Summer, 1983
Wallins Creek, Harlan County, Kentucky.
Inside the tiny house on Jesse's Creek Road that sat contentedly amidst the trees, six year old William sat in front of the old black and white television while eating a boloney sandwich, seemingly oblivious to the screaming and shouting that came from the tiny bedroom. His mother and father were fighting again but this was nothing out of the ordinary. He'd just go about watching his program until the fighting escalated to the good part, the part where his daddy would begin beating his mother. For him, it was better than anything he could ever find on TV. His daddy was his hero; so big and strong, everybody in the whole town was afraid of him, especially his mother.
"Stupid girl!" Billy laughed when he heard his mother begin to cry as he heard his father strike her and he quickly ran to the bedroom door, cracking it just enough to get a peek inside and watch as his father viciously beat his mother, not stopping until she finally gave in and told him where she'd hidden the rent money. The very second he had it in his hands, he slapped her again across the face, knocking her to the floor.
"Next time, I won't be so nice about it you stupid bitch!" he said before delivering a swift kick to her face with his large boot-clad foot then storming out of the bedroom.
"Here boy, buy yourself some candy" he said to young William , looking down and handing him a whole dollar. Billy had never had so much money at one time before.
"A whole dollar! Thanks Daddy!" Billy exclaimed excitedly. His father smiled before leaving the house and going to the bar down the road.
Inside the bedroom, Johnnie Lee pulled herself up from the floor and was mortified to see Billy standing in the doorway watching her.
She'd been planning to run for over a year now but she never quite put a plan into motion. All she knew was that she needed to get out, get away from him because she knew that if she didn't, one day he would kill her.
She'd given up her dreams for him. After high school she wanted to go to the Jenny Lea Academy of Cosmetolgy, earn a degree in hair and makeup and maybe one day get out of Wallins Creek but then she got pregnant with William at only 16 and had to drop out of high school. She had been the only person in her family to have made it as far as the eleventh grade.
They got their own little place just off Jesse's Creek Road. Harlan had always been forceful but he became downright cruel once William was born and she became afraid of him. She watched as he corrupted their son, taught him how to be just as evil, controlling and unforgiving as he was and now at the age of six, her son was a miniature version of his father; a tyrant. William takes pleasure in hurting people and animals, he'll go after anything weaker than he is and his father praises him for it.
Now, at the tender age of 23 she feels like an old woman. Yes, she had been planning to run for over a year now but never had the nerve, but a month ago she found her nerve when she discovered that she was pregnant again and she knew that there was no choice, she couldn't bring another child into this hell, couldn't allow Harlan to corrupt it like he'd corrupted Billy. It was already too late to save her son from his father but she could give this baby a chance.
In anticipation of fleeing, she had been saving for over a year by stashing away a few dollars here and there from the tips she got from waitressing at Homer's diner - her night job over in Cumberland and even though she had no clue when she'd go, she stashed the money faithfully, sometimes as much as five dollars in a single night!
She vowed that this beating would be her last as she looked at her bloodied face in the mirror and after cleaning herself up, she took the money from its hiding spot - eight hundred and thirty seven dollars, surprising even herself that there was so much and told herself that instead of going to work, she would leave tonight and while Billy had run off to the general store to spend his dollar, she packed a bag and put it on the floor of the old pickup truck in preparation for her escape then wrote a note for Harlan that consisted of seven words:
"The trucks in London at the grayhound.
JL"
... ... ...
Minutes before Billy's sitter arrived, Johnnie Lee looked at her son who again sat planted in front of the TV; she wanted more than anything to take him with her and try to fix the damage that his father had done but Billy was Harlan's pride and joy and if she took his son he would hunt her down to the ends of the earth and there was no doubt in her mind about what would happen when he found her.
"William, come say goodbye to momma" she called in her small voice from where she sat on the old, outdated sofa. William sighed, rolling his eyes at being interrupted before he reluctantly got up and went to his mother who lifted him onto her lap and hugged him tight, kissing his cheek as a tear slid down her own.
"Goddamn it, momma, quit!" he protested as he fought against her embrace all while his attention remained on the program he had been watching.
"Billy look at me" she ordered him in as stern a voice as she could muster. Again, the boy sighed and fixed his gaze on his mother.
"What?"
"I made your favorite for dinner"
"Pasketti?" he asked, his face lighting up as he flashed a big, toothless smile. Johnnie Lee couldn't help but laugh even in spite of the fact her heart was breaking at saying goodbye to her son.
"Yes"
"With meatballs?"
"A course silly, what's spaghetti without meatballs?"
