Beautifully Broken (13 page)

Claudia started crying and she fell on the ground all four
of them sat on the ground crying and hugging each other.
Claudia looked at Natasha and held her hand.
“I am really scared; they must have found out about our
family secrets” Claudia said with tears in her eyes. She
was trying to be strong, but she didn’t have any fight left in
her.

“We tell the truth, if they find the proof then there is
nothing we can do but tell the truth,” Natasha said with
Veronica gone all the girls were looking up to her for
advice. Natasha was strong and had better control of her
emotions but she was just as fucked up by Harold as they
were. She held herself together on the outside, but on the
inside she was a tortured soul.

“What do we tell them about Veronica?” Lila asked
Natasha for an answer.

“We were not home at the time when dad died and we don’t
know what happened. When we got home we found him
dead. We just keep telling them the same story,” Natasha
said looking Claudia in the eyes hopping her sister was
strong enough to handle the situation. “As for Veronica
we don’t know where she is so we are not lying.”

“Where ever veronica is I hope she is safe and happy. She
deserves to be happy, we all deserve to be happy and
maybe we will be someday,” Amanda said still trying to be
positive.

“Oh Amanda I love how optimistic you are, but life is not
happy the world is not a good place this is not going to
end well for any of us,” Claudia snapped shaking her head
at her sister.
“I’m with you Amanda I think we will all get through this
together and someday things will get better,” Lila said
putting her arms around Amanda.

Laurence Quinn from the FBI walked in to the Envy police
station. Chief John Mutter greeted him with a handshake.

 

“Thank you for coming so fast,” the Chief said. “We really
appreciate your help with this case.”

“I got all the information your officers sent me but I want
to take a look around the house myself if you don’t mind?”
Laurence asked looking at John.

Laurence Quinn was a tall, thin man with dark brown hair
and bright blue eyes.

“Yes of course I don’t know what more you will find, but I’ll
have Officer Kellie take you over to the house right away,”
the Chief responded.

“Thank you, sometimes a new set of eyes can catch things
that have been missed,” said agent Quinn in a deep calm
voice.

“Yes, well hopefully you’ll find something that can help us
find her, or help us figure out what happened,” the Chief
muttered.

“I would also like to be in the room when you question the
sisters, so if you could wait until I get back that would be
great, Thank you,” Agent Quinn said as if it was an order
and the chief agreed and shook his head.

“Of course this is now your investigation. Anything you
need just let us know,” The Chief paused to catch his
breath. “I just want to put this case to rest as soon as
possible.”

“Thank you I appreciate you having me here. I hope
together we can get to the bottom of things and find
Veronica and get the truth. I have a lot riding on finding
this girl and trust me no one wants this to end more than I
do,” Laurence said.

Laurence walked into the Burns family home. Officer Kellie
went through everything they found with him. He listened
intensely and nodded his head, and then he went off on
his own for anything that they might have missed.

“Did you search all of the bed rooms?” Quinn asked.

“Well there wasn’t anything up there. We looked in the
rooms but we didn’t find any evidence,” Officer Kellie said
confused. “The murder took place in the living room.”

He walked into each bedroom and just quickly looked
around then he stood in Veronica’s bedroom.

“Whose bedroom is this?” he asked as he looked around.
“Sir, this is Veronica’s room,” Officer Kellie said in a soft
voice.

“Officer Kellie is there anything odd about this house to
you?” Quinn asked as he continued looking around.

“No not really sir. It’s a beautiful house. In fact everything
was immaculate, except for the living room,” she said
looking at him confused. She was not sure what he was
getting at.

“Yes exactly. It’s perfect, too perfect. Nothing is out of
place. All of the girl’s bedrooms are so neat and tidy. It
doesn’t make sense to me. A single father who works all
the time with five daughters? This house should be a mess,
but it’s not there is something that we’re missing. Look at
all the girl’s bedrooms; they are just beds and furniture.
There is nothing special about any of the rooms. No sense
of style or individuality,” Quinn muttered. He was trying to
make sense of what he knew about the case and what the
house was telling him.

