All for Maddie (20 page)

I wanted to be drunk that
night. I wasn’t about to do anything in his parent’s house. The looks and the
touching was getting to me rather quickly. He wouldn’t touch me if I was drunk.
That was a fact.

We had just gotten done
exchanging gifts when Maddie started getting whiny. It was almost ten at night,
well past her bed time. Alex carried her into bed, but she didn’t want him to
read to her.

“No, no, Twinton a big
person,” she assured him, taking the book from him and handing to her cousin to
read. Trenton crawled into bed and began reading the new book that she had just
opened for Christmas.

I went into kiss her
goodnight and was pushed away and ignored. I was bugging her. She didn’t want
me to bother them. I laughed and kissed her on the head.

I stopped off in mine and
Alex’s room for the night and sat on the bed, digging through my purse.

“You’re on the pill?” Regan
asked, stopping at the door.

Of course I was on the pill.
I wasn’t having anymore Maddie’s anytime soon.

“Uh, yeah. Duh.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“You guys really don’t talk
do you?” she asked. I looked at her peculiarly as I popped the pill from the
package.

“We need to talk about me
being on the pill?” I asked confused.

“Never mind. Forget it. Come
on, Dad’s making us play some dumb card game.”

I followed, but still
wondered what that was all about.

We played cards until almost
midnight. I was barely drinking and almost wished we were home. I was almost
sure I would have told Alex that I was ready, that I wanted him to make love to
me. I wouldn’t do it there.

For whatever reason, I didn’t
sleep in my full body armor flannel that night. I went to bed in nothing but a
night shirt. Maybe I was hoping he would make a move so that I didn’t have to.
He didn’t. He did, however, hold me close to him and I loved it. I loved
feeling his body against mine and knew without a doubt that I was falling for
Alex Wesson. Who would have ever thought?

Christmas morning was
probably the worst day of my life. Maddie woke with a fever, had a running
nose, and coughed the entire day. Alex and I got up and left when she crawled
in bed with us feeling hot. She didn’t care about opening presents when we got
home. She just laid on the sofa and watched television or napped.

Alex had to go out and look
for any place that was open on Christmas day to get her more Tylenol. I held
her for a bit until she threw up all over both of us and the blanket. I felt
horrible for her. She was so excited to get home and see if Santa came but she
was too sick to enjoy it. I bathed her, put clean pajamas on her, and laid her
back down on the sofa.

“I cold,” she whined.

“Okay, mommy will go get
daddy’s fuzzy blanket.”

I walked up to his room and
looked for the warm white blanket for her. It wasn’t hanging over the edge of
the bed like it normally was. I opened his closet and pulled it from a shelf,
looking up at a manila folder as I did. I almost closed the door to the walk in
closet trying to tell myself
no
. I couldn’t do it. I just wanted to see.
I’d only take a quick peak. It was probably nothing anyway, something to do
with work maybe.

I’m sure had I looked in the
mirror I would have seen a frown when I read the header. ‘Lancaster County
Common Pleas Court’ I couldn’t believe it. I signed that paper. That was the
paper to have Maddie’s name changed to Wesson. I never signed soul custody over
to him. He deceived me. Why would he do that? Mr. Alex Wesson held soul
custodial rights to my daughter.

“Mommy!” Maddie called from
downstairs.

I dropped the folder on the
bed, leaving the evidence behind. That son of a bitch. Did he really think I
was just going to lie down and let him take my daughter? I may have been a twenty-one
year old naïve girl, but I wasn’t stupid. I would die before I let this happen.

I didn’t know where Alex was.
I didn’t know how much longer I had. I took the blanket wrapped Maddie in it
and walked out the door with her. It was freezing out and I didn’t even take
the time to grab my own coat. I didn’t care about that. I put her in her seat
and snuggled the blanket around her in the cold car. I kept watching the
street, waiting to see his car as the window took forever to defrost enough for
me to see out. It was like a bad movie where you knew the villain was going to
show up and kill the victim.

I have no idea what I was
thinking. Maddie was sick, we had no clothes, nowhere to go that he wouldn’t
find us, and a credit card that he would report stolen before I made it to the
next town. At least the gas tank was full. I wondered how far we could go on a
tank. He would report his car stolen. Shit. What the hell was I supposed to do?

I didn’t go the way I knew he
would be coming. Instead I darted in and out of side streets wondering where to
go. If I went to my dad’s he would find me. That would be the first place he
looked.

Regan! She was my only
choice. I didn’t have anyone else. I could have called Kylie, but we were
really just acquaintances. I thought we were friends, until I met Regan. Regan
was my one and only true friend. Wait, she’s still Alex’s sister. How far would
she actually go for me? Blood is thicker than water, everyone knows that. I had
to try. I didn’t have any other options.

