IT WAS A LONG ROAD FOR ME TO GET TO THE FBI. I NEVER expected to be involved with them—except maybe in the Sixties when they probably had a file on me for being a Beatles fan. Still, I am quite comfortable with what I do today, and I find it extremely rewarding. But, never in my wildest dreams would I have consciously chosen to hang around the Internet waiting for sexual predators to instant message me. And to clarify, I have used terms such as “lie in wait,” “pursue,” and “catch” to refer to what I do, but I use those words loosely here. I do not do anything more than create a screen name and profile, and I sit in a chatroom without saying a word until I’m invited to do so. I do acknowledge that I am there for one reason, and one reason only—to delete sexual predators from the Internet and also from the general population. It is my goal to find their haunts and stake them out.
You may ask why I dedicate much of my time to identifying Internet predators. My answer is simple: If a predator is searching for a child to victimize, I’d rather they find me instead. My reasons for doing this work started a long time ago. It was at a time in my life when I was still unsuspecting and naïve. I had always thought of myself as a good mother; loving, concerned, protective, and careful about to what and whom my children were exposed. My sons were good boys. They played sports, participated in the school band, and attended religious instruction, which was the one place where I took it for granted that they would be the safest—and that could not have been further from the truth.
One of their religious instructors was Marc Gunning. The moment I saw his face, I recognized him from my college days. He had been the president of the student government organization at Stony Brook University, and he was involved with many of the same campus activities in which I participated. Marc was a fairly nice-looking, seemingly gentle man who fought for many worthy causes. Although I had never really gotten to know him personally, I naively assumed that he had to be an honorable guy to have been voted in as president.
At the place of worship where my family belonged, Marc was involved with the children. I thought his position there to be admirable. At the time, he had claimed that he was studying to become a child psychologist, but I was never really sure about that. He had a job as a local radio disc jockey where he often allowed young boys to intern for him, including my younger son, Christian. He would bring them to the radio station and teach them how to use the equipment. He also taught karate and tai chi, and worked part-time in a nearby comic book store. Marc even found the time to frequent a local arcade to play various games, such as paint ball and laser tag, with the young teen boys there. It was just amazing how well he appeared to get along with kids. So, I had no qualms about the fact that he took a special interest in my son. In fact, I was somewhat grateful since my older boy, Brian, had left for college and Christian seemed lonely without him. When Marc confided to me that Christian seemed a bit withdrawn, I just assumed that he was troubled about Brian’s absence.
Over the next few months, Marc’s efforts to hang out with Christian increased. He often stopped by the house to shoot some hoops, drop off comic books, or show him some karate moves. It seemed pretty innocent, but I noticed that Christian continued sinking deeper into what I perceived as a depression. I was concerned and kept hoping that Marc’s presence in the boy’s life would pull him out of it. As time passed, Christian became resistant to attending church and began to stay home on Sundays. I worried that he was dwelling too much on his older brother’s absence.
In the meantime, Marc apparently had been battling some personal demons and surprised everyone one Sunday when he made the bold move of revealing to several people at the congregation that he was gay. He considered it to be his moment of truth. He explained how very isolated he had felt growing up in a home where his sexual orientation was completely unacceptable. He said his parents were ashamed of him, and he had experienced the same kind of rejection from his peers as he went through school. He could not stand the thought of other young boys having to suffer the way he did. He was determined to help them accept themselves for who they really are, no matter what their sexual orientation was, so they would never have to go through the type of ridicule and humiliation that he had endured. Thus, whatever else we all thought, he had sold us on the idea that he had nothing but the best of intentions towards our children. Due to Marc’s background, it seemed only natural that he counseled young boys who had problems, and that he taught karate and tai chi, calming disciplines that helped to ensure self-protection and confidence. He obviously wanted to do everything in his power to bolster the youngsters’ self-esteem.
Marc always had a smile on his face, but his eyes had a sense of loneliness about them. I assumed that he simply had the remnants of his past lingering in his expression, the pain of a difficult childhood. That was something that I understood all too well. I knew what it felt like to be different and not fit in. Although in my case, it was not about sexual orientation.
My own innocence was shattered by the sudden death of my father when I was nine years old. He died of a heart attack right in front of me. What was once a secure and happy childhood quickly turned dark with the loss of the center of my family’s universe. It was a difficult trauma that took years to overcome. I was suddenly thrust into a world where I felt different from all of my friends who had fathers and financial security, and mothers who were waiting for them with milk and cookies when they arrived home from school. I had become a latchkey kid when there was no such thing. The other children did not understand. Too young to deal with a friend’s tragic loss, many drifted away from me. Not only was my father gone, but so too was my emotional security. Like Marc, I often felt out of place and lost, so when I heard his speech that day, I understood about all of those things I imagined he had experienced as a gay teenager trying to fit into a “normal” world where it seemed that everyone had rejected him. And, having been a child of the Sixties, I was open to diversity. It was always my nature not to judge people before I got to know them. Since I had already allowed him into our lives and assumed I knew all about his background, I was comfortable with Marc. I thought I understood where he was coming from, or where he had come from. And, the idea that he might be anything other than a decent human being who was struggling with his own issues was beyond me. For the longest time, it did not occur to me that there was anything strange about his behavior, at least, not that I ever noticed. Everyone spoke so highly of him. The fact that they trusted him with their children left me completely devoid of any suspicions.
Marc was quite intelligent and interesting. Our conversations were always stimulating. He was well educated, and he was an activist in college, as was I. We had even participated in some of the same demonstrations. I never had access to his private life, but since the minister had hired him to teach the children about spirituality, I had no serious concerns about his motives for hanging out with my son. Up until that point, I had walked through life trusting people and looking for the best in them. It was the last time I would ever trust first and ask questions later.
It turned out that Marc Gunning was a child molester. He was a member of the same club as Steven Dovas—part of the lowest level of society—those who prey upon children. My son Christian was the perfect victim for him. He had a hard time when Brian left home, and he missed his companionship. The brother who had always paid so much attention to him, taking him places, playing games with him, including him when his own friends came over, was now living far from home. But, not only did Marc think he found the perfect victim, he thought he had chosen the optimal parents, too, in that he was able to walk right into our home and go after our son without us suspecting a thing. “How did that happen?” I wondered. I needed to know. I suppose he knew that there was a void in our home. One of our sons had moved on to the next phase of his life, and I was recovering from a serious car accident. We were ripe for Marc to try to fill the gap. It was only after looking back that the picture became crystal clear. While it was happening, we were totally clueless to what he was up to. Here is how the events unfolded:
One evening Marc stopped by for dinner. Right after eating, he headed straight into Christian’s room and closed the door behind him. It shouldn’t have concerned us. He was just another guy. We were used to our other son’s friends, all much older than Christian, coming over and hanging out here. But, that particular night something just didn’t feel right. I’m not sure what it was. Call it a mother’s instinct: Remember, at this time I had no idea what kind of a monster Marc Gunning really was.
My gut told me to get out of my chair and check on Christian. Feeling uneasy, I headed down the hallway towards his room. It was as though my sixth sense had kicked in to let me know that I had better intervene. As I approached his bedroom door, the silence was deafening. Without knocking, I practically burst the door open. Christian and Marc were startled, but thankfully, nothing unusual was going on. They were just reading comic books and sitting across the room from each other. I was relieved. “I must have been watching something on television that made me feel so paranoid about Marc,” I thought. I’m not sure exactly why, but I remained a little more vigilant after that. I still permitted Christian to help out at the radio station, but I drove him there and picked him up, often arriving back early and walking inside, so Christian would never be left alone with him after the show had ended. I also listened to the show each time my son was there to make sure that Marc was actually working the entire time. However, my discomfort took even deeper roots one night as I sat by my radio.
What I heard was truly unbelievable. Marc was defending a man who had been arrested for kidnapping and molesting a young girl. She was a local child who had been missing for several weeks before police finally rescued her from a bunker that the kidnapper had built under his house. Marc was actually complaining about how unfair the system was. He defended the man, saying that he probably meant well, and that people should not judge him too harshly, because the kind of love he had for the little girl was obviously misunderstood.
The kidnapping story had been all over the news. A child was missing and this man had finally confessed to hiding her in a bunker under his house. She was held prisoner for weeks in a dark, dreary dungeon. She had been kept down there inside a box, with a thick chain around her neck. Nothing like that had ever happened in our community before, and it was hard to understand how Marc could have sided with the kidnapper, defending his motives, making excuses for his crimes, and actually praising him. I was outraged! It was at that very moment that I knew I had to dig deeper into Marc’s background. Something was obviously very wrong with this man, and I had missed it for far too long!
After thinking back over the past few months, I suddenly realized that I had never seen Marc hanging around with men his own age. All of the males he associated with were young teenage boys. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it sooner, but I really did not have any experience with sexual predators. I had nothing to go on. Marc was a trusted member of the congregation. He tried to be nice. He said he cared about kids. He also said he was gay. I tried to be open-minded. I didn’t really know anything about homosexuality either, but at that point, I doubted that this was really his issue. I no longer believed that he was gay. He was clearly interested in being with young boys, very young boys. He was very devious and manipulative, and he knew exactly how to discourage suspicion. By declaring himself gay, he had slipped himself into a category that was so sensitive that most people would not question his actions for fear of appearing homophobic. I finally recognized the truth, but I was very careful about checking Marc out, not because of the homophobia issue, but because I didn’t want to make a mistake and ruin his life over my suspicions.
The first person I turned to for information was a mutual friend who had known Marc in college. I was able to track him down, and I called and asked him if he remembered Marc. His response was truly disturbing to me. “I sure do,” he said. “He always had young boys walking around in their underwear in his dorm room.” As though that wasn’t bad enough, what he said next floored me. “I remember hearing a rumor that he had been run out of his hometown while still a teenager for molesting several young boys.” He continued, “I figured it was true because he rarely hung around with anyone his own age at college unless it was school-related.” This information was more than I could handle. I hung up and sat for a moment in complete shock. I didn’t expect such a blatant response. The information had me reeling. If what my friend said was true, then what about my son? Was I finding all of this out too late, or did I uncover the truth just in time? I had to talk to Christian!
I was truly at a loss as to how to approach him. I knew that it had to be with great hesitation, because how could I ask my eleven-year-old son if the man who I had welcomed into our lives had done the unspeakable? I was determined to keep Christian away from him, but what if Marc had already done something to forever change Christian’s life?
I immediately headed into Christian’s room to talk to him. This was a first for me. I generally knew how he would handle most issues, but on that day I was concerned that he might become angry and resentful that I was coming between him and his friend. “What if he rebelled and tried to run away—or worse?” I wondered.
When I entered Christian’s room, I could barely speak. “How could I talk about Marc’s alleged motives knowing that my son might already be one of his victims?” I wondered. Christian was sitting by his computer. I asked for his complete attention, and he gave it to me. Even though the words were not yet in my head, I began talking. “I know you like hanging out with Marc, but I have a terrible feeling that he has more than a friendly interest in young boys.” Before I could continue, Christian cut me off, “Yes mom, I know he does!”
I was taken aback. I wanted to know what he meant, yet, I didn’t really want to hear it. I was so afraid that things had already gone beyond the point of no return. In an angered tone, Christian continued, “Marc has been bothering me for months. He’s always trying to figure out ways to get me to take my shirt off or to get near me. He’s so gross. I can’t stand being around him. That’s why I don’t go to church anymore.” Christian told me that while Marc was teaching him tai chi, he had tried to convince him that, to do it effectively, he had to take his shirt off. Then, Marc tried to put his hands on him to show him the moves. At first, the contact was in places that would not have caused concern: his back, his shoulder, and his arm. Then, Christian said that Marc had made certain suggestions to him, and when Christian became repulsed, Marc would change the subject. Marc continued to try to do things to get physical with Christian, and he said he knew that Marc was way out of line. Christian became more distant with Marc, often making excuses to avoid being around him. He was disgusted by Marc’s behavior and frustrated by his own inability to do anything about it. He said that even when Marc patted him on the shoulder, it made his skin crawl.
I was relieved. But, I wondered, why then, didn’t Christian tell me about Marc’s behavior? He said he didn’t think anyone would believe him due to Marc’s position in the church, and that everyone respected Marc so much he thought it best to keep it a secret. He added that because Marc was my “good friend” from college, he didn’t know how to tell me that he was trying to hurt him. Now that I had confronted him, the issue was out in the open.
