by K. J. Dahlen
“Yes I do.” John got up again and left the room, when he returned he gave a packet to Cade. “Can you use these to find the person or persons responsible and stop them?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Peggy asked her husband.
“I didn’t want to worry you. There was nothing you could do about this, hell there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t think you needed to worry about this as well.” He turned to Cade. “Watch out for Lydia, there’s something about her I don’t trust. I have a feeling she could be just as bad if not worse than the people she represents.”
“We’ll get these back to you after the police have a chance to look at them. We will find who is responsible for this campaign of terror and put a stop to it and them. And we’ll keep India safe from the likes of Lydia Garvin.” He paused and added, “While we’re investigating her activity, is there anything from your past that may or may not come out?”
John raised his eyebrow at him. “My conscious is clear, young man. Like I said before I wouldn’t compromise the law for anyone. My actions may have cost me my daughter and I’ve come to live with that. There is nothing in my background that would be cause for alarm.”
Cade glared at him. “You are a cold man. No matter what was happening you left a child out there in the world to fend for herself. Your own flesh and blood.” He got up and looked over at Peggy.
She was weeping. “I agree!” She stood up. “She’s all I have left of Tessi. You knew the truth all along.” She left the room.
Cade turned away and they left in the cold silence
Chapter Eighteen
On the way home that afternoon, India closed her eyes and resting her head on Briar’s shoulders, she let her mind wander. She was hurting inside and emotionally wiped out from the horror of the last few hours. From the moment she’d walked into the conference room at the courthouse she’d felt the threats from Flynn’s attorney Lydia Garvin. Everything she said about the murder Lydia turned and twisted into something it wasn’t. She did her best to cast doubt where none should have existed but India got through her testimony. T.K. wasn’t as lucky. As Briar had predicted, Lydia twisted the facts and confused T.K.’s story until she didn’t remember what really happened that day. The deposition took longer than anyone ever dreamed it would and they didn’t get out of it until it was too late to do anything else.
Now they were on their way back to North Carolina. India wasn’t even angry she didn’t get the chance to question Social Services about why she was lied to. She was heartsick and all she wanted to do was curl up in a bed, pull the covers over her head, and forget the world for a while.
A single tear rolled down her check. She let it go. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking directly into Cade’s dark eyes. She looked at him for a minute then turned away. She was quiet the rest of the trip home.
When they reached the Foundation, she wanted to go straight to her room but Cade stopped her. “I think you might want to hear this.” Then he turned and told the group, “I went to see Judge John Carsten today and I had the most interesting conversation with him.”
“You went to see my grandfather?” India asked with surprise. “Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to know for myself what happened fifteen years ago. And that’s exactly what I did. There is more to this story than anyone else knows about.”
“Like what?” Briar asked glancing at India then turned his attention aback to his brother.
“Like the fact that Flynn’s uncle Sam hadn’t simply moved away all those years ago like everyone thought. He’d gotten into some bad trouble and found himself on the wrong side of the law. He was tried and convicted for murder in Carsten’s courtroom, and a couple of days before he was to be convicted someone put a picture of you and your mother along with a threat on your lives under his office door.”
“Are you serious?” Jerah asked in shock.
“I wish I were but the day after Sam was sent to prison, Tessi Carsten was murdered. John was then told in the same manner, a note slid under his office door late at night, to let the system take care of India. He thought he was saving her life by letting the state take you.” Cade looked at India. He reached into his bag and brought out the file. He gave the file to Jerah. “I need to know if there are any fingerprints on this.” He pulled out more files and handed them to her as well. “Also check these. These were shoved under his door, once a month for the last three years. John said he received the last one about five days ago.”
“Can I see the pictures?” India asked.
Cade took the last file from the pile of files he’d just given to Jerah. Opening the file he showed he a picture of her taken in the courthouse. India stared at the picture and whispered. “I was outside Briar’s office waiting to talk to him about the murder from fifteen years ago.” She looked up at Cade.
Cade closed the file and nodded at Jerah. “The picture looked digital. It could have been taken with a phone for all we know at this point.”
“What do you think is going on here?” Briar asked his brother as he reached out to take her hand in his.
“John was concerned when he learned that Lydia was now Flynn’s attorney. She was also Sam’s attorney fifteen years ago. What’s more important John thinks she’s as dirty as her clients if not right in bed with them.”
“Do you think she’s involved with this?” Briar asked.
“I may not like John Carsten but I respect his intuition. Let’s get as much background as we can find on her. Let’s just see if we can find out just how close she gets to her clients.”
T.K. got up and went out to the courtyard for a smoke. Cade joined her a few minutes later. As he sat down, she wouldn’t look at him. Cade reached out and touched her hand. When she pulled away, he said, “I heard you had a rough time of things today.”
T.K. nodded. “She twisted everything I said and made me feel like I was lying.”
“But you know you weren’t right?”
