Rock Bottom

Elias Cortez had been running his life into the gutter for years. By March 2009 he was a drug addict, alcoholic, and addicted to gambling. In other words, he had hit rock bottom. He was jobless, penniless, and homeless. As if he were the boy in the story of the prodigal son, one day, after he had been beaten, he picked him self off the bar floor, dusted himself off, and made a cross-country journey to one—and possibly the only—person who could help him.

xxxxx

After a hard day at work Antonio thought his day could only get better. But as he pulled into the driveway and saw some filthy guy standing in front of his door, he thought otherwise.

Antonio quickly got out of the car to see who this man was on his property and why.

"Excuse me."

Elias turned around.

"Elias?" Antonio could barely recognize his younger brother. His face was covered in bruises, his shirt was torn, and the whites of his eyes were red. Antonio quickly unlocked the door and pulled him inside. Later, he would wonder if he did that because he was in a hurry to help him or if he didn't want the neighbors to see Elias. He figured it was a mix when he silently thanked God that Teresa was taking care of Zachary at Nathan and Jess's that day—she wouldn't see him. "What happened to you?"

"Antonio…I lost everything—my apartment, my job. I got nothing."

"How did you get here?"

"Don't make me answer that?"

"Who did this to you?"

"I did. I owed some people and I couldn't pay."

"What happened?"

"Started using," he barely whispered the words he knew would disappoint his brother.

Antonio sighed. He was tempted to scold, but what could he say that his brother didn't already know in that moment? "Using what?"

"Pot, coke…heroine."

"Heroine? Elias, how…never mind."

xxxxx

Antonio iced and bandaged his brother's wounds and sent him upstairs to change. When Elias came back down Antonio was waiting to hear more about what happened.

"Are you wanted by the police? Have you done anything illegal…besides using drugs?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me."

"I didn't."

"I assume you're here because you want my help."

Elias broke down. He muttered something, but Antonio couldn't hear it.

Antonio held his brother and tried to pacify him. He remembered the last time he'd done that. It was when Elias was five years old. He had fallen off his two-wheeler while he was learning to ride. Back then Antonio never imagined that his sweet, innocent little brother would become a drug addict. He had high hopes and expectations for Elias. It was that faith Antonio had in him that gave Elias the courage to come to him, so Antonio knew he couldn't lose that faith now. Deep down Antonio knew Elias was that same sweet boy with potential that just needed to be tapped into. Only this time he wasn't helping him ride a bike. He was weaning a drug addict and helping him rebuild his life. It would not be as easy.

xxxxx

Nicole came home, put down her bag and went straight for her eight-month-old that was in his bouncer. Soon after she picked him up Antonio came in with a bottle.

"Hi," she kissed him. "Why isn't he in his pajamas?"

Antonio didn't answer. He put the top on the bottle and put it in the diaper bag. That was when Nicole noticed the two diaper bags on the couch.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Teresa is coming over to take Zachary to her place for a few days."

"Because?"

"Elias is here. He needs my help. And Zachary cannot be here while I give it to him."

"Why? What are you going to be doing?"

"Detoxing him. Until I find a really good rehab center I'm gonna do it here. I already told my boss I am going to be out for the next three weeks. That's how long I figure it will take me to find a rehab and take him there."

"You want our baby to live with the nanny for three weeks."

"I said a few days. Seventy-two hours is how long it takes for Elias's worst withdrawal symptoms to pass. He'll be writhing, vomiting, and screaming and I don't want Zachary to see or hear it."

"Antonio, you are not qualified to do this."

"Nathan gave me all the facts and told me exactly what to do and what not to do."

"All right. He is your brother. This is something you have to do. What can I do to help?"

"Go to the hardware store and buy locks and boards, so I can lock him in the guest room and board up its windows."

xxxxx

Before he went to bed that night Antonio talked with Elias. He wanted to prepare him for what he would be going through the next few days.

"Then by day three you should be doing better."

"When does this start?"

"By two or three tomorrow morning. I'm leaving Zachary's monitor in here with you. You can call me if you need anything. But you gotta know there's not much I will be able to do outside of emotional support. This is going to be hard, Elias. It's going to be one of the hardest things you'll ever go through. Are you ready?"

"I have to be."

"Okay. Bucket's by the bed. Good night."

xxxxx

"Good morning, everyone," Kemyss said.

"Morning," Devin said.

"Good morning," Jess said.

"Good morning," Nicole barely uttered. She got little sleep the night before.

