Lars raised his eyebrows. “Was he?”
Jess shrugged. “Once upon a time, he may have been, but he’d burned through most of it. The Morelands own a large part of Belle View. Plus they’ve got a company that employs a lot of people in town. They’re a very powerful family, at least in Belle View, Pennsylvania. Of course, it’s a fairly small town.”
“But your husband wasn’t powerful himself?”
Jess shook her head. “The family tied up the rest of his money in trusts when he was drinking to keep him from blowing it all. Barry never bothered trying to get the money back. He said his mother would want him to move in with the family again, and that would have killed him within a year. He got a job as a counselor in a rehab facility, so he had the salary and health benefits there. And I had my salary and benefits at NewTech.”
“Wait.” Lars raised his hand. “You’re telling me that your husband was a wealthy man on paper, but the two of you lived on your combined salaries?”
She nodded. “He’d walked out on his family for good. His mother controlled his trusts, but he wouldn’t let her use it to control him. It didn’t bother me. Like I said, I thought he was some distant Moreland relation. By the time I found out who he really was, I was already in love with him. I would have married him regardless.”
“How long were you married before he died?”
Jess nudged the papers with her index finger. “Two years, more or less. Barry didn’t even get to see Jack—I was eight months pregnant when he died. He left what money he had to Jack and me, but all the family money was tied up in those trusts and I couldn’t have touched it without going to court, which I couldn’t afford. Other than that, he only had a few thousand he’d managed to squirrel away, plus a little insurance. Before he died, he warned me not to get involved with anyone connected to the Moreland family.”
He frowned. “Why not? You were a new mother. You needed help.”
“Not from them.” Her voice was tight. “Barry found a lawyer before he went into the hospital the last time. And he tried to protect me and Jack in his will, but nobody fights off the Morelands for long. At least not in Belle View.”
“Did they know about you and Jack? That your husband had a wife and son?”
One corner of Jess’s mouth edged up. “They found out. Barry’s big brother came to the funeral. When he saw me in my maternity dress, he turned purple. Two days later I had lawyers knocking on my door.”
“Offering you what?”
“A deal I wasn’t supposed to refuse. I was supposed to move to the Moreland family ‘compound’. In return they’d take over the care and feeding of my child-to-be-named-later, assuming, of course, that the child’s DNA matched the Moreland bloodline.”
“He wanted a paternity test? Even though you’d been married to his brother?” Lars forced his hands to unclench.
“Of course.” Jess’s voice was dry. “Money was at stake. They couldn’t take the chance I’d try to pass off some bastard child as pure Moreland stock. I told them to shove it. A few weeks later I went into labor.”
“And I’m guessing they showed up at the hospital.”
“Right again. Only this time it wasn’t the lawyers. This time it was Lydia Moreland herself. Barry’s mother. The Ice Queen.”
Jess pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. “I had Jack in the room with me, sleeping in his crib. She looked at him like he was an alien species. Then she told me that he was a Moreland, even though I clearly wasn’t, and Morelands should be raised as they’d always been raised, by Morelands to be Morelands. She told me she’d send a car to collect us when I was released from the hospital, so that we could go straight to the compound. So that we wouldn’t set foot in the townhouse where I’d lived with Barry. She didn’t even bother asking me what I wanted. That was a given.”
“And you told her to shove it, too.” The corners of Lars’s mouth edged up.
“That I did. Maybe I should have been more diplomatic, but I had hormonal issues. Besides, I’d just lost my husband and had a baby. I was entitled.”
Lars took a deep breath. “So what did they do to you? I assume they didn’t just let it go.”
“Allow a non-Moreland to go one-up on the Moreland family?” Jess shook her head. “Not on your life. First they got me fired.”
“How did they do that?”
“Like I said, they’ve got a lot of influence in Belle View. Plus they were major investors in NewTech, the company where I worked. I didn’t know that when I married Barry—chances are he didn’t either. But they didn’t stop there. They also got two of my best friends fired.”
Lars stared at her. “Why? What good would that do them?”
“It showed everybody at NewTech I was poison.” Jess stopped, staring down at her hands. “It showed them that being friends with me was a dangerous choice. I never heard from most of the people I knew there again. I didn’t blame them.”
Lars closed his eyes for a moment. Sherice apparently had nothing on the Moreland family. “Okay. Then what?”
