Mother's Milk (7 page)

The worst came when he was thirteen, just removed from the foster family he'd been with for three years after he'd attacked his foster father, who'd tried to rape him. His foster mother had called him a liar; it wasn't the first time. Given the chance, he would have killed them both and felt no remorse, but now, sitting in his small office, with its single window, he realized that if it hadn't been for that horrible twist of fate he'd never have met Janice. And one of the many ironies in their relationship was that while he regretted not bashing in the skull of his foster father, it was with Janice and her cheating husband that he got his first heady rush of what it feels like to take another's life.

His intercom buzzed again. ‘Chase, your three o'clock is here.'

‘Send her down.'

Moments later, a knock at his door.

‘Yes.' He looked up as someone tried to turn the handle; of course it was locked. Chase couldn't stand being intruded on. He got up, as a girl called through the door.

‘It's Morgan. I'm here for my appointment.'

He smoothed back a bang and opened the door onto a fifteen-year-old dressed in a midriff-baring jersey top, low-rider jeans with faux stone-washed stripes that ran up the front of her thighs and down her back from ass to ankle, and bright pink flip-flops with red beads on the straps. Her hair was a mess of home-dyed blonde, streaked with near-white highlights. Her blue eyes, lined in black with mascara that had clumped, looked up at her six-foot-two gorgeous hunk of a counselor. ‘Hi, Chase.'

‘Hey, Morgan, come on in.' He met her gaze, enjoying the effect he had on her. ‘How's your month been?' he asked, motioning her toward a chair on the other side of his desk.

‘You have no idea,' she said dramatically as she flopped down, her left leg hooked over the seat's padded arm, her midriff exposed. ‘Everything sucks! My life sucks! I wish I were dead. I can't believe I have to stay at that place for three years. You got to get me out of there.'

‘OK,' he said, ‘let's get the details. I take it that you're not loving the new group home.'

‘Yeah, right, that place is for retards, Chase. They don't let me do anything; it's like being a prisoner. The food sucks, there's a nine o'clock curfew, they don't have TVs in the bedrooms, and they won't let us have cell phones; they don't even have Internet! My roommate's on medication and I don't mean to be a total bitch, but she stinks, like shit, the whole place stinks.'

‘How long have you been in there?' he asked, not caring, but finding that the words just came.

‘Two weeks. I can't take it. Please get me back into a foster family.'

Chase looked at the top folder on his desk; they were all thick and Morgan's was no exception. She'd been a ward of the system since she was two. Failed out of a dozen foster homes, and was now in her fourth or fifth group-home placement. ‘OK,' he said, looking at the little piece of trash as she slathered on a fresh layer of pink lipgloss, ‘I think your last foster family was the final nail in that particular coffin.'

‘What are you saying?' she asked, not liking it when he criticized her. ‘It wasn't my fault. He's the one who came on to me. Aren't you supposed to keep shit like that from happening? Don't you even screen those creeps?'

‘Of course we do,' he said, having had to handle a few horny creeps of his own as a child and teenager. Though his tactics had been different from Morgan's, who viewed herself as a victim of everything and everyone. The first time he'd been molested was when he was nine, by his foster mother's boyfriend. It didn't go far, but the man begged Chase to tell no one, and promised it would never happen again. Chase could still see the raw fear in Jack Harrigan's eyes and smell the whiskey on his breath. More importantly, he knew that Jack's fear gave him power. He'd stayed in that placement for another year, when he'd left, it was with fifteen hundred dollars in cash and a gold pocket watch that had belonged to Jack's father. ‘But human nature,' Chase said, looking at Morgan, ‘stuff happens. You're a pretty girl, Morgan. I don't think we'll be able to get you back into a foster family. They want them younger, so you're left with either a group home or one of the bigger facilities. Which if you think it feels like a prison now, those places have ten times more rules. And frankly, we're running out of group homes. This is your fourth?'

‘Fifth,' she said. ‘Chase, you've got to help me. I'm not kidding. I can't stay there. I'll do something crazy. You know I will. You've got to get me out of there. I spoke to my mom … she said I could stay there.'