"Is the baby keeping you up?" Thomas asked.

"Something like that."

Kemyss put a picture on the board. "Cade Anthony Prescott. He just turned twenty months old. Mother is deceased. His single father reported him missing this morning."

"What time last night did he last see him?" Nicole asked.

"Not last night. He last saw his son three weeks ago. Mr. Prescott works long hours. When he leaves for work the baby is still asleep, when he comes home Cade has already been laid down for the night. The only reason he would have seen him this morning was because the nanny called in sick."

xxxxx

"I can't do this! I can't do thiiiiisssss!" Elias screamed.

"Yes you can! You have to!" Antonio yelled over his brother's cries.

He got off the floor and went to the window. He tried to rip the board off. "Let me the fuck out of here!"

"You're wasting your time pulling on that. There are more than thirty bolts holding that board up. It's impossible to get it off without tools."

Elias picked up the lamp and threw it at Antonio. Antonio dodged it and left the room.

xxxxx

"When I get home I am wiped out," Michael said. "Cade is a very light sleeper. If I went in there he would wake up. He would have been up for hours. I couldn't risk losing a night's sleep, so I never checked on him."

"What about in the mornings?" Jess asked.

"I need as much sleep as I can get, so I set my alarm to give just enough time to shave, put on my suit, and leave in time to get to the office."

"And you couldn't fit in five minutes to say good morning to your son," Nicole said.

"Are you going to sit here and criticize my mistakes or are you going to find who took my son?"

xxxxx

"I put him to bed around eight. Mr. Prescott came home at eleven, and I left," the nanny told them.

"Did Michael seem different or odd, was he in a bad mood?"

"He was a little irritated. He lost a big account he'd been working on."

xxxxx

Nicole closed the interrogation room door. "He was in a bad mood and tired. Cade probably woke up and was crying and Michael couldn't stop it, so he shook him, and the kid died."

"I don't think so," Jess said. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would do that. I think he's telling the truth."

"Why?"

"Think about it. The nanny knew three weeks ago that he was going to be starting this account. She knew when he works on assignments like this he can go for weeks without seeing the baby. If she wanted to take Cade that would have been the perfect time to do it. If she found someone who could take that baby far away all she had to do was show up for work everyday. Cade could have been missing for the past twenty-two days."

"But what's the motive? Why would she want to take him?"

"She's a woman. Women steal babies all the time. She's in her late forties. She has no kids of her own. She knows it's too late to have biological kids and she's too old to apply to adopt. Cade is her only chance to be a mother."

"Let's release her and watch her."

xxxxx

"Sorry about the lamp," Elias said. Antonio came back a few hours later when his brother had calmed down.

"It can be replaced. I brought you some soup. You really should eat something."

"If I eat that I'm going to barf."

"At least drink some water…I just got off the phone with a really good rehab center in Texas."

"Why do I have to go there? You said in three days my body won't need the drugs anymore."

"You won't need them physically, but drug addiction is also mental. You're still going to want them…for the rest of your life. You have to have the skills to resist."

"How long?"

"It could be eight weeks, could be six months, could be a year. They say there's no way to tell."

xxxxx

Jess vented to her partner while they watched the nanny's home. But Nicole's mind was elsewhere. "Nathan is painting Alaina's house today."

"Who is Alaina?"

"This woman in his group at the med school. At first they only studied together. Now he's always doing favors for her. Today he painted her house. This weekend he's going to help her repaint her mother's florist shop."

"I saw this thing on 20/20 about how being around too many paint fumes can lower a man's sperm count."

"That should be my only problem. He better be careful or we might not get pregnant at all this year. You didn't hear a word I said. What is wrong with you?"

"I'm just distracted. Sorry."

"What's going on?"

"Nathan didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Elias came over yesterday. He was a mess. He started using drugs and now Antonio is detoxing him in our home."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I were. He screamed all night. It was like listening to an exorcism. Horrible. I thought the neighbors were going to call the police."

"We didn't hear anything."

"Lucky you. Anyway, it's gonna take about three days to wean him off it."

"That's just the physical part."

"What I don't understand is how this happened at all. Elias had dream parents, a great role model in Antonio, and a good childhood. Yet somehow he managed to screw his life up in the worst possible way."

"It happens."

"It's always something, huh? So what were you saying about Nathan?"

"I'm probably just being paranoid. I shouldn't be worried. We're not having any problems."

"I'd keep an eye on him just in case."