“There was this guy—Lee. I knew him from work. He came over a couple of times with pizza, commiserating with me. He was basically the only person who was still talking to me at that point, and I appreciated it. Then one night he showed up drunk and I wouldn’t let him in. He stood outside yelling until the neighbors called the cops.”
“Was he related to the Morelands?”
“Not exactly. The next day, a woman from Child Welfare showed up at my door. She said they’d had reports that I was endangering my child through my associations. She interviewed me for over an hour and she inspected the house. She even sat and watched me with Jack, just to make sure I wasn’t some kind of abusive parent.” She closed her eyes. “It scared me more than anything else they did—the idea that they could take Jack away from me.”
“So the guy wasn’t a random jerk?”
She shook her head. “He called me a couple of days later and apologized. He said he’d been paid to make trouble, but he was sorry about it. I guess even thugs have their limits. Someone from the Morelands’ security division had hired him. The same guy also called Child Welfare on me.”
Lars massaged the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders. “Was that when you left?”
“No, I still thought I could wait them out, plus I was pissed. But then they got me thrown out of my townhouse.” She sighed. “I should have seen that one coming, but I didn’t. The manager said there was a clause in the lease that gave them the right to terminate if my behavior disturbed other tenants, and Lee banging on the door was enough to justify them. I asked for some time so I could find another place. They gave me two days to vacate.”
Lars’s shoulder muscles began to cramp. He flexed his hands again, trying to relax them. “So you’re telling me your in-laws deliberately put a mother with a new baby out on the street with no source of income.”
Her lips formed a thin line. “Now you’re getting a sense of the full Moreland treatment. I was supposed to come to them. Chastened. Ready to be a good, dutiful daughter-in-law. Ready to turn Jack over to them.”
“What did you do instead?”
Jess shrugged. “I took off.”
Lars fought down the impulse to grin. Totally inappropriate. “Of course you did. How?”
“I went to the bank and withdrew all the money from my checking account. Also the savings account that had the money Barry had saved. He’d managed to get the account changed to my name before he went into the hospital.”
Lars glanced down at the photograph again, Barry Moreland’s care-worn face. “Sounds like Barry knew what was coming.”
“Barry knew his family. After a few weeks, I did, too.” She squared the papers again, frowning slightly. “I figured they might have somebody watching the house, so I parked the car in the garage the night before my final two days were up and loaded everything I wanted to keep—which wasn’t much, believe me. At two in the morning, I put Jack in his car seat and drove south. Nobody followed us.”
“Did you think they would?”
“Absolutely. I’d already seen what their security guys could do. Plus they’ve got lawyers out the wazoo. Getting somebody to watch the house and me would be no problem at all. They probably caught hell when they found out we were gone.”
“Why did you come down here to Konigsburg?”
She smiled. “My dad was from Marble Falls and he talked about the Hill Country all the time. He liked Konigsburg. I figured it would be a good place to head for. But I didn’t come straight down.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted to make sure anyone who tried to trace me would have a tough time. I traded in my car in Tennessee and got that Accord I’m driving now. I deposited most of the money in Dallas and opened a checking account at the same bank, only I pay for everything with cash that I withdraw on my debit card. I take care of bills online and the address I gave the bank is a P.O. box in San Antonio. A couple of times a month Jack and I take a trip and withdraw some money from an ATM somewhere in Texas. If they try to trace me through the bank account, I figure they’ll have a hard time.”
Lars felt slightly dizzy. It was all making a strange kind of sense. “But now you think they’ve found you?”
Jess’s eyes turned bleak. “Yeah, I’m betting on it. Somehow they managed to trace me here. One break-in might be random, but nobody else would keep trying to break in repeatedly once they saw how little I have worth stealing. They’re after Jack. Nothing else here is worth anything. Barrymore or whatever his name is must be working for Lydia Moreland.”
“But she’s got no right to Jack. If she kidnapped him, you could go to the police. She wouldn’t be able to keep him.”
“Don’t bank on it.” Jess ran her fingers through her hair. Even tousled, it looked like old gold. “I don’t know how she’ll do it, but I know she’ll try. And like I said, lawyers out the wazoo.”
He stared at her. The prickle at the back of his neck had become full-blown ice down his spine. “You can’t stay out here, then. Neither of you.”
