by Nicole Fox
“Umm, I don’t know.” Opal’s face fell and she looked intently at her game piece. “I think it’s your turn.”
Every time he tried to get her to talk, she brought the subject back to the game. He decided to try a different method. Maybe if she felt more comfortable with him in general, she’d talk more.
“What’s your teacher like?” he asked.
A big grin stretched across her face. “Miss Snyder is the best. She’s so nice and fun, and always helps me understand math when it’s not making sense.”
“It never makes sense to me,” he confessed. “Too many numbers moving all around.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I like reading better.”
“I always liked science. And gym class. Do you like gym?”
“Sometimes. Games are fun, but the boys can be mean.”
“Really?” He pretended to look surprised. This was the perfect in, though. This is what he’d been hoping for. “That’s not good. How are they mean?”
“They throw the ball too hard.”
“Did they ever hurt you?”
“Sometimes. I don’t like playing dodge ball with them. They’re not supposed to aim for the head, but they always do, and then when the gym teacher yells at them, they just say, ‘Oh, it was an accident, I didn’t throw it right.’ But they’re lying.”
“Lying isn’t good. Had anyone else ever hurt you?”
She shrugged again. “I guess.”
“Like your mommy or daddy?”
“Not really. I don’t know.”
“Not really?” He didn’t want to press her too hard, but he needed to know she would be able to talk to the CPS guy and tell him the truth. “It’s okay to tell the truth. No one here is going to hurt you.”
“I know that.”
“But did your daddy ever hurt you?”
She was quiet for a long time, then said, “Hey, when did you get the gumdrop card? I don’t remember that. Are you cheating?”
“Me? No way! I would never do that.” He flipped his cards over to show her the one with the little gumdrop. Maybe she would eventually see that she could trust him. But would she trust this Nicholas guy when he came back?
Later that night, he lay in bed beside Vanessa, talking about it. “I’m just worried she’ll do the same thing with Nicholas and not talk.”
“Hopefully when he comes back, and we’ll be there, we can help her tell the truth. If I’m saying it’s okay, that might make a difference. She doesn’t know you, so you saying it’s okay to tell the truth isn’t going to be as meaningful.”
“Right. I hope that’s all it takes.” He reached over to pull her close and kiss her.
On Saturday morning, after they’d finished breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Vanessa looked to Hunter with wide, terrified eyes. He waited for her to put the plan into place. Get Opal out of the room so he could answer the door, just in case it was Jeremy or someone coming to take her.
Vanessa took her into the bedroom and Hunter pulled out his gun, then loaded a bullet in the chamber. He stood facing the door and shouted, “Who is it?”
“Nicholas Johnson, from Child Protective Services.”
Hunter reset the gun and put it back in his pocket, then unlocked the door. He stuck out his hand to shake Nicholas’s. “Hiya,” he said. “Let me get Vanessa and Opal.”
Hunter closed the door behind Nicholas and called out for Vanessa as he went to the bedroom. “He’s here,” he said to her when he entered the room.
“Okay.” Vanessa blew out a breath. “Opal, a man is here to talk to you, okay?”
Opal looked confused, but Vanessa took her hand and led her out to the living room.
“You must be Opal,” Nicholas said, crouching down.
She nodded and put her hands behind her back.
“My name is Nicholas. Is it okay if we sit down and talk for a few minutes?”
Opal looked to Vanessa. “Go ahead, honey. You can sit down, and Mr. Johnson will just talk to you for a few minutes.”
Nicholas smiled at Vanessa. “Thanks.” He sat beside the Opal on the sofa.
“Make sure you tell Mr. Johnson the truth, okay?” Vanessa said. “It’s okay to tell him everything.”
Opal nodded.
Hunter stood by Vanessa’s side, across the room to give them some privacy.
“Can you first tell me your name?” Nicholas asked.
Opal’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Opal Powers.”
“And who do you live with?”
“Mommy.”
“Where’s your daddy?”
“I don’t know.” She looked to Vanessa, who nodded and smiled.
“Do you miss your daddy?”
Opal shrugged and put her hands between her knees.
“Do you wish you could see your daddy?”
“Sometimes.”
Nicholas took notes on his clipboard each time she answered. “Do you ever feel scared around either of your parents?”
“Sometimes.”
“When do you feel scared?”
Opal looked over at Vanessa, but didn’t respond.
“It’s okay, honey,” Vanessa said. “Just tell the truth about Daddy.”
“Umm,” Opal said. “With my daddy.”
“You feel scared when you’re with your daddy?”
Opal looked over at Vanessa, then nodded.
“Why?”
Opal swallowed hard and took a long time to answer. This time, she looked at her feet instead of over at her mother. “He yells sometimes and throws things.”