Marc had done everything he could to be alone with my son and to try to have physical contact with him. He wanted to convince this young, eleven-year-old boy that any confusion he may have had about his sexuality most likely meant that he was gay and that he, Marc, would be the perfect mentor to help him understand his homosexuality. Marc was trying to put ideas into Christian’s head, telling him that he was too young to already know about his own sexual orientation. When Christian protested, saying that he liked girls, Marc confided to him that even he had crushes on girls when he was young. Marc also told Christian that I would be disgusted with him if I thought he was gay. Christian said he didn’t care what Marc said because he knew he wasn’t gay. Marc continuously applied pressure to try to make Christian unsure of what I would believe about him. Christian tried his best not to be around him, and he felt compelled to keep the whole thing a secret. I would later learn that this was Marc’s modus operandi—trying to convince a boy that the youngster was gay in order to open the door for a relationship.
Christian and I spoke for a long time. I think it was the longest conversation we ever had up until that point. He was very open about Marc, and he seemed relieved that he didn’t have to put up with him anymore. As a matter of fact, he looked more relaxed than he had in months. And I was angrier than I had ever been.
After hearing about Marc’s actions in college, it was obvious to me that my son was not Marc’s only intended victim. The following day, I went to the church to discuss with the minister what I knew. She was shocked. She said she had not run a background check on Marc because she did not feel the need. To be honest, back then, nobody would have thought it necessary, especially with Marc’s credentials. But I needed to understand how this had happened. “How could everyone have been so wrong?” I wondered. I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one he had fooled.
The minister was obviously shaken. She called in one of her assistants to discuss the information that I had brought to her attention. The assistant was a social worker who had a lot of knowledge about sexual predators. It was she who first educated me as to how Marc was able to get away with what he had been doing. I learned that these predators do everything they can to gain a child’s trust. Often, this involves winning the trust of the child’s parents as well. I began to understand the scenario. Marc had been grooming my son. He was trying to ease Christian and several other boys into feeling comfortable with whatever advances he was planning to make. He started this process by convincing them that what he was doing was perfectly normal and for their own benefit.
The assistant also told me that Marc’s behavior had nothing to do with homosexuality. She said that homosexuals were no more prone to child molestation than heterosexuals, and she felt that he used the term homosexual to keep everyone’s suspicions in check. She continued, explaining that sexual predators gain a child’s trust by doing various things, such as bringing gifts, taking them to fun places, playing games with them, sharing common interests, and even discussing problems that the child might have with a parent, then offering sympathy and advice. They justify their behavior by calling it love, and they claim that they would never hurt the child—they just want to love them. They often convince the child that they are the only one who understands them. This was sounding a little too familiar. What the woman was describing to me was exactly what Marc had done to get close to our son.
Marc was summoned to the church for a meeting with the minister, the social worker, and my husband, Ed, and me. I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to let on about what I had heard about him from my friend. I wanted to sit there quietly and let him try to explain his behavior to us. He sat there sheepishly, denying any wrongdoing. He apologized profusely for anything he might have done to give the impression that he had improper motives for hanging around with children. Then, he went into his story about being gay and how he was used to being chastised for nothing at all. He put on a pretty convincing act, tears in his eyes, sorrowful look on his face, all meant to make us feel as though his comments were genuine. This time, I wasn’t sympathetic. I was angry, although I didn’t let him know it yet. Marc had gone too far, and according to my college friend, there was a pretty clear history. There was also his current behavior to consider. Everything he did involved young boys.
Shortly after the meeting, Marc called. He asked if he could meet with me. Not wanting him in my home anymore, but also not ready to tell him that yet, I agreed to meet him at a nearby diner. I pulled into the parking lot with a knot in my stomach. I put a mini tape recorder into my pocket, pressed the record button, and entered the diner. Marc was waiting for me inside. We were seated across from each other in a booth, and as he held his coffee, he tearfully apologized to me for who he was. He admitted that he had serious problems. He used several different excuses to explain away his behavior, but still maintained that he had done nothing wrong with children. In fact, he tried to convince me that my son had imagined the whole incident. I tried as hard as I could to remain composed, but made it clear to Marc that I didn’t believe that Christian had imagined what happened, especially considering that the boy had not come to me in the first place. He did not even want to tell me about it.
Marc continued, telling me that he had medical and psychiatric problems, including a thyroid condition, and a dissociative disorder that took him away from reality at times. He said that it was possible that he had done something while in one of his detached states, but he had no way of knowing if that was true. I sat quietly and listened. I let him go on. I was not rude, but I wasn’t nice either. The relationship had definitely changed, and Marc could sense it. I didn’t listen intently with a concerned look on my face as in the past when he had talked about his childhood and his issues of alienation. Instead, I stared at him with disdain and he knew what my expression meant. I listened for as long as I could before finally excusing myself to go home.
