But I won’t have to come back this time.
My fantasy is about to become reality.
I’m a man of many identities. I’ve changed my alias so many times, names are meaningless.
Fitting, since I was born as a nobody. Unwanted. Abandoned like useless trash.
Twenty-seven years ago, someone gave birth to me somewhere. Probably in an alleyway or a bathroom. Then they put me in a plastic bag and placed me in a pile of garbage to die. I was found by a homeless man who took me to the hospital. The story made national news, and families all over the country filled out applications to take me in.
It should’ve been happily ever after from there.
It wasn’t.
Suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, I was a difficult infant. Unhealthy and fussy. Cried constantly. I had delayed speech as a toddler. I bounced around a lot of foster homes and the names I got called in most of them weren’t nice. Hey, stupid was common.
Only, I wasn’t stupid. I was just quiet. Observant. I liked to watch people. To figure them out. To memorize their tells when they’re lying or when they’re about to lose their temper. Call it self-preservation if you want.
As I got older, I got really into puzzles. At four, I was working with 1000+ piece puzzles. I only owned one, so I’d put it together, take it apart, repeat. One time, an older kid at a home I was staying in stole a piece and ate it. Fucking ate it. Chewed it up right in front of me. I had a tantrum for days. I couldn’t deal with how angry it made me that I’d never be able to complete that puzzle again. That fit of rage got me transferred to another foster home.
After that, I was labeled a problem kid. Eventually, I was diagnosed with ADD, OCD, and some doctors said I was on the spectrum.
To this day, I’m not sure if they were right. My mind just works differently than some. I notice small details, such as the missing piece of a puzzle. I become obsessed with finding a way to complete it. Fix it. When I can’t, it bothers me.
It’s what makes me so good at my job. I like solving mysteries.
Maybe if I’d just been loved, I would’ve turned out closer to normal. I might’ve developed better, healthier. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so mad.
Then again, maybe not. Guess I’ll never know.
Once I reached adulthood, I didn’t want to be Edmond Smith, the dumpster baby of Detroit. So I changed my first name to Ethan, and I enlisted in the Marines. Because of my high test score, I made it into Intelligence. I wish I could say I joined because I’m a patriot, but it wasn’t about that. I needed stability, an income, and a place to live. It was good for me. During my time in the service, I honed my tech skills, got a college degree in business management, and grew from an angry teenager to a decent man.
After I got out, I started a freelance private investigator business. As Ethan Smith, I worked in the adoption world for several years, connecting adult children with their biological parents, and vice versa. Some wanted closure. Some wanted a relationship. Some didn’t get the answers they were seeking.
No matter the outcome, it was noble work. I took pride in it, and I had personal reasons for being so invested. I figured I’d never find out who my parents are, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help others do the same.
And I was satisfied with my life until a few months ago.
Everything changed when Ivan Belov contacted me and flipped my entire world with just one picture—a photo of the most beautiful, sad, lonely girl I’ve ever seen. If love at first sight exists, it happened to me that day. For some reason, a part of me recognized Rosalie as my destiny.
Now I find myself as Preston Walker, the reclusive groundskeeper on the Pearsons’ twenty-six-acre estate.
I’m not sure I recognize who I’ve become since committing to this job.
I used to think I knew who I was. I thought I’d built a secure, stable life. One based on morals.
That’s the problem with being on high ground—the farther the fall. In the past couple months, I’ve broken just about every ethical code I have.
I gave up everything for this project. My apartment. My business. Contact with people I consider family.
Oh, yeah, and I’m catfishing a teenage girl. Might as well throw my dignity out the window, too.
Tonight’s no different than every other night.
Me, out here. Making sure Rosalie’s okay.
Her, in there. Wishing she were somewhere else.
Spying on her is my new normal.
Hiding in the shadows, I watch the third story of the old Victorian mansion. As always, the light is on, and the dark iron bars over the window look like slashes through her freedom, or tally marks of her captivity.
In my line of work, I’ve seen a lot of messy family shit. Babies who were put up for adoption because they were the product of rape or incest. Mothers and fathers who never wanted to be found by the kids they gave away. Kids who were bitterly disappointed when they learned their relatives had died, and they’d never have the connection they craved.
But I’ve met a lot of heartwarming situations, too. Sweet reunions with parents who’d been looking for their kids for decades. Kids who embraced their biological relatives without hesitation.
Rosalie won’t have any of those outcomes. Her history is a tangled web of lies, deceit, and tragedy.
When Ivan first called me and said his daughter had been abducted, I told him to contact the proper authorities. I prided myself on keeping my business legit and legal, minus a few computer hackings when I’d gotten desperate for sealed adoption records.
Then Ivan started telling me one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard. About twenty years ago, he knocked up a stripper. The woman took off without telling him about his baby, and by the time he found out he had a daughter, the little girl was gone.
Like, face-on-a-milk-carton gone.
The baby, who went by the name of Melody back then, ended up in the foster care system after her mom overdosed on heroin and died. Things were looking up for Melody after a few years, though. She got adopted by a great family at the age of three. However, Melody went missing during a camping trip a few months after that.
Breaking news and an Amber alert later, Ivan realized who she was. Because the resemblance between him and the girl on the TV was striking. Still is. White-blond hair, a cleft in their chin, and brilliant eyes of two different colors are just a few features they share. Rosalie’s right is blue, and her left is green. Just like Ivan. After tracking her origin, it led him back to the woman he’d had a fling with, and it confirmed that he wasn’t alone in this world, but his daughter was nowhere to be found.
There was a lot of speculation about little Melody’s disappearance, but her body was never recovered. The only evidence left behind was a red shoe in the river near the campsite.
Now it’s just a cold case.
To his credit, Ivan never stopped looking. As a mafia boss, his reach is limitless, lawless, and without a budget. His first step was to cast a wide net, throwing donations at schools and other organizations in Detroit where a child might show up. He rubbed the right elbows and made the right friends.
Determined to find his daughter by any means necessary, he put a detective on his payroll. Years passed with nothing, but the big break finally came when a teenage girl got airlifted to a hospital in the city earlier this year. She fit the age and description of Melody, and the director of the hospital happened to be married to Ivan’s detective—which I doubt was a coincidence. Ivan is always strategic when it comes to the people he surrounds himself with, and it paid off.