“Has he or your mommy ever hurt you?”
She nodded.
“Who has hurt you?”
Opal looked over at Vanessa, waiting for the okay to go ahead and tell the truth.
“Just tell him what happened when you had to go to the hospital,” Vanessa said.
Then Opal said, “Daddy hurt me.”
“Daddy and not Mommy?”
She shook her head.
“Has Mommy ever hurt you?”
She kept her eyes down and shook her head again.
“Have you ever felt scared when you were with Mommy?”
Opal pulled her eyebrows together, then nodded.
“When do you feel scared when you’re with Mommy?”
“When bad things happen.”
Hunter squeezed Vanessa’s hand. What was Opal talking about? This wasn’t coming out right, whatever it was.
“What bad things happen?” Nicholas asked.
“Sometimes people get mad, and Mommy is there.”
“Which people?”
“Umm.” Opal looked afraid to answer, but said, “Daddy.”
“So, Mommy was there when Daddy got mad and that’s when you were scared?”
Opal nodded, looking a little relieved that he seemed to understand.
“Thank you, Opal.” Nicholas stood and came over to Hunter and Vanessa.
“Can I go play now?” Opal asked.
“Sure. Why don’t you go back into your room.” Vanessa smiled, then turned to Nicholas. “Thank you for coming. What happens now?”
Hunter felt uneasy. Vanessa might have thought it went well, but Nicholas’s body language was saying something else.
“Well, to be honest, we’ll need to investigate further,” Nicholas said curtly.
“So that you can get evidence that Jeremy was the one who hurt her? I can also give you evidence that he was hurting me. Would that help?” Vanessa asked.
“Afraid not, Mrs. Powers. We need to investigate because it seems to me that all this was staged.”
“Staged?” Vanessa’s face went white. “What do you mean?”
“I think you coached her to lie,” Nicholas said. “The way she kept looking at you, her unease. All signs that she was uncomfortable—”
“She was,” Vanessa snapped. “What do you expect her to feel when she’s been hurt, had to go on the run to hide from a horrible father then a strange man
shows up asking about it? She’s afraid he’ll come back and hurt her again or me, and she doesn’t know who to trust except me. She was looking at me to make sure it was okay to tell the truth.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Mrs. Powers. And the way she acted is how children act when a parent has told them to lie. We’ll investigate more to make sure, but this certainly doesn’t help your case.”
“Then why even talk Opal with her mother in the room?” Hunter asked. “You had to know that Opal would be afraid and nervous to talk to you. You have to know that any child looks to their parent for comfort when they’re uncomfortable.”
“Like I said”—Nicholas tucked his pen in his pocket and folded his clipboard under his arm—“I’ve been doing this a long time. I can tell when a child is being told to lie.”
Vanessa’s mouth hung open and tears sat low in her eyes. “But she’s not lying.”
“That’s why we’ll investigate more.” Nicholas walked to the door. “Have a nice day.”
He let himself out and Vanessa jumped when he shut the door. She looked over at Hunter, then burst into sobs as she fell into his arms.
Chapter Eighteen
Vanessa
Vanessa sobbed into Hunter’s shirt for a long while. It wasn’t until she heard a little voice ask, “Mommy? Are you okay?” That she stood up and wiped her eyes.
“Oh sure, baby,” Vanessa said. She knelt down and kissed Opal on the forehead. “You did real good today. Go ahead and play in your room for a while, okay?”
Opal ran back off, and Hunter hugged her again.
“I can’t believe,” Vanessa said, her face pressed into Hunter’s neck, “that after everything we did to make sure we could have evidence against Jeremy, staying to have Opal’s testimony on file and all that, putting her in danger every day that we’re here, that it was all for nothing. We should have taken off.”
“No, that still would have been worse. It’s not like Nicholas’s assessment alone will make the decision. They’ll get other people involved in the case.”
“But if Nicholas didn’t believe Opal, why would anyone else? They’ll all think she’s lying and that I’m making her do it. They’ll take her away, and I’ll never see her again.”
“No.” He smoothed her hair and spoke softly. “That’s not even how the system works. It might not seem like it, but they do believe in reconciliation between parents and child. They’ll make sure she’s safe first, then go from there.”
“This is all my fault,” Vanessa said, fresh tears flowing down her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have stayed with Jeremy so long. I kept making excuses for him, saying he was just tired or high or under a lot of stress, that he didn’t really mean it. Or I’d lie and tell people I fell or hurt myself. I did everything I could to protect him, and in the end, I couldn’t even protect my daughter from him. Now I’ve made it easy for him to take her and keep me from her. I should have left when people wanted to help me. I could have gone somewhere. I could have left when my mother was still alive, and she would have helped me. She would have given us a safe place, and we would have had money to do it. But instead, Jeremy blew my inheritance on drugs.”
