Chasing Demons

Chapter Six

Julian led the woman to a room a couple of doors down. "I'm SSA Marliani. But you can call me Julian," he said, extending his hand to shake.

"I'm Annie Bruskin, Charlie's mom," the woman said, politely shaking his hand.

"Have a seat," said Julian.

They both sat at a circular table in the center of the room.

The woman was Caucasian. She had long dark hair, black eyes, and was wearing dark pants with an orange shirt.

"Can I get you anything?" asked Julian, "Food? Water?"

Annie shook her head. "I just need to see my boy. He must be very scared. He needs me to hold him."

"Listen. Charlie hasn't been held in a very long time. Things happened to him. It's going to take time," said Julian, "He might not be the same boy you remember."

Annie cried. "Who would do this to my baby?"

"That's what we need to figure out, but I need your help."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to tell me everything you remember the day your son went missing."

Annie closed her eyes. "It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon. Charlie went out to play with the neighborhood kids."

"Is that something he did often?" inquired Julian.

Annie wiped her nose on a tissue and nodded. "They were playing baseball in the field by our house. Charlie was the pitcher. His best friend Johnny hit the ball into a bunch of trees. Charlie ran to go get it, but he never came back."

"Has he ever run off before?"

Annie looked at Julian. "A few times. But this time was different."

"How so?"

Annie stifled her tears to speak. "We were having a difficult time making ends meet. My husband became really stressed. He had four jobs and wasn't home that often, but when he was home, he would get drunk and take his anger and stress out on me. He yelled at the kids a lot, but he only got physical with me. He would never hurt Charlie. Charlie would run off to Jackson Park to get away for a little while, but he would always come back by nightfall. When Charlie turned seven things started to change. My husband went to rehab and got clean and got a new job, it paid well. He was home more often. We became a happy family again. He and Charlie developed a really good relationship, and they would always play baseball in the backyard. I never saw Charlie so happy before. He never ran off again so when he didn't come out from those woods I knew something was wrong. We looked for hours. When I reported him missing the detectives told me they couldn't investigate since Charlie ran off in the past, but I knew something was wrong. I could feel that something was wrong. I begged and begged them to investigate, but they just wouldn't. We handed out fliers to everyone in town. After a year everyone started to lose hope, but I never lost hope. I never stopped looking for him because I knew that he was still alive, I could feel it. We never moved in case Charlie came back home, and we kept the same phone number in case he called. We left his room the same. We bought him Birthday and Christmas presents every year, so when he came home, we could make up for the lost time."

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary that day? Strange cars? Did anybody pay a little too much attention to your son?" asked Julian.

"No nothing!" Annie was now sobbing. She awkwardly pulled a tissue out from the tissue box in the center of the table and blew her nose. "All the neighbors were so nice. We all were really close. Everybody knew and loved each other. Our kids were best friends. Every year we would gather around and have a candle vigil once a year on June 21st. The day he went missing."

Julian handed her another tissue.

Annie nodded a thank you. "What are you doing to find the man who did this to him? Did this to us?" asked Annie as she blew her nose and attempted to compose herself.

"My partner is trying to talk to Charlie. But it's going to take some time. We have to gain his trust. We have search dogs trying to track down his scent to try to find out where he came from. We are also talking to the parents of the other boy who went missing."

"Another boy went missing?"

Julian nodded. "Yesterday. Shortly after we found Charlie," said Julian, "We put out a nationwide Amber Alert."

"Do you think the same man who took my baby took that boy?"

"That's what we are trying to find out."