Profile of Fear: Book Four of the Profile Series (Volume 4) (7 page)

“Sir, do you recall the training you sent me to last month? I’m now trained and certified to work with possible child abuse victims. I have a rapport with her now, and I’d really like to be the one who works with Becca.”

Glancing at Gail, he nodded. In her politically correct way, she was letting him know he was biased in this case, and she was right. For reasons he had yet to understand, this child was already special to him, and his protective emotions surged through him as if a dam had broken. At this moment, he’d get great satisfaction out of throttling Becca’s worthless parents.

“I agree. You do the interview with her. I’m also putting you in charge of any evidence we collect regarding her abuse. Make sure it’s prepared and marked to maintain the chain of custody. We don’t want some judge to throw out the case based on a glitch we could have avoided.”

A soaked Sandy emerged from behind the shower curtain holding Becca, who was now wrapped in a white towel.

While Sandy went inside the vehicle to change her shirt, Cameron pulled his clean T-shirt from the back of his waistband and handed it to Gail, who quickly dressed Becca. On the toddler, his shirt hung to the ground and threatened to slide off her little shoulders. She held her arms up to him and he swept her little body into a protective embrace, as Gail handed her the teddy bear.

Sandy reappeared. “It’s time we get this little one to the hospital.”

Cameron looked at Becca’s little face for only a second before saying, “I’m going with her.” With Sandy’s help, he loaded the toddler into the emergency vehicle, then climbed in himself.

Gail called after him. “I’ll meet you there.”

Chapter Ten

Diego Santiago had been watching the house when he saw the SWAT team arrive. Damn his luck anyway. He’d waited too long to grab the kid and Donda. He’d royally fucked up this time, and just might pay for his blunder with his life.

Leaping to his feet, he hunched over and worked his way to his car, which he’d parked on the dirt road at the end of the corn field. Covered with mosquito bites, he scratched at his skin as he ran. Using a search light, the cops did a sweep of the field. Luckily, he’d run beyond the scope of the light and could see his car in the distance. Jumping inside, he fished his keys out of his dirty jeans and pulled out a small flashlight so he could see the ignition. Once he got the car started, he slowly drove ahead without headlights until he was far enough from the house and the swarm of cops to be noticed. Pulling onto a county highway, he flicked on his headlights and headed for town, hauling ass until he spotted the first convenience store. He pulled in, parked at the back of the lot, and got out his throwaway cell. His heart beating painfully against his chest, he punched in a number and waited to hear the voice of his boss.

“Yeah!” Juan barked.

“Boss, this is Diego.”

“You better have a damn good reason for calling at this time in the morning.” His voice rough from sleep carried the threat loud and clear. Diego’s stomach clenched and prepared to deliver the bad news.

“I was watching Donda’s house like you told me. The police came and surrounded the house.”

“What!? Why?”

“Not sure. But I know the guy she’s living with was dealing meth. Maybe he got caught.”

“Where’s my kid?”

“Don’t know. I was in the field across from the house and got out of there when the SWAT team arrived.”

“You fucking loser. You promised me that you’d get my kid!”

“There were people going in and out of the house all day. Then the cops came. No opportunity.”

“No excuses!” he roared. “Just get your ass back there and locate my kid. Don’t call me until you find her. Do you understand? You fail me and you die—slowly and painfully.”

Diego turned the car around and headed back to the house. He’d choose what the cops would do to him any day over the wrath of Juan Ortiz. One didn’t cross the boss and live to tell about it. Nor did one fail to deliver what he requested.

He arrived just as an ambulance whizzed past his car. Doing a U-turn, he headed toward the hospital.

Chapter Eleven

Social Worker Melanie Barrett pushed through the front doors of the only hospital in Morel, Indiana. She was not in her best mood as she entered the long hallway that led to the Emergency Department. Not that she had a best mood anymore. Bone-tired, she couldn’t remember the last time she
didn’t
feel exhausted.

