The rain began falling more smoothly and the rumble of thunder was no longer preceded by loud cracks. As Shad watched the halos of light caused by the streetlamps try to penetrate the early darkness, he pondered the concept that for the next eight and a half months Dulsie and the baby were physically one. What she benefited from, the baby benefited from. Shad remembered the pure joy Dulsie was expressing just before he blew her world to bits. She would be a wonderful mother, which was one of the many reasons he’d married Dulsie.

Most people had to wait for a second chance at a better family life until after they grew up and had a family of their own. Quaid Delaney saw the opportunity when Grace offered him shelter and he seized it. Shad was one of those few people given a second chance during his childhood. Quaid’s legacy had drawn him in and turned Shad from the path of being a destroyer of families and childhood innocence to a defender. Now he stood here with a third chance, and Shad admitted he wasn’t getting off at a very good start.

His concern for Dulsie now included concern for their child. When somebody had almost killed her, he almost killed their first child. Their child. He had a child. It wasn’t on the ground yet, but Shad was responsible for their child. It needed him now to take care of its mother just as it would need him later to take care of it. It. Him. Her.

Shad told himself he had been flirting with cowardice. On the fifty percent chance he had a daughter Shad had allowed fear and anxiety to dictate his actions. His determination to bring Dulsie’s attacker – their child’s attacker – to justice had finally moved him to where he was supposed to be. He couldn’t allow fear to rule him again. After all, every Delaney knew it took balls to be a man.

Tonight’s storm subsided and finally midnight came. Shad sat at the small desk in the room and linked his computer to the hotel’s internet access.

The dirty rodent had performed its duty admirably. In a matter of minutes Shad had as much access to Wally’s computer as though he were sitting in front of it instead of his personal laptop in a hotel room.

First he perused Wally’s email even though Shad knew he wouldn’t find any messaging about arranging a hit on him. But there might be contacts to make note of. As Shad sifted through the different folders of the mailbox he began to notice patterns of people both Wally and his wife Lynette kept contact with. One address that drew Shad’s attention was for a young woman who made frequent references to “Tyler” and Lynette’s older son. Shad delved deeper and made a discovery that made his blood run cold.

Although not married, Lynette’s son and this woman had a son themselves. Shad berated himself for assuming that because the sons weren’t married they didn’t have any children. Worse yet, Shad discovered through more investigation that this Tyler was almost five years old. And late in the afternoon his mother was going to drop the boy off to spend the evening with his grandparents while she went shopping.

A whole new wrinkle had been added to Shad’s agenda. He couldn’t let Wally have access to this boy for even one more day. He was going to have to move more quickly than originally planned, but Shad needed to gather the incriminating evidence he had come here after.

So he proceeded to tap into what websites Wally had gone to. There might not be anything on Wally’s computer about attempted murder, but Shad was confident he could find something to support Wally was still engaged in other criminal activity.

The internet was a boon to molesters. Before the 1990’s they had been relegated to personal contact in back-alley bookstores and secret mailings to support their sense of community and gain access to images that offenders seemed compelled to hoard and share. But the internet, with its apparent anonymity, removed many of those earlier risks. It provided the means for them to swap and purchase pornography portraying children, as well as interact with each other.

The first few sites revealed standard fare about technology and gaming, but then Shad ran across something that immediately raised the proverbial red flag.

Wally had a slew of foreign proxies at his disposal. Proxies, which were also a hacker’s best friend, muddied the trail if someone tried to trace the user’s activities. Shad’s own warm relationship with them enabled him to fairly quickly pick up on a trail which eventually led to what was known as a floating site because it stayed at one address only temporarily, thus making it harder to track. He was delayed for a few minutes because he had to break the encryption for a password, but Shad finally got in.

As soon as he saw the words on his computer screen that touted childhood advocacy, Shad knew he’d struck the mother lode.

It was one of those activist websites that also operated as a message board. The language argued along a sort of reverse logic. Shad read through several tracts purporting arguments he was already familiar with.

“What parent hasn’t noticed children touching themselves during bath time? How long have they denied kids will look at each other in the famous game of doctor? Children are curious and wish to explore their sexuality, but the prudes who fear their own sensual feelings externalize that conflict and tell children to be sexless automatons. When they realize there are adults who are willing to help children in this exploration, they panic and demonize those who love children. Worse yet, they create feelings of guilt and shame in children for wanting and participating in this contact.”

He’d heard these arguments before. It seemed like another lifetime ago Shad had actually taken them under consideration. Now the misconceptions were so clear to him that Shad ruminated how lost a person must be to give credence to such ideas.

“The truly healthy pedophile will advocate lowering the age of consent laws and support other pedophiles who wish to do the same. They must assert their rights as well as the rights of the children they love.”

A realization stirred in the back of Shad’s mind that both before and after his disorder had come out of latency, he was actually offended that people used the term “pedophile” when they really meant “molester.” Although Shad couldn’t deny being one he was certainly not the other, and he didn’t appreciate the assumption that everybody with his disorder got lumped with the misbehavers. It was as bad as assuming someone who had been molested was more likely to become a molester in turn. The victim became the accused.

More lines of argument were familiar to him.

“Sexual activity is private and the government should stay out of the bedroom.” And yet the site also insisted, “The pedophile is an object of discrimination and therefore must demand the same freedom to human rights which are the pillars of our democracy.”

The activists desired more than to make their behavior legal and protect their privacy. They really wanted to transform society’s view of reality by eliminating any judgment that such actions were wrong. Heck, not only was this activity normal and natural, they claimed, children should be taught in schools this was an acceptable standard of behavior. And any troglodyte who continued to insist such actions were wrong must be silenced or legally forced to embrace it.

In other words, once “child love” became legal, perpetrators still should rally to compel legislation that any resistance to it must be made illegal.

Eventually Shad had enough of the misguided defenses and he clicked around to see what other offerings were available. Both a chat room and a bulletin board were accessible. Shad was particularly wary of the chat room, especially this late at night. So he surfed to the bulletin board to see what messages had been posted.