Beautiful Lies

knowledge if I couldn’t share it, couldn’t pursue it, couldn’t endeavor to put wrong things right? Maybe I was better off not ever knowing what had happened to all of us. But I nodded my assent.

“Max was a crusader. He saw a wrong, a system that was failing, and he sought to correct it. But reforming a government system is slow work indeed, and in the meantime, children were dying. Children were being abused, neglected, fucked up in a hundred different ways by people who neither loved them nor wanted them or didn’t know what to do with them even if they did. Meanwhile, other couples were desperately seeking children, unable to conceive for whatever reasons, on long waiting lists for adoptions. Through his foundation, Max encountered many of these people, knew their desperation, knew what loving, affluent homes they could offer needy children. He was deeply frustrated by that knowledge, seeing these people as wasted resources.

“Max conceived of a way to help these kids, and he convinced others to help them as well. He called his endeavor Project Rescue.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Harriman as he pushed himself off the edge of his desk and began pacing the floor like a trial lawyer giving his closing arguments. Jake stayed by the door and kept his eyes on the older man as well. His face was a mask; I couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking.

“Project Rescue had two different facets. One was the group lobbying to pass the Safe Haven Law in New York State, which would allow mothers to abandon their children to places like hospitals, clinics, fire departments, whatever, no questions asked. Those children were absorbed into the child welfare system…totally above board. But the other was a more nebulous function, whereby cooperating medical staff at clinics that serviced the poorer communities were able to anonymously notify Project Rescue about certain children who were being abused and neglected. Many of these physicians and nurses did so quite innocently, thinking that Project Rescue had some special pull with the government agencies that investigated child abuse cases.”

“But in fact,” interrupted Jake, “they were marking them as children in need of rescue.”

“That’s right,” said Harriman. “Now, while the concept behind Project Rescue was quite noble, the execution was a little less so. Someone actually had to remove the children from their homes. And this was something with which your uncle was not eager to be involved.”

“And that’s where some of your other clients came in handy,” said Jake.

“Very good, Mr. Jacobsen.”

“What?” I said. “I don’t get it. What do you mean, other clients?”

Harriman gave me the kind of smile one might deliver to a slow student who, in spite of her best efforts, was still very behind in class. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the kind of people I deal with on a daily basis.”

“So…what?” I said, disgusted. “You brokered some kind of deal between Project Rescue and the Mob?”

Harriman cringed dramatically. “Please, Ridley. I said no such thing. And if I were you, I’d never say that again.”

I stared at him, deciding that he was a monster, utterly without morality. He cleared his throat, then continued on. “For a while things went quite smoothly. Physicians and nurses were reporting abuse to Project Rescue. Removals were ‘hired out.’ Children were going to good homes; no one with clean hands was involved directly with anything questionable. And money was being made. A lot of it.”

“They were selling the children?” I asked, my disgust and horror mounting.

Harriman shrugged. “This was an expensive operation. And not everyone was involved for the ‘good of the children,’ if you know what I mean.”

He was so level, so unemotional about it all, it was hard to believe the things he was saying. He was telling me that Max colluded with organized crime to abduct children from their homes and families and sell them to strangers. Wealthy, important strangers. I thought of those foundation dinners glittering with star power, and I wondered how many of those people had bought their children from Project Rescue.

“The most important thing to your uncle was that no one got hurt. So when Teresa Stone was killed during the removal of her child, Jessie, Max was furious. At this point, he wanted to close down the operation, but by then it was bigger than him. The people involved were making a lot of money and no one was eager to give that up.”

Harriman sat down across from me, poured three glasses of water from a tray that held a sweating crystal pitcher and matching glasses. “You look a little pale.” He held out a glass to me but I didn’t take it from him. He placed it back on the tray.

“Max was afraid then that they’d created something he could no longer control. And he was right.”

“How many children were there?” asked Jake, moving to stand behind me.

Harriman shook his head. “There’s no way to know,” he said with a laugh. “I mean, it’s not like anyone kept a log.”

Jake looked like a statue, cold, paralyzed by anger. I wasn’t sure he could open his mouth again if he wanted to. “What happened to Jake?” I asked. “We know his mother abandoned him and then went back for him. We know he was abducted. How did he wind up back in the system?”

Harriman showed me his palms. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that. All I can say is that people who think they can buy children probably don’t have a crisis of conscience when it comes to returning their merchandise. I mean, think about all those people who buy purebred puppies and bring them to the pound when they bark too much or shit on the carpet.”

I cringed at the comparison. But Harriman was right about something. It shouldn’t be as easy to get a child as it is to get a puppy. I looked over at Jake. His face was pale, his mouth a thin line. Anger was coming off him in waves.

“So you think I was ‘removed’ by Project Rescue from my home because Dr. Jones thought I was being abused, but the family I was sold to decided I was too much trouble and then abandoned me at a Project Rescue site?”

“It’s possible,” said Harriman, looking at Jake. “I’m sorry, son. I really don’t know. There’s just no way to know these things.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you telling me that my father was a part of this? That he knew?”

“I don’t know if your father knew about the other side of Project Rescue.”

“He was the doctor to all four of those missing children, Ridley,” Jake said gently. He came to sit beside me, put a hand on my leg.

“Fine. But that doesn’t mean he was the one who ‘flagged’ the children. It could have been anyone at that clinic. Any nurse or any other doctor.”

Jake looked at me sadly. “Then how did he wind up with you?”

We all sat there silent for a second. Then I turned to look at Harriman again. “Am I Jessie Stone?”

He looked at me, and I thought I saw the glimmer of compassion in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “You are. And I only know this because your case was special.”

“Special how?”

“I have an agreement with Ben and Grace, Ridley. You need to speak to them.”

“Are you telling me that my parents bought me?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that, Ridley. You need to talk with Ben and Grace.”

“But I’m asking you,” I said.

I thought about the man I had always thought was my father. I knew his face, his hands, the feel of his arms around me so well. I thought that I came from that place, that his skin was my skin. But he bought me, like a house or a new car. Our family, everything about it a false front, pretty from the outside, hollow and empty at its core.

“What about Ace?”

“Ace,” Harriman said slowly. “Ace is not a Project Rescue baby.”

“What? I don’t understand. I thought…”

“Again, Ridley, you’ll have to discuss that with Ben and Grace.” I noticed he never referred to them as my parents.

I didn’t know how to feel. I was floating, suspended in the air, wondering what the ground was going to feel like when I hit it hard, when the reality of this situation brought me down.

“Is it still happening?” asked Jake, breaking my thoughts.