"Thanks momma!" and for the first time in months, he hugged her and kissed her cheek. she put her arms around him and squeezed him tight against her, her eyes filling with tears that she tried not to cry but the tears won and fell in endless torrents. After a moment, she pulled away and stared at her son, memorizing every inch of his face - though she didn't need to.
'What are you cryin for woman?"
"I'm cryin because I love you and no matter what, I don't ever want you to forget that, you hear me?"
"Okay. Can I go eat now?"
"Not yet. I got somethin for ya" she said as she reached under the sofa and pulled out a box that was wrapped in bright blue paper.
"A present?" he never got presents just because and this was exciting.
"It's for ya birthday next week but I won't you to have it now. Go head, open it." he didn't waste time tearing the paper from the box and when he saw the gift underneath, his little eyes went huge and he thought he'd faint. It was the one thing he wanted in the whole world
"HE-MAN AND BATTLE CAT? THANK YOU MOMMA!" he cried as he threw his arms around her, deciding in that moment that he loved her as he buried his face in her long, thick red hair; never having noticed before how pretty it was. Johnnie didn't want to ever let the moment end but she knew that she had to for the sake of her unborn child.
"Don't ever forget that momma loves you" she cried "and don't ever forget me!" she kissed him one last time before letting him go. "Okay, your plate is on the table in the kitchen. Why don't you take your dolls with you while you eat?"
"They ain't dolls, only girls and faggots play with dolls, dummy!" he said with total nonchalance as he skipped off to the kitchen with his toys just as his sitter, Johnnie's very blonde and very buxom but not-so-bright 16 year old cousin Maddie entered the house dressed in her usual of too-short shorts, and a too-tight wifebeater with no bra that was cut too high and left nothing to the imagination.
"Maddie, I wish you wouldn't dress like this around Harlan, if he decides he wants what you advertizin, it's your own fault!"
"You sound like momma!" she said, rolling her eyes. Johnnie had no idea that Harlan had long ago noticed her young cousin, she'd begun developing that bombshell body at twelve and by thirteen, Harlan couldn't keep his eyes or his hands off her and took her virginity two months before her fourteenth birthday while Johnnie was in the hospital with pneumonia.
"You should listen to yer momma! Anyway, William is in the kitchen eatin - let him have as much as he wants, same with dessert; ice cream until he don't want it." she pulled Maddie in for a hug. "Take care yerself" she said as she headed for the door, stopping to take one last look at the place she called home before she left and got in that old pickup truck to head into her new life.
... ... ...
It took her almost two hours to drive from Wallins Creek to the Greyhound station in London. She probably would have driven faster had her eyes not been so blurry from the tears she cried the entire way there. She arrived and bought a one way ticket to New York City and she never gave leaving a second thought.
She arrived in New York and tried to look for work in beauty salons but this wasn't like back home and without a cosmetology license, the most they'd let her do was sweep up hair for a few dollars a day and with her savings quickly dwindling, it just wasn't enough. She hadn't expected that New York city would be so expensive. She wanted to enroll at Robert Fiance Beauty Academy but tuition cost a pretty penny and she simply couldn't afford it. She needed a better paying job - preferably one that paid off the books since she couldn't risk using her social security number and have Harlan somehow track her down.
Money was tight and she was desperate. Now at almost three months pregnant she was famished all the time and spent a lot of money - way more than she meant to on food but was still hungry. She was thankful that approaching mid-September it was still quite warm so she didn't yet have to worry about winter clothes but she was getting bigger and what little she had barely fit anymore. She had to come up with something. After a month in the city, she had barely enough to afford another week in the run-down Times Square hotel where she'd been living and she was homesick to boot. This place was so unfriendly. It wasn't at all the dream she thought it would be. She hadn't made a single friend and all she wanted was someone to talk to. She couldn't call her family because they were afraid of Harlan and she knew that they'd tell him where she was. Johnnie just had no idea that he already knew about the pregnancy - a letter came from the clinic about her next appointment a week after she left. Harlan was livid and vowed to find her but by the time he did track her down over a year later, it was too late and she had disappeared again, this time never to be found.
One day, six weeks after arriving in New York, feeling particularly depressed and homesick she was going about her duties and trying desperately to fight the tears that wanted to be cried. When a few would slip out, she'd quickly wipe them away before anyone could notice and continue working. When the day was done, she collected her pay from the owner and was about to leave when one of the patrons who was also leaving, stopped her.
"Dear, are you alright?" the woman asked.
"Yes ma'am" She quickly answered
"Why am I disinclined to believe you?" the woman asked. Johnnie had no idea what that word meant.
"Ma'am?"
