Chapter 8 - The Leverage of an Innocent
"Mommy!" Emma’s shrill, terrified voice pierced the underground holding facility.
I jumped to my feet, knocking my folding chair backward onto the concrete floor.
Standing in the doorway of the administrative lobby was my mother, Martha, her face pale with exhaustion and fury.
Clutched tightly in her hand was Emma, still wearing her bright yellow rain slicker and pink boots.
"What in God's name is going on in this basement, Thomas Vance?" my mother demanded, her voice ringing with the authority of a retired school principal who had taught half these deputies their ABCs.
"Mrs. Davis, this is a restricted law enforcement area," Vance said smoothly, standing up and smoothing his uniform shirt.
"Your daughter was detained during a criminal trespass investigation."
"Don't you give me your administrative double-talk, Tommy Vance!" my mother snapped, marching right past the front desk sergeant.
"Your deputy came to my farmhouse at four in the morning claiming Clara was in an accident and that I needed to bring Emma down here to sign release papers!"
My eyes snapped to Vance with pure fury.
He hadn't just detained us; he had used his deputies to round up my entire family as collateral.
"You brought my child into a police station?" I hissed, stepping between Vance and the doorway.
"Standard procedure when family members are detained without a designated legal guardian on file," Vance replied smoothly, without an ounce of remorse.
Emma pulled her hand free from my mother’s grip and ran straight across the linoleum, throwing her arms around my thighs.
"Mommy, the bad man on the phone said you got lost like the red candy man!" Emma cried, burying her face into my damp denim jeans.
I knelt down, wrapping my arms around her trembling little frame.
"I'm right here, baby. I'm okay. Nobody is lost."
Emma lifted her head, looking past my shoulder toward the dark hallway lined with iron cell doors.
"Mommy, listen," Emma whispered suddenly, pointing her little finger toward Cell 4.
The entire precinct went dead silent.
Through the heavy steel ventilation grate above the holding cells came a low, gravelly hum.
It was Marcus.
He was singing.
It was an old, melancholic country lullaby, sung in a cracked, broken baritone that vibrated the iron bars of the holding tank.
“Down in the valley, valley so low... hang your head over, hear the wind blow...”
My mother froze in her tracks, her hand flying to her mouth as the color drained from her face.
"That's Marcus Miller," Martha whispered, her voice shaking violently.
"He used to sing that exact song to Sarah when she was in my second-grade classroom."
"Take the child outside, Mrs. Davis," Vance commanded, his hand resting firmly on his holstered taser.
"Now."
Emma didn't run for the exit.
Instead, she wiggled out of my embrace and marched directly toward the steel-mesh gate separating the office from the cell block.
"Mr. Biker!" Emma shouted through the iron bars at the top of her lungs.
"My mommy found your car! It's in the big metal box!"
Vance lunged forward to grab Emma’s shoulder, but my mother reacted with the speed of an angry mother bear.
Martha shoved Vance’s arm away with both hands, stepping squarely into his chest.
"You lay one finger on my granddaughter, Thomas Vance, and I swear to you on your late mother's grave I will call every news affiliate from here to Richmond!"
"You don't have the authority, Martha," Vance snarled, his mask of small-town civility slipping completely off his face.
"I have the county charter, Tommy!" Martha yelled back.
"And I have the personal cell phone number of State Senator Hayes, who sat on the school board with my late husband for twenty-five years!"
The deputies behind the booking desk froze completely.
Mentioning Senator Hayes wasn't an empty threat; Hayes chaired the public safety oversight committee in the state legislature.
Down the hallway, the singing stopped.
Marcus’s voice echoed out of the darkness of Cell 4, clear, loud, and entirely devoid of fear.
"Hey, Vance!" Marcus roared from behind the steel door.
"The girl didn't die on Quarry Road!"
"What did you say?" Vance turned toward the cell block corridor, his face contorting into sudden panic.
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"She was alive when your daddy put her in that trunk!" Marcus bellowed, his fist slamming against the iron bars with the force of a sledgehammer.
"And I know where Donald took her!"
