere?”
She shook her head no, but the tears continued to fall. “You going to take us back to Momma now?” she asked in a quivering voice.
“Honey, no, Momma will never touch you again. These men won’t let her. I promise.” I took her shivering little body into my arms and rocked her gently.
Sonny stood in the open door and reached in to soothe her hair. “Believe her, Sarah. You are safe now, sweetheart. You and Petey will never go back to Momma.” She continued to sniffle, but the shivering had stopped. Sonny closed the door, and the truck started to move. I heard the bikes start up behind us and knew Sonny, Danko, and Dukes were following us.
It was a short ride to the hospital, and when we pulled into the parking lot, we were able to get a spot pretty close to the ER door. I could see a police car in the bay, and I recognized Deputy Weathers getting out. Sonny had dismounted and walked up to him, and I could see him gesturing towards us. By the time I unstrapped Petey from his car seat, both Sonny and the deputy had disappeared into the ER.
The little boy gripped my hand tightly, and Sarah was holding on just as tight to my other hand. The poor kids were so scared that they were going back to Momma. I could smell urine, and I knew that Petey had peed his pants, something I’m sure he hadn’t done for quite some time.
Once inside the ER, Sonny motioned us over. He was standing with Dukes and the deputy. I steered the kids in his direction, stopping next to Sonny. Petey immediately hid behind me, and Sarah wouldn’t look at the officer. I could see the moment of comprehension when the deputy looked at Petey then immediately looked at Sonny and back again.
“There’s more here than you’ve been telling me, Mr. De Campo. Why don’t we all sit down and sort this out.”
We moved into the waiting room, and Dukes took the lead. “We don’t know who Momma is or that she was mistreating these children. We didn’t even know they existed until they stole Gia’s phone at the fair. Sonny has been looking for his biological child for the last few years, and we have the records to prove it. It was just dumb luck that he was part of this grift. I’m waiting on a call back from the Lieutenant Governor to have these kids placed in a facility close to us ‘til we can work out a permanent solution.”
Sarah had been following the conversation, and she shyly pulled on Dukes’s pant leg. He kneeled down so he was eye level with her and asked, “What can I do for you, sweetheart?” She whispered in Dukes’s ear. Looking up from his kneeling position, he said, “The young lady thinks her family will be moving on now that the fair is almost over.”
He looked back at Sarah. “This is Deputy Weathers. He just needs to get some information about you and Petey and Maria. Anything you can tell us would really help us keep you safe and away from them. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head yes, and Dukes picked her up and sat her in a chair at the table. He sat down next to her, and they began asking her questions. Petey had climbed up into Sonny’s lap and fallen asleep against his chest.
I smiled at Sonny and bent down near his head. “I’m going to go check on Maria; I’ll be back in few minutes.”
He nodded his head that he understood and I moved to stand up. He grabbed my arm to stop me. He just stared at me, unable to verbalize what he was feeling.
Reaching out, I ran my hand through his short cropped hair. “Don’t worry, Sonny, you got this. He trusts you, or he wouldn’t have fallen asleep so fast. He’s safe and here with you now; the rest will work itself out.”
Bending down again, I kissed him softly. Walking over to Sarah, I interrupted and explained that I was going to go check on Maria, but that she and Petey would be safe here with Dukes and Sonny. She seemed frightened until Dukes shifted her onto his lap and she cuddled against him. I told them I’d be back and left them to their questions.
Nineteen
When Gia walked out of the room and the door closed, Petey shifted in my arms but didn’t wake up. I looked down at his dirty face.
I could see the tracks his tears had made, and I swore he would never cry from fear or neglect again. I don’t know how or why he was thrown in my path again considering how long and hard I had hunted for him. The thought of him being taken away from me again made me involuntarily tighten my hold around him. He grunted, and I relaxed my grip before he woke up.
Dukes sat opposite me with Sarah, and the deputy was asking her questions. “My name is Deputy Bill, and I need to ask you if you know where Momma is now.”
Sarah shook her head no. Her hair slid in front of her face and she impatiently pushed it back, tucking a lock of it behind her ears. “Momma doesn’t like to stay long after one place closes. She says we need to get ahead of the next one so she can send out scouts.”
“How many are in your family?” he asked her.
“Well, there’s Momma and her boyfriend Ed. He stinks and chews that yucky stuff that he spits in a cup, and his breath always smells. I hate it when he hugs me. Then there is Jordan and Bobby—they are the ones Momma sends to scout. Jordan also helps me and Maria take baths, and she knows how to braid my hair real good. Plus she doesn’t pull on it like Momma does. Then it’s Maria, me, and Petey.”
“That’s great, Sarah. You’re doing wonderful. Do you and Maria and Petey go to school? What about Jordan and Bobby, do they go to school too?”
“Nah, Momma says we ain’t got time for that. Oops.” She slapped her hands over her mouth and looked panicked. “Please don’t tell Momma I told y
ou that, Deputy Bill. I’m supposed to say we get homeschooled, and I forgot.”
“It’s ok, honey. Whatever you tell me stays between us. Momma will never know, I promise.” She didn’t look too convinced, so he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but since you told me, I’ll trust you to keep my secret. My daughter says that I’m the only one she tells her secrets to because I always keep them and I don’t tell her mom, even if it means it gets me in trouble.”
Sarah’s eyes got real big with fear. “Do you punish your daughter with a belt when she lies like Momma does, Deputy Bill?” she asked.
His lips tightened for a second, but he answered her gently. “No, darlin’, I would never hurt my little girl like that. We talk about why she felt she had to lie to me and whether it was a big lie or a little lie. Then we come to a decision on what would be the best punishment for that lie, such as no TV or no dessert. Parents should never hurt a child, no matter what they do, sweetheart. That’s the way I was raised, and that’s the way I’m raising my babies.”
She looked at him, eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “I’m sorry, Deputy Bill, I don’t understand what you mean by hurt. Momma says she’s not hurting us, she’s teaching us. Life isn’t fair, and we have to get used to being kicked because that’s all there is in life. Her word is the only word, and there is no excuse for a lie, period.” She turned to Dukes and asked, “Do you have kids, Mr. Dukes? Do you think Deputy Bill is right, that we can keep each other’s secrets?”
“I don’t have kids, Sarah, but I’ve got brothers, and if we didn’t keep each other’s secrets we wouldn’t be good brothers, now would we?” He cut his eyes to me, and I knew he was talking about the child I held in my arms.
“He’s right, Sarah; Dukes is my brother, and I have told him many secrets over the years, and he’s never told another soul what I told him,” I said.
She seemed to be thinking about what we said, and then she turned back to Deputy Bill. Settling back against Dukes’s chest, she said, “Ok then, Deputy Bill, I will do my best to answer your questions, and I know you promise not to tell Momma I told you.” She seemed proud but scared at the same time because she was holding onto Dukes’s hand really tight.
“Sarah, is Momma your birth mother?” Deputy Bill asked her.
“No sir, Momma had a son, but he died a long time ago. She got all of us from the orphanage or foster care.”
“How old are you, Sarah, and how long have you been with Momma?”
“I’m ten, and I been with her for a long-long time.”
“Can you tell me how long a long-long time is in years, Sarah?”
She screwed up her face and though hard. “I think it might be three birthdays, Deputy Bill, but it could be four.”
I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I asked her, “What about Petey, Sarah? How long has he been with you and Momma?”
She looked over at me. “Are you mad at me? Did I say something wrong?” She looked like she was about to cry.
“Ahh, no, honey, I’m not mad at all. You’re doing such a good job answering the questions. I just got impatient and shouldn’t have sounded angry. I am sorry for frightening you.”
She seemed relieved and replied, “It’s ok, I know you didn’t mean it. Petey wouldn’t sleep like that if he didn’t trust you. He usually only sleeps good when he’s with Maria and me. We hold his hand and keep him between us ‘til he falls asleep. He’s only been with us since 4th of July, and I remember that because he was so afraid of the loud firecrackers. We got some sparklers from the lady next door and showed him how to hold it with a plastic cup backward so he wouldn’t get the sparks on him and he loved it.”
“Thanks for telling me, Sarah. If I can ask one more question—do you know where Momma got Petey from?”
She smiled. “That’s easy. We were in Cooperstown working the Baseball Hall of Fame crowds, and Momma got him from Father John at Saint Joseph’s orphanage. He said Petey’s mom died and left him alone.”
Sonny paled, but he said, “Thank you so much, Sarah, that helps a lot.”
She beamed at him. “You’re welcome.”
“Sarah,” Deputy Bill said, “you said that you didn’t know where Momma was now, but do you know where you were living while you were working the fair?”
“Momma rented a house on Peony Street. It’s green with a mailbox shaped like a house. All the streets around there were named after flowers. That’s how I knew about the empty house on Magnolia.”