As I got up to leave, Marc grabbed my arm. I swung around, feeling like slapping him for touching me. As our eyes met, he blurted out, “I didn’t do anything wrong! I would never hurt a child! I love children—I love them. It’s the kind of love that you will never understand.” His words pierced my heart. “It’s the kind of love that no one should ever have to understand,” I shot back. I pulled away from him in disgust. As I walked away, I slowly reached down into my pocket and turned off the tape recorder. “I got what I came for. Where I go from here is up to Christian,” I said to myself.
When I arrived home, I went into Christian’s room to talk to him again. I found him reading comic books, and as I sat at the edge of his bed, I suddenly envisioned the tiny infant that I was so lucky to have been blessed with eleven years earlier. Christian was my miracle baby in the true sense of the word. He was born from my ninth, and last, pregnancy. He was my second surviving child. Brian was my first. They were born eight years apart. I had lost five other pregnancies due to late miscarriages, and I had given birth to two other babies, but much too early for either of them to survive for more than a couple of weeks in those days. Christian arrived nine weeks early, at thirty-one weeks, and Ed and I were thrilled. We had two beautiful sons! As the years passed, Christian and Brian became best buddies, with Brian always watching out for his little brother. And now, eleven years later, there I was sitting with that miracle baby, wondering if I could ask him the question that could change everything.
I told Christian about the conversation I had with Marc. I also explained what my college friend had said about Marc’s past, and I asked Christian if he was willing to tell his story to the police. He was apprehensive. He was afraid of what people would think of him. I didn’t want to force him, but I also didn’t want Marc to go after another child and succeed. I hated to do it, but I asked Christian how he would feel if that happened. He said he would feel terrible. He didn’t want something like that on his conscience. He knew that not every boy would be able to resist Marc the way he had. We got in the car and drove to the local police precinct. The first officer we met with put Christian through a tedious interview. It was only the first of many times that he would have to recount the events that occurred with Marc. After we left, an officer was assigned to investigate Marc further. She treated the situation very seriously and came to my home to interview Christian. She had done a background check on Marc and confirmed what my college friend had told me, but there was much more.
She said that when Marc lived in another state, he had molested a few young Boy Scouts while he was a volunteer as a teenager. He had disrobed with the boys and showed them how to fondle him, as well as each other. Subsequently, he moved to New York where he was tutoring young boys through his college program. He was caught molesting one of them during a tutoring session in the boy’s bedroom. He was arrested, convicted, and ordered into treatment, something he obviously didn’t take very seriously because he had also been ordered to stay away from children. He moved to the next county and, according to him, was studying to be a child psychologist. And, he was doing all of those other things to be near children: working in a comic book store, teaching religious education to young teenagers, instructing boys in karate and tai chi, allowing them to intern for him at his radio show, and playing laser tag with them at a local kid’s hangout. As the police officer continued, my mind raced. I had been putting the pieces together, learning about sexual predators, trying to understand their mindset, hoping to figure out how this had happened. All I could absorb was that I had allowed a monster to infiltrate our lives. Christian was just a child, but I should have known better.
The officer appeared deeply concerned. I was surprised when she asked if I wanted to accompany her on a stakeout at Marc’s house. Of course, I agreed. The next night, she picked me up, and we sat in her unmarked car for hours talking about the situation and waiting for Marc to come home. I had visions of him pulling up with a young boy in the car and watching as he led the child into his house. I was hoping he would and at the same time, I was hoping he wouldn’t because I didn’t want him to even come close to hurting another child. The night passed, and he didn’t return, so the officer brought me home. A few days later, I received a call from her informing me that Marc had moved, and in spite of the apparent interest that the police had demonstrated, the district attorney decided that based on what my son had told them, there wasn’t enough evidence to make an arrest. I was appalled. The only reason that no molestation had occurred was because Christian had resisted. But Marc tried, over and over.
I called the district attorney’s office and, after pleading my case, I was told that they would investigate further. I felt sure that they would take some action, but before long they notified me that no crime had been committed and, therefore, nothing could be done. I was infuriated that Marc could keep trying to hurt children and nothing could stop him until he was actually caught having sex with a child. I couldn’t let this go.
I responded to the assistant district attorney with the following statement, “This man has been grooming my son for over three months. If he had solicited a prostitute just one time, you would arrest and prosecute him. So, how can you allow this man to repeatedly go after a child and continue on with his life without stopping him?”
The assistant district attorney was unsympathetic. He continued to maintain that he could do nothing because no crime had been committed. I interrupted him, “This man must be molesting other children. My son can’t be the only one he went after. He has a history. I won’t stop until he is stopped. If you do not arrest him, I will do everything in my power to catch him in the act and when I do, I will go to the newspapers with the headline, ‘Mother Catches Sexual Predator Molesting Another Boy after D.A. Refuses to Arrest Him.’”
I hung up feeling angry and frustrated. My son had the courage to come forward and his efforts were going to be for nothing. The day wasn’t yet over when I received another call from the assistant district attorney. He had changed his mind. They were going to arrest Marc the next day.
As soon as Marc was taken into custody, I notified the local papers. I knew that was the only way to find out if there were other victims. A few days later, an article with Marc’s picture appeared in the paper. Five more boys came forward to press charges.
Not long after that, I received a call from the investigating officer saying that she had been contacted by a man who said that Marc had molested his younger brother nine years earlier. He wanted to talk to me, so the officer gave me his number. I called him. The man had gone to college with Marc and, over a holiday weekend, he had brought Marc home with him for a family get-together. During the day, he realized that his younger brother had disappeared from the gathering. While searching for him, he noticed that Marc was also nowhere to be found. He immediately ran up to his brother’s room, and upon finding the door locked, pounded on it until Marc opened it. Standing there with a sheepish expression on his face, Marc made up a story about the door locking by itself. The man told me that he was horrified when he noticed his little brother in the background struggling to zip up his pants. The youngster denied that anything had happened as he looked away to hide his tears. Apparently, years had passed and the boy had never revealed what truly happened to him that day—until now. It was only when the man on the phone had seen the article about Marc’s arrest and contacted his brother, who was now grown and away at college, that the younger sibling finally admitted being molested by Marc that day in his room.
That was what Marc had counted on, that the boy would never come forward. In fact, I learned that teenage boys rarely come forward to admit that a man has molested them. Just as Marc had tried to do with my son, predators convince their young victims that their parents would blame them and be disappointed.
Due to the length of time that had passed since Marc had molested the caller’s younger brother, the statute of limitations had run out and there was nothing that law enforcement officials could do to prosecute him for that particular offense.
But other boys had come forward.
The case was a difficult one. My son was interviewed over and over. The investigators kept being transferred, the assistant district attorneys (ADAs) kept changing, and even the judges were replaced. Christian had to endlessly repeat his story, almost to the point where I was ready to have him withdraw the charges.
I wondered what had hurt my son more, Marc’s attempted molestation or the constant barrage of questions from authority figures. For example, there was an incident in the courthouse when I brought Christian there for an Order of Protection after Marc had threatened him. The ADA insisted on questioning him in the hallway, near onlookers. It was obvious that Christian was uncomfortable talking about Marc in front of strangers, but the ADA continued as though my son was on the witness stand. I pulled Christian away and told the ADA that he had to find a private room or forget questioning my son. He told me that the boy would be asking for his Order of Protection in open court with no privacy at all. He said that Orders of Protection must be done that way, even though the boy’s name had not been released when Marc was arrested due to the sensitive nature of the attempted crime. That was the last straw.
I demanded that the ADA go back inside and ask the judge to see us in chambers. He agreed. Once there, I explained that my son’s case involved an attempted molestation, a charge that made his anonymity a necessity. I reasoned that by asking him to request the Order of Protection in open court, the judge would, in effect, be forcing him to reveal who he is and what had almost happened to him. The judge readily agreed and the proceedings were held in chambers. The judge was wonderful; he made Christian feel completely at ease and issued the Order of Protection without hesitation.
Over the next few months, I received numerous threatening phone calls. Unfortunately, it was before caller ID, so there was no proof of who it was. My car was vandalized. My garbage was strewn all over the street, and my mail was stolen. I couldn’t help feeling that it was Marc or someone doing it on his behalf, but I was never able to catch them in the act. Whoever it was knew my schedule down to the minute.
The only thing I could do was to keep a close eye on Christian.