“Merry Christmas,” Regan,
cheerfully answered.

“Regan,” I replied in an
unstable scared voice.

“Whit? What’s wrong? Is
Maddie okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine, sleeping in
the backseat.”

“Backseat? Where are you?
Where’s Alex?”

“I took Maddie and ran with
her. I don’t know what to do, Regan.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know, just driving.
I have nowhere to go that he won’t find me.” I rattled on and on about him
finding me, stopping payment on his card, and everything that I had already let
flood my mind.

“Meet me in Starbucks parking
lot. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“It’s Christmas. I don’t want
to take you away from your family on Christmas,” I assured her.

“It is Christmas. My daughter
opened her gifts as soon as we got home. She’ll be in her room for five days
with all of her electronics. My husband will be asleep on the sofa most of the
day and my friend needs me. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Turn your phone
off.”

“Why?”

“He’ll trace it pretty quick.
Shut it off.”

“Do you have any Tylenol for
Maddie?” I asked, knowing the chances of me finding some place open for
medicine was slim to none.

“Yes, I’ll bring it. Turn
your phone off,” she demanded again. She knew her brother better than I thought
she did.

I waited the longest ten
minutes of my life, waiting for Alex to pull in. I just knew he would get to me
before Regan did. It seemed more like ten hours than ten minutes.

Regan finally pulled in and
jumped in my car.

“What the hell happened?” she
asked, shivering from the cold.

“Everything, Regan. I don’t
belong here. I don’t belong with Alex. He has forced me by using my daughter to
live with him for the last six months. Maddie is here because he raped me. She
is a product of rape,” I blurted. I didn’t care. I had to tell someone. “I know
he’s your brother and all, but I swear he raped me. He drugged me at that party
and raped me.” I hadn’t even realized I was crying until Regan reached over and
wrapped me in her arms.

“What happened today? Why are
you picking Christmas day to run?”

“He tricked me. A month or so
back he made me sign a paper to have her name changed to his. It wasn’t that at
all. I signed over all my rights to Maddie. I signed her over to him. Oh God,
how could I be so stupid.”

“Didn’t you read it?”

“No, you and I were going
shopping that day. I told him I would read it when I got back. He got really
mad and demanded that I sign it. I never thought I was signing over my rights
to her. I would have never done that, Regan. Why is he so adamant about taking
her from me? Why couldn’t he just go marry someone else and have his own kid?
He raped me, Regan. He shouldn’t have any rights to her at all.”

“I know why,” she sadly said.

“What? Why?”

“Alex had lymphoma cancer two
years ago. He wasn’t supposed to live another year. He was in remission six
months later. When we found out that he was sick, it took us almost a month to
get him to try. He wanted to die. He refused the treatment. He kept saying that
he deserved to die, and he was getting what was due to him. He almost did die a
couple of times. He was so sick. The high doses of chemo and radiation killed
every chance he would ever have at having kids. We tried to talk him into
freezing some of his sperm, but he refused, saying once again that he didn’t
deserve to have a family. I never knew why he thought he didn’t deserve to live
or have a family. He was referring to what he did to you. I know it.”

“I don’t understand. If he
felt so bad for what he did, doesn’t he know that this is a million times worse
than being raped by every man on earth? I love her. I’m not about to lie down
while he takes my daughter, because he can never have another child.”

“I don’t know how Alex
thinks, Whit. I do know that Alex doesn’t do anything half ass. He is asinine
when it comes to detail. Especially something that he feels strongly about.”

“What am I supposed to do
Regan? He’s not taking her. I’ll kill him first.”

“This is what you’re going to
do,” she said, barking orders, going down the line, and making phone calls. I
was dumbfounded. How the hell did she do that?

“Holy shit, Regan. You act
like you’ve done this before,” I exclaimed.

She smiled as her biker
friend Red pulled up in an older Cadillac Eldorado. “My parents have owned a
movie chain my entire life, I’ve seen a lot. Stop and buy a Tracfone. Text me
your number. Now get out of here before I start crying and you end up in jail
for kidnapping.”

I laughed but it wasn’t
really funny. She was right. As absurd as it was, I could actually be arrested
for kidnapping Maddie.

“I’m going to pay you back?”
I promised.

She hugged me as I fastened
Maddie into the back seat, leaned in and kissed her sleeping head while I
turned to hug and thank Red.

“Get out of here,” Regan
demanded, removing her coat and giving it to me. She literally just took the
shirt right off her back for me.