The door clicked open, and Gia walked in. “Sarah, Maria is awake, and she wants to see you; do you want to go with me to see her?”
She turned to Dukes. “Thank you for letting me sit with you, Mr. Dukes, but I gotta go see how Maria is now.” She turned to Deputy Bill and said, “Remember your promise.”
He held up two fingers and said, “On my honor, I will remember. She smiled, took Gia’s hand, and they left the room.
“I wanna fucking choke the life out of that woman and her sleazeball boyfriend,” Duke raged.
Deputy Bill laughed. “I’ll pretend, as an officer of the law, that I didn’t just hear you threaten to kill someone. But as a person, I agree with you, which I will deny saying ‘til my dying breath. I’m going to go back to the station house and write this up. It should take me about an hour or so then I’ll be on my way to the Peony Street house,” he said, standing up. He held out his hand to Dukes and nodded to me before leaving the room.
Dukes took out his phone and speed dialed a number. “Breech, we’re in the waiting room, get your ass in here,” he said before he hung up. “We aren’t going to have a lot of time to toss the place, Sonny. At least we have some intel on where she got him, but I’m not counting on getting too much more.”
The door swung open, and Breech strolled in. “Hey, Prez, where’s the fire?”
“Breech, we have to do recon on a house close to here, but we don’t have a lot of time. Danko rode your bike here. We’re heading out in five.”
“You got it, boss, meet you at the bikes.”
I’d texted Gia, and a minute later she came through the door. “Sarah is with Maria, but I don’t want to leave them alone for long.” She came to me, and I carefully handed her Petey. He woke up for a second but she shushed him, and he put his head down on her shoulder and snuggled down.
“Thank you, Gia. We have to go see what we can find out about Momma, but we will be back soon. Danko and Murph will stay with you and the kids.”
“No worries, Sonny, we got this.” She reached up and kissed me softly. I wanted to deepen the kiss, but with her holding my son it would have been difficult, so I accepted her kiss and let her step away. She carried the boy to the door, and without turning around, she said, “Do what you need to do, Sonny, we’ll be here when you get back.” The door closed softly behind her.
Dukes cleared his throat, snapping me back to reality. “Let’s ride, Dukes, I want to hang that bitch, but first we gotta find her.” We strode out to the parking lot where Breech was waiting, fired up the bikes, and rode out.
Twenty
I was sitting in a large chair with Petey sleeping on my lap, coloring with Sarah with the crayons and books the nurses had brought us. Maria had been in pain, and they gave her some meds to make her sleep. She had severely bruised kidneys but no internal bleeding. The doctors didn’t think she required surgery. They kept her sedated to help with the pain, and they were monitoring her fluids.
One of the nurses had brought me kid-sized scrubs, and we had washed and changed Petey. They had scrounged up some turkey sandwiches and milk for them both, and after some cartoons, Petey had fallen back to sleep.
Sarah looked over at me then back at the picture she was coloring. “Gia, what color is Owlette again?”
She was coloring in a PJ Mask book and had just changed to an Owlette pa
ge. “She’s red, Sarah. But you can make her any color you want.”
“I know, but I wanna keep her the color she is on the TV. I got to watch the show a couple times because Petey loves it. Momma didn’t like us watching a lot of TV. She said our times is better spent doing chores and staying out of her way. I like to color and play with my Barbie doll, so I didn’t miss watching TV so much, but Petey loves it. He loves his ’toons, and he was always making us turn on the TV when Momma wasn’t around.”
“Sarah, you and Maria really took care of Petey, didn’t you? I mean, Momma didn’t seem to really want to have little kids around.”
“Well, not really. She taught us to be good around the people so we could take their stuff for her.” She looked up at me. “I didn’t really want to take your phone because you were so good to Petey. But we hadn’t been doing so good at the fair that day, and I knew Momma would be really pissed that we hadn’t gotten as much stuff as she asked for. I never seen her get so mad like she did at Maria; she beat up on her before, but not like that.”
“Was it just Maria that she beat up on, honey, or did she hit all of you?”
Sarah stopped coloring and looked at me. She tilted her head and pushed her hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture. “Yeah, she could be pretty mean when she didn’t get what she wanted. But no, it was not just Maria. I got some places on me that she got a pretty good lick in. But Petey hasn’t been there long enough for her to really get hurt yet. I mean, a smack upside his head is getting off easy, you know.”
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