Prologue
Most children were completely oblivious to everything going on around them, and I was, too, for the better part of my childhood. There was the faintest of suspicions that, somehow, found its way into my head almost every night as I laid in bed. Even at an early age, I knew something set my dad apart from the rest of the daddies in our neighborhood. At the time, I couldn’t figure out if it was good or bad but had not really considered the latter. Back then, my mind was too naïve and innocent to figure out what it was, or maybe, I ignored the things I didn’t want to see. There were warning signs, but I pushed them aside, always finding a suitable reason to justify his questionable actions.
When I was a little girl, I never imagined my life would end up where it had. While a lot of girls were dressing up and pretending to be fairies and princesses, or dreaming of marrying their best friend, I was playing detective as I trailed my dad from a safe distance, my curiosity getting the better of me. Many years later, I still didn’t understand him any more than I did when I was a child. I wished I would have been a typical kid who wondered about trivial things like how they get those boats into the glass bottles. Okay. I was interested in learning that secret along with my peers.
My thoughts traveled to Meghan as they often did. She was an unnecessary casualty of my sheer ignorance. When I showed the FBI the location of her bones, it was undeniable that I was involved in her disappearance, which eventually led to her death. I had unknowingly helped Dad find a child who’d escaped him after he had kidnapped her. She was the only one I was aware of, but there was no way of predicting how many children suffered because of Dad. The mere notion of him being my father was repulsing; some things were out of a person’s control, though. —Choosing your parents was one of those. I had convinced myself I was adopted, and that meant the wickedness coursing through his veins couldn’t be passed along to me, and I wasn’t ruined before my life ever had a chance to really begin. Other times, I denied the possibility of having a dad altogether, regardless of knowing it was a bald-faced lie, it brought me comfort. Anything was better than accepting the truth. The man whose loving arms gave the best bear hugs as his hands wrapped around me, the man I thought protected me from the ugliness of the world, was an imposter. He was a bad man who stole the purity from countless kids.
He wasn’t alone in the act by any means, but it didn’t make any of it easier to live with. The truth was his DNA pulsated through my body with every beat of my heart. Although I didn’t rob anyone of their virtue or life, I didn’t save them either. That was my biggest regret. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore because my shelf life was long gone. My dad was dead, and I was the decay he left behind to allow his memory to live on long after he was murdered.