Chapter 5 - The Escape
I slammed the heavy telephone receiver down violently onto the metal desk, the loud noise echoing sharply through the quiet precinct.
Officer Miller jumped slightly in surprise, quickly placing a cautious hand on his heavy utility belt.
"My mother heavily bribed a county clerk to forge emergency custody papers, and she is kidnapping my daughters right now," I told him frantically.
Miller stared at me for a long second, his eyes narrowing in deep, professional suspicion.
He turned quickly toward his computer terminal and typed rapidly on the mechanical keyboard for several tense minutes.
"The state database shows an emergency custody transfer was magically approved exactly twelve minutes ago by Judge Harrison," he noted, frowning deeply.
"So stop her before she drives away with my babies," I begged, tears welling up in my exhausted eyes again.
"Judge Harrison died of a massive heart attack last Tuesday, so it is physically impossible for him to have signed anything tonight," Miller whispered in sheer disbelief.
He instantly realized I was telling the absolute truth about the massive, illegal conspiracy destroying my family.
He looked nervously around the empty squad room, confirming that the other officers were out on active patrol.
"I am going to get fired for this, and I will probably go to federal prison, but I cannot let a kidnapper take those kids," he muttered angrily.
He grabbed a heavy set of keys from his desk drawer and grabbed my arm tightly.
We sprinted out the back door of the precinct and jumped into his unmarked police vehicle parked quietly in the dark alley.
Miller flipped on the silent emergency lights, and we tore recklessly through the icy, snow-covered city streets.
I gripped the dashboard tightly, silently praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years to keep my little girls safe.
We screeched violently to a halt in front of a modest suburban house completely decorated in bright, cheerful Christmas lights.
The front door of the foster home was standing wide open, swinging eerily back and forth in the freezing winter wind.
I threw the car door open before we had even fully stopped and sprinted wildly across the snow-covered lawn.
I burst into the living room, screaming my daughters' names at the absolute top of my lungs.
The elderly foster mother was sitting rigidly on the living room floor, bleeding profusely from a deep cut on her forehead.
"They took them, they took your beautiful little girls," the terrified woman sobbed, pressing a bloody towel to her head.
Miller rushed into the room behind me, immediately calling for emergency medical backup on his heavy shoulder radio.
I fell to my knees in the center of the ruined living room, completely shattered and entirely broken.
Then, I noticed a bright yellow piece of construction paper lying partially hidden under the damaged coffee table.
I pulled it out carefully and realized it was a frantic, messy drawing made by my brilliant eight-year-old daughter.
She had drawn a picture of a large black van with a very specific, unique logo painted perfectly on the side.
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It was not my mother's expensive luxury car that had violently taken them away in the night.
The logo belonged to the dangerous, underground loan shark who had been ruthlessly hunting my husband for the past two years.
