Chapter 20
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Anderson walked to the window and watched as Leland got into his rental truck and took off. Burton had left for the hospital to take over security a few minutes ago. Now it was just him and Pamela. “You doing okay?”
“Sure.” She gave him a small smile as she stepped up beside him. “Not exactly what I thought I was letting myself in for.”
Taking in the seriousness of her tone, he nodded. “If you need to be let off the hook, just speak up. We can manage.”
“No, it’s not that,” she began. “I just didn’t think about danger at this level. … I’ve never been exposed to it. I’ve lived a relatively quiet life up until now and clearly have taken it for granted.”
“So did Talia,” he muttered, “and look where she is now.”
Pamela winced at that. “I do think of it, believe me. I can’t imagine being in her situation with nobody to help with the babies,” she shared, “which is why we’re doing everything we can to help her.
She needs to heal, and, as soon as she’s got some of that down pat, then we’ll do what we can to bring her home.
But the reality is, she can’t look after the babies for quite a while. ”
“I understand,” he whispered, with a nod. “And we’ll probably have to get a nurse in or someone to help out, but that’s a whole different story compared to getting her awake and on her feet.”
Pamela nodded. “Agreed. This is by far the challenge right now, … to get her back up and moving. The babies will be happy to see her.”
He frowned as he looked around and realized she’d put them in the playpen. “I get so disoriented not seeing them,” he said. “I panic for a minute.” She chuckled, as Anderson asked her, “Do you think they’ll remember her?”
“Absolutely,” she declared warmly. “We are not in any way blurring their memory of her.”
He stared at her. “How did you know I was thinking that?”
“Because, in many ways, you are a bit of an open book, easy to read.”
He winced. “Ouch, that’s the last thing a guy wants to hear,” he told her jokingly.
“Especially a big strong career-military guy like you, I get it,” she replied, with a smile. “For a lot of people, it’s nicer to hide, but, for the rest of us out in the world, it’s much easier when people are open and honest.”
“Yeah, but when people are open and honest,” he pointed out, “they often get hurt because not everyone operates on the same basis.”
“Yep, I know,” she said. “I’ve certainly considered it over the years.
I know my job hasn’t been the same as yours, but I’ve come up against an awful lot of cases where there has been much less honesty, much less goodwill.
People maybe start off with good intentions, but sometimes they aren’t capable of handling what they’ve gotten themselves into.
And I guess, in many ways, that’s being generous. Trust me that I’ve seen it all.”
“I bet you have.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen moms who tried hard, but their addictions were way too much, and then I’ve seen moms who didn’t try at all.
I’ve seen moms who made a go of it and became success stories in so many ways,” she shared, with a warm smile.
“I’ve seen dads, less frequently, but dads with all the same stories.
And I’ve heard it all, including women lying in a hospital bed, busted, broken, and bleeding, but still insisting their husbands wouldn’t hurt a fly. ”
“That’s awful, but I guess it’s part and parcel of dealing with humans.
I guess sometimes the wives are defending their abusive husbands because they don’t know what else to do,” he offered, shaking his head.
“Maybe because that’s the only income for the household.
Maybe because they are too afraid to say anything else. ”
“Exactly. It’s all of that and so much more,” she stated.
“Yet it really makes you take another look at relationships and how some of them just aren’t what they seem.
Yet everybody professes to be telling the truth.
The truth appears to be quantifiable, and that changes on a day-to-day basis.
I just don’t understand how that variance works,” she noted, with a wry smile.
Then she stopped and shrugged. “It’s bad enough that sometimes I wonder if I can keep doing the job. ”
“I don’t blame you,” he replied, waving his hands. “You see a segment of society that can’t be easy to deal with.”
“It’s not easy, and, in many ways, it can be really ugly. But then I see something that’s very heartwarming and encouraging. Like when somebody overcomes an addiction and returns to their kids and tries to make a proper go of it, and, even three years later, I still haven’t heard from them.”
“I take that as a good thing.”
“Sometimes that’s exactly the case. Though they could have moved to another state to escape us.
It’s a series of incomplete stories. I get little snapshots for some of them, and then some cases I see over and over again, knowing the children are suffering every damn day, and believe me … it’s almost too much.”
