2. Chapter 2 The Weight of Duty
GAbrIEL
Inexplicable anticipation thrums in my veins as I open the dossier on Juliana Caldwell I just received from Hawk Investigations. I spent way too much time looking at the images included in the one provided by her father on the plane trip home.
Even now, the file sits to the left of my computer on my desk. I don't know why I keep referring to the photos. Studying them isn't going to give me better insight with which to advise my father on recommended men of our family to offer as her match.
Even at first glance, it's easy to see that Hawk's operative has been thorough. There are multiple tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet indicating the different areas of Juliana's life the operative investigated. This comes as no surprise. Sebastian Hawk only hires the best.
I requested and paid for a deep dive into Juliana's life. If she is going to marry a member of my family, there will be no ugly surprises coming to light after the wedding that will embarrass the House of Al Qadir.
The cover page on the first tab is as I expect.
Subject: Juliana Marie Caldwell
Birth: July 15, 20—, Santa Fe, NM
Age: 24
Current Address:
Pictures of an older but well-maintained apartment building are provided with interactive map coordinates.
K thru 12: Attended private schools established by Paloma Caldwell nee Delgado's family in 1897.
Post-Secondary Education:
Associate of Arts Degree in Human Services with an emphasis in Child and Family Studies, Santa Fe Community College
Current Paid Employment: Solace Ridge Renewal Ranch
Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning
20 hrs per week: 10 am - 2 pm, M-F
20— to Present
Selects suitable horses and facilitates safe interaction between horse and child, during equine-assisted mental health and learning sessions under the direction of licensed therapists and educators. Interprets equine behavior and monitors the animal’s physical and emotional welfare.
No past job history to report.
Voluntary Employment: Solace Ridge Renewal Ranch
Averages 16 hrs per week of volunteer hours: varied schedule
20— to Present
Supervised Groom – 4 years
Groom & Supervised Trainer – 4 years
Groom & Trainer 20— to Present
Assists with the daily grooming, handling, exercise, and training of the ranch’s rescue horses.
Works extensively with animals recovering from neglect, abuse, or other adverse circumstances, helping rehabilitate them through patient handling, desensitization, trust-building, and individualized retraining.
Evaluates each horse’s progress and suitability for eventual placement or participation in the ranch’s therapeutic programs.
Other Primary Interests:
High Desert Jr. Rockhounds, member 5 years
Saddleback Rockhounds, member 20— to Present
Her father dismissed her job as an assistant, giving the impression she worked as a clerk or something.
While she works under the supervision of licensed therapists, Juliana's job is integral to the equine therapy.
Her volunteer position carries as much, if not more responsibility as her paid position.
I wonder what else he got wrong about his daughter.
Tab 2 is Financial & Credit Records, Tab 3 is Criminal History, Tab 4 is Driving & Public Records, Tab 5 is Online & Social Media Presence, Tab 6 is Social Life & Relationship Status. Tab 7 is Family. Tab 8 is Psychological Evaluation.
I click on Tab 6.
Current Relationship Status: Single, dates sporadically
Past Relationships:
Only one relationship of note:
Dated Lonny Porter (fellow rockhound), for nine months in 20—
No evidence of overnights at one another's apartments or sexual trysts elsewhere. Attended the same rockhound convention while dating. Stayed in separate rooms of the same hotel.
No other relationships of note.
Social Life:
Family
Subject has dinner once a month with her parents in their home. She attends functions related to her mother's fundraising and charitable activities twice a year, but other than major birthdays and holidays, does not interact with them socially otherwise.
This is a source of frustration for both her mother and father.
Sources describe subject's relationship with her siblings as emotionally close, though her brother lives in Santa Fe and travels a great deal and her sister lives in Seattle, WA.
Friends
Subject gets along well with her coworkers but does not socialize with them outside of her time at the ranch. She belongs to a rockhound society that has monthly meetings and several group hikes per year. She attends all of them, but goes rock hunting on her own at least twice a month.
Only friendship of note: subject has dinner once a week with DeeDee Anders, Grade School Teacher.