He walked into Harold’s bedroom and looked around. The
bed wasn’t made and the sheets appeared to have a blood
stain.

“Those sheets should have been bagged and processed,”
he said pointing at the bed.

He walked around the room, his eyes scanning as he went.
He stopped on top of the area rug in the middle of the
bedroom. He put his hand on his face like he was thinking
really heard.

“Why would someone want to kill this man, especially his
daughters? It just doesn’t make sense. The girls all drive
nice cars, live in this nice house, they have nice clothes.
From the outside looking in they have it made. So where’s
the motive? Why would Veronica kill her father and then
leave her sisters by themselves? As he was thinking out
loud, shifting his weight from one foot to other when the
floor creaked and he felt something under his foot. He
moved the rug out of the way and that’s when he saw a
small trap door in the floor. It had been concealed by the
rug. He opened it up and gasped, looking up at Officer
Kellie.

“What is that?” she asked shocked and disturbed.

 

“Motive,” Quinn answered “If Veronica doesn’t know what
we know then this was her motive.”

“These girls aren’t criminals they are victims. I would want
to kill someone if they locked me in there long enough.”
He stood up and looked around the room. “There has to
be more than just this, we need to bag his bed sheets and I
want you to check the girls rooms for secret
compartments, diaries, letters, anything that can tell us
what has happened to these girls. Pull out furniture if you
have too. A lot of bad things have happened in this
house,” Quinn said telling Kellie what to do. “It doesn’t
look so perfect now does it?” he looked into officer Kellies
eyes.

“No sir it doesn’t,” she said as she was putting on gloves
and bagging the sheets off the bed. He walk inside the
closet and turned on the light.

“There’s nothing in there I checked the closet,” she called
out.

She was right there was nothing in there at first glance but
he pushed all the clothes a side and tapped on the wall it
was hallow. He kept shaking the wall then he saw the pad
lock on it he broke it off and opened the door to the room
inside Harold Burns’ bedroom closet.

He walked inside the room it was dark and cold the room
was small and it had a musty smell to it. There were chains
and whips on the wall and a table with chains on it. He
looked down at the table and there was dried blood all
over the place. He found himself feeling sorry for these
pour girls; he was horrified for them.

“Officer Kellie you better come and see this,” Quinn yelled
to her. She rushed towards him.

 

“Oh my goodness, what is this?” Officer Kellie asked in a
terrified voice.

“I think it’s a torture room. You better call for back up.
This room needs to be processed and the rest of the house
needs to be torn apart,” Quinn left her in the closet while
she called for back-up. He explored the rest of the house.
He went into the office, sat down at the computer desk and
turned on the laptop. He started to go through it. He
couldn’t get in to any of Harold’s flies, so he packed up
the computer to take it to the police station. He went
through the office looking for something that might be
significant.

“Hey, what are you looking for?” Officer Kellie asked,
standing in the door way.

“I don’t know. Tell me what you knew about Harold Burns
before today?” Agent Quinn asked, crossing his arms and
looking up at her.

“He moved here after his wife passed away, with his only
daughter Veronica. He opened up a small practice; he was
a very good lawyer. He became a well-respected member
of the community and it didn’t take him long to become
mayor of Envy. He was loved by many people in this town.
He adopted four troubled girls; took them in to his home
and raise them like they were his own daughters. He was
always a very quiet man. He donated money to charities
and always went above and beyond for this community,”
she said in a low voice.

“You said his wife died; who was she? How did she die?
What do we know about her?” Quinn asked.

“Not a lot. We couldn’t find any information on a Katie
Burns. He didn’t talk much about her other than saying his
wife die and that she was Veronica’s mother,” Officer Kellie
said looking at him with a worried look on her face. “Is this
not killing you being here seeing all this?”