Only twenty-seven-years-old, she felt more like seventy. When had work devoured her life? In her twenties, she was still young. She should be having fun, dating and going out with friends. Instead, she spent her life stalking child abusers and doing what she could to protect the innocent.

But everything worked against her. The overload of cases cheated her from spending quality time with any of them. The daily pressure to perform in crisis situations left her fearful, stressed, and drained. Exposure to violent family members and actual physical assault had her terrified that the next removal of an abused child could be her last.

Her workload had grown from the recommended seventeen she’d had when she trained to fifty-one cases. Lack of support from her agency and the judicial system left her gritting her teeth with frustration. Melanie had been employed by Child Protective Services for six years. Lately, she thought it was six years too long. Thinking about the horrific abuse to children she’d witnessed during that time made her want to vomit. Anger was her constant companion, and at times, even she didn’t know at whom or why she was so pissed off. The constant fear of making a mistake that could result in the death of a child haunted her every minute of the day and night. How could she
not
work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? How could this work
not
become her life?

Melanie hated her low-paying, punishing job, along with the life she couldn’t have. She was beginning to hate herself. Turns out maybe she was the pathetic loser her mother always said she was.

The previous day she hadn’t left work until midnight, because she was trying to place a disgruntled teenaged boy who ran away from his second group home in a month. She’d spent hours searching all over the county for a foster family who would take him. Unfortunately, there were fewer foster parents than there were kids who needed them, and she ended up placing him with a group home that already had five teens. His running away from this one wasn’t just likely, it was inevitable. She had no idea where she’d place him the next time. Melanie was out of options, which meant so was he.

She’d only gotten a couple of hours sleep when she’d had been awakened at five in the morning with the report that a two-year-old female had been discovered at the site of methamphetamine bust. Seriously? How many times had she harped at the sheriff to tell his undercover officers to look for children in the home so they could be removed at the earliest possible time—certainly before the SWAT team swept in with loaded weapons. Damn it. Now a toddler exposed to meth for God-knows-how-long was in the emergency room.

Fury sizzled her brain, so she found a coffee pot and dumped the rest of the sludge the hospital called coffee into a cup at a nurses’ station. Then she plopped down in a chair in the hospital chapel to calm down before she talked to the law enforcement officer in charge and met with the toddler. Lifting the hot coffee to her mouth, she winced when the brew crossed her lips, which were still healing from the punch in the mouth she received from a drunken mother the week before. Melanie considered herself lucky it wasn’t worse. The woman had grabbed a steak knife from a drawer and was heading toward her when a deputy intervened and escorted the mother to the back of his squad car.

The woman had insisted that Melanie was not going to take her kids out of their home, which was one of the filthiest the social worker had ever seen. The stench was so bad she’d plastered her hand against her nose and mouth. The young deputy who accompanied her vomited in the yard.

Used beer bottles and cat feces littered areas of the residence where the children were found playing. Because there were no beds for the kids, they slept with blankets on the soiled and stained carpet in the front room. The bathroom had a backed-up toilet, leaving no place for the children to go to the bathroom, so they went where they could. Neighbors had reported seeing the kids defecating in the back yard. Yes, Melanie had saved the three children from the squalor of their home and from an alcoholic mother who beat them on a regular basis. But did she really help them? There were no relatives who would take them, so she ended up separating the kids and putting each in an overcrowded foster home until she could put all three in the same home. But when would that be? If ever?

This particular mother had her children returned six months earlier, thanks to a child protection system whose goal was uniting families. Every time a soft judge returned an abused child to the supposedly reformed parent, she seethed. Would it be a matter of time until the child died at the hands of the people who should protect him or her with their very lives? In six years, ten of her charges were buried in the Morel cemetery. All ten had been murdered by their parents.

