Forgive Me(4)

Angie DeRose arrived on foot at the Columbia Firehouse to have lunch with her parents at the scheduled time, on the scheduled hour, on the scheduled day. Given the fluid nature of her job, that was a minor miracle.

Angie loved the work, though. A good thing because it was all consuming. The phone rang day and night. No one took vacations when kids ran away, and run they did, twenty-four by seven by three sixty-five.

The calls varied. Sometimes it was a crisis with a child custody case, or surveillance work that might require her to spy on a cheating spouse, or follow a lead on a possible parental child abduction. Maybe an irate spouse had gotten wind that their ex was headed off to party—and who was going to watch little Joey while Mom or Dad did the Harlem Shake with a shot of tequila in one hand and a beer chaser in the other? An anxious parent didn’t care one iota what time of day it was, whether or not it was a holiday, or if Angie had plans to meet her parents for a meal. Thus was life as a private investigator. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

The restaurant, a renovated fire station with exposed brick walls, served quality American eats. It was a favorite of the DeRoses. Angie and her mother Kathleen ordered salads and soda water with lime, while her father got the salmon special. It was easy to meet for lunch because her parents lived near her office, still in the same house in Arlington, Virginia where Angie grew up.

Having lunch with her parents grounded Angie. Since founding DeRose & Associates at twenty-eight, five years ago, she had struggled with orbiting so closely to the dregs of humanity. She had gone into the business with a purpose, but had been na?ve about the depth of human cruelty. The deplorable ways parents could treat each other or treat their precious children were too numerous to count and endlessly gut-wrenching. Each case was like turning over a rock to see what sort of horror might slither out.

Most difficult were the surveillance gigs to get proof of child abuse. Those hit her the hardest, but they were also the best way to get a kid out of danger. Some of her colleagues—the men, mostly—could shut it off, go to bed without seeing the cigarette burns dappled on a young kid’s arm. Not Angie. She took it all to heart, carried with her the emotion of what she saw every day.

When it was a runaway or a child custody case, she went overboard to get results, to get proof, in order to protect the child. She lived and breathed it. Her wheels were constantly going, just like her office phone. Hell, somebody had to make sure the kids ended up safe or with the right parent.

Over the years, Angie had seen squalor that made a cardboard box on some desolate street corner look like an upgrade. Malnourished children. Beaten children. Children terrified of abuse. Neglected children. Drug-addicted parents who preferred the pipe to their kid. Out-of-control teens who raged against authority and railed against their terrified and despondent parents.

For the most part, Angie saw the world as a broken place that could never be properly fixed. In the presence of her parents, that world shone a little brighter.

She knew she was one of the lucky ones. Not many of her clients wanted to meet their parents for lunch, or surprise them with a spur-of-the-moment visit. Her parents’ support and friendship over the years had made all the difference, especially during the hardest period of her life.

Her best friend Sarah had vanished without a trace. It was senior year of college at the University of Virginia, and they were a few months shy of starting their lives. That semester Sarah got hooked on something—Oxy, the cops thought. Then she was gone, just like that. Gone. And that was how she stayed. Missing.

What had happened to Sarah Winter? Might she still be alive? The questions haunted Angie. She’d longed to do something to honor Sarah’s memory, her spirit. Opening DeRose & Associates Private Investigators, she’d hung a picture of Sarah on the office wall behind her desk. That picture served as an ever-present reminder of Angie’s mission—find the runaway kids and take them back home.

“Daddy, you look tired,” Angie said as they waited for their meals. “Is everything okay?”

Gabriel DeRose’s thinning dark hair rested high on a broad forehead. He kept in shape by walking on the treadmill and doing some weight training, but over the years he had developed a noticeable paunch. The lenses of his black-rimmed glasses magnified the dark circles around his eyes. The skin around his neck was looser, his full face a bit wan. Still, he looked distinguished and poised in his blue pinstriped suit.

He returned a thin smile, and Angie’s heart warmed with love. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just busy at work. That’s all.”

Always busy at work, Angie thought. Like father, like daughter—and like mother. The DeRose family was a kinetic bunch. Her father ran DeRose Financial, a well-respected financial services firm that specialized in investing for high net worth individuals. He had two employees, hundreds of millions under management, and in Angie’s opinion, too much stress. She worried constantly about his health. She wished he would take more time for himself, but he had worked so hard, for so long, he was either too afraid or had forgotten how to hit the off switch.

Kathleen had never worked full-time, but she probably outpaced her husband and daughter in effort and hours worked.

“How’s the committee going, Mom?” Angie asked.

“Which one?” Gabriel said with a laugh.

“You pick, Mom,” Angie said.

“Well, the Lupus Foundation is doing another donor drive, if that’s any indication, and I’m up to my eyeballs in mailings.” Kathleen was one of one point five million Americans living with the disease. She’d been diagnosed when Angie was an infant. Kathleen had hidden little about her disease as Angie grew up, often talking about her fatigue and blinding headaches, and showing Angie her swollen feet, legs, and hands.