Amber Alert, page 20
“We can talk about this,” I promise. “Just put away the gun, and we can figure everything out. Nothing was your fault.”
“I prayed,” she cries. “Every day! Now they’re coming for me anyway, there’s nothing left for me.” Her evolution from a blushing teenager to this disillusioned, hopeless woman would be fascinating if she wasn’t still waving a gun in my face, a gun that she’s now turning on herself.
“Oh no, come on, don’t do this. We can still make it right, so you have a chance of getting out of here, and having a family one day. I’m sorry about what happened, but it doesn’t have to determine your whole life.”
“I sinned,” she says with conviction. “I pay for it every day, and I’m so tired of it. I want it to end!”
“No. Caitlin.”
The arrival of Roger Middleton can only complicate the situation more. I have not been mistaken.
“It would be a sin what you’re about to do. No matter what they tell you, we do important work, we save children!”
“Dad.” Her face crumbles in a mask of despair. She grips the gun tighter. “Why couldn’t I keep her?”
“Why don’t you just leave, Detective? This is between me and my daughter.”
Could this man get any colder?
“I’m afraid it isn’t, Mr. Middleton. We’ll have to—”
I never make it to the end of my sentence, just move forward and grab her hand, the shot ringing out shattering the window. We both tumble to the floor, glass raining down. Caitlin freezes, withdrawing into herself while Middleton still finds some words for me.
“Look what you’ve done,” he says with unveiled disgust. “Come here to threaten my daughter for a case in which you have no standing? You’re going to leave my house right now.”
“Oh, I plan to.” I get to my feet, looking down at Caitlin who has her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking gently. Not for a second does he acknowledge the fact that his daughter was about to shoot herself. “This time, you’re going to accompany us.”
He reaches into his jacket, and I tense, but it’s a phone that he takes out, punching a number. “Security. I need some help here. We’re in Caitlin’s room.”
The girl’s eyes widen.
“That’s not going to change anything, Mr. Middleton.”
“Is it not? I’m not sure what’s your plan here, but Mr. and Mrs. Parker have always been clear on their principles, and that’s how they brought up each of their children, Ryna and Joseph included. They are aware what’s at stake.”
Between the incident with Sherman and the unexpected development of today, I’ve had it with being threatened.
“You’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Rosie McCoy, Kevin Johnson, Lin Gale and—”
The knock on the door interrupts me, and Joey walks in.
“Joseph, tell your friend to stop this nonsense.” A quick look to his daughter assures him that Caitlin is still in the stupor. “Take safety measures,” Middleton says, reaching for the gun.
The tableau is frozen in time.
“Joseph! Do you hear me? We can make all of this go away, you and Ryna will be cleared of everything. Now do something!”
“Go ahead, Ann,” he says, picking up the gun before Middleton can. “I’m sorry, Roger. You went too far.”
“Are you mad?” Middleton yells. “You’re abandoning your family, and your faith, for what? Caitlin, come with me—and you!” he directs at the two burly man clad in black who have just entered the room, “clean this up.”
I assume he doesn’t just mean the glass on the floor. Too bad for him, I know these guys, and “cleaning up” after criminals is not in their manual. I finally snap the cuffs shut around his wrists while Joey crouches next to Caitlin to assess her state.
“Took you long enough,” I tell the agents.
“Oh well.” Vasquez shrugs. “Davis said you two would be okay.”
“I’m grateful for the vote of confidence.”
I’m breathless and the pain reminds me of the unpleasant encounter only yesterday, but all in all, this is a good outcome. It is even for Caitlin who now stands a chance to escape the ideological chokehold of her parents, even if at the moment, her world has been shattered once more.
There’ll be her prints on the drawing that she gave Rosie. Everything will come out now, and Middleton who sounded so high and mighty on TV a few days ago will have to answer to the parents he terrorized.
Including Rachel and Chrissie, and Joan and Lloyd Winters.
It’s a good day.
* * * *
“Are you okay?” Joey asks after paramedics have led Caitlin out of the room. Trisha Middleton came rushing in, accusing us of having no shame for tearing families apart. The extent of their projection is stunning.
“Fine. You?”
“Terrific.” There’s a hint of irony, and I turn to him.
“He wasn’t lying about everything. Some members of my family won’t be too happy. They’ll say the police was harassing the Middletons.”
“Wow.”
“That’s right.”
“Religious freedom doesn’t include the right to kidnap children,” I say. “They’ll have to understand that.”
“Yeah. They will, eventually. Thank you.”
I’m not sure I understand, so I wait.
“I should have known where to draw the line. With Ryna, I mean. Like Davis said, the fact that I’m still working is because of you.” He holds my gaze for a long time, his expression too hopeful for my liking. “Caitlin told me where they keep the records, and something else that will be interesting. When we’re done here…”
“It’s been a tough week, and we’ll still be here for a while.”
“I know that. Just…have a drink, maybe?”
