Shadows and Dreams (Dream Series Book 2)

by Braxton Hicks

  His eyes were teared up, pleading with me. He was destroyed; I could see that. The problem was that he didn’t know what I knew and I knew that my fucking slut of a mother was behind this and she wouldn’t be hurting Preston; I was sure of that. Preston was worth something to her, I just had to figure out what and why.

  “Trey,” I pleaded, “let’s see how your mom is doing right now. We have to see what she recalls about what happened. I refuse to believe that some random faction took Preston. I know who is behind this.”

  “You do?” he asked, totally in shock. "Who?”

  “My mother,” I announced, very matter-of-factly. “I know that it was her. We just have to find her.”

  The look that passed between my husband and the police was unmistakably one of disbelief. Okay, they thought I was nuts, paranoid; had a "Mommy issue," whatever. I knew the truth.

  The detective wanted to question Trey alone, probably to see what he knew about his "Mommy-In-Law Dearest." Trey could only fill him in on what he knew for certain, which included Charlie’s connection and conspiracy with her, as well as the fact that Trey’s P.I. had discovered some time back that my mom had been living with Daniel somewhere in Indiana. I could count on Trey. He'd been with me during a lot of the fallout that could only be attributed to mom and the minions she directed, such as Charlie.

  Trey guided me back out to the waiting room, instructing me to sit there until the detective had finished questioning him. He made me promise that I'd sit still.

  Whatever…he needs to chill. I have a plan.

  Trey returned to the small room where the detective was most likely questioning him on both of our mental stability, and why we might want out baby daughter dead. I'd seen enough movies on cable to know how it flowed. I hoped that Trey wouldn’t take offense. It was standard procedure to suspect a family member after an “alleged” abduction.

  My hopes were dashed when I heard my husband’s voice getting louder and louder. He dropped several “F” bombs before he exited the room, indicating that any future questioning would be conducted with his own counsel present. Weird he would seek other counsel to defend us against…what? I knew damn well who the perp was. I was certain I'd be able to unravel her whereabouts given the resources I knew that Trey could afford to provide.

  Trey held his hand out for me to take it as he pulled me from the chair and we headed out toward the lobby. He asked someone at the “help” desk about his mother.

  We were directed to ER 5, where Susan was currently getting treatment for whatever injuries she'd sustained during her “accident.”

  As we entered ER 5 behind the curtain, Susan was laying upon a gurney. She had a bandage over one eye and another around her forehead. Oh God, what had my mother done to her? Trey immediately was by her side, leaning over, kissing her cheek. Her eyes sprang open and they were full of guilt, pain and fear.

  “Oh, Trey,” she wept, “Tylar, can you ever forgive me?” She was wailing, tears flowing down her cheeks. She was near hysteria. A young doctor was beside her, giving her an injection of some sort. He turned to Trey.

  “This will calm her,” he explained. “She's had a major shock with what she's been through today. She'll be out in just a few minutes.”

  I needed to work fast, I realized, as I approached her gurney, taking her hand into mine. “Susan,” I said gently, “we want you to calm down and relax. You need to take care of your health for the moment, okay? No one is angry with you, do you understand?”

  She nodded pathetically, totally grief-stricken about what had happened. I needed to get some questions answered before she drifted off.

  “Okay,” I said, steadfast in my mission. “Can you please tell me what happened to Preston?”

  “Nurse Bradley took her,” she choked out between tears. “During the interview, Preston started fussing to eat. I asked Nurse Bradley to hold her while I went to the kitchen and warmed up a bottle of milk. I heard the baby stop fussing while I was out in the kitchen.”

  Susan was sobbing now, totally absorbed in her tears and guilt. I could see that.

  “What happened?” I prodded, as Trey stood by in a zombie-like trance.

  “Well, when I came out with Preston’s bottle, I saw that Nurse Bradley was sitting on the couch with her. She had her blouse unbuttoned and she was…”

  Susan stopped to sob louder now, clearly disoriented by what she'd observed. I needed her to finish.

  “What, Susan?” I pressed, my voice louder and more demanding than I'd intended.

  “She was nursing the baby,” she wailed. “Preston was latched onto her breast, nursing from her!”

  “What the fuck?” I said loudly.

  Susan starting wailing louder; Trey had turned into a statue again.

  “Susan…Susan,” I said firmly. “What happened then?” I could tell that she was starting to feel the effects of whatever drug she'd been given.

  “I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. She said she'd lost a baby, but kept pumping her breasts. She said she'd been donating her breast milk to the Fulton County Milk Bank. I told her she needed to leave and I went to take Preston from her. She kicked me with her foot and I landed on the floor. She laid Preston on the couch, grabbed the poker from the fireplace and bashed me on the head with it. The next thing that I remember is being here.”

