Bobbie spent most of the day with Detective King and one of the assistant DAs, going over and over how she found the documents and where and how she got access to the warehouse. They were treating her like a criminal instead of the person that had just solved their case for them. She tried to keep her irritation in check, but it was getting harder as her body began to give in to the exhaustion she was feeling.
As she told her story, she tried to leave Antoinette out of it, but she had to tell them where she’d gotten the key to the warehouse. They asked her how she’d found Antoinette and she had to tell them about the lawyer and the hall of records. She went through the story at least three times, and when the assistant DA wanted her to go over everything once more she snapped.
“Look, I’m the victim here,” she said in a shaky, exhausted voice. “My baby was stolen and I was told there was nothing the police could do. So I did what any parent would do and I went out to look for him myself. Go ahead and charge me with breaking and entering and theft if you want to…but these papers, they prove that I was at that plantation and that my son was born there. I didn’t sign those adoption papers voluntarily. They tricked me. All of this should be enough for you to charge Adele with at least one more kidnapping…but if I were you, I’d get in touch with those other girls as well.” Bobbie was on the verge of tears out of frustration and fatigue. She wished that Cade were there. He wouldn’t let them push him around. It was that thought that gave her the strength she needed to deal with what they said next.
“We’ll need some time to look into all of this, Ms. Treager, and we’ll have to notify the owners of that warehouse. There is a possibility they might want to press charges.”
Bobbie tried to channel Cade as she said, “The owners? That’s fine, you go right ahead and tell them. Because you see, their father was a co-conspirator in kidnapping and human trafficking. They’ve done everything they can to keep that hush-hush since he killed himself in jail, including refusing to cooperate with the police and those of us who had been wronged by the man. Trust me, if they want to press charges, that’s just fine. But if they do, I will go public with this story. I will tell the press everything I know about that evil man, starting with him cheating on his wife all those years ago and then refusing to take responsibility for his own children. You can tell them that for me when you ‘notify’ them that I helped myself to their father’s property.”
Bobbie had been wrong, she wasn’t a victim. She was a mother who was kept from her child for almost four years, and she was sick and tired of being treated like she was the one that had done something wrong. Over the past two days as she beat herself up, she had come to the realization that the only thing she’d been guilty of was naivety and poor judgment. She had never intended to harm anyone, whereas Adele and Dr. Marshall went so far as to use humans as guinea pigs for their social experiment without telling them that was what they were doing. They separated children from their parents, and they lied about almost everything. They were the ones that were evil and as far as Bobbie was concerned, they were the ones that would have to face judgment when they met their maker, not her.
It was late afternoon before Detective King dropped her off at the Residence Inn. She was so tired that she felt like she might collapse, but it was a good kind of tired. She felt like she had accomplished a lot and she couldn’t wait to tell Cade. She collapsed onto the bed as soon as she was in the room, but before she gave in to the sleep that was pressing down on her, she sent Cade a text message, letting him know that this crazy chase might almost be over.
Bobbie slept for eight solid hours. When she woke up, it was midnight. That meant that it was two a.m. in Colombia. She looked at her phone. There were no messages. She knew that Cade was with Nate, but she thought it was odd that he hadn’t acknowledged her text at all. She started to text him again, but worried that he was sleeping, she decided to wait until morning. Instead, she texted her sister Becky.
“I think I found a way to get him back, Beck. It’s almost over.”
“Really? That’s so incredible, sis. Whatever you need, let me know, okay?”
“I will, Beck, thanks. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. Molls misses you too. She’s been dating some new guy in town. He’s a contractor or something, ex-military. He says he knows Cade, so she’s dying to talk to you about him. She says she’s afraid that he’s ‘too good to be true.’ She wants Cade’s take on the guy.”
“Aw, I hope he’s a nice guy. Molly deserves a good guy.”
“Speaking of, so do you…”
“I think there might be a chance for me and Cade, Beck. We’ve gotten really close.”
“How close??????? You two have been close for years…are we talking about more sex?”
Bobbie smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, there was more of that. This time we were careful though. It’s more than that, though, Beck. They are real feelings...”
“Lol, you’ve always had ‘real’ feelings for him, you just never admitted it before.”
“You think you know me so well.”
“I do. We shared a womb. What about Cade? Is he having ‘real’ feelings too?”
“I think so.”
“He hasn’t said so?”
