Victoria handed over a document folder which was grabbed by Midler. "This is a signed affidavit by one of the doctors, think of it as a gesture of goodwill." After the briefest of glances Midler threw the folder towards his colleague.
"You mentioned that the doctor that visited was wearing a mask, was this always the case with the alleged visitors to the house? Did you ever see anything that might help us to identify them? Tattoos, scars, even the smallest thing could make all the difference."
Nate could recall many identifying marks, not least the Sinclair brand, which they believed only the highest ranking henchmen had, but he kept quiet, wondering if Midler would dare mention the mark of ownership.
"Eye colors, haircuts, that kind of thing, but with all the time that has passed I can't imagine that it would be enough to make an identification that would hold up in court," he kept his reply slow with just the a hint of anguish.
"So no tattoos or artwork that you can recall?" Midler was really pressing the issue, and if, as Nate suspected the man still had the brand on his skin, there was always the risk that it, and therefore his duplicity would be discovered. The older man seemed to be quite anxious, and Nate noted the constant drumming of his fingers on the table in front of him.
The steady beat was threatening to drag him back into the past, to the rest of the memory that though vague, still held enough pain and horror to consume him.
"You have to understand, when my stepfather had visitors I was very weak. I was either recovering from a beating, or had been starved or dehydrated and there wasn't much light in the room. When I wasn't drugged I tried to escape into my head, but," he allowed his voice to trail off, hinting at further information.
"Take your time Nate," Agent Oliver spoke, giving him an encouraging nod.
"If I could have a pen and some paper?" He requested, trying not to react when Agent Oliver took the notebook from in front of his colleague, who tried to school the look of anger on his face. He then drew a similar brand to what was burned onto his skin, what was on Frank Midler's back, though with a few deliberate mistakes. He handed the paper to Agent Oliver, who looked and then passed it to Midler. There was relief on the man's face, as if he had been given a reprieve.
As Nate suspected this lulled him into a false sense of security. The man didn't seem to realize that his notebook hadn't been returned, and with it the proof they needed. On an earlier page, in perfect detail, were several drawings of the Sinclair brand, one that Agent Frank Midler of the F.B.I should have no knowledge of.
Especially as the drawing was of the original brand, the one only trusted, long term collaborators had. He angled the page so that Mimi could see what he saw and heard her intake of breath.
"Is everything okay?" Agent Oliver asked, looking at Mimi for some sign, which she gave in a discreet glance at the notebook in Nate's hand.
"Can you tell me more about the brand? Give it some context please?" Nate was glad that it was Agent Oliver who had asked the question.
"It was a right of passage I guess you could say. Not everyone got one. Usually for the minions it was a sign that they had passed a test, proved their loyalty."
"For my mother, for me, it was meant to be a sign of ownership. So that no matter who I was handed over to, whatever they were let do to me, they would always know who I belonged to." Nate made no effort to hide his bitterness or revulsion as he spoke, nor did he break eye contact with Agent Midler, who was starting to look anxious.
"There is something unforgettable about the smell that lingers, the mix of burnt skin and metal. The immediate pain fades, but not those memories, especially if you have the misfortune of being witness to multiple brandings."
"It's like knowing that your very soul is soaking up every little detail, that you carry them with you always. You learn to focus on other things, the color of someone's shirt, the smell of the hair gel a person uses, a name that you were meant to forget. The sharp bite of pain that they inflict on you. That kind of thing." Nate let his voice trail off, lowered his gaze, and fought for the composure to say what needed to be said.
Lifting his head, he looked Agent Midler directly in the eye;
"There was this one henchman, who was a favorite of my stepfather's. Who enjoyed the perks given as rewards, who went the extra mile so he could have time with me. He was, next to my stepfather, the person I feared the most, due to his sheer brutality and cruelty."
"The first time I spent time with this henchman, he tried to force me to perform a certain act on his body, and my natural defenses made themselves known, and he was left marked in a very unique way. For this I was never to be forgiven or allowed to forget."
Nate paused, never taking his eyes away from the man sitting across from him, his face losing it's color, his forehead showing a fine sheen of sweat.
"The doctors my grandfather hired to look after me, cataloged each and every one of my scars, all the bite marks that never healed properly due to the way I was kept starved. We just never had anything to compare them to. Until now."
Nate heard the sounds of disbelief, a chair falling to the ground, and then watched as Agent Midler tried to leap the table, not to escape but to attack, only to be foiled by Mimi executing some kick ass defensive move.
There was the snick of handcuffs being placed on the now prisoner, Miranda rights being read, and still Nate stayed where he was, waiting for Midler to turn his glare his way again.
"You should have stayed away Francis."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Margaret Patrice Riley, Mimi to her close family and friends, had seen a lot in her life; more perhaps than most of her contemporaries in Silver Glade had.