She shook her head and looked at Hunter. “I never trusted anyone to help me, and look where it got me.”
“I don’t blame you. How could you trust anyone when the man who was meant to love you and Opal the most treated you so badly? No one would expect you to trust people after that.”
“But when I finally wised up—or really, when it finally got so bad that he started to hurt Opal too—it was too late. I waited too long. I completely failed my child.”
“No, you didn’t. You got her out of a bad place and into safety. Now she has a teacher she loves who will help keep her safe, you both have me to protect you. And this thing will get worked out. She’s away from her father who hurt her, and I’ll make sure he’s never around her again.”
She shook her head and kept shaking it. “I’m no good for Opal. Maybe I just need to trust the system. If they’ll take her some place safe and keep her safe, then maybe that’s what I should do. Jeremy already knows where we are. It’s only a matter of time until he comes or sends someone to kill me and take her. I can’t keep her safe. They should just take her and put her somewhere else, away from me.”
# # #
Hunter pulled her close. She was practically hysterical. And now she was just talking crazy. He chose his words carefully. He already knew what had to be done. Take Jeremy out and prove to CPS that he was the monster, not Vanessa.
“I don’t think you should let them take her like that,” he said. “That would cause Opal more pain and disruption in her life. Just wait for Nicholas to come back, and we’ll talk to him. Opal will talk to him again, and he’ll probably bring in more people to talk to her, and they’ll see.” And, in the meantime, he would find a good time to leave them and hunt down Jeremy.
But then, something hit him. This wasn’t Vanessa’s fault. Opal had looked over at him, too. He realized what it must’ve seemed like to Nicholas. This wasn’t Vanessa’s fault at all. It was his. And then, with a sense of dread, he reminded himself that this was why he couldn’t be with Vanessa. He was no good for them. They needed a steady man and he couldn’t give them the life they deserved.
“I want to protect you both,” he said. “I want to be here for you both. But I think you’re thinking about this all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered, wiping at her eyes.
“I think I’m the reason Nicholas doesn’t believe you and Opal.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Well, think about it. Look at it from Nicholas’s perspective. He gets a call about a woman abusing her daughter from a very concerned, wealthy, and well-connected father. He probably assumes Jeremy is some decent citizen type, making a difference in the world. Nicholas comes to investigate and the kid isn’t even there, but there’s some guy. He assumes the mom was running around with this guy, because he’s the bad boy type while the father is the straight-laced type. He thinks you’ve sent Opal off to spend time with me, and just want to keep her from her father. Like you’re trying to move on with a new guy and start a new life. And since the new guy is clearly dangerous and has a past, then maybe the mom isn’t the innocent little lady she comes off as. Probably even thinks the whole reason you want Opal is so you can get money from Jeremy. That crap happens all the time.”
Vanessa stared at him in shock. “You’re serious?”
“You don’t think it seems like that?”
“I—but—no, he can’t.”
“I’m sure he does. I intimidate people without even trying. I’m sure Nicholas felt that and assumes I’m intimidating you and Opal into doing what I want.”
“That’s crazy!” she shrieked.
“It doesn’t matter. That’s what it looks like. But I think we can fix it pretty easily.”
“How?”
“I need to leave. It’ll give you leverage and make things easier for you both.”
At first, he thought Vanessa’s voice had gone up a few octaves, but then he realized that it was Opal who had shouted, “No!”
She ran into the room and swung her little arms around Vanessa’s waist. “No!”
Vanessa and Hunter exchanged looks. What exactly had she overheard and what was she protesting?
“Opal?” Vanessa asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want Hunter to leave!” She turned to look up at them both. “He can help us, Mommy. I know he can.”
He didn’t know what to say and it seemed like Vanessa didn’t either. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Opal dropped her voice to a whisper. “I saw his guns.” She looked at Hunter, as if making sure it was okay that she’d seen. She was probably afraid he would yell at her like her daddy did.
“You did?” he asked in a light tone.
She nodded. “They’re kind of scary, but I know you can keep
us safe. That’s what guns do, right?”
“If they’re used correctly, yes,” Hunter said. Though, he certainly didn’t intend to use them keep Jeremy safe. Quite the opposite. The more he got to know Opal, the more he wondered how in the world any man could hit a child, and especially this child. She was so sweet and innocent. He couldn’t even picture getting angry enough to do something like that. But maybe that was his own past speaking. All he could ever imagine was taking out his anger on people who deserved it. The ones who did horrible things like beat their children and wives. His hand involuntarily clenched into a fist. It was becoming his favorite thing to image all the different ways he might kill Jeremy. Right now, he was most in favor of strangulation. He wanted to feel that man’s neck in his hands, and watch the light die in his eyes.