Intent

by A. D. Justice

  “There’s no way Margot will ever be a real mom to River. Is there?”

  She shakes her head from side to side. “No, she won’t. But I don’t think it’s necessarily because she doesn’t want to do it. It’s more that she can’t do it. The public evidence of her problems at home may have started at around ten years old, but the severity of her issues didn’t happen overnight. It must’ve been building over her formative years. She probably acted out at home to try to get some kind of attention before progressing to the more significant actions that landed her in court.”

  “She got to Zoe—I know it was her. Layne and I planned to adopt Zoe’s baby. Layne got the nursery ready to bring the baby home. Zoe was living here with us after her parents kicked her out. Then we got home from our honeymoon and found a note from her on the table. Layne has taken it really hard.

  “Before the fire, Layne walked in on an argument between Margot and Zoe. Margot was threatening Zoe, said Zoe had to do what she told her to do or she’d make Zoe’s life hell.” I stop and shake my head.

  How did I ever get mixed up with someone like this?

  “Hey, does George still own that old hunting cabin set way back in the woods on Crane Ridge?”

  “Martha is our resident real estate agent. I can ask her to find out. You think Margot’s hiding out there?”

  “I think it’s a good possibility. George probably hasn’t been in any shape to use it for several years now, but it was fully furnished from what I remember of it. It’d be a good place for her to hide out since there aren’t any neighbors to see her coming and going.”

  She calls Martha and asks her to check on who currently owns the property while I call Detective Ledger.

  “Ledger.”

  “Hey, Matt. How are ya?”

  “Good, Ace. What’s up?”

  “I just remembered an old hunting lodge George Edwards used to own on Crane Ridge. Thought if you haven’t already checked it out, it might be a good place to look for Margot. No neighbors for miles.”

  “Appreciate the tip, Ace. I’ll definitely look into it. Has she tried to contact you or Layne at all?”

  “No, I haven’t heard a word from her. Why do you ask?”

  “She sprayed graffiti on the front of the courthouse last night. She’s not very good at staying off the security cameras when she commits a crime.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It’s a giant heart. In the middle, it says ‘Margot + Ace 4EVA.’ It’s really juvenile, even for her. Outside of the heart, she wrote Layne’s name with a circle and slash through it. Beside that, she drew a skull and crossbones.”

  “She’s threatening Layne’s life, and I’m just now hearing about this?” I bellow.

  “That’s not a direct threat on her life, Ace.”

  “The hell it isn’t. You know what she’s already done, Matt. Her intent is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

  “Listen, as your friend, I completely understand where you’re coming from. As the lead detective on this case, I have to make sure we do everything by the book so she doesn’t walk on some technicality. Right now, she’s vandalized public property with the graffiti. It’s up to the DA to tie it to her other crimes and prove intent.”

  I know he’s right. But damn if that doesn’t piss me off even more.

  “You’re doing your job, I get it. And I appreciate everything you do. It just really sucks to not be able to do anything and feel so helpless.”

  “Anything you can think of to help us find her or flush her out is helping, Ace. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ll check out the old hunting cabin, and I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

  After we hang up, I relay the conversation to Mom, including the skull and crossbones associated with my wife’s name. The grim expression on her face conveys the words she doesn’t verbalize. She knows Margot as well as, if not better than, most anyone else. There’s no hidden meaning in that drawing. She’s blatantly taunting all of us.

  “Martha said there’s no record of the property deed being transferred to anyone else. Ace, I really hope she’s there and Matt finds her before she does anything stupid.” Mom stands and walks to the window.

  It’s now that it really hits me. She still feels responsible for failing that little girl she used to represent.

  “You know, none of what she’s done is your fault. You heard what George and Louise said to Layne. You did everything you could possibly do to help her, apparently for many, many years. Don’t blame yourself because her parents failed to give her what she needed.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I sure don’t have all the answers,” she replies absently.

  “I have a question you can answer.”

  She turns to look at me, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears and emotions she’s trying her best to control.

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Did you send Layne down here because you knew she’s my barn owl?”

  Her tears spill over onto her cheeks when she laughs. With a smile, she wipes her cheeks and nods. “Of course I knew. I just had to wait until she realized that jerk she was dating wasn’t the one for her.”

  Then a rapid-fire, urgent knock on the front door instantly puts us both on edge.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Layne

  “Baby, wake up.”

  The voice sounds like Ace, but the face doesn’t match his. I stare at him in confusion and quickly move away.

  “Layne, sweetheart, I need you to wake up now.”

  A warm hand on my shoulder shakes me gently and I struggle to open my eyes. When I finally do, I realize dusk is setting in and I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep. “Ace? What’s wrong?”

  “How do you feel? Are you better?”

  “I’m too groggy to feel my body,” I chuckle lightly. “I guess I needed that nap.”

  He sits on the bed beside me and takes my hand in his. When I move my other arm from its awkward position, I realize River isn’t with me anymore and I fly straight up to a sitting position. “Where’s River? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. She’s in the kitchen with Mom. They’re cooking spaghetti for supper tonight.”

