The Other Mothers (Chop, Chop Series Book 5)

by L. N. Cronk

  “You think she spent all this money to come all this way because she just wants to,” I made quote marks in the air, “see him?”

  “Maybe,” Laci said. “Who knows? You wouldn’t even hear her out!”

  “And I’m not going to hear her out,” I told her, my voice shaking. “I’m also not going to sit around and do nothing like I did with Amber.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything differently with Amber,” Laci said gently.

  “I don’t want that woman anywhere near our house again,” I said, ignoring her. “Do you understand me?”

  She looked at me, her eyes still full of tears, not answering me. We stared at each other for what felt like a very, long time.

  “Do you want to know what they named him?” she asked after we’d stared at each other in silence.

  “What?”

  “His name,” she said quietly. “Don’t you want to know his real name?”

  “His name is Dorito.”

  “His real name,” Laci went on, ignoring me, “is Rogelio. Rogelio Javier Escalante.”

  “His name,” I shouted angrily, before turning and going out the front door, “is DORITO!”

  ~ ~ ~

  “HI, DADDY!” DORITO waved as I walked into Wilma’s where he and Tanner were finishing their lunch.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, stooping down to wrap my arms around him. I lifted him off of his chair and squeezed him tightly, shutting my eyes as I held him.

  “You made me mess up my picture!” he complained when I set him back down. He had been drawing on his plate with a French fry brush and ketchup paint. From what I could tell he had been making a dragon . . . or maybe it was a bat.

  “Sorry,” I said, keeping my hand on his shoulder. I finally let myself glance at Tanner who was eyeing me questioningly with a look of great concern on his face. I shook my head at him and looked away.

  Tanner pushed his plate away and produced a set of headphones. He hooked them into his phone.

  “Wanna watch that video again?” he asked Dorito.

  “Okay,” Dorito said, glaring at me, “since Daddy ruined my picture!”

  Tanner punched away at some buttons while Dorito put the ear buds in. I didn’t even ask what kind of inappropriate garbage he’d been exposing my child to.

  “What’s going on?” Tanner asked as soon as Dorito was engrossed in the video.

  “His biological mother showed up,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I thought he was an orphan!?”

  “He was an orphan,” I agreed. “He was found abandoned in a park and no one claimed him. That makes him an orphan.”

  “But I . . . I guess I thought his parents were dead.”

  “Apparently not,” I said.

  “What does she want?”

  “Him,” I said. “She wants him.”

  “But you’ve had him for years! How can she just show up and expect to get him back?”

  “She’s not going to,” I said. “I don’t care what I have to do – I am not losing him.”

  I didn’t add the word “too”, but I knew we were both thinking it.

  “How did she find you?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “She just showed up at our door about an hour ago.”

  “She knocked on your door and said ‘I want my kid back’?” Tanner asked, incredulous.

  “Well, she said she wanted to see him.”

  “She didn’t say she wanted him back?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “What makes you think she wants him back?”

  “Why else would she be here?” I asked. “What possible reason would she have for showing up on our doorstep?”

  “Maybe she wants money.”

  “Oh, that’s better.”

  “Or maybe she just wants to see him,” Tanner shrugged, “like she said.”

  “Now you sound like Laci.”

  “Laci thinks she just wants to see him?”

  I nodded.

  “So why do you think there has to be more to it than that?”

  “She came all the way from Mexico City!” I cried. “You don’t do that just because you want to ‘see’ somebody!”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m not losing him,” I said again.

  “I don’t see how she could possibly take him from you,” Tanner said, shaking his head. “He’s too old. You’ve had him for too long.”

  “Some judge might rule that she can have him back,” I said worriedly. “I’ve heard of stupider things than that happening.”

  “I don’t know,” Tanner said, shaking his head skeptically. “I just can’t see a judge giving Dorito to her after all this time.”

  “You don’t think it’s possible?”

  He was quiet for a minute.

  “You should get a lawyer,” he finally said.

  “I should move to Canada,” I muttered.

  “We’re moving to Canada?” I heard Dorito ask. I looked down at him. Apparently his video was over.

  “Let me have my phone,” Tanner told him. Dorito handed it back to him.

  “Why should we move to Canada?” Dorito asked, handing the phone across the table to Tanner. “So we can go salmon fishing?”

  “What do you know about salmon fishing?” I asked, smiling at him.

  “Everything,” he said. “Tanner told me all about it. He’s going to take me one day.”

  “Ahhhh,” I said, nodding. “Do I get to go, too?”

  “I guess.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  By this time, Tanner had flipped open his phone and punched some buttons.

  “Yes,” he said after he’d held it up to his ear and waited for a minute. “I need to make an appointment with Madison . . . Yeah, I can hold.”

  “Who’s Madison?” I asked.

  “A friend of mine who’s a lawyer.”

  “Is he good?”

  “She.”

  “Madison’s a she?”

  “Very much so,” Tanner grinned. I rolled my eyes.

  “Is she good?”

  “Very much so,” he grinned again.

  I shook my head and looked back down at Dorito. My hand was still on his shoulder and I gave him a squeeze.

  “No,” Tanner said after someone apparently came back on the line. “It can’t wait until Friday. Could you tell her Tanner called? It’s important . . . No, just tell her Tanner . . . Okay, thanks . . . Bye.”

  I turned and looked at him.

  “She’ll call me in a few minutes,” Tanner assured me. Then he turned to Dorito. “You ready to blow this joint?”

  “Yeah,” Dorito nodded.

  Tanner smiled and went to the counter to pay. Normally I would have jumped in and insisted on paying since he’d been feeding my kid, but I let Tanner get it because I still had my hand on Dorito and I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to let him go.

  I kept hold of Dorito’s back and steered him out the door once Tanner had laid the tip on the table.

  When we reached Tanner’s truck he glanced down at Dorito and then asked me, “Don’t you have a fun game on your phone that Dorito can play?”

  “Uhhhh, I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Yes, you do,” Dorito argued.

  “I do?”

  “Uh-huh,” he nodded. “You’ve got all kinds of games on there! You’ve got Tetris and Snake and-”

  “Knock yourself out,” I said, handing him the phone. Tanner opened the door to his truck and lifted Dorito from under my touch and set him in the seat. He slammed the door shut.

  “I think you also need to call a private investigator,” he said, glancing into the truck to make sure that Dorito was playing a game.

  “A private investigator?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “You need to find out everything you can about this woman. For all you know, this is just some scam she r
uns on people all the time to extort money or something.”

  “You think that’s what she’s doing?” I asked, hopefully.

  “Maybe,” he shrugged.

  “Should I really call a private eye?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How do I find one?”

  “You’re so lucky you know me,” he said. He drew out his phone again and jabbed at it a few times with his finger.

  “Grant? Hey, it’s me . . . Yeah . . . No, no, I know. I’ve got something I need you to look into for me . . . I need a rundown on a woman from Mexico City . . .” He looked at me. “What’s her name?”

  “Savanna Escalante.”

  “Savanna Escalante,” Tanner said into the phone and then he turned back to me. “Savanna got an ‘h’ on the end of it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I have no idea,” Tanner repeated and then listened. “She presumably flew up here from Mexico City within the past week. Yeah. Yeah – everything you can get. Financial records, criminal past. Dig up everything you can on her and her family. Any records of live births . . . everything.”

  He listened for another minute and then said, “By the way, this isn’t for me. It’s for my friend, David. He’ll call you so you can give him whatever you find . . . and you can bill him directly.” Tanner grinned at me. “Yeah . . . yeah, that’s right . . . Okay . . . Yeah, okay . . . Talk to you soon . . . Thanks . . . Bye.”

  “Why do you have a private investigator in your contacts?” I asked when Tanner hung up.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” he smiled, and then he purposefully changed the subject to avoid answering my question. “Listen, this guy is good. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”

  “Is this legal?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s legal,” he said. “And that’s why you’re hiring Grant. Anything he finds he’ll make sure it’s admissible in court. He’s a good guy – I promise you’ll like him.”

  “And how do you know him?” I tried again.

  “I just know him,” Tanner shrugged.

  “Why won’t you tell me how you know him?”

  “You got me,” Tanner said, grinning again and throwing his hands up. “We’re dating. We’re actually making plans to move to San Francisco early next year.”

  “Very funny,” I said as Tanner’s phone rang.

  “I told you she’d call me right back,” he said, not even trying to hide the cocky look on his face as he looked at the display and opened his phone.

  “Hey, Maddie,” he said. They made small talk for a minute until he got to the point. “I’ve got a friend who needs help.”

  He listened to her response and then looked at his watch.

  “Got it,” he said. “We’ll be there.”

  Twenty minutes later we were in downtown Cavendish. We approached a building that was about fifteen stories high, entered the lobby and took an elevator to the fourth floor. When we got out we saw a sign that welcomed us to the law offices of Snider and Snider. The secretary pointed us toward Madison’s office, but as we started down the hall she called out, “Wait.”

  All three of us turned around and looked at her. She dropped her eyes down to Dorito.

  “Do you like hot chocolate?” she asked him.

  He nodded and she held out her hand.

  “Why don’t you and I go down to the snack bar and see what we can find? Would you like that?” He nodded. “They just broke out the hot chocolate last week. Yesterday they had marshmallows.”

  “Okay,” he said eagerly. I tightened my grip on his shoulder and he looked up at me. “Can I?” he asked as an afterthought.

  I nodded at him reluctantly, watched him take off with the secretary, and sighed. Dorito had never met a stranger. If Savanna Escalante ever wanted to swipe him from me one day, all she was going to have to do was wave a candy bar or video game in front of his nose and he was going to be gone.

  We started back down the hall to Madison’s office. The door was open and as we entered, a tall brunette rose from behind a desk and crossed the room to give Tanner a warm embrace. I briefly wondered if he’d ever dated a girl who wasn’t a knockout.