"You look as if you could use a friend. I've been told that I'm a good listener. Hugette Freed" the woman said, extending her hand.
"Johnnie Lee Lewis and I 'preciate it ma'am but it wouldn't be my place and I need this job" Johnnie was sure that she didn't make eye contact with the woman she considered above her station.
"Your place? Nonsense. Tell me dear, how much are they paying you here?"
"Thirty dollars a day"
"How do you live on that?"
"I make due"
"You seem like an earnest young woman"
"Yes ma'am. My momma raised me to be"
"And it shows." The woman smiled "What if I were to offer you a position working for me? I was looking to hire a new personal assistant/housekeeper and you seem like an excellent candidate."
Johnnie and the woman left the salon together, she took Johnnie out for a hot meal and Johnnie ended up telling the woman everything about her life, including the details about how she landed in New York and the baby. Hugette was sympathetic to the young woman. Though she never had children of her own she was always a very nurturing person and her heart ached for Johnnie.
Johnnie ended up accepting the position Hugette had offered her that had turned out to be live-in and the two women became good friends, such good friend that Johnnie made a decision that would affect Hugette's life in a major way and decided to give the baby up for adoption, asking Hugette and her husband Carlton if they would like to become parents to her child. She needed a clean break from her old life and though she wasn't able to save William, she could give this baby a chance at a better life and that was exactly what she did.
Early March of the following year, Johnnie gave birth to a 7 pound baby girl who's hair was the same beautiful red as hers. Carlton and Hugette named the child Bronwyn Evelyn Freed. At Johnnie's request, Hugette pretended to be pregnant while Johnnie hid her condition so that everyone would think that Hugette had given birth to the baby. It was to protect the baby, Johnie Lee explained. A month after Bronwyn was born, Johnnie Decided that it was time for her to move on. She had managed to save every penny she made while working for the Freeds - almost seven thousand dollars which was more money than she'd ever seen in her life!
Hugette and Carlton, feeling indebted to Johnnie Lee, decided to give her the help she needed to make a fresh start. Carlton had a lot of powerful friends in very high places and pulled a few strings to get Johnnie Lee a whole new identity complete with a new name, social security number, birth certificate, fingerprints, passport and driver's license - everything she would need to start over anywhere in the world she chose to go including a bank account with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it, in her new name and all hers.
Johnnie Lee Lewis had officially ceased to exist. After changing her name she moved to Los Angeles, dyed her hair, took elocution classes to lose her accent, went back to school and carved out a real life for herself, never looking back to the one she left behind.
... ... ...
It would be years later that Harlan would find out that Johnnie hadn't disappeared with their child. It was after Bronwyn got involved with William through a prison pen pal website and William sent her to find him. Bronwyn told Harlan all about herself and her family but he had to make sure that she was trustworthy so he ran a background check and found out that she's been adopted. Curiosity got the better of him and he dug deeper, getting hold of the adoption record and original birth certificate and seeing the name of his darling ex wife as her birth mother and that's when he came up with the plan to get his hands on Bronwyn's money... If only they had thought to change her name before the birth.
She and William made plans to marry but when he died before they could get things in order, Harlan convinced Bronwyn that it would be what William would want and that together, the two of them would make Olivia pay for William's death and in the process, create another William that Bronwyn would raise as her own child. Bronwyn wanted more than anything to carry Harlan's child herself but Harlan, not wanting to reveal the truth about their connection, convinced her that it had to be Olivia since she was the one responsible for his loss when the truth was, since she'd come into his son's life and William had kidnapped her, Harlan had been lusting after Olivia but now he had a perfect excuse to do to her what he'd planned to do all along.
***
After leaving Brian's apartment, Rollins arrived back at her own place, stripping off her clothes the second she walked in the door and leaving a trail all the way to her bathroom where she jumped into a hot shower.
After she was done she pulled on a tank top and panties before grabbing the files she had been working on, along with her laptop and climbing into bed she opened her laptop and opened chrome while she perused through the folder that had the info she'd collected on Bronwyn; her marriage license, bank deposit and withdrawal receipts and a picture of her husband, sheriff Holmes. She picked up the picture of the man; he was considerably older than Bronwyn and Amanda wondered if he had any idea about the woman he had married. Amanda shuddered. There was something so eerie about the man in the photograph; he reminded her of something... someone she couldn't place and it had been gnawing at her for a couple days now.
"I gotta figure this out" she said as she dropped the picture amongst the other photos and documents in the folder just as she was alerted that she had email. She sighed, upset when she saw what the email was and who it was from. The files she's requested from Tennessee and Kentucky about Harlan Lewis had come through and she never got the notification on her phone.
