Be My Baby: Konigsburg, Texas, Book 3

by Meg Benjamin

  He blinked at her. “I didn’t…” But of course he had. At least it had crossed his mind.

  Jess shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can find the card from Barry’s funeral too, if you need it. I really am a widow. I didn’t want to drag you into this, but it looks like I may have to. At least for some of it.” She sighed again, rubbing a hand across her face. “I’m not sure what all to tell you about us.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Most recently, Belle View, Pennsylvania. Before that Indiana.”

  “Was your husband from there, too?”

  “Yes. His family lives there.” Her expression was guarded suddenly.

  “How did you meet him?” Lars settled back in his chair.

  “In a bar.” She gave him a rueful grin. “Barry loved to tell people that. He was a recovering alcoholic, so it made an impression. I’m a Web developer, but I had a friend who owned a restaurant. I used to tend bar for him sometimes. Barry came in one night, drinking soda since he wasn’t doing booze anymore.”

  Lars tried to remember all the things he was going to ask. Suddenly, his mind was a blank. “Was this in Pennsylvania?”

  “Right. Belle View. I worked for an ISP there.”

  “ISP?”

  “Internet Service Provider. I was one of their techies.” She sorted through the papers on the table in front of her. “That’s Barry.”

  Lars stared at the picture of the two of them. Barry looked older by a few years, or maybe just more worn out. But his smile was warm, and the affection in his expression as he looked at his wife seemed genuine. “You made a nice-looking couple.”

  “Thanks.” She took the picture back again, staring at it for a moment. “He wasn’t drinking when we met. He’d already quit. But the drinking had hurt him—a lot.” She tucked the picture back in the stack of papers. “He had heart problems. I think he’d always had them, but being an alcoholic didn’t help. He told me when I married him I was getting a wreck, but I didn’t care. He was such a sweet man.”

  She raised her gaze to Lars again. “I didn’t know who he was when we first met. The name Moreland didn’t mean much to me. I knew the Moreland family was a big deal in Belle View, but I figured Barry must be some poor relation. He didn’t look like a millionaire.”

  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.”