From an early age she had thrown aside the constraints and expectations of others, preferring to make her own way in the world, rather than follow a path that had been chosen for her.
As a member of a Silver Glade legacy family there were rules she was supposed to obey, obligations she had been expected to fulfill, yet she had rebelled against them all. Mimi knew that there was a world beyond her home town and she was determined to explore it for herself.
Luckily she had the support of her immediate family who stood by her, even when she turned down the proposal of marriage made to her by the patriarch of the town's most prominent family, on behalf of his son. It helped a certain amount that her suggested groom was also against the match, Mimi may have been his best friend since they were toddlers, but there had never been even the slightest hint of a spark between them.
As the years passed, and life took them in very different directions, they still remained just as close, so although Mimi could never tell her best friend every little detail about her life, he probably would not have been all that surprised by all she did achieve.
As far as the population of Silver Glade were concerned Margaret Riley had done the unthinkable, she had gone away to university, and rather than seek out a MRS degree, she had in fact gained a double major in Behavioral Science and Psychiatry, specializing in children and adolescents.
She returned home to set up an office in the building that bore her family name, but was away as often as she was in town, her services in demand around the country and she gained a reputation on the college lecture circuit.
The work she was most proud of was helping the most vulnerable of clients so that they could overcome their pasts, could chase away the shadows that haunted them.
This was exactly what Nate had done today, when after recognizing one of his former abusers, he had been able to find the strength and wherewithal not to lash out instantly. Instead he gave the man every chance to reveal his true identity, leading to his arrest.
She had been very concerned about him since the night of the pep rally. He had been through so much in a short space of time, which, when added to everything else he had been through in his childhood, made his actions towards his stepfather very understandable.
It had been extremely distressing to se
e him get so lost in his pain and grief, to see the level of violence he'd been capable of, once that switch had been tripped. It wasn't that Sinclair didn't deserve to suffer, Mimi had no sympathy for him, rather she wasn't prepared to allow Nate to lose himself to revenge and retribution.
From her observations of Nate since that night, and based on his behavior today, she was further convinced that the incident with Sinclair had been an isolated event. She had observed clients who had mentally shut down, who had buried traumatic events so deep that years later they genuinely couldn't remember them ever occurring.
What had happened to Nate was something else, and she didn't want to give it a label, at least not yet. It was clear that he had lost time, that he hadn't been aware of anything but the fact that Grace had been kidnapped, molested and then stabbed. Being unable to do anything to help his girlfriend he had turned his rage on his stepfather, the monster responsible for it all.
She couldn't help but wonder what might happen if he was ever to learn of the role she had, unwittingly, played in what had taken place that night. He already had questions and she hated not being able to tell him everything, knowing that he deserved the truth.
The first sign that something was wrong was when her second phone began to light up with messages. It had been some time since that had happened, and that it should occur so soon after Nate's departure for his cabin, immediately had Mimi on edge.
Her contact at Langley had confirmed her worst fears, that Charles Sinclair intended to make his move that night, and they needed to catch him in the act in order to put a permanent end to his schemes.
All she had to do, according to the messages, was keep her son and Nate calm, to trust the agency to know what they were doing. By the time she had realized what hadn't been said in those messages, it was too late to do anything but hold on and hope for the best...
The door to the waiting room opened slowly, as if the person there was nervous about entering the space, and when she saw who it was, Mimi found herself fully understanding Nate's uncontrollable rage.
"You dare to show your face here? While my granddaughter is just out of surgery? Have you any idea what you've done?" The young man in front of her paled, swallowing nervously while trying to find something to say.
"Don't bother trying to make excuses, just be glad that only I have figured this out, because if Jack ever finds out, well I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, or your bosses shoes for that matter." There was so much cold anger in her voice and it spread in the room, causing the man to visibly shiver.
"Ma'am," he began.
"Don't you dare Ma'am me. You warned me about the warrants, told me I was in danger, and all along you knew that it was Grace, that it was Grace who would be," she paused, struggling to speak and not launch herself at the agent.
"You have to understand, it was our only option. We had everything planned, she was never to be left alone, she was going to be safe. We didn't know, couldn't have known..." The words trailed off, something on her face alerting him to the fact that he was only making things worse.
"She wasn't safe though was she? Even without the knife wielding Queen Bee? She was molested, abused, drugged. Was any of that in your plan? In your risk assessment before the operation?" She heard her voice rise, and knew that she was close to striking the man.
"Have you any idea what she has been through? I want answers, and not from you. After all my years of service to the agency, to my country, I expected more than this shoddy spectacle we had to endure this evening."
"You've always been a tad dramatic Margaret." A new voice entered the conversation, one which Mimi had never wanted to ever hear again. Once upon a time, he had approached her following a lecture, recruiting her to freelance with the agency.
As time passed and it became clear that she would not be quiet about the injustices she observed he tried to have her blacklisted, a move that had not surprised her.