  She continued sobbing; my heart went out to her. Trey leaned down, kissing her and stroking her hair. He told her that everything would be okay. I had one more question that I desperately needed to ask Susan before she sank into oblivion.

  “Susan,” I said loudly. “I thought Nurse Bradley had retired from the hospital; how could she have been of child-bearing age?”

  Susan looked me dead in the eye when she answered. “There's no way that lady was any older than forty, I swear; gray wig and all, I could tell she wasn’t more than late thirties or very early forties.”

  “Wig?” I asked.

  It was too late. Susan had drifted off to sleep. I had no further description from her, other than she knew that the faux Nurse Bradley had been wearing a gray wig and that she, in no way, looked like she was old enough to have been retired after twenty years spent as a nurse.

  I did recall that the resume at our apartment for this Sheila Bradley had said her nursing years had been spent at North Bay hospital where I'd delivered Preston. We needed to get there.

  Trey was still in shock. He was on the phone with one of his partners letting them know the situation. They assured him they'd pull all strings possible with the authorities to get an Amber Alert issued.

  The problem was, we had nothing to go on. Susan wasn't even up to talking to a sketch artist at the moment. We'd no clue what the perp was driving, though I strongly suspected it was a newer model, white SUV; the same type of vehicle that had struck Jean.

  The attending physician who had been treating Susan came in to let us know that they were admitting her overnight for observation of her head injury. Trey wanted to stay with her, but he didn’t want me to be alone at home. He was right. Seeing Preston’s stuff and anything that had been a part of the struggle with Susan against my mother would be disturbing.

  I stayed with Susan while Trey made a couple more phone calls. He called Clive to let him know what had happened. Gina had returned to Atlanta the previous day. He called her to see if she'd come and get me for the night. He let me know that she was on her way to pick me up and that I was to stay there until I heard from Trey in the morning. He'd talked to Tristan and Nigel as well; Tristan was getting the first available flight to Atlanta. Trey needed his family’s support right now. I didn’t want to be away from him, but I knew that both of us couldn't stay with his mother. Trey was constantly on his cell phone with the police and state highway patrol. I knew this wouldn’t do any good. My mother, if nothing else, was good at duplicity and avoiding detection. What she'd failed to consider was the magnitude of love I had for my baby, and that was her fatal mistake. I'd bet the whore’s
life on it.

  Once off of the phone, Trey cautioned me to say no more about my suspicions regarding my mother. I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought me delusional, but the reasoning he gave me sounded logical. He said that if the local authorities deemed this a “domestic incident,” it would delay getting the FBI involved.

  Trey wanted every resource available to be involved in finding Preston. I wouldn't hinder that in any way. He said we couldn't discount that maybe this had been a kidnapping for ransom, in which case we wanted the assistance of the feds.

  I knew my mother well enough to know that kidnapping for ransom wasn't her game. She didn’t possess the international savvy it would take to leave the country after it was all over and keep a low profile for the rest of her life. She didn’t operate that way. Preston was valuable to her, but for some other reason; something less dramatic but equally lucrative, without the risk.

  She'd made a grave mistake in underestimating the love that Trey and I both had for our baby girl. That's because my mother didn't understand the concept of love. She'd soon experience the wrath that results when a loved one is put at risk. She'd crossed a very dangerous line this time.

  Chapter 11

  Once at Gina’s, she was all over me, weeping and sobbing, telling me that she was there for me in any way that I needed her. I did need Gina’s help at the moment as this window of opportunity presented itself only briefly.

  “Gina,” I said sternly, “you need to get it together. I can use your help, but not if you're hysterical!"

  She looked at me through tear-stained eyes, puzzled at my calm demeanor. I wasn't calm. I was nowhere near calm, but I knew what I needed to do and I knew that I had to act quickly before Trey became aware of what I was doing.

  “I need you to take me to the airport, tonight. I've booked a flight to Indianapolis that leaves at 10:17 p.m."

  “What the fuck are you talking about Tylar?” she all but screeched.

  “Listen, Gina, I can tell right now that the local authorities are skeptical about Preston’s disappearance. You should've heard the way they interrogated Trey at the hospital. I know my mom is responsible for this. You're my best friend. I need your trust and your help. Do I have it?”

  “Abso-fucking-tutely!” she said without pause. “Let me get you some clothes and a duffel bag. Do you need money?”

  “No, I’m good with my credit cards. It’s not like I’m running away. You can tell Trey where I’ve gone once he gets here tomorrow. I know where Daniel is living. I need to get a jump on this just in case he's still in touch with my mother. He must have some information that could possibly help.”

  “Let’s get going then,” she said without hesitation.