She sighed. “Lars, we’ve been through this before. I have a job here. I can’t do it anywhere else. And I can’t afford to live anywhere else. I’m rent-free here, and Mrs. Carmody throws in some salary.” Her jaw hardened. “And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let Lydia Moreland drive me out of another town.”
Silence stretched between them for a moment, but he was the one who blinked. “Okay. Let’s call Erik, for now. He needs to see the hole in the window before we board it up.”
Chapter Eleven
Erik stared at the hole in the glass panel for a good five minutes before he said anything. What he finally said was “Interesting.”
“Interesting?” Lars tried not to grind his teeth. He’d been hoping for something more like an offer to call in the Texas Rangers.
Erik nodded. “He took the glass with him—must have used a suction cup to keep it from falling through. Standard burglar stuff. Wonder how he got back here?”
Lars followed him out into the fenced back yard, fending off Sweetie as the dog danced around their feet. “There’s a gate.”
“Locked with a padlock and chain,” Erik pointed out. “Looks like it hasn’t been opened in a while.”
“So he climbed the fence?”
“Probably. It’s not too tall. Looks around six feet.” Erik walked along the perimeter of the yard, studying the wire mesh of the cyclone fence. “Looks like he didn’t leave anything behind, though.”
“You expected him to?”
Erik shrugged. “Not really. Cool customer. Got away clean even with this blue tick baying at him.”
Sweetie bounced enthusiastically at Erik’s side, then galloped around the fence sniffing at the base.
Lars watched him, hoping against hope he might find something. “They’ll be back.”
Erik leaned back against the trunk of a backyard pecan. “You know something you’re not telling me, Lars?”
Lars nodded. “It’s a long story, and Jess is the one who should tell you, but it’s nothing illegal. At least not on her part. She’s got some shitty people after her, though.”
Erik narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t you give me the short version and then I’ll pick up the details from her when she finishes with the kids.”
Jess was inside giving Daisy and Jack their post-nap snacks. She seemed happy not to have to follow Erik’s investigation of her yard.
Lars stared down at his feet, then back up again. “She’s a widow. Her husband’s family is hot stuff in Pennsylvania. They’re trying to kidnap her son.”
Erik blinked at him. “Well, that was short, all right. But not exactly what I was expecting to hear. Someone’s trying to kidnap her baby?”
“That’s what Jess thinks, and I’m inclined to agree with her. Not much here worth stealing, and Haggedorn kept asking all those questions about children.” Lars gazed around the fence one more time, wishing Lorne Haggedorn had at least left the seat of his pants on the jagged wire at the top.
“Well, shitfire.” Erik sighed. “You just exceeded what little the Konigsburg Police Department can do for you. We can handle burglary. Kidnapping goes to the Rangers. Or the Feds. Thing is, though, you don’t have enough to call them in yet.”
“I know. All we’ve got now is suspicion and two attempted break-ins. I guess the Rangers couldn’t help us much unless somebody were to actually grab Jack. Which I’m trying to keep from happening.”
“You talked to Pete yet?”
Lars shook his head. “I just found out all about it this afternoon.”
“Talk to him, then. He may have some ideas about what else you could do. I’ll write up another report on this as an attempted burglary and suggest we send patrol cars by here on a regular basis.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Olema might listen to me for once.”
Claude Olema was the current Konigsburg chief of police. Apparently, Erik didn’t think much of his competence. Neither did Lars.
“I want her out of here, Erik, but she won’t go. You think she’s safe? You think Daisy is?”
Erik stared off at the far side of the yard. “During the daytime she’s probably okay. This place isn’t all that isolated. There’s a lot of traffic on the highway, and guests coming and going. Night’s another story. There’s a lot of trees and brush around here. Tell her to put the blue tick outside in the back yard at night. At least he might keep anybody from climbing over the fence again.”
Lars nodded slowly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The back door burst open and Daisy galloped toward them. “Sweetie! Did you miss us?”
Lars sighed. “Looks like discussion time is over.”
“Board up her utility room window. Call Pete. And keep your eyes open.” Erik tipped his Stetson. “Afternoon, Miss Daisy.”
Daisy glanced at him briefly, then continued her gallop.
Lars hated to break it to him, but to Daisy, the blue tick was more interesting than either of them at the moment.