“Not in so many words, but there’s so much in his eyes when he looks at me. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No. It sounds kind of sappy, but not stupid. And don’t mind me, I’m just jealous. Molls has a guy and now you too…I’m going to be an old spinster.”
“Stop it. The guys have always liked you best.”
“I just wish there was a bigger selection of them in Blossom Hill.”
Bobbie laughed. “Maybe you should move to the city.”
“Mom and Dad would freak.”
“Probably. But maybe…maybe it’s time for us to grow up…you know?”
“Sounds like someone is thinking about making some big changes and she doesn’t want to be the only one that Mom and Dad are pissed at.”
Bobbie laughed again. Becky did know her too well. “Maybe so. I love you, Beck.”
“Love you too. Be safe and come home soon…with my nephew.”
“That’s the dream.”
She sat there thinking about that for a while. It was a dream…before. Now, it was almost a reality. She had to start thinking about what that reality would be like. She knew that she didn’t want to raise a child in her parents’ house, even if they would let her. She didn’t think that she and Cade were at a place where they were ready to live together, though…were they? She did have a job now, sort of. She was going to start handling Cade’s payroll and she knew he would insist on paying her for that. Maybe she could rent a room from Wanda…? She lay back down and closed her eyes. Her mind was filled with all the possibilities, both good and bad. She didn’t know what would happen once she had her son back, but what she knew for sure was that she was going to prove Adele and Dr. Marshall wrong. She was going to be the best damned mother any little boy ever had…married or not.
********
Billy followed the underground tunnel for what seemed like miles. He was still bleeding and in pain, and he was starting to get light-headed. The tunnel was dark and cramped too. Billy hated confined spaces. Sometimes just being in his cabin was too much. He was born in the wilderness. He grew up there. He lived most of his life outside in wide-open spaces. The idea of being under the ground without any fresh air was beginning to get to him, but he thought about Nate and he pushed on.
Billy and Nate hadn’t always been best friends. When they were growing up, Billy thought Nate was kind of a pain in his ass, and he was jealous of him. Billy and Sadie, Marcus’s wife, were best friends growing up. Nate was Sadie’s cousin and for a long time, while Nate’s mother was too sick to take care of him, Nate lived with Sadie and her dad, Mickey. Suddenly, everywhere Sadie went, she had Nate with her. She talked about how smart he was and she laughed at his jokes. Billy felt left out and he resented Nate for it. Then, they all grew up and he realized that Sadie had been right about him all along. Nate was one of the smartest people Billy had ever known. He grew up wanting to be a cop or an FBI agent. Billy thought he would have made a great one, whichever he chose. Not only was he incredibly smart, but he had the strongest moral compass of anyone Billy knew. While Billy was out chasing tail every weekend and leaving a string of broken hearts, Nate was looking for that one special person, and as soon as he’d seen his now fiancée Angel, Nate had known it was her.
Billy had been surprised and honored when Nate asked him to be the best man at his wedding. Even though they were close, and even though Billy had fallen in love with Joy the previous summer and was now a one-woman man, he still wasn’t a refined one. He marveled most days at the fact that a woman like Joy wanted to be with him. He knew that he could be loud and obnoxious at times. He was moody and he didn’t express himself well with words. He could be rude and crass and he cursed way too much. But Joy still loved him and she never acted ashamed of him or embarrassed by him…and neither did Nate.
For a long time, Angel acted like she was scared to death of him. She was a tiny little thing and Billy was a giant, and the first few times she’d met him, he hadn’t bothered to hide his wild side. It took them almost a year, but even Angel had come around. The fact that they wanted him to be a part of their wedding touched him deeply and he was going to be the best man ever, starting with taking out the guy that had almost ruined the whole thing. He refused to believe that Nate was going to be anything but okay…but Dominguez still needed to pay, just for trying to take him out.
Hours passed and Billy kept walking. He was sweating and shaking and having a hard time even holding onto his gun. A few times he thought he saw or heard things, only to realize there was nothing there. He was alone in the dark. He started imagining that Dominguez had gotten out of the tunnel somewhere and Billy was just going to wander around down there until he dropped dead and they’d never find his body. He wouldn’t be Nate’s best man and Joy would never know what happened to him. He began debating with himself about turning around and going back the way he came, but his overwhelming need to find Dominguez, the man that Nate had refused to be any part of assassinating, drove him forward.
Billy didn’t know how much time had passed or how far he had walked, and his head was so screwed up that when he almost collided with Dominguez, he didn’t know if it was real.