So, she does date. If not often. Her father was wrong about that too. Juliana dated the same man exclusively for nine months, the circumstances of which could be interpreted as either lacking in sexual intimacy or successful discretion on the part of her and Lonny Porter.
I send a quick text to the investigator to compile a dossier on Porter.
Clicking back through the other tabs I learn that Juliana has a large trust fund made up from contributions by both sets of grandparents as well as Juliana's own parents. There is a note that her sister has an identical trust fund.
Her brother, as heir to Caldwell's companies, does not.
Juliana receives yearly lump sum interest and dividends payments from her trust fund, which she seems to spend wisely. At the end of the year, she donates whatever funds remain in her active bank account to the ranch she volunteers at.
She has not donated less than twenty-five thousand dollars since turning 18 and receiving her first payment.
I click back to the cover page and look at the photos of her apartment building, then click on the map for her current address.
It's near the old downtown of Santa Fe. Not a bad neighborhood, but nothing like the gated community her parents live in either.
Why does she choose to live so modestly?
Unsurprisingly, she does not have a criminal record and has never received so much as a speeding ticket. She got her license to drive at the age of sixteen, which is when her volunteer hours at the ranch started to increase significantly.
There is only one record of note, though I question how public it was.
When Juliana was 14, an investigation was opened by the CYFD into anonymous allegations of abuse by her parents of Juliana.
The allegations are found to be false with a note in the file that the laser treatments Juliana underwent for the port wine birthmark on her cheek left bruising behind on the affected areas.
Juliana's social media presence is mostly the result of being tagged in other people's posts. The only photos she shares herself are of the horses she takes care of and trains at the ranch and the crystals she finds rockhounding.
Even those pictures are few and far between. Her accounts are all set to private and she has less than a few dozen friends or followers on each of them.
The section on her family is as expected.
Both sets of grandparents are living and active in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe society sets.
Her mother is an ardent supporter of the arts and opera, sitting on museum boards and fundraising committees.
Her father attends social functions with his wife, but works long hours and is out of town at least one week of every month.
As to be expected from a man in his position.
Her sister is married and living in Seattle with a husband and small son. Juliana's brother lives in Santa Fe, but makes frequent trips to the East Coast. He is currently the director of manufacturing operations for Caldwell Biomedical.
The reports compiled on the siblings and Juliana's parents by our in-house investigators are more thorough, detailing points of vulnerability and potential leverage I do not want Hawk to know I am looking for.
He's far too morally upright to support the use of blackmail in attaining one's objectives. My concept of honor is not tarnished in the least by contemplating doing so.
Feeling no hesitation at invading Juliana's privacy, I click into the psychologist's report. Working for Hawk Investigations, the psychologist isn't just an analyst, but a collector of information as well. As such, he both covertly and overtly interviewed people in Juliana's life.
Her father offered frank answers, according to the psychologist, to several questions posed by the doctor, explaining certain anomalies in Juliana's personal history.
Born with a port-wine stain birthmark, Juliana began receiving laser treatment for it at eighteen months.
The laser treatment protocol was stopped a year and a half later when Juliana began to scream and cry about every appointment.
During a particularly violent tantrum, she got away from her mother and ran across the parking lot.
Right into the path of an oncoming car.
The car was only moving at about 5 mph, but the collision still knocked Juliana's small body into the air. She landed on her back and was knocked out. Her father cancelled all further treatments.
According to the psychologist, he expresses regret both for stopping the treatments and waiting to start them until she was eighteen months old in the first place.
He believes that if the treatments had started earlier, she might not have developed the aversion to them, or the trauma response that came later.
The treatment protocol resumed, with her consent, when Juliana was fourteen. Her classmates reacted badly to the post treatment bruising, accusing her of being a "battered child" and someone filed that anonymous report against her parents.
By the time the treatments reached their conclusion with the most favorable outcome possible, a near disappearance entirely of the birthmark, the seventeen-year-old Juliana had withdrawn from her peers socially.
Hawk's psychological consultant notes: