Nolan's Journal Chapter 23
"It finally happened. The agency called and told us to come get our child. Her name is Esther, but she answers to Essie, and she's five years old. The agency has no record of her being in school, but her parents must have been teaching her. She loves books and reads a lot better than Henry did at her age, but as far as we can tell, the only stories she knows come from the Bible. According to her file, her parents were heavily religious and part of a small, very tightly-knit church. That might explain Essie's home schooling on the Bible.
"A church elder checked on her parents when they didn't show up for Bible study and found them both dead. As far as the cops who investigated could figure out, Essie's home was invaded by a gang that's been hitting houses in the area. The family didn't have the electronics or other items the gang usually stole, and the invaders apparently stabbed Essie's parents to death in anger or revenge. Essie was mercifully asleep in a little attic room. The gang didn't know she was there and she never heard what was going on. People from the church told her that God needed her parents in Heaven. She seems to have accepted that, but who knows how long that will last.
"Bailey and I both get to church on Christmas and Easter when we can, but haven't had formal religious instruction. Grey was able to perform our marriage ceremony because he's a notary public, and in LA, it's legal for him to do weddings. But he and Luna are also pretty churchy and have volunteered to help out with the Bible stuff when they can. Wesley might be an even better bet. He went to a Jesuit college before he went to law school, so he's well-versed in the scriptures.
"Fortunately, Essie is young enough to be open to wider experiences than her parents or their church permitted. Bailey and I agreed to enroll her in public school and an after-school enrichment program. That will make it easier to plan childcare and expose her to the incredible range of people and cultures that make up LA.
"Bailey and I both work with colleagues from many different backgrounds. As part of our family, Essie will be around them. Hopefully, she'll become as comfortable with that as possible.
"Essie has clothes that were still at her home. She also has a few toys, again with Biblical themes. Her Noah's ark looks as if it was very skillfully hand-carved. She had no idea how to use a computer, iPad, or even a cell phone, but she's catching up fast. Nyla brought her kids over and Lila got Essie going with a video game pretty quickly. Bailey and I got her an age-appropriate game of her own. She's already better at it than I am, but it's a long time since I was five. Sometimes it seems like it's been centuries.
"On the work side of things, Bailey's taking as much time off as she can, but she didn't have much vacation left after our honeymoon. Grey let me know that I'm eligible for family leave since it is intended for parents to bond with their kids, which is what I'm doing my best to do with Essie. Given how short-handed Mid-Wilshire is, I'm surprised he brought it up, but when Henry had his surgery, Grey told me that family comes first. Thank God he believes that adoption counts.
"Wesley says the plan to lure Monica off her Vanuatu island is almost in place. Fingers crossed that it works. As destructive as she's been to this city, no cop wants to think that she's still at large. She's been too good at pulling strings, no matter where she is.
"I've got a feeling that Angela would love to go off to a Vanuatu island with Wesley to wait Monica out and have the honeymoon they never got to have. Unfortunately, Grey can't spare her and the baby is a little young yet to leave with Grandma for an extended period of time. They have an unusual problem. A lot of couples would love to have an exotic honeymoon, as Bailey and I tried to do, but can't afford it. With Wesley's trust fund, he and Angela can afford it fine, they just don't have the time. However, I'm sure it will come eventually. And maybe sometime in the future, Bailey and I can have a do-over that won't involve less-than-honest hospitality management or a dead body. But it will be the far future. Right now, everything in our family is about Essie."
"Essie made Bailey feel all warm and fuzzy today. She climbed into her lap with one of her favorite new books and wanted Bailey to read it with her. Then they made root beer floats together. Bailey had been keeping a lot of ice cream in the freezer as comfort food while we were waiting for Essie. But now it's celebration food. Essie loves it but apparently didn't have it at home with her birth parents. From how Essie described them, their church had ice cream socials a couple of times a year when they made their own with hand-cranked machines. Store-bought stuff was never on the menu. Essie didn't know why, but I'm guessing it had too much of a connection with technology that the church considered evil. Store-bought ice cream may have too many weird-sounding ingredients, but there are a lot more evil things in this world. Monica's activities were a prime example.
"With some help from Garza, Wesley and Dana finally got their plan into action. They managed to put out false but convincingly official-seeming announcements that the U.S. had come to an agreement with Vanuatu to monitor the movement of American monies off and on the island. Monica fell for their ruse hook, line, and sinker and started moving her money out of the islands before the agreement could go into effect. That gave the FBI's experts in tracing ill-gotten gains a chance to begin seizing it. Monica decided to move her base of operations before she was completely wiped out, but the FBI managed to flip her pilot into venturing into U.S.-held territory. Monica stepped off the plane and into the arms of Garza and his people. They flew her back to the U.S. and dropped her off at the Federal Correctional Facility in Dublin, CA, to await trial.
"I believe that anyone with the misfortune to cross Monica's path would have preferred she be secured in one of the nastier federal prisons, but they are designed to accommodate males. Monica may be a lot of things but male isn't one of them.
"In addition to the welcome news that Monica is finally behind bars, crime in LA is taking a dive. Unfortunately, the reason isn't improved efficiency of the LAPD, but the temperature. Something called a heat dome is over the city and it's even more sweltering than usual. It's bad enough that Grey gave Lena and Stella temporary permission to wear short sleeves. The purse snatchers and smash and grabbers seem more interested in finding a cool space than something to steal. Still, there have been some exceptions. A few guys seem bent on committing just enough crime to get caught and end up inside an air-conditioned building. Several were sitting in Mid-Wilshire holding cells at end of shift today. I'm guessing they'll try to spend as much time in the cool air as possible. Obviously, the city needs better ideas for cooling centers than holding cells."