How much could I get myself into trouble with that? Forget everything that happened between us, it’s been a difficult time for both of us, if for slightly different reasons. Come tomorrow, we’ll still be going to work together.
“Depends on when we finish, but, okay, let’s envision that. I bet this is not how you imagined your first few weeks as a detective. Let me tell you, you’re in for a long period of boring desk work.”
Joey chuckles. “You know what? I think I’d appreciate that.”
“Your parents are really going to give you a hard time over this?” I’m curious. It seems so irrational.
“Maybe. Whatever, I’ll be far away. Looks like I’m not going to take that transfer after all. I don’t think I’m completely in the clear yet.”
“You’re going to be okay.”
He casts a thoughtful look at the broken glass on the floor. “I hope so.”
* * * *
“Are those the children you ‘rescued’?” It’s me and Martinez in the room with Middleton. This is her show. I haven’t seen Cal yet, but he’s been giving some orders. Here we are. Underlining Martinez’s question, I put the scrapbook on the table.
The content chills me, because there are pictures of Rosie in there, the pages decorated with paper flowers and glitter pens, testimony of a teenage girl’s dream.
“Don’t you worry,” Martinez adds, “we have more than your daughter’s books. There’s physical evidence, and a few of your employees who don’t want to go down with the sinking ship.”
Middleton leans back into his chair. He seems a lot more comfortable than a man in his situation should be.
“I don’t blame you,” he says. “It’s not up to me. Your actions are going to be judged by God.”
Make no mistake, so are yours, I think.
“I don’t doubt that. In the meantime, judged by the law of Man, you have committed a felony, which is why we are here. Did you hire someone to kill Boggs too, or was it just his bad luck?”
“Boggs chose his own path, he couldn’t stay away from the temptation of money, and the wrong people. We’re not killers. In fact, it’s offending that you’re insinuating that.”
“I find it offending that you hired a career criminal to kidnap children, used your own daughter when it was more convenient,” I interject. They were putting families under surveillance, study their schedules so they could find the perfect moment for the actual abduction. There was indeed a photo and a small paragraph about Sarah Marie Clarks, based on the assumption that Donna and Chloe were a couple. Duncan got to her first, and then the lowlife he was involved with, got to Boggs.
“It’s a shame.” He uses the same words as his wife. “You spend so much time trying to discredit those who do honest work in God’s name, and forget about the real criminals you should be chasing. You think this is over with arresting me and my family? People are beginning to understand that the principles of humanity are in danger. Ask them what they think about the ‘modern’ definition of family and marriage. They reject it. Every. Single. Time. The court ignored the will of the people.”
I assume he has not seen or doesn’t care about the latest statistics. Did Joey’s parents talk like this? I wonder. There’s an explanation, if not an excuse, why he’d been hesitant to use the information Ryna gave him. Unfortunately, it’s true that letting people vote on equal rights often comes with dubious results, but that is not the matter here.
“Last time I checked, stealing children from their home is a crime that falls under Federal law.”
“We gave these children a future, and if we’re not around, someone else will. There are good people ready to step in.”
Martinez and I share a look in silent agreement. It’s a scary thought that he might be right, that others will follow his example and put their personal beliefs and pursuits before other people’s rights and, effectively, the law.
However, he’s digging himself deeper with every word, and on the bright side, there’ll be one less of his kind to worry about.
* * * *
I call Chrissie when I’m back in my hotel room, to tell her that the world has become a tiny bit safer. I hear Rachel and Rosie giggling in the background.
“Thanks for calling me.” Chrissie sounds bewildered, for a reason. I don’t usually let her know when a case is closed, but this was different, hitting too close to home. I learned a great deal about the reality that she faces every day, something I have mostly been blissfully unaware until recently.
I had to face some realities of my own.
When I hang up the phone, I’m left with a sense of contentment, and melancholy at the same time.
I walk over to the window, looking out at the lights of the city. Lately, I have a hard time being alone. That is the problem, not what to do about it. My hopes and dreams are not the same as Chrissie’s. Children, or even marriage, haven’t been in the picture, and it’s not a good moment to change the habits of a lifetime just because I got shot at or nearly watched a teenage girl kill herself.
Rosie is safe at home. The Middleton institute is as good as closed.
There’s no more excuse not to deal with the mess I’ve created. I lie down on the bed, but I’ve barely closed my eyes when the knock on the door jolts me into a vertical position again.
The conversation ahead is not going to be an easy one. I open the door, expecting Joey to take me up on those drinks after work I promised.
Instead, it’s Cal, holding out a bottle of champagne to me.
“I hear you did a great job,” he says. “How about we celebrate?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The lack of a bust to plan makes the moment awkward, the silence ringing too loudly, so we start out talking about the loose ends of the case. Caitlin’s story. It didn’t take the FBI long to come up with medical records, from another state, of course, from two years ago. Caitlin is seventeen now. It’s a difficult decision at best, but the way Roger and Trisha Middleton have framed it for their daughter is inexcusable.
