Chapter 1 #2
“What does that mean?” Anderson asked, frowning at him. “Where’s her husband?”
The doctor stared at him and finally stated, “We’ve had no contact with a husband.”
“No, no, no, no. She’s married, with babies,” he shared, trying so hard to not break down. “Her husband, … they’ve been married for like—”
“I’m sorry. I can confirm that she’s had no visitors—husband or otherwise. We’ve been unable to contact him. The police are involved, of course, but I don’t have an update for you on the husband.”
“What about the babies?” he asked, his concern skyrocketing.
The doctor shrugged. “As far as I know, social services has been called.”
“Crap,” he muttered, staring at him. He picked up his duffel bag and looked back at his sister. “Will she sleep through the night?”
“Oh yes. With the surgery she went through, her current comatose state, she won’t wake any time soon. We’re keeping her sedated on purpose,” he added. “If you need to leave—”
“Oh, I need to leave to find her husband,” he spat, chewing on his words.
“As I mentioned, we’ve had no update.”
“Oh, I’ll get you an update,” he snapped, cutting off whatever else the doctor would say. “And there sure as hell better be an excellent explanation for him abandoning her and those babies.”
The doctor suggested, “If they were separated, maybe he doesn’t know.”
“Did anybody go to the house?”
The doctor again shrugged. “I’ve just returned from the holidays. Whatever has been noted in her chart is all I have and nothing more.”
“Right,” Anderson muttered. “So all you can tell me is that she’s okay right now?”
“Yes, and she’s expected to recover fully, but she’ll need a fair bit of extended care and rehab.” Dr. Rainer looked up from the tablet in his hand. “And you mentioned she has children?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, his tone softening. “She has triplets. I think they’re about ten months old.”
The doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh my. She’ll definitely need a hand with them going forward.”
Anderson nodded. “And a hand she will get.” Turning to his sister, he leaned over Talia, gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek, and whispered, “Don’t worry, Talia. I’ll sort this out.”
And, with that, he nodded to the doctor, gave him his number, and added, “Please, if you have any updates, if you need anything, or if you have questions, just call me. Anytime, day or night, just call me.”
The doctor nodded. “I’ve added your contact information to the file.”
“It wasn’t there before, huh?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t see anything in the file here.”
“You have it now,” he stated briskly. And, with that, he turned and walked out and sent Gunner a bare-bones text, updating him. That should calm him down for maybe one minute or two. Anderson was having his own breakdown, so Gunner’s breakdown just had to take a back seat for now.
Anderson took another cab and headed straight to Talia’s place.
Surely Tim had an explanation for this. And Anderson knew security cameras were set up in the house.
Yet, as soon as he got there, he noted all the lights were off, the place was quiet.
Frowning, he walked up to the front door and pounded on it, but he got no answer.
He was not one to be deterred by simple things like locks, and he could easily pick this one, but why bother?
He quickly found a spare key his sister always left out front—but not in the usual spot this time.
Anderson was inside the house in seconds.
He dropped his duffel bag in the front hallway and called out, “Tim, you here?”
Still no answer.
With a heavy foreboding in his heart, he walked through the ground floor at a fast pace.
He made a note to take time to go through Talia’s home office soon.
This two-story residence was a starter home but still a nice place and a nice neighborhood to raise a family.
He then raced upstairs and found the babies’ room, complete with three cribs, and yet a twin bed was off to the side—as if they were sorting out sleeping arrangements in the future.
If Talia was still breastfeeding, he figured that maybe she would just feed them on the twin bed.
He shook his head, finding it hard to imagine just how challenging that would be with three babies.
He found no discernible sign of Tim nor any sign of what had happened to Talia. As soon as he headed to the master bedroom, he saw a different story here.
The bed hadn’t been made, and the blankets were on the floor, as if there had been some tussle.
Maybe it was just Talia’s reaction to waking in the middle of the night, all in a rush to get to her babies.
Anderson shook his head. When he walked to the closet, he saw absolutely no men’s clothes at all, with one section completely bare.
Either Tim had moved out ahead of the triplets’ births, or he’d moved out afterward.
