Chapter 10 - The Hunt for Marcus-10
The next forty-eight hours passed in a blur of blue lights, legal depositions, and sleepless nights.
My home was placed under twenty-four-hour police protection. Two armed officers sat in an unmarked cruiser outside my driveway while my mother-in-law kept Ariel inside, away from windows and screens. My daughter still thought "Daddy was helping the police officers catch a bad guy," entirely unaware of how close she had come to the edge of a monster's appetite.
Glen remained in federal custody at the county detention facility. I visited him on Monday afternoon, sitting behind a thick glass pane in a sterile visitation room.
He looked hollowed out. His face was drawn, his hands bruised from standard police processing, wearing an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely off his frame.
"Maya..." Glen whispered into the plastic telephone receiver, tears pooling in his bloodshot eyes. "They told me about... about the emails. About Ariel."
"I know," I said softly, my voice devoid of emotion.
"I swear to God, Maya," Glen sobbed, pressing his forehead against the glass. "I would have let Marcus kill me ten times over before I let anyone touch our little girl! I didn't know... I swear I didn't know how deep this went!"
"I know you didn't, Glen," I said honestly. "You were stupid, greedy, and weak. You let your fear ruin our lives. But I know you love Ariel."
"I'm going to plead guilty," Glen said, swallowing hard. "To everything. The embezzlement, the illegal procedure, the fraud. The prosecutor said if I testify against Marcus and the Tijuana clinic team, I might get five to seven years instead of twenty."
I looked at the man I had built a life with. The romance was dead, burned to ash by the lies and the horror of what had transpired, but the pity remained.
"Do what you have to do, Glen," I told him. "Pay your debt to the state. Be a man for once in your life so that when Ariel is older, you can look her in the eye and tell her you did the right thing in the end."
Glen nodded slowly, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "I love you, Maya. I'm so sorry."
"Goodbye, Glen."
I hung up the phone and walked out of the facility into the blinding afternoon sun, where Detective Vance was waiting for me near her unmarked vehicle.
"We got a hit on Marcus," Detective Vance said, stepping toward me, her face tense. "Federal marshals spotted his vehicle at a private airfield near San Diego. He’s trying to board a charter flight to Costa Rica."
"Did they arrest him?" I asked, my heart hammering against my chest.
"Not yet," Detective Vance said, opening her car door. "He’s barricaded himself inside a private hangar with two armed guards. But that's not why I'm telling you this, Mrs. Miller."
May you like
She looked at me gravely.
"Before he barricaded the door, Marcus made one phone call to Clara Vance's holding cell using a encrypted satellite phone. And right after that call, Clara’s high-priced defense attorney submitted an emergency motion to the judge claiming Clara has critical evidence regarding an unsolved crime from fifteen years ago—a crime involving your biological mother's death."
