Page 111 of He Sees You
Two children, siblings, ages five and three, acquired from Michael and Sarah Reeves in exchange for debt forgiveness.
The debt?
Three hundred thousand dollars owed to Richard's "investment firm"—clearly a front for loan sharking.
But there's more to the story.
Medical records showing Sarah Reeves had been trying to get clean from heroin, trying to get her children back.
Letters from her to social services, begging for help, saying her husband had done something terrible, that her children were missing.
All dated after the "sale."
She hadn't known what Michael had done until it was too late.
Police reports of her trying to file missing person reports, being turned away by Sterling's department.
"Custody dispute," the reports say. "Civil matter."
My parents didn't die in a car accident like I was told.
Michael sold us to pay his debts, but Sarah fought to get us back.
There's a handwritten note at the bottom in Richard's script:
Mother becoming problematic. Multiple attempts to contact children. Father eliminated as per agreement—made example for other debtors. Mother to follow after appropriate interval to avoid suspicion. Cover story implemented—car accident, bodies burned beyond recognition.
They killed them.
Michael first, because he knew too much and served as a warning to others.
Then Sarah, because she wouldn't stop looking for us, wouldn't stop fighting.
Sterling's signature is on the death certificates.
He signed off on their murders, helped stage the accident scene.
But there's a final note, dated a week after Sarah's death:
Children told parents died in accident. Boy showing signs of trauma response—violence, isolation, possible memory of events. Girl adapting better. Recommend increased control measures for boy. Consider pharmaceutical intervention if behavioral modifications unsuccessful.
Those control measures were the "discipline sessions" that started when I was eight.
The pharmaceutical intervention was the pills they tried to force on me at twelve, the ones that made me feel nothing, that I learned to hide under my tongue and spit out later.
I sit back in Richard's chair, processing this.
Every truth I thought I knew is a lie.
Every tragedy in my life connects back to this room, these documents, these men who played God with children's lives.
My mother died trying to save us.
My father died because he sold us.
And I grew up thinking they abandoned us, that we were unwanted.
We were wanted.