  Once I landed in Indianapolis, I had to take a shuttle to a little town outside West Lafayette, Indiana where Daniel was living. I'd gotten the address when I called his parent's home earlier, pretending to be Abby Dunsmire from the reunion committee planning the five-year class reunion from our high school.

  His mom had been more than willing to spill all available information on Daniel, candy-coating it a bit. She said he'd left college to pursue a career in agriculture. Translation: he worked on a farm. She said that he'd been involved on a major R & D project at one of the primary employers of large heavy equipment in West Lafayette. Translation: factory worker. She explained that this had led him to pursue agriculture, as he felt he could contribute more to that particular line of work.

  I'd booked a night at a Marriott Hotel close by. I planned on getting up as early as possible and finding Daniel’s rural address as I knew he must be a farm worker. He certainly wouldn't have had the funds to buy his own farm, unless my mother had invested my trust money in it, which I highly doubted. It was more likely that my mother had been sponging off of him for the length of time she'd been there.

  I found the farm easily with the GPS on my rental car. I arrived there just after dawn, before he went out to do whatever it is farmers do at the break of dawn. The farmhouse was small and dumpy. I noticed my old blue Jeep Cherokee Laredo parked by the side of the barn next to the house. My heart quickened. What if Mom was here? That meant that Preston was here as well; or that I was totally off-base in my assertion that my mother had taken the baby. I had to know one way or another. If the abductor wasn't my mom, then I guess I'd be starting from scratch on this. I couldn’t be wrong. My baby’s quick return depended on me being right about this!

  I walked up the short dirt path to the door. There was no doorbell, so I pounded on the storm door with my fist several times. I could hear someone moving about inside.

  The curtain on the door moved a smidgeon and I heard a mumbled curse. He'd better open the damn door. I wasn't averse to kicking the glass in if need be. I heard the lock turn and the door opened. Daniel was standing there in a pair of grey sweat pants and a dirty tee shirt. His hair was in dire need of a trim, and it appeared he didn’t shave very often these days.

  I wasn’t sure that he recognized me at first as his expression was simply impassive. “Daniel? It’s me. It’s Tylar,” I said hesitantly, not sure if he was even awake enough to comprehend what I'd said.

  “I know who the fuck you are. What do you want?” he asked, acidly.

  “What I want is to know where my mother is,” I commented, just as acidly. “More importantly, I want to know where the slut took my baby and what part you played in this, so that I can make sure you're charged as an accessory.”

  He attempted to shut the door, but my foot was planted firmly between it and the door jamb. “You know Daniel; you can talk to me or you can talk to the authorities. What you don’t want to do, though, is deal with my husband, who is likely finding out just about now where I am.”

  He reluctantly opened the door allowing me to step inside the house. It smelled of whiskey and dirty clothes.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, rubbing his unshaven face and looking totally clueless.

  “Look, asshole,” I said plainly, “I didn’t travel here to listen to you feign ignorance about my mom and what she's been up to these last few weeks.”

  He cut me off abruptly, either out of stupidity or ignorance because I was going nowhere until I'd drained his mind of any information that might help me locate my mother.

  “Get the hell out of here, Tylar. I don’t know what the hell you're talking about and I don’t fucking care. I don’t want you or that slut that raised you in my house. Now get out unless you want the police here."

  “Go ahead,” I hissed, daring him to do just that. “I want them here so that they can question a potential material witness, at the very least, and a possible accessory to kidnapping.”

  I had his attention. He finally managed an expression and there was a hint of fear in it. “Come on into the kitchen,” he invited. “I need some fucking coffee.”

  I followed him through the closed-in back porch that now looked as if it served as a utility room. There was an old washer and dryer in it, as well as a mound of dirty clothing piled right in front of it. The kitchen opened up right beyond the utility room. I saw a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and in the sink. A ‘Mr. Coffee’ had some coffee pouring into the pot. Daniel rinsed out two dirty coffee mugs, pouring himself one and starting to pour one for me.

  “No, thanks,” I said, taking a seat at the small kitchen table.

  He brought his mug of coffee to the table and took a heavy gulp of it before he raised his bloodshot eyes to me.

  What the fuck has 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 didn't even know you had a baby.” He said it very matter-of-factly, as if it was of no consequence. “You know,” he said, “I was supposed to have a baby, too. I lost mine. Maggie and I loved one other, Tylar. I know you probably don’t get that;
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. And I believe it was my mother who took her and assaulted my mother-in-law. What I want to know is how you're involved?”

  “Hey, I'm 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'd quit her job and moved here from Radcliff. I was still in school, but I needed to be with her. I quit school and 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'd 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," he continued. "She claimed she'd been out and about, trying to earn more money so that our baby would be well taken care of since I'd 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'd instruct me on what to do. She'd 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'd watched what he'd done. “You've no idea how much pain that woman has caused me.”