Page 30

THIRTY

The Therapist - Foreign Air

SIX MONTHS AGO

“Hey, did you get my text?”

“Huh?” I glance at my boss, popping open my first energy drink for the day.

“Someone’s too cool to show up for work,” my coworker Brad scoffs. “Don’t worry; the rest of us covered your load.” He slides into the roll-call seat beside me.

“I didn’t get shit.” I check my phone. “What happened?” I’ve been a detective for two weeks. Of course I managed to fuck up already.

“Rape.” Brad lifts an eyebrow. “Twelve-year-old said her daddy was fucking her for a year.”

More of my coworkers slide into roll call. Another one pipes up. “Yeah! Said he was pulling out and coming on her dresser.”

I frown. “What the hell?”

“You missed it, sleeping beauty. Did a search warrant last night. Wouldn’t you know? Blacklight showed shit all over her dresser.”

My stomach sinks. “No.”

“Yep. Streaks of it.” They shift in a mix of disgust and fascination. Fucking cops.

“Is he in jail?”

“Fuck yeah he is.”

They give me the rundown on the case—Sam Roe having sex with his biological daughter. It makes me sick, but everything is just like the girl, Bethany, said it would be. Every detail.

Until a few days later, Bethany comes in to recant her story.

They make me talk to her since I’m the new guy, and I have a way with kids. Bethany tries to bring her stepmom into the room with her, but I don’t like parents in the interview room. I want kids to tell me whatever they want without coaching or pressure, so I have her stepmom step out.

After she’s gone, I move Buffalo closer to Bethany. Her long blond hair falls in front of her face, and she doesn’t try to move it away. Every part of her body is folded away from me, and her tone is quiet. She tells me about her cat and how she loves him very much. Then, she gets really quiet as she recants her story. Says it wasn’t her dad who raped her. Says she got confused.

We don’t drop the charges.

A few months later, the lab results for the streaks on her dresser come in: Sam Roe’s semen and Bethany’s DNA.

I’m spraying the bed bugs off my shoes after a nasty search warrant when Bethany comes to the police department. She then confesses that she recanted her story because her stepmom threatened her cat and that the abuse continued to happen after her dad bonded out of jail.

A month later, the trial happens. All week, my boss has talked about how hard the defense attorney, Dillon Zanetti, has been on Bethany. How he’s discrediting her because of her mental illness. Not only that, but he insults her over and over.

It makes me rage. Because juries are unpredictable. You get them to doubt the victim at all, and your case can go out the window.

On the last day of the trial, I ran home and changed out of my belt and boots before heading back to the office. I’m by the window in my office, scrolling my phone, when the text comes in:

Not guilty on all counts.

My world slows. That sick feeling in my stomach deepens.

Again. I can’t protect these children. We can’t protect these children.

Again.

Silent rage grips my chest. I don’t yell. I don’t cry. I don’t punch the wall.

I simply pick up my phone and text my boss.

Me: I quit.

I stare out at the parking lot, bathed in the evening light. Flashes from my years on the job fill my mind. The dead people, the gunshot wounds, the lifeless babies.

I can’t protect them. Again.

Silent rage makes my hands shake. That reality is unacceptable.

Well, I can protect them. I can. But it’ll be highly illegal.

At this point, I don’t care anymore.

Maybe, all this time, I was playing for the wrong team. Maybe it’s not the heroes who save the world at all.

Maybe it’s the villains.

Sam Roe was my first kill.