The Truth (Mommy's House 2)

Part One

On the morning of February Eighteenth, 1983, I busted through the door of Mommy's House with the rest of the police team.

The scent of a decaying body instantly overwhelmed my senses. Immediately, I knew that the stench was from the large, unconscious man on the floor, surrounded by a pool of his own blood.

Through the chaos of the team rushing in, pushing past me with their rifles up and breaking through the basement door to continue searching the house, I spotted her. The girl that the media had been searching for was right in front of my eyes.

She looked nothing like the bubbly school picture the news had been flashing on the screen for almost an entire month. Her eyes were wide and emotionless, gazing directly at me. Her brown hair was a knotted mess, framing her thin face. Blood was splattered along her face, neck, and the tattered dress she was clad in.

The girl was kneeling above the body of an unconscious boy, and in her grip was a large knife that she was clearly intending to use on him. The desperation in her eyes as she hovered the weapon over his chest made my heart jump to my throat.

Once I stepped a little closer, I recognized that the boy in front of her had to have been the sixteen year old boy that was also missing. He was so battered, he was almost unrecognizable - his black hair was saturated with blood, his torso displayed his ribs as well as many contusions and abrasions, and there was a wide, gushing gunshot wound in his leg.

I lowered my gun and took another, careful step closer to the girl.

"Please move away from the boy," I ordered, my heart aching for the terrified girl.

She didn't budge - she was in shock. I was used to dealing with victims in situations similar, but for some reason, the scene in front of me made my stomach twist. I knew those kids went through something worse than Hell.

"Sweetheart," I said gently, "I'm not going to hurt you. Move away from the boy and drop the weapon, please."

Finally, she dropped the weapon, and it fell with a clink to the tiled floor. Once she stood up and backed against the wall, I moved so the EMTs could check on the boy.

I was more than relieved when they announced that the boy was alive, because it really didn't look like he was.

I focused my attention back on the frightened girl. "My name is James," I told her, while tilting my head to the side. "Can you tell me what your name is?"

She stayed silent, but I already knew her name. It was Isabella Bryers, and Cole Mancini was being moved to the stretcher. But where was Elliot Greene?

"Do you know where the youngest boy is?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm while simultaneously yelling over the disorderly shouting and rushing around behind me.

She shook her head, closing her eyes tightly.

In the background, it was announced by one of the team members that we had found two of the three missing kids.

I inched closer, and Isabella's back hit the wall. Her eyes were then trained on the EMTs lifting Cole onto the stretcher, but her demeanor suddenly shifted. I looked over my shoulder to find them bringing a sickly thin woman out on a stretcher from the basement, a gaping wound embedded in the flesh of her neck.

"No..." Isabella whispered, before she began screaming. "No, no! Please, no! No!"

Isabella went to run towards them, but I caught her fragile body in my arms, restricting her movements.

"That's her!" she cried out, flailing her arms. She elbowed me in my ribcage, and I huffed in pain but kept a strong grip on her. "That's Mommy! That's who I killed," she began kicking her dirt-crusted legs out.

"We are not going to do anything to her, we're just taking her to a hospital, okay?" I reassured her, though I couldn't help the confusion in my tone. 

I walked Isabella outside, and she flinched against the early morning sunlight. She seemed nervous being in front of everybody, and she couldn't stop shaking in my light grip.

"It's okay," I assured her.

There were crowds of people surrounding the scene, trucks with sirens on blocking the house, yellow caution tape around the perimeter of the lawn.

"I killed her!" I heard Isabella suddenly yell, "I am the one that killed her! I am a murderer, I am!" she screamed out while shaking her head rapidly, her voice straining.

"Okay, okay," I whispered, bringing her to a stretcher where she was immediately strapped in. An oxygen mask was slapped over her mouth, but her eyes were locked on something from afar.

I followed her gaze to a woman who was cupping her hands over her eyes to shield her vision from the sunlight as she viewed the commotion in front of her. There was a stroller in front of her, and she rocked it gently back and forth. Isabella wouldn't take her eyes off the woman, and her stare was unblinking.

"She won't stop talking to me," Isabella whispered through her chapped lips, her words muffled by the oxygen mask over her mouth. "Why won't she stop? She won't stop speaking to me."

"Who?" I asked her, gazing at her with sympathy in my eyes. "Who's talking to you?"

Before she could answer, the EMT strapping her in wheeled Isabella away, and I watched as they brought her into the ambulance. Her eyes didn't leave mine for one second, not until they shut the doors.

My teammate, Liv, moved past me to get to the car once we were cleared to leave the scene. I stared at the house, my heart racing - the appearance looked so normal from the outside. The scene behind those walls had to be one of the most gruesome I had witnessed in a long time, even after being in the police force for five years.

Once the ambulance left, there was a clear view of a house across the street. A man stood in the uncut lawn of the house, watching the scene with a blank expression.

He seemed suspicious - the only house in plain sight, with such a close distance to the crime scene, didn't hear anything happening this entire time? And the way he was staring stuck with me - his eyes were dark and emotionless. The instant he noticed me watching him, he turned away, and walked inside his house.

Liv and I got into our car, and I tried to comprehend the disturbing sight as we waited for the roads to clear in order to drive to the police station. The look in the young girl's eyes would forever be etched into my mind, and the beaten appearance of the older boy continued to turn my stomach sour. I knew the investigation into this case would be painful.

"Search and Rescue is working on this area for the younger boy," Liv said suddenly, rubbing her eyes as we continued waiting to leave the muddled scene. Her eyes travelled to the crime scene. "I don't even want to know what happened in that house."

"We'll have to wait until we can talk to the kids," I responded. "Hopefully they're compliant." All I could think about was what Isabella was saying.

Liv took a deep breath and shook her head gently. "This is one of the worst cases I've been on. This kind of stuff never happens here. But at least we finally found those kids - well, two of them."

Sweat was beading down my neck as I watched the road. The two adults in the house were deceased, one kid was still missing, one kid was close to death, and the other was suffering from obvious delusions.

"I really hope the older boy makes it," Liv thought aloud. "He's lucky if he stays alive for the ride to the hospital."

"He's strong," I spoke quietly. "I can tell. They all are."

Once the road finally cleared a space for me to drive back to the station, I looked out the window to the house across the street from the crime scene again. At first, I didn't see anything, but my eyes suddenly locked on a face gazing out the window.

"What's wrong?" Liv asked, looking at me. "Do you see something?"

I inhaled sharply while shaking my head.

He was staring directly at the car, watching it intently. A shiver went down my spine, making my entire body shudder as I furrowed my eyebrows. There was no doubt in my mind that this man had something to do with the abduction, and I became determined to figure out the role he played in it.