Chase looked at her. He had more important things to do now, but he was struck by her monumental stupidity, that despite all the horrible things her crack-addicted prostitute of a mother had done to her, she still wanted to go back to her. ‘Morgan, first there's no way the department would ever let you return to your mother while you're a minor; she has no parental rights, they were terminated when you were eight. Second, the five or six times that reunification was tried ended up with either you running away or the department having to pick you up after Cathy overdosed or got arrested. It's not an option.'

‘It's not fair,' she repeated, pulling at a lock of her frizzed-out hair. Her lower lip pouted as she looked at Chase. ‘I don't know why I have to stay there.'

‘It's stable, you can walk to school. It's the best we've got.'

‘What do I need high school for? It's not like anyone cares about that, and I'm going to be an actress. I don't think they check diplomas in Hollywood … Is that a new watch?' Her eyes caught on Chase's gold Movado with its sleek black onyx face and absence of numbers.

‘Nice, isn't it?' he said, letting her view the recent purchase. ‘This is why you need to finish high school. You can't get nice things unless you have a way to make money. I don't want to destroy any dreams you have, but Hollywood is a long shot. Thinking you can just go out there and hit it big lands people in trouble. Suddenly you're in California, no friends, no connections. You start making some bad choices, hook up with the wrong people. It doesn't go well.'

‘I don't care,' she said, digging in. ‘The first chance I get I'm out of here.'

Chase sighed. ‘You thinking of running away … again?'

‘What else can I do?' she intoned. Her eyes started to tear, further smudging her thick mascara. ‘You're not helping me. None of you ever do. It's just, “Here's another group home, Morgan,” and then all the things I can't do. I want to see my mother. I want to stay with her. Why can't I?'

He leaned back, watching as this train wreck of a human being collapsed. Her runny makeup was rapidly transforming her into a puffy blond raccoon, but underneath the bad dye job, and the amateurish attempts with cheap cosmetics, she wasn't bad looking. Unlike many of the girls who insisted on midriff-baring clothes, Morgan's belly was flat and toned. With a little work, he thought, she'd be a respectable piece of merchandise. She was also at that critical age – fifteen – when if a kid ran from a group home, not much was done to get them back. A missing person's report would be filed, and that's about it. There were too many others, and it was the younger kids that got preference. ‘Look, Morgan,' he said, pushing a box of tissues toward the weeping girl, ‘you know I care about you.' His voice was soft as a kiss. ‘I'd worry if you ran away, bad things happen out there.'

‘I don't care,' she sobbed and pulled a hunk of tissues from the box. ‘I can't stay in that place.'

‘I hear you,' he said, shaping his words and the way he said them carefully. ‘If you're really serious, I might be able to help.'

She looked up. ‘How?'

He leaned back, looked at her meaningfully, paused, and then reached into his desk. He pulled out a blank piece of paper and wrote a number on it. ‘Memorize this,' he said, giving her ample time to do so, watching the corners of her mouth move. ‘This is for a friend of mine, who's connected in showbiz. She's gotten a lot of kids their first jobs.'

‘Like an agent?' Morgan asked.

‘Exactly,' he said, spinning the story like a length of fishing line, ‘but don't think Hollywood … at least not yet. It's more bread-and-butter stuff, cruise ships, convention work, traveling productions of some of the Broadway shows, catalog modeling, that kind of thing.' He tore the paper with the number on it into tiny pieces. He had a moment's pause, there was huge risk with minors, but also the possibility of a big payday, and keeping up the flow of money was everything. ‘Of course, I never said any of this, and if you can stick it out in that group home and finish high school, it would be better for you.'

She pulled more tissues from the box, ‘You don't know what it's like in that place,' she said.

While Chase would never share this with a girl like Morgan, he knew exactly what those places were like. Unlike her, he'd figured out how to work the system, just like now. ‘You have to be careful,' he said. ‘I'd hate to see anything bad happen to you, Morgan.'

Her eyes lingered on his, and then his cell phone rang, the dial tone set to a simple ring on low volume.