Anderson’s next stop was the security system, set up in a closet in the third bedroom upstairs.
He quickly logged in, knowing the password as he’d helped his sister with it a couple times.
He backtracked to the day in question. However, the living room camera appeared to be off. The other cameras revealed empty rooms.
He bolted downstairs to inspect the living room camera, which had been turned to face the ceiling. His face darkened as he quickly recentered it on where the main action would be. This implied someone knew about the system. “Tim, goddamn you,” Anderson growled as his anger grew.
He spun on his heels, knowing in his gut that Talia had been attacked here, in this very room. He flung around furniture and rugs. He had smelled no bleach upon entering the home, and he didn’t smell any now. Yet Talia had been assaulted here. He would stake his own life on it.
Still, he found no blood on the floor, and there would have been blood with the injuries she had sustained.
Probably a good thing Tim wasn’t here right now because, at this very moment, Anderson would kill his brother-in-law without hesitation.
He took a deep breath and whispered, “But who would take care of Talia and the babies?” He repeated it like a mantra.
Anderson couldn’t do anything that took him away from his family.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something reflecting the light.
He crept over to it, squatting to take a closer look.
Grabbing a nearby Kleenex, he picked up the item and cussed.
The ragged piece itself was plastic, gray in color.
He searched the room for more, for anything.
Cussing again, he found another bit of light reflected back at him from the front doorway.
He bent down and with another tissue picked up yet another plastic piece, torn, caught at the threshold, and gray in color.
Like a tarp. Like a goddamn tarp for Talia to bleed out on.
Beating her up had been planned beforehand.
Trying to calm himself, Anderson phoned the local police station and after endless waiting—or at least it seemed that way to him—he was connected to the lead detective on Talia’s assault, a Detective Colt.
When he finally answered on the other end, Anderson asked, without preamble, “How and where did you find my sister, Talia’s, body? ”
The detective stopped to ask who the hell was calling, and Anderson barked back the info. “How and where?” he repeated.
“I really can’t discuss a current investigation,” Colt replied.
“The hell you can’t,” Anderson yelled. “I just …”
“Get control of yourself or I’m hanging up,” Colt yelled back.
“Try it, Colt, and I’ll have the US Marines on your back.”
Colt went silent.
Anderson continued. “Talia was attacked in her own damn home, in her own damn living room, and I want to know how you were notified and where you found my sister.”
“How do you figure the attack was in the living room?” Colt asked.
“Because the security camera there was pointing at the ceiling until just a few minutes ago. Because I found two pieces of gray plastic material, like for a tarp. How and where, Colt?”
“Calm down, soldier.”
“Hell no, and neither could you calm down if it were your sister beaten almost to death, leaving behind triplets, with her no-good husband AWOL. I don’t know where my nieces are,” Anderson yelled.
“I understand social services has them,” Colt shared.
Anderson sighed, then asked, “Did her attackers take Talia away on a tarp? Did a neighbor see and call you guys? How the hell did social services know the babies were alone here?”
“Where did you get that information?” Colt asked, suddenly interested.
“By my own investigation done within the first ten minutes of being in Talia’s home.”
“Can’t have you in my investigation, soldier.”
“How many years do you have under your belt as a detective?” Anderson asked. Colt didn’t reply. “I bet I have more years of investigating crimes than you do.”
“Maybe so,” Colt conceded, “but I still can’t share info on this case until I’m sure you were not involved.”
“Watch your mouth, Colt. She and these babies are my only family. Plus, I was overseas and just arrived in San Diego inside of two hours ago. You can confirm that with the US Marine Corps.”
“You still could have orchestrated it from overseas.”
With that, Anderson ended the call. With or without the damn detective’s help, Anderson would find out. Just as he reached the kitchen in Talia’s home, his phone rang. He looked down to see a unknown number.
“Yes,” he barked into the phone. As soon as the caller introduced herself as Pamela, a representative from social services, Anderson took a deep breath and listened to everything she had to say.
They were looking for somebody to care for the triplets until the mother got better.
He asked, “Have you had any contact with the father?”