She shook her head. “Those are the ones who really tear me apart. You want so badly to help people get on their feet, and sometimes it’s just beyond them, and there are no good options,” she described. “Anyway, that’s a very depressing subject. So, let’s get out of it. What do we need to do now?”
He looked around, his hands on his hips, frowning.
“I want to go back to searching the house in case something is going on here. Plus, I want an update from the detectives who have my brother-in-law in custody, to see if they have come up with any further information.” As he spoke, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Detective Colt.
As soon as a man answered on the other end, Anderson asked about Timothy Magnus.
“He’s not talking,” Detective Colt replied. “He’s in solitary right now, but, if he doesn’t talk, we won’t have a whole lot of information to give you.”
Anderson thought about it, then asked, “Did he tell you anything?”
“No, I only have what you told me, and, of course, that’s only your word, not his.”
“So, you’re not even sure I’m telling you the truth?”
“No, I’m not saying that,” Colt clarified, with some asperity in his voice. “However, it would help a lot if we got his version. Even though we have the recording, any lies he tells is ammunition for us.”
“Of course it would,” Anderson muttered, staring off in the distance. “We were trying to figure out if anything was hidden in the house that Tim was after, since he tried to come here before even seeing his wife in the hospital,” he shared.
After a moment of silence, Colt asked, “Did you find anything?”
“No, we didn’t. I’m not even sure what we should be looking for. Yet I don’t want unsavory sorts coming to the house with the babies here.”
“Of course not,” Colt agreed, his tone cool. “And there’s no reason why anybody should go there—except that Tim went there and obviously wanted something.” Colt groaned. “So, you have to wonder if he’s told somebody else. We don’t have manpower to guard the house as well.”
“As well?” Anderson repeated, his tone sharp. “It’s not as if you’ve been guarding my sister at all.”
“There’s no money for any of that,” Colt declared defensively. “However, now that we have your brother-in-law in custody, your sister should be safe too.”
“I don’t track why you would say that. As long as these drug-running people are out there looking for something of theirs, and they figure Tim has it, none of that makes Talia or her babies safe at all.”
Silence came on the other end.
“Right?” Anderson asked, trying to shake a word out of Colt.
At that, the detective replied, “I have no information to share at the moment, and I’ve got to go.” And, with that, he ended the call.
Anderson looked over at Pamela. “I don’t feel terribly good about any of this.”
The next morning, Pamela woke up in the first-floor bedroom, apparently before the babies did, glancing up to their bedroom above her. She smiled at the silence, then spent a moment just thinking about what this life would entail, if this were her own family. She was interrupted by a noise nearby.
She quickly dressed and opened her bedroom door to find Anderson quietly playing with the babies on the floor of the living room.
He looked up when she appeared, and he laughed. “I only just got up,” he shared, “but I thought maybe you could use a little extra rest.”
“I was just so stunned that I was still asleep, that they were still asleep,” she shared. “It never occurred to me that you and the babies were already down here.”
“It’s all good,” he said, “but, now that you’re here, you can help change diapers.”
She laughed and it took the two of them to get the three very energetic, very happy girls cleaned up and dressed, as they were interested in exploring absolutely everything.
By the time he got them to the kitchen and into their highchairs, Anderson already seemed a little on the tired side.
“They are a marathon,” he muttered.
“They absolutely are,” she agreed, giggling, “but a wonderfully exhausting marathon.”
He looked over at her suspiciously. “I get the feeling that you aren’t affected the same way I am.”
“No, probably not,” she noted, with a smile, “but that is okay. You don’t have to excel at everything, you know? It’s all good.”
“That’s … good,” he replied, his eyebrows raised, “because, in this instance, I’m not even close to excelling. This is a challenge just trying to figure out how to make their world happen from one day to the next.”
“They don’t need you to make it happen. They just need you to keep them safe while they grow,” she clarified, “and that’s about the best advice I can give anybody.
Love them, keep them safe, and, in an instance like this, they’ve had a good morning.
They had a good night. It’s obvious they’re just high on energy.
Talia will really have her hands full when they’re up and running around.
They are mobile now, but not like they will be soon. ”