“They organize protests in front of abortion clinics, then bring in their daughter through the back door and blame her.” Cal frowns. “Parents-of-the-year material right there.”
“Yeah.”
Considering all the implications, I don’t feel much like celebrating. He’s a father too. The subject of his kids hasn’t come up often, just like there have been many subjects we’ve been avoiding.
“You’ve been absent all day. Martinez says there’s a new case?”
“There’s always a new case, but yes. It’s another reason why I wanted to see you. I won’t be around for a while.”
“Oh.” I’m uncertain what to make of that. Normally, he doesn’t announce these things to me. Cal gets up from where he took a seat in the desk chair earlier, sitting beside me on the end of the bed. “I thought you wanted to concentrate on your political career.”
“I will, eventually. Just this last one.”
“That’s what you always say,” I tease him. He smiles back at me.
“I mean it this time. This is going to be nasty. Politics will be a breath of fresh air afterwards.”
“Sure.” I lean closer, knowing all well that I shouldn’t. He’s the one who was talking about taking it easy, but with his decision to pack up the family and try his luck in Washington soon, that makes perfect sense. “I’m surprised you’re going in yourself. You could direct this from the sidelines. What is it about?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. I wanted you to know…” Instead of completing his sentence, he draws me close for a deep hungry kiss that tells me enough—about how messy this assignment could become, or how this evening is going to proceed.
I guess I won’t be having drinks with Joey after all.
* * * *
His touch is careful, infinitely gentle where the impact of a bullet against the Kevlar caused an ugly bruise. What binds us together most is an awareness of how fragile life can be, more than any sentimentality. In four years, certain words have hardly ever been spoken. He said it once, though, on the day Rosie was coming home.
“Georgia is going to work on a project in Chile. For a year at least…We have decided that it’s best to go our separate ways from here.”
It didn’t sound like that at all when I met her. Why now? I don’t know how to react. I should be…surprised, hopeful? At the moment, I’m just confused.
“Are you sure it’s a good time to make that decision now, when you both got a big assignment?”
“I expected a bit more enthusiasm.”
“You know I never asked you to—”
“Maybe I’m asking you now. You could have a career as a cop anywhere.”
“Whoa, this is…” I sit up quickly, making distance from the distraction of his wandering hands and tough questions. “Sudden. You obviously had time to give it some thought, me, not so much. I’d like a moment.”
“I’m going in the day after tomorrow. That’s how long you have got.”
“Wow. You’ve been preparing this for a while. The assignment, I mean,” I clarify quickly.
“Just think about it.”
He pulls me down to him again, and I let him. I have some questions of my own though.
“I have worked on more shared assignments than any other detective in Major Crimes. Why is that?”
“Because you’re good. Because it’s good for your résumé.”
“You didn’t meddle with any of that because I was sleeping with you, right?”
A few seconds tick by before he says, “Of course not. Bailing out your sidekick is probably the most I’ve bent the rules for you.”
There is that.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but why did you do that?”
“He shot some lowlife who nearly killed you. That’s a good enough reason for me.”
I’ve known him long enough not to fall for the light tone, to understand what he meant to say between the lines. I don’t feel so much like talking anymore. The good guys won once more. We deserve some time and space to explore the meaning of those words unspoken.
* * * *
The nightmare ends for more families as missing children are located and reunited with their parents.
Alicia Johnson tells me that she invited Chloe over, and even though they’re never going to be a couple again, she won’t cut her ex-girlfriend out of her children’s lives.
The Tylers are horrified to learn that their baby was taken because someone at the Middleton institute denounced Mr. Tyler as a “failed” therapy case. They are done with keeping secrets. I’ve never seen anybody so relieved about getting a divorce before.
Speaking of which—Cal has promised me a call tomorrow. I have promised him an answer. I don’t know yet what it will be, and I haven’t spoken to anyone about the possibilities.
“I should be grateful,” Joey says when we stop for a coffee before going separate ways at the end of the shift. “I still have a job at least.”
“Did you talk to your family?”
He gives me a wry smile. “Let’s say…I’d like to think they’ll get over it some time soon. Ryna is out of a job obviously. No one’s happy, but you know what? They’ll have to live with that. Those kids belong with their parents.”
I think of Middleton’s greeting, the connection between the families.
“It’s good to see a happy ending every now and then. That’s another thing you won’t always have in this line of work.” I lean back into the booth, enjoying the caffeinated treat while I can. Not all of the subjects we have to cover will be pleasant.
“You didn’t call me back,” he says.
“No. I’m sorry.”
He stirs some more milk into his coffee, for stalling solely, I assume.
“It’s better this way. We’ll still be working together, and—you know I’m with someone.” That’s truer than it ever was in that particular relationship, even though I’m unsure what the conclusions will be.
“Yeah. I guess you gave me a fair warning on that issue.”
“You were there for me when I needed someone. I won’t forget that.”
“Okay. I think I want to go home now.”
Joey holds the door open for me as we leave the coffee shop, but halts halfway to the parking spot. “It’s Davis, right?”