“I do.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “But it doesn’t make me feel any better.” She turned and looked at him. “Do you know she suggested that I wasn’t even there that night? That I somehow made up the entire story to make myself more important than I really am. I wanted to slap the smug smile right off her face.”
“If John Carsten is correct in his assumption, you might just get your chance.”
“Then let’s hope he’s right because if anyone deserves being slapped down it’s that woman,” T.K. said.
“I know you’re feeling raw right now but can I ask you a favor?” Cade asked.
“Sure, what can I do for you?”
“I need you to stick close to India. She needs to talk and I’m not sure any of us are close enough to her to get her to open up. She found out something today that she needs to talk about. Or she may just need someone to listen to her.”
“Oh, god…” T.K. whispered as she bent her head in defeat. “What the hell kind of friend am I? All I can think about is me?” She rubbed out her cigarette and got up. “Don’t worry I hang with her.”
Cade watched her disappear into the house and sat there for a few minutes longer. He was thinking about something and he felt a shiver run down his back. Somebody close to the Hudson’s had been keeping track of India unknown to her for the last fifteen years. That alone was worrisome but if what India said about waiting to talk to Briar when the last photo was taken they could all be in trouble.
He got up and went back inside the house. He was about to join his brother Briar when Jerah came back. She bee lined over to him and handed him a report. He read it then said out loud, “It seems John Carsten was right. The prints on the photo and the paper belonged to Lydia Garvin.”
“I ran the watermark on the paper and it’s registered to Lydia Garvin. She’s the only one who uses that particular paper on the whole East coast. She has it special made and she owns the watermark. No one else can get their hands on it.” Jerah told them.
“Ok, now we have to tie her to the Hudson’s other than being their attorney. S For a smart lawyer, she wasn’t very smart about this,” Cade said. “Oh and run the other attorney’s that were present today as well. I want to know everything we can find before we turn the info over to the Boston police.”
“Do you think India or T.K. is in danger?” Elliot asked.
“I do,” Cade admitted. “I think if they can’t discredit the testimony they’ll go after the girls. They’re a big part of the state’s case if one or both aren’t available, they might get past the rest of it.”
“What are we going to do?” Briar asked.
“We are going to tie Ms. Garvin up tighter than a bow on Christmas. I want to know everything about the woman going back at least fifteen years. She represented Sam Hudson then she went on to represent Flynn. Find out what makes the Hudson family so attractive to her.” Cade looked around the room. “Come on people, we need to stop this woman with something concrete and so tight, she has no choice but to give up the goods on her clients.”
“If she’s any good at all, she’ll never give up the goods on her clients,” Elliot said.
“That’s why I want enough on her to make it worth her while.” Cade grinned.
“What do you want me to do?” Quinn asked his brother.
“I want you to start with what happened on the Hudson farm and go back in time. See if you can track Flynn Hudson’s empire back to when it began.”
“I guess that leaves me to backtrack Cooper,” Faith said. “I’m not sure I can stomach it but I’ll try.”
“And I’ll take a look at Gretchen,” Fallon concluded. “When we’re done, we can look at all four and see where they intercept.”
“Dig deep people. I want to know these perps as well as I know myself,” Cade said. He watched his people disappear to their own stations, then he looked at his brothers. “When they get done, it will be our turn.”
“Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m starving. Maybe I’ll make some sandwiches or something,” Briar complained.
~* * * *~
A few minutes later, while he was in the kitchen T.K. joined him. Briar looked up from what he was doing and smiled at her. “How are you two girls doing?”
T.K. shrugged. “Okay I guess. India is sitting in her room. I think she’s sort of dazed right now.”
“I can understand that. She found out a great deal of information today.”
T.K. nodded. “I know and not all of it was good news. But knowing her, she’ll bounce back. She just needs a little time to adjust.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Briar asked.
“Sure, I might even have an answer for you.” She shrugged.
“What was India like as a kid? How did the two of you meet?”
T.K. smiled. “I met India the first day of school. We were both a little different from the rest of the kids. I was so nervous that day. I was small and scared and wearing my older sister’s dress. School wasn’t what I expected. All the other kids started making fun of me, a skinny little black girl wearing a dress two sizes too big. I was about to call my mom and have her come and get me at lunch time then something happened. I was sitting there almost crying when India came over and sat down next to me. At first, she didn’t say anything then this other smart ass kid came up to me and started teasing me again. He said I was nothing but a dirty little nigger.” She paused and shook her head. “India stood up and grabbed the kid by the shirt. She pulled him close to her and asked him if he knew what the word nigger meant. The kid said it was another name for a black person. India shook his head and told him to read the dictionary. Nigger meant white trash, then she turned to me and looked from the top of my head to my shoes and said I didn’t look white to her or like trash. Then she belted him in the mouth. The kid just ran away after that. India calmly sat back down and began to eat her sandwich again. A minute later she looked at me and said, ‘Hi my name is India.’ ”
“Wow, a five year old said that?” Briar was impressed. But then again, this was India they were talking about…she was special.
