Wallowski sat opposite Caleb Morris and his lawyer in the small interview room. She stared at him as he fidgeted in his seat. The lawyer gave his best attempt at an intimidating stare, but Sharon Wallowksi was not easily intimidated. Besides, she was here to be nice.

"Hi Caleb. How ya doing?"

He squirmed more in his chair, shrugging his shoulders up around his neck without dropping them again, sitting on his hands, looking like he may burst into tears at any minute.

"You need anything? You want a bathroom break, or a soda? Sandwich? Anything we can do?"

"I want to go home."

"Ah. Sorry, Caleb. We can't let you go home just yet. We've got a warrant to search the house. The police are there right now, looking for evidence."

Fear. He looked up so quickly he might have whiplash. Frozen then, all movement ceased, he stared at her.

"What's the matter? You worried about the police being in your house? They're there to help a missing girl, and the other kids there too."

"Charlie says no police. Charlie says don't trust police."

"Why does Charlie say that?"

"Charlie says to only trust him. He takes care of me."

"You ever think maybe Charlie's wrong?"

Silence. Doubt. Fear. Confusion.

"Tell me about the girl, Caleb."

"Don't answer her, Mr Morris", came the interruption from the lawyer. Caleb looked at him, uncertain in his own mind as to what was best.

"Do you want to help, Caleb?"

His head shot back to Wallowski with bullet speed. He did want to help. He was paralysed by the fear of what his brother wanted, what his lawyer wanted. He knew what he wanted, but Charlie was always right, and Charlie said never talk to the police.

"Do you know what happened to Claudia?"

He did. And he was close to breaking point.

"Do you know this girl?", Wallowski continued without letting his thoughts catch up to him, producing a photograph of Amy Hamilton.

Tears pooled in Caleb's eyes and he looked away from everyone at the table, his eyes meeting his own reflection in the two-way mirror, unknowingly giving Cal Lightman a window into his mind.

The boy clung to Gillian as though his life depended on it. In his mind it probably did. He was shaking like a leaf as he wrapped his tiny frame around her while she held him close, perched atop her hip, his little face buried in her shoulder.

She had managed to convince him that it was time to go upstairs. A place she had no doubt he had never been, and one that he seemed terrified to think of. In his short life only bad things had come from this place. Until her.

Gillian gripped his little body close as she climbed the stairs. One arm acting almost as a seat for him under his bottom, with his short legs wrapped around her waist. Her other arm protectively wrapped around his back with the palm of her hand gently cradling the back of his head.

The front of the house was a circus by now. Police, social services, medics and reporters swarmed all around outside. A forensic team, decked out head to toe in white, mobbed the inside of the house. It must have been incomprehensible to the boy.

Gillian signalled to the two social workers to follow her as she made her way to the back of a waiting ambulance. They would take the boy to the hospital first to get him checked out. The journey in the ambulance would be isolated enough compared to any other introduction to the world. They had arranged for a private consultation in a sensory friendly environment for the boy once they arrived at the hospital. They had no idea how he might react.

Gillian spoke softly and carefully to the two welfare officers as the door to the ambulance closed and the EMT crew prepared them for the short trip. The sounds of news helicopters and the bustle of the news crews and police could still be heard from inside, and the child in her arms showed no signs of releasing his grip on her. She soothed him with maternal strokes to his back as the ambulance moved on. She spoke to him for the entire trip, explaining as much as she could in as limited a way that he might begin to understand. Willing herself not to become overloaded with emotion as much as willing him.

"Caleb turned on you, Charlie. Told us everything", Wallowski affected an air of smugness that she didn't really feel as she broke the news to Charlie. It was a white lie, no doubt. Caleb had only alluded to the fact that each of the alleged victims had been present in the house.

"We know you took the Amy Hamilton. We know you took Claudia Kabuso too. We know about the baby and the little boy. We know how she died, and we know that you dumped her body in that ditch after", she continued, factoring in details that Caleb had insinuated with facts derived from the autopsy results.

Fear, then anger distorted Charlies features. He might have kept himself controlled had he not been so worn down with tiredness and concern for himself. Had he been thinking rationally at that moment, he would have easily seen through the holes in Wallowski's story. But instead, he lashed out defensively.

"That's a lie. He's lying to you! Caleb took that girl, not me!"

"Mr Morris, I strongly advise you to stop talking", his lawyer agitated.

"He took her. Showed up with her. Took the car when I left it home that day and showed up with this kid. It was all him."

"Mr Morris!"

"No! I'm not taking a fall for him. I've done enough for him!"

"And the other kids? Claudia? You expect us to believe that was Caleb too? All by himself, acting alone? You had no idea that your brother, with his limited capabilities, kidnapped a woman and built a basement apartment? Come on, Charlie. Be real here."

Charlie hesitated. He knew then that he had screwed up by saying anything. The lawyer beside him deflated, slouched in his seat. Everyone could see now that he was concocting his story on the fly, lie detector or not.

"Yes. I had no idea what he was doing. I don't go to the basement. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"O…K. So, Amy. That was Caleb. He took your car. Why did you leave it home that day?"

"I just felt like it. Didn't feel like driving."

"So, nothing to do with having to use it to dump a body the night before and not having time to clean it up?"

"I don't know what you're talking about"

He did.

"So, Caleb shows up with this teenaged girl, completely out of the blue. Why did he say he took her?"

"He didn't."

"Why didn't you get her home straight away?"

"I did. She got out right?"

"By herself, sure. She escaped."

"I… I got her out. It was me."

"How? How'd she get out? Because according to her, she took an opportunity and ran."

"She's lying. It was me."

"Charlie. You ought to think about telling us what really happened there. If we do a DNA test on those kids, what are we gonna find?"

Charlie's confidence returned in part then.

"Caleb is the father. Ask him yourself."