  “Now that my heart is racing a hundred miles a minute, I can feel my body again.” I exhale a relieved breath. “I’ll go help them.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Ace stops me. “Before you go out there, you need to know there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Not Bobby,” I groan. “My message to him was so clear it was transparent.”

  “No, not Bobby,” he replies cautiously. “It’s Zoe.”

  At first, my emotions are so conflicted by those two little words I can’t tell which one is stronger. Anger. Happiness. Relief. Suspicion. They all swirl in my head, and I debate if I can even walk out there and face her. Then my heart takes over and I realize that’s not true at all. She’s a scared young girl, and I still love and care about her.

  “Okay. I’ll go talk to her.” Ace looks like he wants to object, but he simply nods instead.

  When I walk into the living room, Ace turns and goes into the kitchen with Marcia and River to give Zoe and me some privacy. I make a mental note of her general appearance. She looks even more pregnant now than she did just a few days ago, if that’s even possible. Even though she’s clean and well-kept, her hollow eyes show she hasn’t had enough rest.

  “Hi, Zoe. I’m surprised to see you.” I purposely keep my tone low and nonthreatening. She hurt me with the way she handled things, but I can’t fault her for wanting to keep her baby.

  “I know I’m probably not welcome here. But I still love you, Layne, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t warn you about Margot.”

  “What about her?” Outwardly, I’m completely blasé about the topic. Inwardly, I cringe at the very mention of her name.

  “I’ve been staying with her and she’s become obsessed with you. I found a drawer full of pictures today and you were in all of them. Some we
re of you and me, you and Ace, you and River. It was really creepy.

  “When I asked her why she had them, she started rambling incoherently. Her babbling didn’t make any sense, but she became very agitated and angry. The family has always talked about this side of her, but I’ve never seen it before.”

  “She’s not well, Zoe. You need to tell me where she is before she hurts herself or someone else. She needs help.” I calmly explain the situation in hopes she doesn’t feel like she’s betraying her cousin by telling me where she is.

  “She’s been moving around, never staying in the same place too long. When I left her, she was at her parents’ house in town. They spend most of their time in Florida, so their house here has been closed up for a while. She’s careful to not stay there when she knows the biweekly cleaning crew will come by.”

  “Where else might she be?”

  “Her grandfather’s cabin or in Rose’s house, since she’s extended her stay in Texas with her daughter.”

  “Thank you for telling me, Zoe. I hope you’ve found somewhere else to stay so you can get away from her before she gets you in trouble or hurt. It would kill me if something bad happened to you.”

  Her bottom lip begins to quiver, and she draws it between her teeth to try to stop the onslaught of regret that hits her like a freight train.

  “Layne, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you. It’s just that Margot talked to Jeremy, and he wants us to be a family. Him, me, and our baby. He said the only way it can work is if we’re all together. If I let you adopt the baby, he’ll never speak to me again. If I don’t let you adopt the baby, you’ll never speak to me again. If I keep the baby, I’ll have to stay here and I won’t be able to go off to college. If I don’t, no man will ever love me again. I don’t know what to do. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”

  Zoe cries uncontrollably, sobs wrack her body, and she can barely catch her breath. Regardless of how my own heart is breaking, I can’t sit by and watch her suffer like this. My mind knows, legally, the mother can change her mind about putting her baby up for adoption for up to ten days after delivery. My mind knows it’s her right, it’s her body, it’s her choice.

  But my heart isn’t connected to my mind.

  “Zoe,” I say softly and move to wrap my arms around her. “I know it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and honestly the weight of your world is. But I can’t make this decision for you. It has to be all you, because you have to live with whatever you decide. Everything you’ve said concerns me, though. Have you talked to Jeremy yourself? Has he told you what he wants?”

  “No,” she sniffles. “Margot talked to him. He said he wouldn’t talk to me until he heard back from her again.”

  She’s so young and naïve. So immature. And far too trusting.

  “Zoe, if you, Jeremy, and the baby are going to be a family, you have to talk. He has to be a grown man and you have to be a grown woman because you’ll both be raising a newborn baby together. If you can’t talk about getting back together and what you both want, how do you expect to be a family? You need to talk to him directly, not with a third party relaying messages, and especially not Margot. You have to call him yourself, Zoe.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right.” She dries the tears running down her cheeks and stands. “I’ll call him now. If I wait any longer, it’ll drive me crazy.”

  She paces slowly as the phone rings. When it connects, a single tear slides from her eye and her voice cracks when she begins to speak.

  “Jeremy, this is Zoe. I won’t keep you long, but there’s something I need to ask you about. Margot came to me and said you wanted us to be a family. You, me, and the baby. Is that true? Did you really tell her that?”

  She stops pacing and is silent for what feels like an eternity. The second hand on the wall clock ticks loudly as silence fills the room.

  “Thank you for saying that and for talking to me. I appreciate it more than you know.”

