“Oh crap! Now look what you’ve done!” Swartzman shouted. “I told you to keep your eye on the thing.”
“Come on. I had to save your ass from that guy.”
“Who said I needed saving? Harry is not a violent person.”
Aaron didn’t have any evidence that suggested otherwise, but he had a hunch that the passion Trainer had for defending the lagoon could turn ugly if the guy got worked up. Yet, he should have known that Trainer didn’t pose a physical threat. Otherwise, there’s no way Swartzman would have let him on board.
Aaron’s paranoia had cost Swartzman his most important discovery in years.
“I’m sorry, doc.” Aaron hung his head and took a seat. “I should have let you handle it while I watched the turtle.” He gazed out over the water, where the beads of sunlight bounced off the gently-sloping waves. “I swear I’ll get him back.”
“There’s no need for that.” Swartzman turned a dismissive shoulder to his student and took the skiff’s wheel. “I stuck a GPS tracking device on the sea turtle. He won’t get far, but he needs time to calm down after this traumatic day. Next time he’s in our area, we’ll pick him up.”
Even though Aaron hadn’t completely blown it for them, Swartzman still carried a hefty dose of disappointment in his voice. That was a tone Aaron recognized all too well from his father. If this relationship deteriorated that severely, he’d never get his degree.
Luckily for Aaron, he’d have no shortage of opportunities at discovering freakish phenomenon in the lagoon.
Chapter 3
They finally called her by her name: Mariella Gomez. The girl didn’t bat an eyelash. Her thin lips didn’t come unglued. They might as well have called her, “Paper Bag.”
Moni couldn’t believe how deep the girl had fallen down the well of debilitating post-traumatic stress. She had comforted children who had lost their parents, but never right before their eyes. Sometimes the children were in school or asleep when it happened. A few times, Moni had spoken to kids after they awoke in the hospital from an accident that claimed their parents. Usually, the first task was helping them accept that their parents were actually gone. That wasn’t a problem for Mariella. Seeing a mad man hack off the heads of her mother and father and do unspeakable acts to their corpses would make an even deeper imprint on the psyche of the young mind.
Moni discovered the names of Mariella’s deceased parents from the identification cards on the bodies. The killer hadn’t touched the Mexican immigrants’ cash. The DCF officer and the child psychologist that joined Mariella and Moni in the counseling room knew of Pedro and Rosa Gomez as well, yet none of them would dare mention their names in front of Mariella — not on the same day the girl had lost them. They feared it would spook her deeper into her hole like a burrowing mouse.
The eight-year-old girl had shown mild improvement in the hours since her rescue. She had wet her pants twice, including once on Moni’s lap, and sat in the filth without saying a word. After following Moni into the bathroom and watching her do her business-since Mariella stuck by her everywhere-the girl had used the toilet once by herself. The child had become so cautious she could hardly take a step without making sure Moni walked beside her.
Moni tried setting the girl down on one side of the psychologist’s couch and letting Tanya from the DCF sit between them. Mariella immediately jumped down, scooted in between the two women and rested her head on Moni’s knee.
“She’s become quite attached to you, I see. That might be to replace someone who’s no longer here right now,” said Dr. Ike McKinley, the blue-eyed psychologist with thin gray hair. Despite the sweltering weather outside, he kept his office sub-zero and wore a green sweater over his lanky frame like a Mr. Rogers wannabe. Although, he specialized in children, his office didn’t have anything more fun to play with than ink flash cards and wooden blocks. McKinley’s bookshelf had cheery decorations like posters of the human brain and its various regions and a row of stress relieving squeeze toys. Moni grew frustrated by the sight of them because she could never grasp one hard enough for it to pop open.
“It’s good that she has someone for the moment,” Tanya said. “We can’t track down any relatives in the states. The public school system has her down as a second grader at Challenger 7 Elementary. Her teacher said the girl speaks English slowly and is very shy about it, but she chatters on and on in Spanish with her Mexican classmates.”
“But she hasn’t responded to any Spanish with us,” Moni said.
She gazed at the silky black hair of the child leaning against her. Mariella flipped through flash cards-some with ink blots and others with pictures of staple items like cats and milk. She studied them thoroughly, but didn’t respond when Moni or the psychologist asked her what she saw. The girl wasn’t stupid. Her teacher had told Tanya that she was a B student.
“It’s called selective mutism,” Dr. McKinley said. “It’s when children who can speak choose not to and become extremely withdrawn. A traumatic event is a common trigger for this behavior, but the damage can be undone.”
“You can help her?” Moni asked.
“I believe so, if we place her into a facility with specialized care,” the psychologist said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Mariella dropped the cards and held fast to Moni’s waist. Without saying a word, the girl let everybody know who she felt comfortable with.
Moni had seen the deplorable conditions in state foster homes-the rooms crowded with bunk beds and the understaffed counselors chasing after kids with severe behavioral problems. Some kids had gotten raped or beaten in state care, if it could even be called care. A lucky match with the right counselor in a home that didn’t house a future sociopath would really help Mariella, but Moni couldn’t toss the girl’s life on the craps table. Life had dealt her a crappy roll of the dice already.
“I don’t know about that. My girl here might crack under the stress of a foster home,” Moni said. “I’ve seen some kids that previously gave good testimony crumble into jelly after spending a few months in a home.”
“Yeah, it ain’t the Ritz, but it’s what we got,” Tanya said. “I don’t see another place for her right now. If you can think of a better option, then I’ll tell the judge at the hearing tomorrow.”
Moni knew she had another option, but it seemed out of the question. She couldn’t possibly investigate these murders while caring for a recovering child, especially the one at the center of the investigation. At 32 years old, she was ripe for having children but her choice of men had proven disastrous. Moni hadn’t so much as changed a diaper because she had spent too much time polishing the rims of her man-child’s ride. Until she could chase her ex-boyfriend Darren away for good, no child would be safe with her, Moni thought.
The girl stared into Moni’s eyes. She looked as terrified as she did in the mangroves. Her hands quivered around Moni’s waist. With the girl’s body pressed up against hers, Moni felt her heart beating as rapidly as a fax machine spitting out data.
“Right now, my recommendation is highly specialized foster care,” the psychologist said. “You can see her every day under my supervision. Starting tomorrow, we’ll work with her about drawing for us what happened today. A sketch of the perpetrator would be a good start.”
Mariella grabbed Moni’s hand and squeezed it until it turned white. Her mocha complexion did that under pressure. And that’s how Mariella must have felt-pressured to death. When Moni was a child, the last thing she needed after her father had left her battered in her closet was a reminder of his face with its buck teeth, shaggy brown hair and the scar across his chin. In the dining room, she ate sitting in the only chair where she could avoid seeing his photo every time she lifted her head.
While poor Mariella struggled to forget the monster that had killed her parents, the psychologist wanted that beast branded front-and-center on her mind.