Daniel Palmer - Helpless

“But at least you tried.”

“And you were one of maybe three other guys who didn’t laugh at me whenever I did. Besides, there are approximately seventeen thousand professional athletes in the United States. That gave me a point zero zero five percent chance of becoming one myself. The law seemed a far more surefire way to financial security.”

“By the looks of it, you’re doing well,” Tom said.

By all appearances, it was true. The cozy office inside the well-kept Victorian home was smartly furnished with several dark bookcases stocked with legal tomes. A richly colored Oriental rug lay over a pale wide-plank hardwood floor. The meeting area within Marvin’s high-ceilinged office had an unmarked whiteboard, similar to the type Tom used to map out soccer plays; a large black-lacquered conference table; and a set of six plush leather chairs.

“Business keeps growing,” Marvin said. “I might not be scoring goals, but I am helping people, and that feels good. So, you ready to get started?”

Tom tapped Jill on the shoulder. She pulled the buds from her ears and followed Tom over to the meeting area. Tom sat first, and Jill sat on his side of the table, but two seats away. Marvin sat across from them.

Marvin began by addressing Jill. “So, Jill, we’re here today to talk about your future.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I spoke with your dad, and he told me to be very candid during this session,” he said. “As the attorney for your mother’s estate, I’m most familiar with her affairs. I’m afraid the news about your mother’s finances isn’t good.”

“What’s ‘not good’ mean?” Jill asked Marvin, her sweet voice edged with concern.

“Your mother had no savings. No life insurance. Really, no provisions at all for your care. On top of that, your house has two mortgages, which she was already behind on, and the bank is threatening to take it to foreclosure.”

“What does that mean?” Jill asked.

“It means we need to talk about where you’re going to live,” Tom said.

“I’ll live with Lindsey,” Jill said, refusing even to glance at her father. “They already offered.”

“Jill, I’m not going to allow that. Not with what happened last night.”

“But it’s my life!”

Tom cleared his throat. “I believe I have custody now.”

Marvin nodded. “That’s correct,” he said. “Until Jill is an adult, you become the custodial parent.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying to come and live with me in Westbrook.”

“What? No! My life is here in Shilo. I don’t want to just leave it behind. Especially now. I need my friends more than ever.”

“Jill, you were there. You saw what happened. It’s not safe, and I’m not going to take any chances.”

“I can take care of myself,” Jill snapped. “You think Mom was looking out for me? She could barely look out for herself.”

“Look, I’m not going to trust your friends to keep you safe.”

Marvin cleared his throat, his way of clearing the air. He said, “Well, you’re within your parental rights to have Jill come live with you, Tom. Westbrook is a nice town, Jill. Great schools, from what I hear.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Jill pleaded. “If you love me, like you say you do, then just let me live with Lindsey. Let me stay here. Please.”

Tom thought. Then he asked, “Marvin, what if I moved to Shilo? Took over Kelly’s mortgage?”

“Remember, the bank is coming after the house,” Marvin warned. “But all the bank is interested in is money. If we can get the mortgage caught up and show proof that you can continue making payments, I’m sure they would be satisfied.”

“I’ve got my job with the Shilo public schools, and I can sell my place in Westbrook,” Tom said. “Whatever it takes to make this work, I’ll do it.” He felt absolutely confident about a plan he’d spent all of ten seconds concocting.

“You would do that?” Jill stammered. “You’d move here so I could stay?”

Tom nodded. “I’m your father, Jill,” he said. “I’m going to do what’s best for you.”

Jill’s downcast face brightened. Tom smiled too.

The next hour passed in a blur. Papers needed to be signed. Forms to be filled out. Each completed check-box item made Tom feel one step closer to his goal: to be thought of as Jill’s father again.

But he had other concerns that needed resolution.

Who was the man in the woods?

Where was Kip Lange?

Could Tom realistically keep them both safe?

When they were finished for the afternoon, Tom escorted Jill back into the waiting room. “Hang here a second, kiddo,” he said. “There’s something I forgot to ask Marvin.”

Jill’s iPod earbuds went back into place before Tom reopened Marvin’s office door.

“Forget something?” Marvin asked.

“Marvin, do you do any investigative work?” Tom asked, keeping the door slightly ajar so that he could keep an eye on Jill. “You seem pretty good at digging up esoteric sports stats. I’m guessing you’re good at finding out a lot of things.”

Marvin’s eyes narrowed on Tom. “Is this about Kelly’s killer? Because I don’t do PI work.”

“If the guy I fought in the woods is who I think it was, then his name is Kip Lange.”

“Go on.”

“Almost sixteen years ago Lange was stationed at the same military base in Germany as Kelly and I. He was arrested for the attempted murder of a U.S. Army officer. He’s supposed to still be in prison.”

“Yeah? What do you need to know?”

“I don’t trust Murphy to investigate this properly. He’s too focused on me. So if Lange’s not still locked up, I need to know where he is.”

“Do you think Lange had something to do with what happened to Kelly?”

“It’s possible,” Tom said. “But unlikely. Like I said, he should still be in prison.”

“Tom, I’ll do what I can to help you find him, but you have to level with me. What’s the real story here? I don’t like to operate in the dark. You’ve got to give me something.”

“We have attorney-client privilege working here?”

Marvin nodded. “We do.”

“Then I can tell you that it has something to do with a gun and millions of dollars’ worth of smuggled heroin.”

The work never got easier.

Her superiors had assured FBI special agent Loraine “Rainy” Miles that she’d eventually grow numb to it. She had joined the Innocent Images National Initiative, part of the cyber crimes against children investigative squad, five years ago. In all those years, Rainy had yet to feel a tingle of that promised numbness.

Not once.

The computer jocks assigned to the cyber squad were members of the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team, or CART for short. Rainy handled procedural duties and was the person most responsible for gathering evidence for the U.S. Attorney’s office (USAO). CART made it possible for Rainy to get that evidence, and thanks to them, Rainy had enough material to put James Mann away for a very, very long time.

From start to finish, Mann’s arrest in his suburban Boston home had taken only a few hours. But the events leading up to it had been several months in the making, and it had all started because of that tip. Tips, Rainy had come to learn, were the lifeblood of the squad. If it weren’t for them, her team would have a hard time finding a child porn ring, let alone breaching one to shut it down. Whoever had jump-started the Mann investigation apparently knew how to stay in the shadows. Mann, a pharmaceutical executive and father of two, fortunately did not.

CART had created the mirror images of Mann’s computers with their typical thoroughness. Procedurally, Rainy couldn’t begin to gather evidence until she had a bit-by-bit re-creation of Mann’s physical hardware to work from. She hadn’t seen much of the sun since Mann’s arrest, as she’d spent almost every working hour cramped inside the windowless confines of the Lair, the pet name given to CART’s forensic lab. In her world of justice, James Mann couldn’t do enough time, but the law had different standards for punishment.