Page 31 of It's One of Us

Olivia’s phone chimes discreetly. She glances down. Work beckons.

“Well, Mr. Bender. I don’t know that anonymous is in the cards anymore. One of the kids has been reaching out to the others to try and identify and contact their biological father. How you interact with her—with them—going forward is not our problem. We need to identify our suspect. It would be a big help, Mr. Bender, if you could give us all the information you have about Winterborn Life Sciences.”

14

THE HUSBAND

Olivia is up out of her chair before the echoes of thedingfrom her text are entirely gone.

“So sorry, I have to run. An emergency at one of my sites. Fill me in on the rest later, okay, honey?” She busses him briefly on the forehead and is out the door a moment later, leaving Park staring.

He listens to Olivia’s Jeep drive away, feeling very small, and very alone. Abandoned in his moment of need. Embarrassed in front of the cops who are already eyeing him like he’s a juicy steak and they haven’t eaten in weeks.

The ballerina especially. “So, Mr. Bender, if we could go into more detail about Winterborn—”

“Hold up,” he says, trying to get control of the conversation again. “My—she—this girl. Who is she? Where is she?”

“She’s here in Nashville,” Moore says, a little gentler now. “She and her mother are willing to meet you, if you want.”

“Of course I want to meet her. My God. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“No one’s saying you’re anything but an honorable guy, so don’t freak on us,” Osley says. “I know this is an extraordinary situation, and you’ve had some bad experiences with the police in the past. Just...hang in here with us for a bit, so we can get through the rest. Then we’ll give you her information, and you can do with it what you will.”

Park manages to get through the remainder of the interview with the detectives, giving them everything he can about the donation process he’d undertaken, the names of the doctors, assuming they were still there, of course, all these years later. The names of the friends who talked him into it, the interviews he went through, every single detail he can spit out.

Now, an hour later, Osley finally stands and stretches like a cat, complete with yawn. The ballerina cuts her eyes at her partner and sets a card and a piece of notebook paper down on the table. “We’ll do what we can to keep this quiet, Mr. Bender,” she promises, and the two leave.

They will be back. He knows they will. They are on the scent; they sense a bigger story here.

Olivia, the baby, lost again. Their lives upended. The dwindling bank account, and now this.

A son who is a murderer. Twenty-eight children. Nineteen boys and nine girls.

Nineteen suspects.

That they know of.

To think this will stay quiet...there’s no way.

Park’s head spins, worse than before. Now that the news has had time to settle in his bones, in his soul, and the elation he feels at the thought—twenty-eight children!—is drowned by the knowledge that one of them is a murderer, and his child with Olivia is dead.

What hath he wrought?

He picks up the piece of paper and looks at the handwritten note. They live in Belmont. His daughter lives in Belmont. She is less than fifteen minutes away. Has he ever seen her before, at a grocery store, or a park? He and Olivia love the restaurants around 12th South. The chances that he has seen her are off the charts. Nashville is not that big of a town; even with the influx of tourists, it isn’t uncommon to run into friends everywhere you go.

Hisdaughter.

The joy at that moniker almost outweighs the gravity of this situation. His daughter—and his son. His son, who might have killed a woman.

He wants to call the girl right now, but he must respect Olivia here. He needs to get her permission—this feels very important to him. He can’t stomach upsetting her more. As upset as he is that she bailed on him this morning, he understands.

The doorbell rings, a stab of annoyance. The cops back, forgetting something?

He opens the door to find a woman he vaguely recognizes standing on the porch.

“Hi, Mr. Bender? I’m Erica Pearl from Channel Four. I’m so sorry to come by unexpectedly, but I tried to call and couldn’t get through. Would you have a few moments to talk to me? We could go inside and chat? Off the record, if that’s more comfortable for you.”

“This isn’t a good time,” he says, wary.