  She walks to the window and stares out into the darkness. I can partially see her reflection in the window, and it breaks my heart to watch the tears run like a river, unchecked and unnoticed.

  “Zoe, do you want to talk about it?” I don’t know what else to say. She’s not okay and that would be a stupid question to ask.

  “He apologized for abandoning me. Said he freaked out because he knew he couldn’t support us. He saw his plans for college disintegrating and then he’d be stuck in this dead-end town. He knows about the plans for the adoption, and he won’t stand in the way. He wants me to have a good life and to be happy,” she replies robotically.

  “That sounds like he cares about you, Zoe.”

  “He sure didn’t show it before now, did he?”

  “He’s young and scared, sweetheart. That’s a lot of responsibility at seventeen or eighteen years old. He panicked. It happens to the best of us.”

  “She lied to me, Layne. She made it all up without ever even talking to him. I hurt you when you’ve been the only one who has stood by me through everything. You’ve done everything to help me, above and beyond the pregnancy, and I went right along with everything she said. You must hate me now. And I don’t blame you.”

  “I could never hate you, Zoe. You trusted the wrong person, and everyone has made that mistake before. She manipulated you like she’s done everyone else in her life. She took what she knew you wanted to hear and made you believe it was true.”

  “She must have thought you’d leave town and she could get Ace back with you out of the picture. How could I be so stupid? I’ve given up everything because of her stupid tricks.”

  “What have you given up?”

  “Everything. I’ve lost you. I’ve quit my job. I lost out on going to that private school. I’ll never be able to go to college now. My parents don’t want anything to do with me. There’s nothing left for me.”

  “Why can’t you go to the private school? I’m not following.”

  “It’s too expensive. It’s way too far out of my reach.”

  “Zoe, I told you I’d help you. That school was my suggestion. I haven’t changed my mind about that.”

  “I can’t let you do that after what I’ve done to you.”

  “My offer to help you with school wasn’t conditional on the adoption going through. It still stands so you can have a better life than the one you can make by staying here. If you want to go to school there, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You’re like a daughter to me, Zoe. My love for you will never end. I may not like or approve of all your choices, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop loving you.”

  “My own parents won’t even give me that kind of love, Layne,” she says softly.

  “I can’t pretend to know why they’ve done the things they have. Maybe they weren’t shown it. Maybe they’ve been so bogged down with stress that they never learned how to look past themselves. Maybe they’re just terrible people. You’re better off focusing on yourself and the future, rather than looking back on the past with regret of what wasn’t.”

  “What is my future, Layne? Whether I keep the baby or give it up, how can any man love me now?”

  “You think you’re unlovable because you’re having a baby? Do you think Ace is unlovable because he has a child?”

  “I think others would look down on me for giving my baby up. They’ll think I’m selfish and cold. What kind of awful person gives their baby away?”

  “Zoe, look at me, sweetheart.” I put my hand under her chin and coax her head up until our eyes meet. “You’re not an awful person. Giving your baby a better life than you had isn’t cold or selfish. It’s one of the most selfless acts you can do. Any man who can’t understand where you’ve come from and what you were facing doesn’t deserve you. But there are good men out there who will be supportive. Don’t settle for less than you deserve.”

  “How am I any different than Margot when sh
e abandoned River?”

  “Margot intentionally got pregnant to try to trap Ace into marrying her. She had no aspirations for her life. No intentions of doing anything other than letting him cater to her. When she didn’t get what she wanted, she abandoned her baby so she could go live a single, carefree life with her friends. She lost her parental rights because she didn’t care about what was best for River. You are nothing like her.”

  She nods, but there’s no commitment behind it. Agreeing for the sake of agreeing. “I guess.”

  “It sounds like you still have your heart set on going to the private school. You’ve been accepted and we can still get the response back to them before the deadline. Just give me the word.”

  She sits on the couch with her brow furrowed, her thumbnail between her teeth, and she’s staring at a spot on the floor. She’s obviously deep in thought and weighing all of her options. When she finally looks back up at me, her eyes look clearer than they have in a while. The sorrow and dread are gone and she seems to have formulated a plan.

  “Layne, I’ve decided I want to go forward with the adoption,” she announces.

  “Zoe, I didn’t offer the school for you to give me your baby in return. That’s not how this works.”

  “I know—I’d never think that about you. When I thought Jeremy wanted us to be a family, I agreed to stop the adoption because I thought he loved me. I decided to keep the baby for the wrong reason. I was so desperate for someone to love me, to make me feel like I was worthy of that love, I jumped at the chance without even thinking. Without realizing that I already have all the love I could ever need…from you.

  “Hopefully someday, I’ll be as good as you are at this. But if I’ve learned anything about myself from all this, it’s that I’m not ready yet. Will you please adopt my baby so I’ll never have to question if she’s in a safe, loving home?”

  Unable to hide the tears of joy that immediately spring to my eyes, I let them flow freely. “If you’re sure, then yes, I’d love to adopt your baby. Since Ace and I are married now, it’d probably be best if I talk to him first, though.”