Blood sucking lawyers

[Mr Odd (DELETED 11704)]

Scott Cunningham had hit rock bottom.

His wife had divorced him and took the house and their daughter. He didn’t even have visitation rights (although you can be sure the state stuck him with child support payments). He had lost his job as a mid-level manager at a car manufacturing facility in River Bottoms.

He would have killed himself, but, a little blue bird had him thinking that there was a better way to get back at his toxic ex-wife: embarrass her through social media and ruin her life.

Scott searched his phone for incriminating evidence: intimate photos, repulsive messages - anything that would show her for the conniving, manipulative slut that she really was. Because Chloe Cunningham had the whole church and community convinced that she was the second coming. Scott knew that when they got a load of the disgusting person she really was, they'd reconsider his innocence and maybe even let him see his daughter, Mary.

Mary was the victim in all of this, but she had a face that was always smiling. She was almost a cliche: rosy hair, blue eyes, pigtails, full cheeks with freckles, and she always wore the kinds of outfits that vintage dolls would wear. The six year old was being used as a tool of torture, a medal even, in the couple's divorce. Although she had wanted for nothing, was treated to those hand-stitched teddy bears you see in the magazines, no one had ever heard her ask for anything. She sat quietly in the lawyer's office as her parents fought in the next room. The leather chair was gigantic, surrounding her like the arms of a great beast, but she sat there contented; legs swinging back and forth like she was sat on a wall waiting for her turn to jump rope. Occasionally the administration staff would sneak her a colouring book and a few crayons. She stayed inside the lines, like you'd expect, but avoided the green and blue crayons. Skies were yellow, the grass and other plants were always orange, and water... The water was always red.

Most people are skeptical these days, so no one saw the little girl's drawings as a bad omen. Actually, not many even remembered the drawings. They focused on the tragedy for a short while, sighing and declaring that it's terrible how people are before the next case came through and then they forgot all about it. It was maybe eight months before the name of Mary Cunningham was even brought up in the office after just a few days of mourning. Apparently they'd found a pattern of deaths that matched hers, like there was a serial killer out there. Since everyone was convinced that Scott Cunningham was to blame after his wife had accused him of battery and death threats, dismissing his appeal for joint custody, the question on everyone's lips was: was Mary really murdered by her father?