“You can stay here and wait for me, or fly home. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I have to be there for Nate and the rest of the team.”
Bobbie could see the anguish in Cade’s eyes, but something else was there too—guilt. He felt guilty for not being there in the first place. Bobbie reached up and put her hand on the side of his face.
“Hey, this is not your fault.”
His eyes said one thing but for Bobbie’s sake, she was sure, he said, “Yeah, I know.”
She sighed. Her heart hurt for him, and for the rest of the guys. She and Cade were older than most of them, but Cade had been like a magnet for every misfit kid in town and she’d spent a lot of time with all of them growing up. She knew their wives and families and her heart hurt for all of them too, especially Nate and Angel. They were engaged and the marriage was set for the following month. She put her arms around Cade’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. “I’ll stay here. There’s still plenty to research. I can look into the records and all of that…”
He pulled her in tighter and said, “Just the records, that’s it. Please. Don’t talk to anyone and put yourself into any kind of danger.”
She pulled back and looked up at him. He had a worried crease between his eyebrows and she reached up and touched it. “Don’t worry about me. You have enough to do. I’ll stay out of trouble, I promise.”
Cade leaned down and kissed her. It wasn’t the usual parting kiss. This was the kind of kiss they’d shared the night they’d spent together. It was filled with urgency and passion and need. When he broke it and they both came up for air he said, “When I get back, we need to talk about that.”
She grinned. “I can tell you right now, I liked it.”
He laughed. “So did I. I was afraid of putting too much pressure on you, but if you want this too…”
She smiled. “I do. I want you, Cade. I always have.”
He looked relieved and kissed her again. “I have to go,” he said breathlessly when he pulled back. “But hold that thought.”
“I will. Cade?”
“Yeah?”
“Please come back in one piece.”
“Promise,” he said with a wink. He grabbed his canvas bag and the keys to the rental car and left Bobbie sitting on the edge of the bed in her room. She’d listened and cried when he spoke to Angel on the phone earlier and the first thing she did when he was gone was pick up her phone and call to check on her. Wanda, the woman that ran the bed and breakfast where Angel and Nate were living, answered Angel’s phone. It sounded like she’d been crying. Wanda loved Nate like a son so it was understandable that she’d be upset with the news as well.
“Hi, Wanda, it’s Bobbie. I was just checking on Angel.”
“She’s on the landline with Nate’s mama right now. She’s awfully upset, we all are. Have you heard anything else?” It had only been half an hour since Cade called them, but Bobbie understood that it probably felt like hours.
“No, I’m sorry. Cade just left to go see him. He’ll be there in four or five hours so hopefully he’ll have some news then.”
“Bobbie, Angel should know where he is. She should be able to go see him. This isn’t fair. She’ll lose her mind in four or five hours.”
Bobbie knew Wanda was right. She didn’t think it was fair either…but Cade insisted that where Nate was, wasn’t a safe place for Angel to be. Bobbie wasn’t even absolutely certain where they were. She’d heard Cade talking on the phone to his pilot and she knew he was going to Colombia, but exactly where, she didn’t know. “I’m sorry Wanda…I don’t know where he is, exactly.”
“Exactly?”
“Wanda, I can’t…”
“Bobbie, it’s Angel.” Angel’s voice suddenly appeared and it was thick with tears. It was obvious that the poor girl was crying. “Please tell me where Nate is, I need to know.”
“Angel, I was just telling Wanda that I wasn’t sure exactly…”
“Then just tell me what you are sure of. Bobbie, please. I love him. He’s my life. It will kill me if something happens to him and I’m not there. I can’t live with that the rest of my life, Bobbie…please help me.” She was sobbing and Bobbie’s heart was breaking.
She sighed. “All I know is Colombia, but I don’t know where in Colombia…”
Angel sounded relieved, if not a little pressured. “Colombia isn’t that big. If I get there, in the country, Cade will have to tell me where he is then.”
“Angel, Cade said that it’s not a safe place for you.”
“I don’t care. I’m no shrinking violet, Bobbie, you know that. I’m a journalist. I’ve been in dangerous situations before. If it were me, Nate would be there. I’m going.”
She hung up before Bobbie could say anything else. Bobbie sat staring at the phone in her hand. She told Cade she’d stay out of trouble. He hadn’t been gone for ten minutes and she’d already screwed everything up. Knowing how angry he was going to be, she pressed in his number. When the phone went straight to voicemail, she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not, but she knew she had to warn him that Angel was coming, if only to make sure Angel was safe.
“Cade, I’m sorry. I screwed up…I think. Poor Angel was a mess and I told her that Nate is in Colombia. She’s going there. Shit. I’m so sorry.” She ended the call and tossed the phone on the bed. It figured that Cade finally wanted to talk about pursuing something between them and she had screwed it up that quickly. Bobbie had spent most of her adult life sabotaging her own happiness so it was no surprise that she’d done it again. She sat there for a few more minutes and decided that the least she could do was get somewhere on this investigation into Adele’s background while Cade was out of town. Maybe that would help, at least a little bit.
She got her things together and then called a cab to take her to city hall. Once she was there, she filled out the paperwork to see the bill of sale for the warehouse on the docks, and she also requested to see permits for the buildings refurbished and newly built on the plantation. It took a while for the clerk to pull it all up for her, but once she had, Bobbie took the paperwork outside and sat down with it on the steps of the city hall building. She looked at the bill of sale for the warehouse first. It was listed as belonging to Antoinette Lafayette and being sold six years prior to a Dr. Gregory Marshall. Most interesting were the addresses. Symone had signed the papers as a co-owner. Her address was in North Carolina, but Antoinette’s was right there in Louisiana, not in New Orleans but in Baton Rouge, which wasn’t far away. It was also the city where the adoption agency that gave away Bobbie’s baby was located. Bobbie felt a tickle of excitement in the pit of her belly as she tucked those papers away and looked at the copies of the permits. Gregory Marshall had been the one to request them all, as a “representative” of Adele Marroquin. Slowly, but surely, they were chipping away at the wall between them and their baby. A new spark of hope was lit in Bobbie’s core as she gathered up the papers and hailed another cab.
