Baby Love Lite (15 page)

“
What happened after that?”
I prodded. I needed the whole story; everything that he knew that
could help me figures out where the nut job had taken my
baby.

“
She kinda lost it. She said
that had been her last chance to have a child; that she'd always
wanted one. She'd undergone an abortion years back. A doctor had
told her that she'd have problems conceiving. She seemed to go off
the deep end. She didn’t seem to want me any longer...”

He broke off then, genuinely upset about
discussing this with me. He seemed devastated about what had
happened.

“
What'd she mean about
always wanting to have a child? What did she think that I was for
Chrissake?”

“
You don’t know, do you?” He
paused, stubbing his cigarette out. “I didn’t think you
did.”

He got up and poured more coffee into his
mug. A sardonic smile passed briefly across his face. He shook his
head as if he wasn’t all that surprised that I apparently was to be
the last one to find out about what he was ready to tell me.

“
She’s not your mom; she’s
your aunt,” he stated simply. “Your birth mom died before you were
a year old. They were sisters. Maggie took you in to raise. She was
none too happy about it, either. Said she did it because she'd
promised her sister, your mother, she would. I think she did it for
the money. It was always about the money with her.”

I was suddenly filled with raw emotion, some
of it was relief knowing that I wasn't a direct descendant of the
duplicitous bitch; but I also wondered if my birth mom had been cut
from the same cloth as "Aunt Maggie." If that was the case, it was
a moot point.

“
Speaking of which,” I
interrupted, “what did she do with the fifty-plus thousand dollars
she stole from my trust fund last year?”

It was Daniel’s turn to be blind-sided. I
could tell he had no clue about the money she took from me. “She
didn’t have any money to speak of that I knew about when she got
here. She'd cashed her last pay check, closed her checking account
and came in her Jeep that was loaded down with her clothes and some
personal shit. That was about it.”

“
Did she have a job while
she lived here with you?”

He snorted derisively which answered my
question. She'd devised a way to hide her tracks and stay under the
radar after she'd robbed me of my trust. But why take the money if
she wasn’t going to spend it? Perhaps she'd loved Daniel in her own
perverted way. Maybe she'd kept the money hidden away in case their
relationship hadn’t worked out. Maybe losing the baby had been the
driving factor in her leaving Daniel and taking my baby. But how
could she have known where I was or even that I was pregnant. There
was much more to be uncovered.

“
Daniel, is there anything
else that you can tell me? Did she call you at all after she left?
Did she give you any indication that she was planning to
leave?”

“
My parents came up for the
private burial of the baby. They hated Maggie for corrupting their
only son as they liked to put it, but they were civil to her that
day. They picked up the tab for the burial. We named him even
though he was stillborn. Maggie said that everyone deserved to have
a name they could be proud to carry, dead or alive. She named him
Daniel Renaud and I insisted he carry my last name,
Henderson.”

“
Daniel Renaud Henderson,” I
repeated out loud. “Where did she come up with the middle name, do
you know?”

“
She said it was her name. I
don’t know, maybe it was her maiden name. She did say that she'd
been married briefly. It was supposedly her husband that had forced
her to get an abortion.”

Except that according to what Trey’s
investigator had learned, Maggie had never been married. Of course,
he would've been searching through court and vital statistics
records under the name of “Preston,” and not “Renaud.” This might
prove to be an important piece of information.

“
Where did she get the name
Preston?” I questioned him.

“
How the hell should I know,
Tylar? Most of everything she ever told me was a fucking lie! I
only accidently found out that she wasn’t your mom. That slipped
out after she delivered our stillborn baby. She was ranting and
raving blaming herself for not going to the hospital.”

“
Why was she so against
going to the hospital?” I asked.

“
She said she needed to stay
underneath the radar on account of you were harassing her about her
involvement with me and that you had threatened her in some way. I
pointed out that you were still her daughter and she needed to make
things right. That’s when she slipped and told me. She didn’t
provide any more details other than what I've told you, I
swear.”