Jess wasn’t sure who Lars was calling on his cell while she went searching for something she could use to cover the window in the utility room door. Daisy had promised to stay close to the house with Sweetie, and Jack was bouncing happily in his jumper seat under Lars’s semi-watchful eye.
She found a piece of pine plywood in the garage that looked big enough, then picked up a hammer and nails from the workbench. Lars walked in as she started to hammer the first nail into the corner.
“Here,” he said, “let me do that. You can take over kid duty for a while.”
He took the hammer from her hand, positioning a nail in the other corner. “I called my brother Pete,” he explained between hammer blows. “Erik thought we should talk to him, and I think it’s a good idea. Pete can at least give us some idea of the legal options. He’s an assistant county attorney.”
“What legal options?” She glanced out the open door, watching Daisy and Sweetie chase each other back and forth across the yard. “All I’ve got are suspicions. Well-founded, maybe, but nothing more than that.”
Lars shrugged. “You’ve also got what happened to you in Pennsylvania. If nothing else, I’d say you’ve got a pattern. Anyway, it won’t hurt to talk to Pete. The more people who hear your story, the better.”
“You’re right, I guess.” She sighed. “I’ve spent the last few months trying to stay under the radar, but it looks like the Morelands found me anyway.”
He gave the plywood one last tap. “Erik also said you should put Sweetie out in the yard at night. If you really mean to stay out here, that is.”
Jess stared at him. “Well…”
“Well, what? You want to move into town? You can take my house. The offer’s still open.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to take your house. But I’ve been thinking about options. Maybe I should reconsider the whole idea of staying in Konigsburg. It might be easier for everybody if Jack and I just went somewhere else. I mean somewhere away from Texas.”
Lars took his hands away from the plywood and stood watching her. She could hear the sound of Daisy’s laughter from the yard. It had taken a couple of hours for her rage at Lydia Moreland to wear off. A couple of hours to recognize how few resources she had for fighting back against the Morelands and their hired guns.
“We could head for another state, somewhere with no family connections. I mean, maybe they found me because my father was from around this area.”
“And if that wasn’t it?” His voice sounded tight. “If they actually found you some other way, some way they could use again? You’d be somewhere where nobody could help you. Where nobody knew what was going on. If they grabbed Jack, it might take you days to convince anyone. By then he could be somewhere in Pennsylvania—or maybe even somewhere outside the country.”
Her throat constricted. For a moment, she worked on breathing. “I wouldn’t let them do that. I’d be careful.”
“You mean you weren’t careful this time?” He shook his head. “C’mon, Jess, let us help you. You need people on your side.”
She took another deep breath, fighting back the tears that stung her eyes. “You don’t know the Morelands. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
He shrugged. “No, I don’t. But I know the Toleffsons pretty well. And, trust me, we’re capable of a lot on our own. Come on—let’s get the kids ready to go to town.”
These days, going anywhere took a lot of organization, not to mention discussion. Jess finally convinced Daisy that Sweetie would be much happier staying in the back yard than riding in the car. Jack wasn’t pleased about cutting short his jumper chair session, but he finally stopped fussing when Jess had him changed and supplied with Cheerios. They piled into Lars’s SUV, Daisy and Jack in their matching car seats in the back, Jess up front with Lars.
“Is there a place for the kids to play while we talk to your brother?”
He gave her a dry grin. “Yeah. The bookstore. Janie can park Daisy in the children’s book section and Docia can look after Jack.”
“Did they agree to that?”
He shrugged. “They will.”
Jess managed not to groan. She had a feeling the other Toleffsons might not be as eager as Lars to sign on to all of this.
Janie Toleffson turned out to be a petite brunette with a wicked grin. She smiled at Jess, tickled Daisy and let Jack grab a lock of her hair.
“I’ve heard about you, kiddo,” she cooed. “You’ve got a thing for hair, right?”
Jack giggled, kicking his feet in his baby seat.
“We need to talk to Pete. Can we leave them here for a little while?” Lars asked.
Janie frowned slightly. “To Pete?”
“It’s okay, Janie. Nothing serious.”
Jess hoped Janie didn’t recognize the tightness in his voice.
“We can take care of them.” Docia leaned forward, lifting Jack from his seat. “Take as long as you need. We can get acquainted.”
Jack reached for Docia’s bright red curls, his eyes wide with wonder. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten Jess altogether. Jess told herself she didn’t really feel jealous, just a little left out.