“She was always the smartest kid I knew,” T.K. told him. “I asked her about that and she told me her mom had taught her to read by the time she was three. She and her mom were very tight. When she wasn’t with her mom, she would spend hours in the library. She told me once that when she was reading a book she could go anywhere in the world the book would take her and for the time it took her to read it, she could escape at least for a little while.”
“Was her mom there for her?” he asked.
T.K. nodded. “Her mom was great. She was working a lot but she always made time for India.”
“What about the warehouse? How long had you and she been going there?” Briar asked.
“India was braver than I ever was. She would go anywhere and not worry about people hurting her. We went exploring the city one day and ended up at the dock area. She’d declared it as unexplored area and determined that we needed to find out what was there. We found the warehouse and she was excited. She said we could have our own private home away from home. We both brought stuff from our regular homes and we had a pretty nice set up. We used to spend hours in that warehouse.” She paused and added, “Then one night we heard a noise. We were up on the second floor. We looked over the railing and we witnessed the murder. India watched the whole thing while I couldn’t stand to see what he was doing.”
“You said you went back to the warehouse after that night. What happened in the days following the murder?”
“When we got out of the warehouse that night we ran most of the way home. I was crying so hard at one point we had to stop. She pulled me into an alley and we sat there for a minute, then she looked at me and told me I needed to calm down and stop crying.” T.K. looked at Briar and said, “I tried to stop crying I really did but I was so scared. She put her arm around me and I could feel she was shaking too. When I looked at her, I could see she was just as scared as I was. That helped me calm down and when we could think rationally again, she told me to go home and pretend nothing was wrong. If we heard anything, we should just pretend we didn’t know anything. I didn’t go to school the next day but the day after that I looked for India and she wasn’t there. I went over to her house after school but she wasn’t there either. I tried to call but there was no answer and the operator said the number had been disconnected.”
“What did you do then?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” T.K. admitted. “There was nothing about the murder in the paper or on the news. I tried very hard to forget it but I couldn’t. The whole situation sort of messed up my life for a while.”
“I can understand that. I mean you were only ten years old at the time.”
“It was years later when India and I reconnected. I think we were like fifteen when I went back to the warehouse and there she was. She had come back there too. It was then she told me what happened to her mom and going into foster care. I knew she had other family and when I asked why she didn’t go live with them she closed up and said they didn’t want her. She said it was better this way anyway…this way, she knew she was different from other kids.” T.K. shook her head. “She looked so lost. I didn’t want to lose touch with her again, so we arranged to meet at the warehouse every Friday. After that we kept up with each other’s lives.” She shrugged. “We kept in touch for a couple of years then we sort of lost touch again until now. Life has a habit of doing that to people I guess.”
“Yes it does doesn’t it?” Briar asked. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
T.K. nodded. “She’s a tough little nut. She just needs time to adjust. Besides, I’m not going anywhere this time. She needs someone to listen and now I’m going to be there for her.” She paused then added, “I think she has you in her corner too.”
“She does. I aim to keep her with me and safe.”
T.K. smiled as if the statement made her happy as she took the plates and put a couple
of sandwiches on it. “I’m going to try and get her to eat something.”
Briar grabbed the platter of sandwiches and followed her out of the kitchen. He watched as she disappeared down the hall. He set the platter down on the coffee table. He looked over at Cade. “Do you have those pictures of India?”
Cade gazed at his brother for a moment then leaned forward and picked up the file from the table. Handing them to Briar he said, “Don’t get too close brother. You can’t get involved with a client.”
“I know that brother, but in this case it’s too late. I’m as close as I can get to her and when this is over, I’m going to ask that woman to be my wife. I just think she got a raw deal that’s all. She needed someone in her corner when she was a kid and got nothing. Now she’s got me and I will be there for her.”
Cade nodded. “There is no doubt about that. John Carsten is an unyielding sort and he couldn’t or wouldn’t admit he made a mistake twenty five years ago, but we can’t go there, so leave it alone.”
Briar sat down and opened the file. The first picture in there was the one of India and Tessi. They looked happy. India was a cute kid with her long strawberry colored hair. She shared that same colored hair with her mother. The next picture was of India standing on the steps of an apartment building. Briar thought he recognized the area. It was a neighborhood in Raleigh.
The next few pictures showed India in different areas of Raleigh and the final photo showed her waiting outside his office a little over a week ago. He was disgusted by what the photos represented. Then he got a thought, he looked at his brother, “These pictures go back at least fifteen years correct?”
Cade nodded. “What are you getting at?”
“She’s been following India all that time that constitutes stalking. By sending these pictures along with the threatening letters to a sitting judge…” he faded off from finishing his thoughts.
Cade picked up on this and finished the sentence, “That could be a terrorist act.”