A Shadow Fell by Patrick Dakin Read Free Book Online Page A

Ocala where we would board a helicopter for a flight to Fayetteville so that I could make a positive identification of my daughter.
                  Even though I had spent the better part of my working life as an FBI field agent and had endured more than my share of trauma tic e xperiences , seeing Tanya under these conditions would b e by far the most difficult thing I had ever face d .
                  When we arrived at the morgue we were met by the coroner , a slender African - American woman in h er fiftie s. She looked at me with kind eyes that peered out through a pair of glasses with round lenses like John Lennon had made popular in the sixties. “ Sir , ” s he said in a somber tone, “ I should warn you that you need to prepare yourself for what you’re about to see .” Sh e waited for me to acknowledge h er cautionary advice but when I didn’t react s he added, “It would be best if you simply view her face through the observation glass .”
                  “ No,” I said, my eyes already beginning to blur with tears. “I want to hold her hand. Please. ”
                  The coroner then looked at the agent s accompanying me and studied their faces for a moment before addressing me again. “Sir,” s he said with as much compassion as one human being can offer another, “ are you aware that this child has been decapitated?”
     
                  How much horrific news can the human mind absorb? When do the words you’re hearing stop conveying meaning and simply become noise ?
                  And when awareness finally dawns how much do we really accept , and how much is simply beyond comprehension ?

 
     
     
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                  To say that things changed for me after that day would be to understate the reality in the extreme. My focus became one of revenge. I wanted to get my hands on Henderson and cause him to suffer the most extreme pain imaginable. And the longer it took, the better.
                  N ews of a nice clean take down and then a return to that country club they call ed a prison was not going to make it for me . The cost to me personally didn’t matter . As I saw it, I had already lost everything worth having . Mere existence didn’t seem worth covet ing .
                  My return home from Fayetteville did not go well. I w ander ed around our empty house i n a delirium . For two days I sat in a rocking chair on the verandah , staring off at nothing. I forgot to eat. I slept where I sat.
                  The service for Tanya was held on a Sunday and was kept private, attended only by our immediate family and a few very close friends.
                  Throughout the short service I stared through blurred eyes at the tiny casket containing my daughter’s body. The notion that I would never hear her cheerful voice again or see the look of wonder on her face wh ile I read her a story seemed inconceivable. I could not imagine living long enough to ever forgiv e myself for allowing such tragedy to befall my family.
                  An old friend, Al Mercer, who had recently retired as the SAC of the Richmond office had split with his wife a few years before and he offered to stay with me . I appreciated his concern but told him to go back home, that I wanted to be alone .
                  Miles and Betty were pretty much inconsolable. They had no children of their own and they regarded Callie as the closest thing to a daughter they would ever know. Tanya’s death could not have hit them harder if she had been their granddaughter. Miles seemed especially shaken. It was a blessing to see them leave. Witnessing the pain o n Miles’ face made everything I was going through