"That's technology for ya!" she sighed as she opened the emails, reading apologies from both clerks and then downloading the attached files. She began reading through the Kentucky file first. This file detailed the criminal charges that were pending against Harlan Lewis back in Wallins Creek. She skimmed through the file, deciding that she'd go over it thoroughly tomorrow when she was more alert.
She continued clicking through, stopping when she came to his mugshot. That got her attention and she zoomed in on the picture; there was something so familiar about him but how? She sat there for a long moment just staring at the picture on her computer screen, those eyes...the slope of his nose...that smirk...
"OH my god!" she cried, the realization hitting her like lightening. She began digging , desperately through the files that sat in front of her on the bed until she found what she was looking for and when she found it, the most awful pang of dread began twisting her insides as she stared at the picture of Sheriff Holmes, Harlan Lewis didn't die in that accident in Pigeon Forge Tennessee. Harlan Lewis was alive and well in Earl County Pennsylvania and there was now no doubt in her mind who had taken Olivia! She had been right all along, this had everything to do with Lewis!
***
"Olivia... Liv come on baby, say somethin!" Fin yelled into the phone and was quickly met with a dial tone "MUTHA FUCK!" he screamed as he hurled a chair across the squad room.
"Tell me you got the trace" he begged the officer who simply shook his head sadly before hanging it. fin let out a huge, pained growl as he punched his fist again and again against the top of his desk before his shoulders began shaking as he wept, his head down in defeat. The other officers were frozen, they had never in all the time they'd worked with the senior detective seen him come so completely undone
The squad room was silent for a long moment until the ringing of a desk phone pierced the quiet and one of the officers reached to answer it.
"Special victims unit, Det. Abrahms"
"Abe, Put Tutuola on...NOW!" Rollins demanded nervously, Abrahms turned to look at Fin. Detective Tutuola, it's your partner...it sounds urgent. Fin pulled his hand down his face and cleared his throat as he walked across the room and took the phone.
"Rollins..." he began, hating to tell her they they'd found and lost Liv just that fast but Amanda cut him off
"Fin, I know where she is! We gotta call the officials in PA, get a team down to Earl but not the Earl squad"
"What, I don't..."
"Harlan Lewis is alive. He's the sheriff in Earl and he has Liv!"
"Shit! Call Nick I gotta get PA on the phone!"
***
After a 45 minute drive through torrential rain to get to the nearest hospital in Lancaster, Sam, the young man who had found Olivia finally arrived to the emergency room and quickly lifted her out of the car.
"Help...please...she needs help!" he cried as he ran into inside carrying a still-unconscious Olivia. he was scared to death and hoped that he had gotten her here in time, she hadn't wakened the entire drive here and he wasn't even sure in his frantic state that the woman was even still alive.
"Somebody DO SOMETHING!" he screamed just as a middle aged female doctor and a nurse came running toward them with a gurney.
"What do we got here?" the doctor asked as Sam lay Olivia atop the gurney and the nurse immediately began pushing back to the exam area with the doctor running alongside it, completely unnerved at seeing the bruises and wounds that littered Olivia's body; many of them fresh "Pulse is weak!"
"I don't know, I found her I was driving and she was just lying there in the road, she's hurt I...I put her in my car and got her here as fast as I could. She's been unconscious the whole time."
"And how long has it been?" the doctor asked as she stood over Olivia, opening her eyes to shine a light inside "Pupils are un-reactive" she said to the nurse
"I...maybe forty five minutes...an hour?" he answered, looking on as one nurse put a blood pressure cuff on Olivia's arm while another listened to her heartbeat
"Somebody beat the hell out of her" the doctor said as she felt her abdomen for signs of damage "we may be dealing with head trauma"
"Should I set up an x-ray?" one of the nurses asked
"Not yet, there's abdominal swelling present" the doctor replied as she turned to the male orderly standing by "get an ultrasound machine in here, she might be pregnant" Sir, I'm gonna need you to wait outside" she told Sam before ordering another nurse to get an IV tube into Olivia.
***
Meanwhile, at the home of judge Franklin Smythe in Lancaster. He was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by what sounded like his door being broken down. it took him five minutes to get out of bed and downstairs, shuffling to the door in the dark.
"I'm coming god damn it!" the chubby, balding older man yelled as he approached the door. Surprised when he flung it open to see what looked like the entire Lancaster PD standing outside his home, in the rain. "What the hell is this?"
"Sorry to disturb you sir" the chief of the department apologized "But we got a call from NYPD and we may have a very serious situation on our hands and time is of the essence."
"What's goin on?"
"Sir, we need a search warrant for Sheriff Holmes home and property out in Earl."