“
Daniel, you said she took
your vehicle. May I ask what type of vehicle she took?”

“
It’s a 2010 white Ford
Bronco. It was a present from my parents. It’s still registered in
my name. I’ll write down the license plate number for you. She may
have switched plates, though. I’ll get the VIN for you too. She'd
transferred her jeep into my name. She wanted nothing in her name.
She said she simply needed to disappear so that we could be
together without complications.”

“
Why haven’t you reported
your vehicle stolen?”

“
Shit, Tylar, I’m not
looking for revenge. I loved her once, you know?”

“
Did you buy this farm?” I
asked.

“
Yeah, I put $15,000 of my
college grant money on it. Maggie said we could plant corn, beans
and wheat to sell at market; raise chickens and sheep and make our
living off of the land. Right, the place is in
foreclosure.”

“
What about a cell phone,
Daniel? Doesn’t she even have a cell phone?”

“
She used those track
phones, the disposable ones that you can change the number every
time you buy a new one. She used mine for a while but she racked my
fucking bill up so high I put a stop to that.”

“
Who was she
calling?”

“
I don’t know. A bunch of
calls to Mississippi from what I remember. She claimed it was a
business partner. Then some calls from Virginia. Those were
incoming; fucking collect calls from a goddamn prison!"

He shook his head, a look of pure disgust on
his face. ”Here I am working nights at the factory and she's
accepting those fucking calls; probably having some hot and heavy
phone sex with a fucking inmate. She's a freak, a fucking freak
that’s all I can say.”

Just then there was someone pounding on the
back door of Daniel’s house. “Christ! What now?” he snapped.

He left the kitchen to go and answer the
door. I glanced around the kitchen and peered into the living room
to see if anything was recognizable that my mother had been here
recently. I saw nothing.

Suddenly, I heard a commotion coming from the
back door. The voice was unmistakable.

“
I believe you've something
of mine, Mr. Henderson?”

“
Who the hell are
you?”

“
Trey Sinclair; I believe
you have my wife inside.”

Trey was livid but managed to contain his
anger until we were safely out of Daniel’s hovel. I saw Tristan
standing outside of what I presumed was Trey’s rental car. He
opened the passenger side of my rental car and told me to get in. I
watched in the side mirror as Trey went over and spoke to Tristan
briefly, then returned to my car getting in on the driver’s
side.

“
Give me the keys,” he
ordered none too politely. I handed the keys to him trying to make
eye contact but having no luck. As we headed down the rural road
towards Indianapolis, I finally found the nerve to
speak.

“
Trey, I know you're angry
with me for coming up here but I did manage to find some
potentially useful information. I know for sure now that my mom,
Maggie, has Preston.”

“
Tylar,” he spoke softly but
his voice was like steel, “do you remember the promises that we
made to each other on our wedding day?”

“
Of course I do; but if
you’ll---”

“
I promised that I'd protect
you and keep you safe,” he interrupted. “You promised you'd be with
me during times of joy and times of sorrow. This is a time of
sorrow for both of us. Until we find our baby and she's safely back
home with us, I don’t want you out of my sight.”

I looked over at Trey; I saw a tear roll down
his cheek and then another. I reached my hand up to his cheek
capturing it with my thumb. I couldn’t take it if he fell apart on
me right now. I'd not allowed myself to cry for my baby. The
thought that this would have anything other than a positive outcome
was simply unfathomable to me.

“
Hey” I whispered hoarsely,
“Please don’t think that I'd ever do anything to make you feel like
this. I just wanted to help. I wanted to get the ball rolling and
not wade through all of the bureaucratic red tape to get started in
this search for Preston. I didn’t want to waste precious time while
the authorities tried to figure out whether we were the perps in
all of this.”

“
I know, baby, that sickened
me as well, but as an officer of the court I know that they're just
doing their job, no matter how cruel it seems to us. When Gina told
me where you went late last night, I was scared, Tylar.”

“
Why didn’t you call my
cell?”

