The Stolen - Jason Pinter [109]
by one of the cruisers were the two detectives who'd questioned Amanda and me after we'd escaped from Huntley.
Their faces were blank, unbelieving, as they watched
Senator Gray Talbot pushed into the back of a police car,
which then pulled away.
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I stood there in the waning daylight, looked up at the sky
and took a long, sweet breath. There was one more task to
be done. One more terrible question that needed to be
answered.
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The money trail was there. A spot-check of Gray Talbot's
campaign finance reports showed a yearly influx of
$50,000 dollars from a company called Shepherd Incorporated. Shepherd was owned by Reggie Powers, a shell
company set up separately from Powers Construction.
Yearly withdrawals from Shepherd, Inc. were being
matched to Gray Talbot. And everyone knew what they
would tell us.
Finally the story came together. Several of the players,
I knew, had to believe the bullshit Gray Talbot was
spewing. Several of them had to feel that what they were
doing was right. That to destroy evil, you had to commit
evil. That getting your cause noticed was justification for
it all.
It was easy to be cynical. Both Amanda and I came
from broken homes, where we could never believe a parent
would go to such lengths to allegedly protect us.
Gray Talbot hired Raymond Benjamin to be his eyes,
his ears, his gun. All orders went through Benjamin,
nothing went to Gray. Benjamin was his wall of protection.
Benjamin, a Hobbs County native, approached Dmitri
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Petrovsky in order to obtain hospital records of infants
born with childhood diabetes. They screened children
who would be most susceptible to Korsakoff syndrome.
Once Petrovsky came back with a name, a plan was put
in motion.
The child would be kidnapped. Petrovsky would
develop a nutritional plan that would keep the child's
thiamine levels at a level dangerous enough to cause minor
brain damage, enough to bring an onset of Korsakoff, but
not so severe that it would endanger the child's life.
When the child was gone, when the police search
turned up fruitless, that's when Gray Talbot stepped in. He
would trumpet his concern for the welfare of the community. Talk about how crime rates were unacceptable. That
children were being snatched from their families.
Millions of dollars would be pumped into the communities through donations, federal and state funding. Police
forces would be bolstered. Neighborhood watches on
patrol. Broken streetlights fixed. Homes made safe again.
And real estate would slowly creep up.
That's when Talbot would enlist the help of Powers
Construction. Reggie would come in with his trucks and
his men, level the homes consumed by crack, rebuild
houses that would attract more money than the neighborhood had ever seen.
Talbot would gain a wealthier, more affluent constituency. Powers would make millions from the sweetheart
deals. And the communities would be better off.
Everybody won.
Except the children.
Amanda sat in the seat next to me, the radio turned to
a soft rock station. The music they played was unthreatening, wouldn't offend any sensibilities, lyrics that couldn't
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harm a fly. That's all we wanted at that moment. Serenity.
Emotionlessness.
The next few hours would be difficult. We didn't want
it to start until it absolutely had to.
After I'd gone on record with the police, handed over
my cell phone and explained everything that had
happened, I called Amanda immediately. I told her what
we had to do. I wasn't sure how the night was going to end,
but if we didn't ask that one final question, I didn't know
if I'd ever sleep again.
I steered the car, unable to help but think about Danny
Linwood, how in some ways we both had lost years from our
childhood. The difference was I had a choice. My memories
and experiences helped mold me into what I was now. Danny
would need time, years perhaps, to even know who he was.
We arrived at the house shortly past ten o'clock. The
porch lights were