Pete Toleffson’s office was in the county courthouse two streets over. The wide reception area was empty except for a single secretary laboring through what looked like an insanely complicated spreadsheet on her computer.
She waved at Lars, said, “Go on in, he’s waiting for you,” then returned to her keyboard.
The man at the desk in the inner office was another Toleffson clone. This one had shorter hair than Cal Toleffson and fewer frown lines than Erik Toleffson, and he was slightly shorter than Lars when he stood. Otherwise the four of them could have made a nice matched set for some lucky girl.
Jess bit her lip. Where the hell had that thought come from?
“Sit down, please.” Pete Toleffson gestured to the couch at the side of the room. “Tell me this story from the beginning so I can try to sort it out. Lars told me some of it over the phone, but there’s a lot I’m not clear on.”
Lars shrugged. “There’s a lot
we’re
not clear on, but we can try.”
“Shut up, Lars,” Pete Toleffson said gently. “It’s Ms. Carroll I want to hear from.”
Telling her story once to Lars had made it easier for Jess the second time. But the story still seemed to wind around precariously. Pete Toleffson said nothing as she spoke, jotting notes on a legal pad, his expression impassive. By the time she’d finished, Jess was fairly sure he didn’t believe a word she’d said. Not surprising, of course. In his place, neither would she.
“So,” he intoned, tapping his pencil on the pad, “the family name is Moreland. The place is Belle View, Pennsylvania. And your husband’s name was Barrett.”
She nodded. “I have my marriage license and Jack’s birth certificate. I’m sorry—I didn’t think to bring them along.”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t need them. Yet. The question is, what do you want me to do about this? What do you think I can do?”
Jess pressed her lips together. It was nothing she hadn’t expected. In fact, she’d been surprised Lars thought they had any chance of getting the law to pay attention.
“They’re trying to kidnap her baby, Pete.” Lars’s voice sounded loud in the empty room. “We need some help here.”
“Somebody may be trying to get to Ms. Carroll’s son, Lars,” Pete said patiently, “but you’ve got no proof of that. All you’ve got at the moment are two failed B and Es. You can’t really take it to the Rangers yet, let alone the Feds.”
“So I have to wait until they take Jack before anyone can do anything about it?” Her throat felt tight. “I’d rather leave Konigsburg.”
Pete raised his hands, palms out. “Whoa. Both of you slow down. I’m not saying you’re helpless, just that we can’t treat this as an attempted kidnapping, even though that’s what it may turn out to be. You need to think about other ways of fighting this.”
Lars leaned back marginally. “Such as?”
Pete turned to Jess. “Such as a protective order against your former mother-in-law.”
Jess frowned. “You mean a restraining order? I thought restraining orders were against stalkers or abusive husbands.”
“Usually they are. But here you could say your in-laws are jeopardizing you and your child. It’s supposed to be for physical violence rather than psychological abuse, but you could argue that your mother-in-law’s actions led you to fear for your safety.”
“Do you think the judge would buy that?” Lars sounded dubious. “Besides, I thought restraining orders didn’t work all that well.”
“They don’t do a great job of keeping psychos at bay. But the thing is, your mother-in-law and her family would be served with a notice of your filing. So she’d know you were onto her. That might be enough to make her pull back. Assuming she and her family are the ones behind all of this.”
The corners of Lars’s mouth turned up in a slow grin. “Sneaky. I like it.”
Jess tried to smile, too.
Assuming she and her family are the ones behind all of this.
She’d already figured out that Pete Toleffson didn’t entirely believe her. She hardly believed it herself. Life would be so much easier if it weren’t true.
But it was. Jess remembered Lydia Moreland’s cold blue eyes. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d regard a protective order as a warning. She’d probably see it as a call to arms.
And, according to Barry, Lydia had a tendency to smash presumptuous people flat.
The sky had darkened by the time Lars brought Jess back to the Lone Oak. Driving down the dirt road to the cabin, he understood exactly what Erik had been talking about. Too many trees. Too much brush.
Too dark. Way too dark.
Jess opened the door in back to pick up Jack’s car seat. Lars had a feeling she was deliberately avoiding his gaze. “Thanks so much, Lars. This really meant a lot to me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She hoisted Jack’s seat into her arms and started for the front door.