I got into the old car with
the white leather seats, praying that it had heat. I took the folded map that
Red already had outlined for me and headed to Sarasota, Florida. What the hell
was I doing? I didn’t need to answer that. I knew what I was doing. I was doing
it all for Maddie. I had to. I was afraid of losing her for good.

It would take almost two days
to arrive at our new destination. Would this car even make it that far? Red
assured me that it would. I drove for two hours with my mind going crazy.
Maddie slept, still not feeling well as I thought about every scenario
possible. I knew Alex had to know I’d taken her and left. I left the evidence
right on his bed. I wanted to call my dad. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to worry
him, and I didn’t really know how much Alex was capable of. Could he have put a
trace on my dad’s phone too? I wasn’t taking the chance. It was going to be me
and Maddie living in a state I’d never even been to.

I was thankful that my dad
had called first thing that morning to wish us all a Merry Christmas. He would
have had an APB put out on me had I not talked to him or let Maddie talk to him
on Christmas.

I was almost to 61 south,
almost three hours into my journey when Maddie finally woke.

“I hungry,” I heard from the
backseat.

“Hi, baby. Do you feel
better?”

“My tummy hungry.”

I smiled. She felt better.
Thank God. “Okay, mommy will stop in a minute and get you something to eat.”

I was a horrible mom. I
didn’t pack anything. I just ran. Maddie didn’t make it to the little truck
stop before wetting her pants. She had to stay in them until they dried. I
would stop and pick us up a couple of things before we stopped for the night.
Thanks to Regan’s credit card and my 600 in cash that I took from my own bank
account.

“Where my daddy go?” Maddie
wanted to know.

“Daddy is at home working.”

“I have a open my presents
now,” she remembered.

“We’ll open them tomorrow,” I
lied.

“One sweeping time?”

“A couple sleeping times.
Let’s stop and get you some clothes and some gummy bears. How does that sound?”
I asked, wanting to help her forget the presents that she never opened.

“I have a gween one.”

We got a room in a nice
little town in Missouri, stopped at the local Walmart, and bought a few things
to keep Maddie entertained during our long trip. I wanted to drive into the
night before stopping. I couldn’t. She was tired of riding and her three year
old energy was wreaking havoc on my nerves. I knew I didn’t have the extra money,
but I couldn’t help it. She didn’t get any of her new toys. I spent almost
three of my six hundred in cash on a portable DVD player, movies, clothes,
pajamas, and shoes. She didn’t even have shoes on her little feet. Of course
they had to be cowboy boots. She insisted.

I ran a tub of water in the
hotel room and opened the new tracphone. I needed to know what was going on.
What was Alex saying? What was his action plan? I knew he had called Regan. She
would have been the first person he called. Shit, what if he called my dad
looking for me? He would be worried sick.

“I have been worried sick
about you. I meant stop and buy a phone right away, not at eight o’clock at
night. How’s Maddie?”

“She’s feeling better. Still
a little warm, but she ate well.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in
Missouri. Have you heard anything?”

“Oh my God, Whit. He’s livid.
I’ve never seen him so mad in all my life.”

“He doesn’t know that you
helped me, does he?”

“No, he’s clueless. He
doesn’t understand how you could just disappear. The cops found your car and
phone two hours after you left.”

“He called the cops? Did he
call my dad?”

“No, but he did make mom do
it. She pretended to call to wish them a Merry Christmas. He was happy and
cheerful, like he didn’t know anything.”

I could see Alex pacing the
floor. I knew he was outraged without even seeing him.

“I’m going to pass your
number on to Red. He knows someone that owns a little diner there. He said he
would talk to him and get you a job under the table waitressing until you
figure out what you’re going to do.”

“What am I going to do,
Regan?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. He is
making you out to be crazy.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me that you went off
the deep end, ranting and raving something about him raping you and plotting to
murder you. I knew it was all lies, but it’s what he is telling the cops.”

“Are the cops looking for
me?”

 “Yes, and Vince doesn’t
think there is much you can do. You don’t have a leg to stand on. He called his
sister who is a divorce attorney in Chicago. She thinks you waited too long to
contest your parental rights.”

“I didn’t know I was giving
up my parental rights.”

“I know, but it’s like the rape.
She doesn’t think that would ever stand up either. You waited too long for that
accusation too.”

“Yeah, my own attorney pretty
much told me that. What am I going to do, Regan? Maybe you can talk to him.
Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

“He won’t. I tried. He is
deeming you crazy and wants Maddie.”

I was never going to see my
family again. It was going to be me and Maddie. I couldn’t take that chance. He
wasn’t taking Maddie from me. I would kill him first.