girl fabricated the entire thing.”
“What do you mean?” Seth asked “Why would she do such a thing?”
Denise’s nostrils flared as she exhaled audibly. “I’ll answer your first question first, Seth. Chris was serving warrants for the bureau when he fell ill and went home early one Wednesday afternoon. Chris never missed work. There were many days I tried to talk him out of leaving the house when he was sick as a dog. So when he called me and told me he was headed home I knew that he was feeling rotten.”
“Erica didn’t count on him returning there did she?” Seth could figure early on where this story was leading. “What did your ex-husband find her doing when he got home?”
“He heard someone screaming from one of the bedrooms upstairs soon after he walked in. He told me later that he pulled out his gun and sprinted upstairs. He could only guess at that point what was going on? Had someone broken in? Was someone possibly hurting or even raping Erica? The cries were definitely coming from her room, so he broke the door down and entered.”
“Denise, are you sure you want to tell me this—
“He found Erica home alright. She had some naked younger girl, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, strapped with rope to the four bed post by her wrist and ankles. My husband told me that my little girl was shoving a broom stick handle up the younger girl’s vagina…and she didn’t stop, even after Chris had broken her door down.”
“Did you know that Erica was bisexual?”
“You are asking the right person the wrong question, Seth. The real question is how long I knew Erica was a bull dyke. She’d always showed an attraction to other girls for as long as I could remember.”
Seth squeezed Denise’s hand. “I know that you just said that this younger girl was screaming. But was it in, I don’t know, pleasure or pain? How did Erica defend what she was doing? Did it start as a consensual thing—“
“Chris told me that he believed it might have begun that way and I can’t disagree with his assessment. The other girl begged Chris to untie her. When he did, he turned his back on her for just a second, and she hit him across his head, snatched her clothes off of a neighboring chair and ran away. None of us ever saw her again.”
Seth frowned again. “So this girl never filed a complaint? And I don’t really understand how this tie in with these allegations you speak of that Erica filed against Agent Prince?”
“Erica threatened to file her own attempted molestation charge against Chris if he dared tell anyone about what he saw going on in her bedroom. She knew about his abduction by Louis Keaton. She knew he had been molested himself. She understood how Science claims these things worked in cycles.”
“And what happened then, Denise?”
“Like I said before, Chris and Erica were never close. Erica’s teenaged years only made the animosity between them grow. She had been caught shoplifting a handful of times, cutting class, involved in fights…if it were a sin then Erica was likely to involve herself in it. Six months after this particular incident though Chris had enough of her antics. He exploded after Erica put another young girl in the hospital during an altercation outside a movie theatre. He read her the riot act right then and there after the police arrived to arrest her.”
“And what did she do, Denise?”
“She went off. She summoned up her best crocodile tears. She screamed to anyone who would listen that Chris was sexually abusing her and had been doing so for years. How could anyone not see that his abuse was the real reason behind her poor behavior? She was a victim of this abuse. She needed help.”
“And your daughter knew that Chris past abduction and abuse by Louis Keaton would work against him in any court of law or public opinion.”
Denise nodded. “Chris was fortunate that the allegations didn’t become more widespread than they actually were. The FBI, especially Agent Sheridan, kept as much internal as they could manage. They were receiving daily reports from the APD. Even the local media never got wind of it.” She said. “To be perfectly honest, I thought the situation would turn out far worse for him than it actually had.”
“How do you mean?”
Tears ran down Denise’s cheeks. Seth took his handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and wiped them away…although more followed in their wake. He had agreed to drive her down here against his better judgment. Yet, a part of him hoped that Angel would be with Prince when they found them. He had an urging to see his wife so badly again. Perhaps they could still work things out. Hold on, Seth, The Gray Man told himself, here comes the worse part of this story yet.