“Yes this is hard for me, but we need to find out everything
so we can and we have to find Veronica and bring her
home safely. Finding her is the most important thing to me
and to this case. She is the missing link,” Agent Quinn
leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. “So
you found nothing on the wife? No pictures or any
documentation?”

“No we have no proof she was even real, other than her
name was on Veronica’s birth certificate,” Officer Kellie
said.

“Ya well we know the birth certificate was a fake, so the
mothers name could be too. What else do you know about
Harold; I mean before he came to Envy? I did a
background check on him and I can’t find anything past
eleven years back. It’s like he didn’t even exist. What about
the sisters; they were adopted? Were the adoptions done
legally?” Quinn asked.

“This case just keeps getting stranger. I haven’t heard
back yet about the girl’s adoptions but we’re in the
process of finding out,” Officer Kellie said watching him go
through the desk and the book shelves. He came to four
books that all looked the same. When he tried to pull one
book out, they all came out. It was a box. He pulled the box
off the shelf and broke open the lock. Inside the box he
found photos and little black books that looked like
diaries and a marriage licence.

“Wow look at this I found a marriage licence but not for
Harold and Katie Burns this one is for a Jeff Bower and a
Mary-Lou Jones. I found a drivers licence and a birth
certificate for Jeff Bower. He is a lot younger but it looks
like Harold Burns,” Quinn said passing her the drivers
licence.

He pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Hey, its Quinn can you do me a favor run a background
check on a Jeff Bower and a Mary-Lou Jones, I need
everything you can find on them a.s.a.p. Thank you,” he
said as he hung up the phone.

“This case is going in all different directions,” Officer
Kellie said in a low whisper.

“You keep looking in here and I am going to head back to
the station,” He said as he was leaving the room. I’ll be
back and I’ll bring Chief Mutter with me. I think he needs to
see this.”

“Can you tell the Chief what we found? This case has been
really hard on him. And it’s only going to get harder when
he see what we found here today. John and Harold were
good friends; they played poker together and golf. They
were together all of the time”.
“That’s interesting. I’ll be sure to tell him, this case is hard
on a lot of people,” Quinn reminded her.

“Thank you for your help. You have found more evidence
in an hour, than we did in weeks!” Officer Kellie said,
embarrassed.

“Well this case means a lot to me and I am trained to
notice things that others may miss,” Quinn said as he
waved good bye and left the room.

John and Laurence went back to the station after
investigating the house. John was sick to his stomach
thinking about the evidence they found. He knew Harold
Burns. He was friends with him and he had no idea what
had been going on behind closed doors. He was disgusted
with himself. He felt like he had let those girls down. He
was angry and hurt that he had been friends with such a
monster.

Chapter 15

The girls were kept in the holding cell overnight and then
they were put in separate interrogation rooms waiting to
be questioned.

John was shaking standing outside of the interrogation
room.

 

“Chief, are you ok?” Agent Quinn asked.

“Yes, I am fine. It’s hard to separate myself form this case
because I knew Harold or at least I thought I knew him. I
have known these girls for years and I never suspected a
thing. I became a cop to protect people and I didn’t protect
them at all,” John said trying to hold back his emotions.

“You need to take a minute and calm yourself down. These
girls didn’t tell anyone what they have been through. Their
father is dead and he can’t hurt them anymore. I need you
to be strong. I just want to watch each girl and listen; I’ll
only jump in if I need to,” Quinn said.

“I don’t know how you can do this?” Chief asked looking at
him feeling lost and confused.
“When you have nothing else to lose things don’t feel as
scary,” Quinn breathed in deep and looked at him with a
serious look in his empty eyes.

The chief of police walked into the interrogation room and
Laurence Quinn followed him into the room where Lila
was sitting on a chair next to a small table. The
windowless room was dark and gray.

“Hello Lila this is Laurence Quinn. He is a behavior
specialist from the FBI. He is going to be helping me out
today,” The Chief said as they both took their seats across
the table from Lila. John put a red file folder on the table
and placed his hand over it as he looked across the table
at her.