“
I tried. Your cell is shut
off.”

I rifled through my purse until I located my
Cell phone. The battery had died. “I’m sorry; it was nothing I was
trying to keep from you. I told Gina to let you know when you came
by today. Obviously, you found out sooner.”

“
Why would you put yourself
in that kind of danger? You know damn well your mother had plotted
to kill you at one point, for Chrissake. So, you don’t care what
that does to me?”

“
Trey, I said that I was
sorry and I am, but I don’t regret going because I found out some
valuable information.”

I filled Trey in on the main points of my
conversation with Daniel; my mother was really my aunt; my birth
mother was her sister and died before I was a year old. I told him
the car Maggie took was Daniel’s white Ford Explorer, and that he'd
provided the license and VIN numbers. I told him she'd received
collect calls from a prison in Virginia, she'd made multiple calls
to Mississippi, and there was a good chance she'd hoarded the money
she got from my trust and was potentially using it now to stay
beneath the radar. I let him know that her maiden name was possibly
"Renaud."

“
Did you say
Renaud?”

I finally had Trey’s attention. “Yes, why?
It’s not a common name. Have you heard it before?”

“
Yes. That’s the last name
of the agent for TJ Properties, the L.L.C. in Mississippi that held
the deed to your house in Radcliff until you turned twenty-one,
remember?”

“
Yes, but I thought you said
you didn’t have any luck in finding out the identity of the Trustor
when you went to Jackson last year.”

“
I didn’t think that I had.
All I had was the post office box number of the L.L.C., the phone
number listed on the UCC filing was no longer a working number. I
literally hung out at the post office for damn near a full day
until someone came to collect the mail from it. It was a man named
‘Renaud.’ I think his first name was Matthew. I explained I
represented you in a matter involving your trust. It was then that
he informed me that the property in Radcliff was to be deeded to
you upon your twenty-first birthday. He didn’t offer much more
information, nor was he required to do so. As I explained before,
L.L.C.’s are not required to disclose.”

“
Do you remember what he
looked like?”

“
He didn’t stand out one way
or another. He was probably late forties, why?”

“
He might be my father,” I
replied.

“
I thought you said that
Daniel said the name Renaud could have been Maggie’s married
name?”

“
Yes, but he also said
nearly everything that came out of her mouth was a lie. God, I
don’t know what to think! She wove such an intricate web of lies
and deceit for all of these years; yet there's always a grain of
truth hidden somewhere. It’s just picking it out that's so fucking
complicated.”

“
I know, sweetie, but I do
think the name is significant. Once we're home, I’ll get the
investigator working on it, okay?”

“
How’s your mom?” I asked,
suddenly ashamed that I'd caused Trey to leave her because he'd
been compelled to make sure that I was safe.

“
Physically, she'll be fine.
Emotionally, she’s a wreck. She's blaming herself for all of it. My
father flew down and he'll fly back with her this morning. Tristan
will be staying with us for a couple of days and then will fly to
Bristol to stay with Mom after dad’s surgery.”

“
Why's Tristan staying with
us?”

“
Because I have to go back
to the firm to get my case load divided up so that I can focus on
getting Preston back. I don’t want you left alone. Tristan will see
to it that you're kept safe when I can’t be with you.”

I found it comforting to know that I wouldn’t
be left in our apartment alone. I hadn’t been back there since the
last morning that I'd held and nursed my baby girl. She'd looked so
cute with her little ‘Pebbles Flintstone’ hair-style. Tears brimmed
in my eyes. I hadn’t allowed myself to cry yet. I was afraid that
if I allowed myself to cry then it was an admission that she might
never be back with us. I couldn’t bear the thought of that; I
couldn’t imagine wanting my life to go on without her in it. My
sobs escaped in a flood of tears. Trey pulled the car over to the
side of the road and turned it off. He unfastened my seat belt and
pulled me over into his arms. I let it all out not caring how loud
or hard I cried. He held me in his arms, stroking my hair.