"No thanks," I said, taking a seat at the small kitchen table.
He poured himself a mug of coffee then came to sit down at the table, taking a heavy gulp of it before he raised his bloodshot eyes to me.
(What the fuck had happened to him?)
"You're probably wondering why I look like shit?"
"What I'm concerned about Daniel, is where my baby has been taken since my mother abducted her and assaulted my mother-in-law."
"Your baby? I wasn't aware that you had a baby." He said it very matter-of-factly as if it was of no consequence that I had a baby or that this baby had been kidnapped.
"You know," he said, "I was supposed to have a baby, too. I lost mine. Maggie and I loved each other Tylar. I know that you probably don't get that - I know that for me it's hard to understand, but it just happened. It started on our prom night -"
I interrupted him, not willing to relive that drama when more important things needed to be discussed.
"Daniel, I know about all of that. I don't really give a damn. I flew here from Atlanta because my baby - my five month old baby girl - was taken from my husband's and my home while my mother-in-law was interviewing babysitters. I have reason to believe it was my mother that took her and assaulted my mother-in-law. What I want to know is how you are involved?"
"Tylar - I am not involved in any way with what supposedly happened to you and your baby. I haven't seen Maggie for about six months. She and I were living together after she had quit her job and moved here from Radcliff. I was still in school but I needed to be with her. I quit school, got a job in a factory. I thought everything was good. One day I come home from work and she was fucking gone. No note, nothing. She had taken my Ford Bronco; left that piece of shit Jeep here for me. I didn't hear from her for months. She finally brought her ass back home. She was more than six months pregnant. She said it was mine."
He stopped and got up walking to the counter and picking up a nearly empty pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it. He pulled a dirty dish from the sink, plunking it down on the table to use for an ashtray.
"I do believe the baby was mine. She claimed she had been out and about, trying to earn more money so that our baby would be well taken care of since I had quit college for her. I really believed her. She went into labor a few weeks early here at home. We had no medical insurance. She didn't want me to take her to the hospital. She said women had delivered babies at homes for centuries. She said she would instruct me on what to do. She had read up on it."
He got up from his chair at the table and poured a shot of Jim Beam into his coffee mug, then topped it off with coffee.
"Don't judge me," he commented noticing how I had watched what he had done.
"You have no idea how much pain that woman has caused me."
"Oh, I think that I have a clue," I said sarcastically.
"Please go on."
"I assisted her during labor, helping her with the contractions and following her instructions; she was in a whole lot of pain. At one point, I finally couldn't take her screaming and called the paramedics. By the time they got here and transported her to the hospital, our baby was stillborn. He had strangled on his own umbilical cord. Something that had a doctor been there to deliver would not have been an issue."
"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 that had been her last chance to have a child; that she had always wanted one. She had undergone an abortion years back. A doctor had told her that she would have problems conceiving. She seemed to go off the deep end. She certainly 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 did 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 into raise. She was none too happy about it either. Said she did it because she had promised her sister—your mother that 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 was not 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 $50,000 plus 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 had 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."
"She didn't move her furniture in here?"
As I looked around, I could see that nothing was familiar. It all looked to be garage sale mix'n'match.
"As you can see, she did not," he replied stiffly.
That meant that Maggie had either sold all of the furniture or had put it into storage. But why not bring it here?
"Did she have a job while she lived here with you?"
He snorted derisively which answered my question. She had devised a way to hide her tracks and stay under the radar after she had robbed me of my trust. But why take the money if she wasn't going to spend it? Perhaps she had loved Daniel in her own perverted way. Perhaps she kept the money hidden away if 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 had 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 have 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 have 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 had transferred her jeep into my name as well. 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 did use mine for awhile 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! Here I was working night shift at the factory and she had my phone. She was accepting those fucking calls. Probably having some hot and heavy phone sex with a fucking inmate. She is 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 have something of mine Mr. Henderson?"
"Who the hell are you?"
"Trey Sinclair and I believe you have my wife inside."
CHAPTER 12
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. Trey 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 are 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 Trey - but if you'll---"
"I promised that I would protect you and keep you safe," he interrupted. "You promised you would 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 is 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 had 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.
"Trey," I whispered hoarsely, "Please don't think that I would 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 are 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 Blackberry. The battery had died.
"I'm sorry Trey - it was nothing that I was trying to keep from you. I told Gina to let you know when you came by today. Obviously, you found out sooner."