Nor was she surprised by the petite brunette who now stood by his side, an anxious look on her face, as if she could read the mood in the room, and knew that her boss was unlikely to help matters in any way. Robert couldn't help himself, always needing a prop by his side.
"Of course you would be involved in all this. Let me guess, you told them to go right ahead with the crazy plan and you'd calm me down after the fact. Well it doesn't work like that. Not this time."
Mimi looked at the older agent, wondering how she could have worked with him for so long, considering his less than sparkling personality, and she again cursed the day she had met him.
"It was all for the greater good, and we of course apologize, unreservedly, for the harm done to Ms Andrews, but I hear that she should make a full recovery. Surely the most important thing is that Sinclair and his associates are all behind bars. They were unable to execute their planned coup. We have all we need to put pressure on them to root out anyone who might be hiding, so let's just take the win shall we?"
The smugness in his voice grated on her nerves, especially because without Nate they would never have known what was happening here in Silver Glade, and she was certain that they were only scratching the surface of the corruption, not to mention the child abuse ring that Charles had created.
The female agent began to speak but was rebuked sharply by her boss.
"There is of course the small matter of Mr Henderson's actions tonight. He will need to be questioned, but we will ask for leniency when it comes to charges."
This time she acted on her impulse, her former handler was pushed up against the wall, held in such a way that with the slightest movement he would be in a world of pain. The junior agent stood in shock, his mouth opening and closing, reminding Mimi of a fish. The female agent made no effort to hide her glee at how her boss was being held in place, and Mimi heard her softly spoken "You go girl!"
"Now listen to me very carefully Robert, there will be no charges, not even the hint of them to try and get Nate to talk about anything that he doesn't want to. The only agents, from this moment on, that will have contact with my family, with Nate and I, will be those that I choose personally."
"If you try to interfere, to act clever, then it will be the last thing you ever do. You do not want me as your enemy, and it is only a fool who would underestimate me. You tried that before and it didn't end well for you then, and if I find out that you allowed Grace to suffer because you felt you had an old score to settle, then there is no place you can hide from me."
The man in her hold grunted in protest, but said nothing. She turned to the younger agent, who was still watching, but now had a look of curiosity about all he had just heard.
"Here's a little advice for you; if you want to get ahead, don't make enemies of the wrong people, try seeing beyond exterior appearances, and never doubt that a female agent doesn't have the strength to make the difficult choices when called upon."
Then she turned her attention to the other woman in the room, asking for her name, which she discovered was Evie.
"We will always have to work harder, be smarter and make decisions that our male colleagues will never face. There will always be those who try to stand in our way, try to make us feel as if we are at fault for not knowing how to work the system that they created and the rules they insist we follow and they continue to either break or rewrite."
"They will always be afraid of those who challenge the status quo, so you win by ignoring them and doing your job. Do the work they don't because they are so busy trying to hold you back. That goes for you as well, sorry I never caught your name."
"Josh, Ms Riley." She just about heard his reply over the mocking laughter of her former handler.
"Still an angry feminist I see Margaret." The older agent apparently was a bigger fool than she remembered, but she was done with the whole situation. She needed to talk to Jack, having decided that she had to give him an update on the role of the agency in the night's event and based on her old adversary's behavior she was going
to let her son know, exactly who was to blame for what had happened to Grace.
"Just do your job Robert. This young fellow here, Josh, can be liaison if you need to pass on any information, but for the sake of the real victims here, try and act like a grown up."
She released her hold then, moving away from the man, wishing she had time to take a shower to wash away the ugly feelings he had left her with.
"Excuse me, Ms Riley?" Drawn to the present, she found herself facing that same junior agent, who was looking at her with dread.
"Let me guess Josh, you've been asked to convey the agency's deep regret that they didn't realize they had a sleeper agent in their midst, that they didn't think it was strange how he insinuated himself into the investigation? That they allowed him to be in the same room as Nate Henderson and that they had no idea that he was the person speaking to the media?"
She made no effort to hide her disdain, nor did she apologize to the agent who was little more than a kid. It might not have been his fault that his superiors were idiots, but he hadn't seemed to have learned anything from their earlier meeting either.
Even now he looked completely thrown, as if he had prepared a speech and had no idea of how to respond to what she had just said.
"Okay kid, I'm going to break it down for you, and then you can run along to your bosses. One; your undercover agent, that we had no idea about, helped two footballers in the thrall of Charles Sinclair break into my son's home, drug my granddaughter and take her from there, all while I was being distracted with lies and B.S.?"
"It's a little more complicated than that," she waved a hand, cutting off whatever else the agent wanted to say.
"Two; your undercover agent, having facilitated the drugging and abduction of a minor, then left her alone and unprotected with the minions of a man who is known to prefer his victims to be under the influence, and who allows his minions to have wandering hands as it leaves them further indebted to him?" She paused to see if the agent had anything to say.
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