‘Our time's up, make an appointment with the secretary and I'll see you in a month.'

Morgan got herself out of the chair. She moved slowly and stared back into Chase's beautiful amber-flecked eyes. She seemed confused, the phone number he showed her, the way her gorgeous counselor was breaking rules for her, looking at her. She wished there was a mirror, as she knew her makeup had smeared, and she'd spent over an hour primping for her monthly meeting with him. Her legs felt weak and rubbery. ‘I might not be here in a month,' she said, wondering if maybe he was interested in her. Because if he was, she'd do anything for him … absolutely anything.

There was a second and then third ring. ‘I've got to take this call, Morgan … goodbye,' and he closed the door behind her.

He pressed the on button and heard Janice Fleet's voice. ‘Are you alone?'

‘I am now,' he said, looking out his single dirt-smeared window, which afforded a dreary view of the adjacent municipal garage.

‘Did you get the cell back? Just tell me you did, because I'm having one hell of a day.'

‘No, and you better sit down because it's about to get worse,' he said, wondering how she'd handle the news. ‘It isn't just one of the regular phones that's missing. I think Bobby had one of the others.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘The videophones … the ones we use with the girls.' He waited, while catching his reflection in the window, appreciating the way the three-hundred-dollar sweater showed off the V-shape of his torso. His exercise and diet regimen was a meticulously crafted balance of protein shakes, supplements, yoga, weights, and aerobics, giving him just the right amount of lean, defined muscle but not that bullish steroid look.

‘How did that happen?'

‘It happened,' he said, not wanting to deal with Janice's tirades and finger-pointing, while getting a sadistic thrill at the fear in her voice. ‘Worst-case scenario, someone looks at a video of a naked girl, they won't know who she is and there's no audio.' He filled her in on the specifics, how Marky went to retrieve the phones only to find a couple of female social-worker types in the apartment. How one of them called out the name Jerod.

‘Jerod who?'

‘Crazy Jerod. A nut job who's been hanging around some of the kids in the family.'

‘What does he look like?' she asked, her tone urgent.

Her questions took him off guard. Janice rarely wanted details about the disposable kids that Chase carefully culled as they aged out of the foster system. Young adults with no family, nowhere to go, just ripe for a caring adult to show them some attention, give them a safe place to live, money, clothes, and a job … of sorts. Marky, as his lieutenant, showed them how easy it was to blend in with the undergraduates in the big dormitories, setting them up with the right look and fake IDs. He'd teach them how to reel in the children of middle- and upper-class families, starting with a few free tastes, showing them how to snort dope and eventually shoot it, and in a matter of a few short weeks turning an experiment with drugs into an insatiable habit that could last – or destroy – a lifetime. ‘Just some crazy kid who's been hanging out with the family, I saw him once or twice when he was still in the system.'

‘What does he look like?' she repeated. ‘White Rasta? Dirty blond?'

‘Yes, thin, might be good looking if he ever got near a bar of soap.'

‘What's his last name?' she asked.

‘I think it's Blank,' he said, hearing the click of a keyboard over the phone.

‘This is very bad.'

‘What are you talking about?' he asked.

‘Just listen, Chase,' she said, ‘he barged into a meeting I was at this afternoon. He had a gun. Apparently the current head of the Forensic Evaluation Center – a Dr. Conyors, who's a royal pain in the ass, but too smart to mess with – is his shrink. I'd also be willing to bet she was one of the two women sniffing around those dead kids. He was rambling about people trying to kill him. We've got a major problem …' There was a pause. ‘And possibly an opportunity. At least we know where he is, and I'm willing to bet he had those cell phones on him. There's no love lost between Dr. Conyors and me … If she's trying to set me up, which I wouldn't put past her, I swear she won't live to regret it.'

‘How do we get them back?'

‘We don't,' she said, ‘you do, and do it tonight. You'll need a key card to get in … I know where I can get you one. And while you're at it, make sure that crazy Jerod never makes it to his next appointment. And if he's told that shrink anything at all, take care of her.'