Chapter 8
I bought Megan a cute little diamond ring on that day that Megan first told me she loved me. We called it a girlfriend ring so all the other agents would know that she is spoken for.
That was three years ago and Megan has been living with me for two of those. I just turned twenty one two weeks ago. Megan turned twenty two the month before that. We now call that ring on her finger an engagement ring.
There have been many times over the last three years that we have worked together on pedophile cases. I lure them in on the internet and Megan catches them when they show up to meet what they think is a gullible teenager.
The setup has been very successful for the agency. It has begun to work like clockwork. Even at twenty two, Megan is so petite and baby face looking, that the men instantly believe that she is a teenager when they show up at the arranged hotel.
Perhaps that is what led us astray. Perhaps that was why I did not see that the pedophile I hooked on my account was more than just a sex pervert.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon like so many others before it.
The take down agents were in the adjoining room when the knock came on the door to the room that Megan was in.
By the time the men in the next room heard the scream and was alerted that something went wrong, Megan was dead on the queen size bed strangled with a white cord.
The men rushed into the room immediately and apprehended the man. It would be found out later that he was a serial killer and his DNA had been left at six other crime scenes.
I vomited when I got the call from my supervisor.
“I know you two were very close,” she told me.
“If you would like a couple of weeks off with pay to grieve, I can arrange that for you,” she suggested.
It was the longest two weeks of my life.
I boxed up all of Megan’s belongings and delivered them to her mother’s house.
I attended the funeral with her mother. I held her hand and we both sobbed openly.
Megan was given I full military type of funeral since she had died in the line of duty as a federal agent. When the uniformed guard handed Megan’s mom the folded American flag along with Megan’s FBI ID and badge, she turned and handed the ID and badge to me.
“I am proud that they buried her with your ring on her finger,” Megan’s mom told me. “She said you were the first man she ever loved,” she informed me. “She was my first too,” I told her thinking back to that first night at the dorm when Megan took my virginity.
For the remainder of the two weeks, I kept myself locked up in my condo and drank myself to oblivion. I was desperately hung over that Monday when I called my supervisor and told her that I was ready to get back to work.
“I can give you more time if you need it,” she suggested.
“No, I need something to do before I go crazy,” I told her.
“Okay, I have some files I need you to look at and get started with,” my supervisor offered.
“But that is on the condition that you make an appointment today to talk to one of our mental health counselors,” she told me.
It irritated me that she wanted me to see a shrink. But I agreed to do it because I knew she won’t let me come back to work until I do.
Dr Lacey is an attractive woman. At first, I intended to hold back my feelings and just talk with her in a general way. But she was an expert at asking probing questions. In the process of trying to truthfully answer her questions, I broke down and sobbed just as hard as I had at the funeral.
The appointment had been scheduled for a half an hour. Dr Lacey ended up clearing her calendar for the rest of the afternoon. Altogether, I spent three hours with Dr Lacey that day. I bared my soul of the pain I felt inside.
The self-recriminations that I hadn’t done my job carefully. By the time I left that day, Dr Lacey convinced me that there had been nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.
She also sent me off with a prescription for Trazadone with the warning that I should not drink alcohol while I’m on the drug. She told me that it would help me sleep and it would even out my emotions so I won’t get too high or too low.
“You are going to be fine, Jack. You and I are going to work through all of this and we will get you to feel okay and will be able to find happiness again someday,” she told me.
I felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest as I drove home that afternoon. I would find out later that evening that the drug she prescribed for me working like magic. I had my first full night’s sleep since the day Megan was murdered.