forgetting me

17

Boston Police Department
July 14th, 2002

The case was starting to consume the detective. It wasn't so much of finding the Peterson siblings anymore, but finding his way around Diana to learn what William had experienced to make him want to run.

He tried to get John in the office alone, but Diana always seemed to lurk behind him. If she got up and left, Staman was able to loosen John up a little, but then she'd come back to the room and ruin the progress Staman had made.

Some of the stories Diana had started telling gave the detective a reason to believe that William might have been struggling with different mental illnesses, but when he asked for elaboration, Diana would get up and leave the room, and John would trail hopelessly behind.

Today, though, Staman felt like God was looking over him. John Peterson came into the office alone. Every time the detective saw John, he felt as if he became more passive. John was turning into a shell. There was no sign of his son or his daughter showing up any time soon.

Staman scrambled to press the record button on his machine as John sat down in the chair he'd sat in so many times. He stared at the detective for a long time. Then he spoke.

"She's not mine," John blurted out.

"What? Who's not yours?" the detective asked.

"Lainie. She's not my daughter."

Out of everything John could have said, this was not even on the detective's brain as anything he could have ever said.

"Oh, um, well, is she adopted? Or is she from an earlier marriage from Diana?"

John sank into the chair.

"She's my granddaughter."

The detective froze. Again, the words were not what he was expecting.

"You're sure, sir?" he finally asked. John nodded.

"I'm infertile. Happened a few years after William was born." He glanced down at his hands folded in his lap. "I'd rather skip the details."

Detective Staman shook his head. "How do you know she's William's?" he pressed.

"Because Lainie looks like his mother. He knows it, too. Also, all of his issues really took a jump ahead a little under a year before Lainie's birth."

All the pieces currently presented seemed to fit, though there were still some missing details the detective needed to find. So he kept John talking.

"If you knew, why did you stay with Diana?"

John took a deep breath. He found something interesting to stare at behind the detective's ear. When he spoke, it was the barest whisper.

"I don't know. It was almost as if I couldn't leave. Whenever I'm around Diana, she twists my words and thoughts. I can't shake her."

Abuse and manipulation. To John and William. She'd turned William into a man he hated, a man he wanted to rid himself of, so he ran. Staman thought back to one of Diana's first visits to the office. She seemed so innocent and nice.

John's phone rang, making the detective jump.

"You don't have to answer," Staman said.

John ignored him. He listened to the person on the other end. Staman wished he could hear the other person, as John wasn't giving any clues as to who it was. He didn't even speak except for a small, "okay" before he hung up.

When John was finished on the phone, he looked at the detective.

"Call off the case."

Staman shook his head in disbelief. "Sorry, what?"

"That was Will. My boy." John's voice cracked. He rubbed his forehead and took a few deep breaths. "Call off the case. Him and Lainie are safe. I'm going to see them now." John watched the detective for a while. "Don't tell Diana, okay?"

And with that, John was gone. The detective sighed. He closed the Peterson file and turned the audio recorder off. Nothing made sense to him anymore, but maybe that was the way the Petersons were. The detective had gone into his profession because he loved to put pieces together and solve the hardest of puzzles, but attempting to solve the Peterson case had been like trying to finish a puzzle with over half the pieces missing or held out of his reach by someone else. He had always thought himself rather good at finding those pieces, but not without the cooperation of his clients. And the Petersons had been the least cooperative of them all.

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A/N
This is not the end. Quite far from it. Though it will signify a shift, and I'm quite excited for what's to come.