Chapter 1

The Abyss

Staring out the window of an enormous health center in Portland, Oregon, Denice Larson took a minute to reflect on one of the rare days of sunshine in the Northwest. Denice made the decision to work overtime to help pay her family’s bills. She woke up feeling off as if something terrible was going to happen. Before she left for work, she asked Rod, her husband to promise he would watch Meghan and keep her safe. The weather was beautiful for a day in March 1992, nothing was out of character, except a gut-wrenching feeling in her stomach that something was going to happen; she just didn’t know what. Her thoughts continued to race back to a conversation she previously had with Rodney.

She recalled saying, “I have this feeling that something terrible is going to happen to one of our children, like one of them may die or something.”

“I feel the same way. It is a concern for me also,” Rodney explained.

Nothing provoked these feelings or thoughts; it was just a feeling, a sixth sense.

Denice tended to her patients as she normally did. She always made light conversation and performed her job as an RN, which was her dream since she was a little girl. Denice was a trauma nurse, working relentlessly each and every day to save lives. Her frequent patients were law enforcement officers who had received gunshot wounds while engaged in firefights near Portland, Oregon. Other times, celebrities would pay a visit to Emmanuel Hospital, their stories locked away under HIPPA regulations for eternity. That was Denice, a silent hero who quietly tended to the wounded and saved people’s lives on a daily basis. Regardless of how the day looked or felt, when that alarm rang in the morning, she got ready, made a cup of coffee (one of her favorite routines) and headed out the door to see what life would bring her at Emmanuel Hospital’s doorstep.

While Denice was at work, Rodney would load up his group of cub scouts and head off to church. Near dusk, as the sun started to fall, Meghan Catherine Larson, his daughter, and Rodney Larson arrived at the church, at 6:45 p.m. As a youth group leader, Rodney worked with children of younger ages. Conducting a cub-scout function at church on a Wednesday night was the norm. He had made a massive racetrack for the cub scouts to race their derby cars, which were about a foot in length and four inches in width. They were carved from a wood block and made with wheels.

Children of all ages brought in their homemade derby cars to see which one traveled the fastest in a race. This was a big night, one that constantly excited him. Proud of his work, he began to unlock the doors of his van and prepared to unload the massive racetrack that was in pieces and needed to be assembled in time for the race. He unbuckled Meghan from the van and sat her down on the curb with her bottle while continuing to unload the track from the back of his van. Realizing the doors of the church were locked, he called one of the pastors to bring the keys so that he could begin setting up the racetrack inside.

The wind was picking up and darkness was closing in. Meanwhile, children were all about, talking exc