“I lost all objectivity. I screamed rape even when Erica would stop long enough to catch her breath. I knew about Erica’s sexual preferences. I was aware of her tendencies towards anger and aggression. Most of all, I believed Chris when he told me what he had walked in on at our home.” Denise turned to look at Seth at last. “I guess mother and daughter were more alike than I ever wanted to admit. I had committed myself to destroying the man I loved…a good man…to protect my lying daughter.”
Seth swallowed hard. “Chris…all of you somehow finally got past all of this. You were married for at least a year longer. And the FBI reinstated Chris back to full duty. And like you said, the media never learned of anything that was going on?”
“The FBI suspended Chris with pay for thirty days while they conducted their own internal investigation. They guarded the reasoning for his suspension so that none of the other agents in his field office would find out. There were rumors, of course, but nothing that anyone could substantiate. Eventually, as you said, he was reinstated after they deducted that he was innocent of all the charges that he had been wrongfully brought against him. My God, Seth…if the accusations had spread on his job or out in the general public…especially now, with this entire thing between Xavier’s A House in Chains and Pandora, I could only guess the damage that would be done to his reputation and career.”
Your daughter’s death hopefully sealed that door forever, Denise. Seth hated himself for thinking that way. “Nevertheless, what happened ruined any chance for reconciliation between your daughter and her stepfather.” Seth said as a matter of fact. “I’m sure it severed most of the bonds between the two of you as well?”
Denise answered his last question only with more tears. A part of him wanted to comfort this woman. Yet, a more rational portion remembered what he had witnessed of Denise’s transformations from rational to irrational from her in her apartment. Denise could be vicious. She could be vindictive. If Chris Prince had to deal with two women like this in one household for years he had been a lucky man to have survived it at all.
“I was so spiteful.” Denise shook her head almost violently back and forth. “I was a fool who clung on to her daughter’s lies and ignored the facts. And now with Erica gone…I’ve lost them both.”
Seth lifted her chin up. “You can still make this right with Chris. Have you ever formally apologized, Denise?” She shook her head once this time. “You might be amazed how saying the right thing can cure a lot of ills, even if it is well after the fact. I think that he would appreciate hearing that from you. It’s never too late to make amends.” He hit the button that unlocked the doors and flashed a much needed smile of understanding if not forgiveness her way. “Go…he’s twenty feet away…go on, Denise, make this right as best as you can at this point.”
“You’re right,” After she opened the passenger door, she scooted her body back far enough to clutch his cheek and kiss him on the lips. “Thank you for being here for me, Seth. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I am glad that we didn’t…you know…before. You’ve been such a good friend when I so desperately needed one.”
Seth smiled at her. “Go,” He said again. “It’s never too late. Take your leap of faith.”
She started out…and then stopped again. “It’s not my business, Doctor, but I can’t shake the feeling that Angel has been as foolish as I have.” Denise lowered her voice. “You should give her one more chance as we
ll. You’re a good man and I can tell that your marriage means everything to you. If she really loves you…give her one last chance to prove it to you.” She stopped long enough to stare out into the full moonlight with a hardened gaze that he could only guess what it meant. “I know that this is my last chance to prove mine.”
“Go,”
Seth’s head collapsed on the headrest, fatigue overcoming him. So much had happened in such a short period of time. All of those endless hours they had worked at the triage center…and now this long drive down here into the middle of nowhere.
He hoped Denise had taken his words to heart because he had taken hers. Seth knows that his wife likely was shacked up in one of these hotel rooms, asleep (hopefully alone) with a nearly empty liquor bottle on the dresser nearby. Tomorrow, the Gray Man told himself, tomorrow I will call you again, Angel. Or better yet he will attempt to see her. Whatever happens from there he feels that he accomplished what he came to Atlanta for in the first place.
But this night belonged to Chris and Denise Prince—
Denise had returned.
Too soon;
Too damned soon;
“Go,” She said. And when he failed to immediately turn the key in the ignition, “No questions…just go.”
Denise had been crying again since she left the car. What was more