********
Bobbie took a cab to the train station and from there she took a bus to Baton Rouge. The trip took over two hours and she had another thirty-minute cab ride to get to Antoinette’s address when she got there. She stepped out of the cab in front of a small, but well kept home. It was made of stone and painted a bright white with black wrought iron flower boxes in every window filled with brightly colored flowers. The front door was painted bright red. From what Bobbie had learned while she was in the south, it was to keep out the bad mojo or spirits. She hoped the door worked and Antoinette was not as evil as her sister.
She walked up to the door and raised a nervous hand to knock, just as it was pulled open. Bobbie gasped when she looked at the woman. She was a carbon copy of Adele, except that she had long hair, which was in tiny little braids all over her head and the top was drawn back from her face in a barrette. On her hip she held a baby, a little boy about two years old.
“Can I help you?” the woman’s accent was southern, but not Cajun the way Adele’s was.
“Yes, I hope so. My name is Bobbie Treager, Ms. Lafayette…”
“It’s Michaels now.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Michaels. I was hoping I might have a few moments of your time.”
“I’m sorry, but what is this about?”
Bobbie looked at the baby and then back at Antoinette. “I’m trying to get my baby boy back. Your sister Adele stole him from me.”
Antoinette’s features changed instantly. Bobbie couldn’t read her, but she looked at the baby in her arms too and then called over her shoulder, “Sheree!”
A girl of about thirteen came down the hall. “Take your brother out back to play while I speak with this lady, please.” The girl took the baby and Antoinette waited until they were out of sight before she said, “I had nothing to do with what they did.”
“I know. I’m not here to accuse you of anything. I’m just desperate for any information you might be able to give me that can help prove that I did have my baby at the plantation and your sister did take him illegally.”
With a sigh, the woman who looked so eerily like the one that had ruined Bobbie’s life stepped back to let her pass. Once Bobbie was inside, Antoinette led her down the hallway to a neat, tidy, small living room. “Have a seat.” Bobbie sat down in one of the chairs and Antoinette sat opposite of her. “What do you want to know?”
“You know that your biological father was helping her?”
She made a sour face. “Yes, I know. After my grandparents died, I sold him the warehouse they’d left my mother and I. They had used it to receive shipments of seeds and fertilizer when the plantation was active. There was nothing I wanted it for and he was very interested in buying it. He also wanted to have a relationship with me, like the one he had with Adele…but I was having none of that. I had a father and he wasn’t a liar and a cheat and a child abandoner.”
“Do you know what he wanted with the warehouse?”
“No. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”
“The hall of records still show it in his name. Do you know why it wasn’t part of his estate?”
“When he died, his oldest son showed up here with all kinds of questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. He’d been to the warehouse. He told me it was full of filing cabinets and bookcases. He said that he didn’t want any of it. He couldn’t bear to uncover any more of his father’s dirty secrets. I assumed he had sold it.”
“I can’t find any record of that. It looks like the taxes have been paid up on it.”
“He must have decided to keep it then.”
That disappointed Bobbie. If the family had kept it all this time, surely someone had gone and cleaned it out.
“Do you know if Dr. Marshall had any other property in New Orleans?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t want anything to do with him. Adele blamed my mother for everything. The first six years of our lives were extremely difficult. Our mother was a stripper, and she had substance abuse issues. We weren’t abused, but we were often neglected, until Mama met my father, Don Michaels. He married her and we moved into a real house. She stopped working and stopped using drugs, and for the first time we had a real life. But Adele was hateful and mean to Don. She had this dream in her head, this fantasy, that our ‘real’ father would return someday and want us all back. They did all they could do, but she was just out of control. When we were seven, we went for a visit to the plantation. Mama wanted her parents to see how well she was doing and introduce them to Daddy. It didn’t matter to them, though; they were as hateful as Adele. My grandfather told Mama right in front of us that she should have never had children without a husband. He said women were not capable of being parents alone and that even though she was married then, she’d already ruined us. Adele put on a big show too and by the time we left, my grandparents had talked Mama into letting her stay. After that, she just cut us all off. They changed her. She wasn’t my sister any longer, and it broke Mama’s heart. Mama kept reaching out to her, but Adele shot her down each time. But when that no-good liar and cheat showed up, she welcomed him with open arms. It was easy to see where her evil came from. He was a bad man…in his soul, I could see it. He was narcissistic and selfish and so was she. I’m sorry they took your child. My heart hurts for you and I hope you get him back…but I don’t know what to do to help you.”
“I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through and so grateful to you for talking to me. If I might just ask one more favor?”
“You can ask,” Antoinette said in a noncommittal tone. Bobbie didn’t blame her after all her sister had already brought down upon her.
“Marshall’s family won’t speak to me or my…the father of my baby. They’re fiercely protective of his reputation.” Antoinette snorted and Bobbie went on, “Is there any way you might be willing to call his son and ask for access to the warehouse?”
Antoinette raised a thin, perfectly shaped eyebrow and said, “You know what, I can do better than that.”
“You can?”
“Yes. Wait here a moment.” She got up and left the room. Bobbie nervously waited for her to come back. It took her several long minutes but when she returned, she held up a key and said, “He never asked for my key to the warehouse. I won’t call him. I want nothing to do with those people. But I’ll let you decide if you want to help yourself.”
Bobbie stood up and the other woman put the key in her hand. “I’ll show you to the door now, and I’ll say a prayer for you and your family tonight.”