  “Good to see you, Tanner,” she said.

  “You too, Maddie,” he nodded. Then he turned to me. “This is David Holland.”

  “Mr. Holland,” she said, extending her hand. “Very nice to meet you. I’m Madison Snider.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand. “Call me David.”

  She nodded.

  “And since you’re friends with Tanner,” she said, “you may call me Madison.”

  She pointed to a cluster of leather chairs surrounding a coffee table. “Let’s sit,” she suggested. After we’d gotten settled she looked directly at me and said, “What can I do for you?”

  I told her the whole story. She listened carefully, asking questions, taking notes. When I mentioned that I’d hired a private investigator she asked who it was.

  “Grant Larson,” Tanner told her and she nodded her approval.

  After I was finished telling her everything, she steepled her hands in front of her, apparently deep in thought.

  “There are a couple of things we can do,” Madison finally said. “Why don’t I run down your options and then we can talk about how you want to proceed.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “A restraining order?” Laci cried after I’d gotten home that afternoon. “You can’t file a restraining order against her!”

  “I can,” I said. “And I did.”

  “David! How can you do that to this poor woman? She’s been away from her child for all this time and now she’s finally found him and she wants to meet him! She just wants to see him and make sure he’s okay! Why can’t you let her do that? I don’t understand how you can be so cruel!”

  “You think I’m being cruel?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I do. I think it’s cruel to not let her see him.”

  “Do you know what’s the first thing I think about every morning when I wake up?” I asked her.

  She looked at me for a long moment and then finally nodded. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  “I wonder if she’s awake yet or if she’s still sleeping. I wonder if she’s going to have a good day . . . if she’s happy. I wonder if she smiles or talks.” I heard my voice break. “I wonder if she thinks about me . . . if she even remembers me.”

  “David-” Laci said, reaching a hand toward me.

  “And you don’t even care!” I shouted, pulling away from her.

  “I care!” she protested. “I miss her too!”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I can tell you were really torn up about it.”

  “Why?” she yelled back. “Just because I didn’t mope around and refuse to have anything to do with anybody? Just because I manage to get out of bed every day and function? You think that means I don’t miss her?”

  I glared at her.

  “We have to move on with our lives,” Laci said. “We have other children to worry about.”

  “But apparently Dorito’s not one of them,” I said. “As long as you’ve got Lily, that’s really all you care about.”

  “You know that’s not true,” she whispered in an appalled voice.

  “What I know is true is that this woman has just waltzed into our lives and is threatening to take away what little we have left and you don’t seem worried about it at all!”

  “Look,” she said. “I wish none of this had happened, but it has. Savanna’s found us and she wants to meet Dorito. She has a right to see him – she’s his mother.”

  “You’re his mother,” I said evenly, holding her gaze.

  “David,” she said softly. “I know that you’re scared. I know that what happened with Amber has made you afraid that you’re going to lose Dorito too, but that’s not what’s going on here. She just wants to meet him.”

  “Let me ask you something,” I said. She nodded. “Let�
�s pretend that when that doorbell rang, you’d opened up the door and there was – let’s say there was a detective standing there. He’d been investigating the hospital where Gabby was born . . .”

  I saw pain flash across Laci’s face at the mention of Gabby’s name, but I went on.

  “So let’s say there was some big cover-up. Gabby wasn’t stillborn after all. Gabby was a healthy little girl who got whisked away from us and . . .” my mind searched desperately for a scenario, “and sold to some sort of black-market baby ring or something.”

  “We held her!” Laci argued, tears now flowing down her cheeks. “You know Gabby died.”

  “Yes, I know Gabby died!” I shouted. “I’m trying to make a point here. So what if? What if you found out that Gabby was still alive. What would you do?”

  I was hurting her, but I couldn’t stop. I plowed ahead.

  “Would you just want to meet her? ‘Hi, Gabby! I’m your real mom. I just wanted to meet you and pat you on the head. Well, it looks like you’ve got yourself a nice life, so now I’m gonna leave you alone and not bother you and your new family anymore.’ Are you honestly going to sit here and tell me that that’s what you’d do?”

  Laci didn’t say anything. She just glared at me and wiped away angry tears with the back of her hand.

  “No,” I answered for her. “You’d want to get her back. You’d do anything you could to have her back again. And that’s exactly how this woman feels.”

  “This is different,” Laci protested.

  “HOW? How is this different?”

  She didn’t answer me . . . I don’t think she could.

  “She’s going to go after Dorito,” I insisted. “She’s going to do whatever she can to get him back.”

  Laci shook her head at me.

  “Yes, she is,” I argued. “And I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.”

  ~ ~ ~

  BY SATURDAY, GRANT, my private investigator, had managed to track down Savanna – she was staying at a hotel downtown. I shared this information with Madison who, in turn, called me on Monday night and told me that Savanna had been served with a temporary restraining order. She told me that a hearing was going to be held soon on the order and that – in the meantime – if Savanna tried to contact us or come within two hundred yards of any of us, I was to call the police.