Chapter 4 - The Confession
Arthur, my father, sat in the steel interrogation room, looking like a deflated balloon. Without his expensive scotch and his country club cronies, he was just a pathetic, aging man.
I stood behind the two-way mirror with David and Vance, watching as a federal agent slammed a photograph of the subterranean room onto the table.
“We found the room, Arthur,” the agent barked. “We found the restraints. We found the wire transfers. You were trafficking children. From your own home.”
Arthur flinched, refusing to look at the photo. “You don't understand the market. You don't understand what these people want.”
“Who? Who wants them?”
Arthur sighed, a ragged, awful sound. “People with wealth that eclipses God. They don't want to wait for adoption agencies. They don't want the red tape. They want blank slates. Perfect, healthy children.”
Behind the glass, bile rose in my throat.
“Leo was a perfect candidate,” Arthur continued, his voice devoid of emotion. “Elena is weak. She couldn't provide for him the way our clients could. We were doing him a favor.”
David hit the glass with his fist, cracking the reinforced pane.
Vance pressed a button on the intercom. “What about Toby, Arthur? The boy Elena thought was her brother. He wasn't yours, was he?”
Arthur’s eyes darted nervously. “Toby was... our first prototype. Eleanor sourced him from a desperate family in the city. We raised him for a few years to establish a baseline, to prove to our investors that we could cultivate a prime product. But he got too old. He started asking questions. Remembering things.”
“Where did he go, Arthur?” the agent pressed.
“He went to the Silver Pines Institute. Upstate. Eleanor’s contact ran the place. They 're-educated' the problematic ones before they went to market.”
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“Silver Pines burned down twenty years ago,” the agent stated.
Arthur finally looked up, a sick smile playing on his lips. “I know. Toby was inside when it happened.”
