Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

He whirled on Jillian, who was apparently the only speaking member of the party. “Where is Meg?” he demanded again.

“We don't know.”

“You lost her?”

“She… We don't know.”

Griffin thought of a word, remembered that Molly was in the room, and bit it back. He homed in on the Pesaturos, jerking his head at their granddaughter . “Get her out of the room.”

“I don't really think-” Laurie started vaguely.

“Get her out of the room!”

“I'll do it.” Toppi stood, crossing over to take Molly's hand, but not before giving Griffin a reproachful look. He glared right back at her. No more friendly Sergeant Griffin. Friendly Sergeant Griffin had gotten royally screwed. Now it was time to put the fear of God into these folks.

“You,” he gestured at Jillian, who had her chin up and her feet planted for battle. “If you want to remain in this room-”

“I am a guest of the Pesaturos. They asked me to come here-”

“ If you want to remain in this room-”

“Probably because they knew you were going to be pigheaded and hostile about this.”

“I will arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

She snorted. “Oh get over it. We're all worried about Meg.”

“Jillian, sit down and shut up. The Pesaturos have some talking to do, and unless you're their attorney, I don't want to hear a single peep out of you.”

Jillian gave him a look. But after another moment, she crossed stiffly to the wingback chair next to her mother. She sat down. She seemed to shut up. Just in time for Libby Hayes to stick out her tongue at him. Oh for heaven's sake…

“You.” Griffin stabbed his finger at Tom, because he couldn't keep yelling while looking at Laurie Pesaturo's tearstained face. “Start talking.”

“It was a long time ago. We didn't think it was relevant-”

“Your daughter had a relationship with a known pedophile, and you didn't think it was relevant? ”

“The man's behind bars!”

“No thanks to you, and not in another few hours!”

Tom fell silent. All at once, his massive shoulders slumped. He appeared miserable. “I swear to God, Sergeant, we didn't know. We never dreamed of a connection until you called… Oh God, Meg…”

Griffin and Fitz gave him a moment. Griffin needed to count to ten anyway. So much ringing in his ears. He knew if he looked down now, his hands would be shaking. If he tried to sit, his knee would jog up and down with a mind of its own. Reel it in, reel it in. Whatever these people had done, they were suffering for it now. And he needed to play it cool a little longer.

“Maybe if you started from the beginning,” Jillian spoke up quietly. She had obviously been briefed on the situation, and she was gazing at Tom and Laurie compassionately. Griffin resented that. He didn't know why, but he did.

“Meg was only thirteen,” Laurie murmured. “We had no idea. None at all. Not until I found her one day, curled up weeping on the bathroom floor. She'd just taken a pregnancy test and it was positive. We didn't even know she was dating.”

“How did Meg meet Price?” Fitz asked. Griffin turned toward Tom, though he already knew the answer. His former next-door neighbor, the electrician…

“Work,” Tom said predictably. “We were on the same job, wiring a new CVS. He was such a nice kid. I remember thinking that. What a nice kid. Did good work, too. And he mentioned one day that he didn't have any family. Parents were dead, I don't remember why. And I felt kinda bad for him. He couldn't have been more than twenty-four, twenty-five. So I started inviting him over for dinner.”

“He was always so polite,” Laurie murmured. She couldn't seem to get over that. “Please, thank you, yes ma'am. Even helped with the dishes.” She finally looked up. “I knew Meg had a crush on him. He was a nice-looking young man and of course at thirteen, she was beginning to notice that sort of thing. But I thought of it as a schoolgirl's crush. The kind you have on your father's hired hand, or the bag boy at the grocery store. She was still so young. I never imagined…”

“You never saw them together?” Fitz again.

Both shook their heads. “Never,” Tom said. “She snuck out at night. I didn't even know she'd think of doing such a thing. I'm sure he must've suggested it to her. I'm telling you, she'd never been a problem. She was a good girl, got good grades. Oh Meg…”

“So you found out she was pregnant,” Griffin fast-forwarded. “She tell you he was the father?”

“She was upset,” Laurie said. “She told us everything.”

“Did you confront him?”

Tom made a small, uncomfortable motion that led Griffin to understand there had been a confrontation, but it hadn't involved much talking. Tom's fists and David's face, however, had spent some quality time together. Griffin understood completely.

“If Meg was only thirteen,” Fitz said, “that's statutory rape. Why didn't you file a report? Get the kid arrested?”

Tom and Laurie exchanged miserable glances. “We were embarrassed,” Laurie said softly. “Meg was humiliated-and frightened and confused and heartbroken. She seemed to think she really loved him. According to her, he'd even proposed marriage. We just…” She took a deep breath, got herself together. “It all seemed a horrible mistake. We hadn't been paying enough attention. Meg didn't show good judgment. Going to the police would just bring it all out in the open and make things worse. You have to understand, we didn't know David had done this kind of thing before, or have the wildest idea what he'd go on to do next. Seducing a thirteen-year-old girl isn't right, but still… We never would've guessed.” She looked at Griffin earnestly. “Please, you have to believe us. We never would've guessed.”

“You covered it up,” Griffin said bluntly, harshly. She wanted forgiveness from him? What about the ten other families David had victimized?

“I have relatives,” Laurie whispered. “Upstate New York. We sent her there for the duration. I started telling people I was pregnant. And then, when the time came, I, we, had a beautiful baby girl. We love her, Sergeant.” She looked up earnestly. “The circumstances were horrible, but Molly is perfect. I have been proud to have her as my daughter, and we've been saying that for so long, as far as I'm concerned, she is my daughter. And I will do anything in my power to protect her.”

“He wants to see her,” Griffin said.

“No!”

“Price has information on the College Hill Rapist. In fact, we're coming to believe that he helped create the College Hill Rapist, and set this whole thing in motion-”

“Eddie Como is dead,” Jillian said firmly from across the room.

Griffin pivoted and glared at her. “Yeah, but he's not who raped and murdered your sister.”

There was silence. Even Libby's hands were perfectly still on her picture book. How to absorb, what to say? Griffin and Fitz had had more time with the thought than the others, and they were still reeling themselves.

Fitz finally spoke up, “We, uh, we got DNA results back from Sylvia Blaire. They match Eddie's.”

“What?” Jillian again, her face still pale, her voice bewildered. “But that's impossible!”

“We're working on the assumption that Eddie's DNA was introduced as a red herring at the rape scenes. The douches were not being used to wash semen out, but to inject semen into the body cavity.” Fitz paused for a moment. He said out loud, without seeming to realize it, “Well, that would explain why Eddie was so willing to give a DNA sample. Poor bastard honestly thought he hadn't done it.”

“But the notes,” Jillian insisted. “All those phone calls and letters… He harassed us!”