Things had gotten worse for children since many of the area farmers had discovered that their failed farming ventures could be turned around with an outbuilding or two and few neighbors. Meth labs were popping up like mushrooms, and God help the children who got in the way.

When it came to meth labs and their impact on children, Melanie thought she’d seen it all: toxic poisoning, chemical burns, fires, and explosions. And that was just the beginning of the drugs’ impact on kids.

Meth-dependent parents and caregivers are the very
last
people who should be caring for children, because they lose the capacity to nurture. The meth makes them careless, irritable, and violent. The need to protect their children’s safety becomes a foreign concept too difficult for them to understand.

So who protected their children’s safety and provided essential food, dental, and medical care (including immunizations, proper hygiene, and grooming), and appropriate sleeping conditions? In too many cases, no one. If there were older siblings in these homes, they often assumed the parental role, taking care of the brothers and sisters, as well as the parents, as well as themselves.

Addicted parents typically fall into a deep sleep for days and cannot be awakened, further increasing the likelihood that their children will be exposed to toxic chemicals in their environment, and to abusive acts committed by other drug-using individuals in the home.

Older children living at meth lab sites experience the added trauma of witnessing violence, being forced to participate in violence, caring for an incapacitated or injured parent or sibling, or watching police arrest and remove a parent.

Choking down the rest of her coffee, Melanie reached into the canvas tote bag she used for a briefcase for a slip of paper, and began reading. Becca Hicks was the name of the two-year-old she would see in the ER. The child would need to be placed in a foster or group home immediately, since the mother was now incarcerated and claimed to have no relatives to care for Becca.

The toddler was the daughter of Donda Hicks, with the father listed as unknown. The address was a rural route number and there was no indication of how long mother or child had lived there. Nor was there any information on how long the residence had served as a house where meth was cooked and sold. Melanie shrugged her shoulders and sighed. There was no telling how much damage had been done to the child. She’d seen toddlers who had inhaled or swallowed the toxic substances and suffered permanent damage to their tiny bodies.

A meth house holds so many dangers for a curious toddler. Even low-level exposure to meth can cause headaches, fatigue, dizziness—symptoms she couldn’t expect a toddler to describe. Melanie prayed this baby did not have high levels of exposure, which could result in eye and tissue irritation, lack of coordination, chemical burns to the skin, eyes, mouth, nose, and even death. Damage to vital organs, cancer, and brain damage were not an impossibility. Not to mention the presence of weapons, violence, physical or sexual abuse by her parent, or by outsiders visiting the home. No doubt this child’s case would be added to all the other nightmares that kept her up at night.

Her stomach queasy, Melanie closed her eyes and rubbed the tense muscles in the back of her neck. Pushing her eyeglasses back to the bridge of her nose, she wished she could go home, go to bed, and pull the covers over her head. When was the last time she got a full eight hours of sleep? She just wanted to fall into a deep slumber and forget about the vicious abuse and horrific injuries she’d seen. Was that too much to ask?

Melanie didn’t know how much more of her job she could take. The stress ate away at her physical and emotional health like acid. How could she continue doing a job that was killing her? How could she not?

Chapter Twelve

Cameron leaned against the wall in the hospital hallway. Moments earlier, a busty nurse with an attitude had pushed him out of Becca’s exam room, banishing him to the waiting room until the ER doc completed her examination. He pretended to be heading that way until the nurse went back inside, and then he moved right outside the exam room so he’d know what was going on.

Becca was having none of it and was throwing a full-blown temper tantrum inside. He could hear the doctor trying to calm her down. His heart ached a little more with each ear-piercing scream. The baby was terrified, and it was all he could do to stop himself from rushing inside the exam room to comfort her.

Sighing deeply, he crossed his arms over his chest and wondered what would happen to Becca. He’d seen firsthand what happens to kids who get lost in the foster care system. Many of them moved from foster care right into juvenile delinquency, acting out their misery in a series of violent and non-violent crimes. He didn’t want that for Becca.