Reuniting His Family

by Jean C. Gordon

  “No, they’re being placed with me.”

  The lounge door opened, saving Renee from facing Rhys’s reaction alone.

  “Daddy, you came back like you said you would.” Dylan catapulted himself into his father’s lap and hugged him tight.

  “Of course I did.”

  Renee admired the way Rhys was automatically there for Dylan, to reassure the little boy. What would it be like to have him there for her, for comfort? She’d never find out now. Her decision based on fear and mistrust had cost her that.

  Pastor Connor followed Owen in. “Sorry, they got ahead of us. Have you finished?”

  “We’re finished.” Rhys’s words were a double-edged sword.

  “Then we’ll give you a few minutes to talk with Owen and Dylan.”

  The bleakness returned to Rhys’s eyes.

  “Do you want me to stay?” Renee asked. She’d do anything to get herself, Rhys and the boys back to where they were before.

  “No, I think you’ve done enough.”

  Renee blinked away the moisture in her eyes and stood to leave with Connor.

  “When you’re done, we can all say a prayer together,” Pastor Connor said.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Rhys pinned her gaze with his. “Prayer is what got me here.”

  The thought that she’d cost him his boys—and possibly his faith—shredded what part of her heart the sword had left untouched.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I sold the man my old truck. How was I supposed to know he was a felon?” Rhys faced off with Ms. Bulmer at the lunchtime appointment he’d finagled the next day. Fortunately he was working at a site in Elizabethtown.

  “You said you sold your truck to someone named Jay Clark.”

  “Right.”

  “Our investigation showed it was registered yesterday morning to a man with a different name, who is on parole for grand larceny. Until then, it was still registered to you.”

  Rhys pressed his palm to the table. “You think I lied?”

  Her noncommittal expression shouted yes.

  “Why would I have given you the VIN if I’d known it would cause me trouble? He paid for the truck. I signed the title and gave it to him. I didn’t watch him fill it out.”

  “Was that your first contact with the man?”

  Rhys held his temper. “No. I met with the guy three times—when he put a deposit on my truck, when he picked it up and when he came uninvited and I threw him out.”

  “You need to talk to your attorney about this. You met with the man several times in violation of your agreement. There’s nothing I can do.”

  All traces of the encouragement the caseworker had given him at their last meeting were gone.

  “Ms. Delacroix will contact you about visitation, and you’ll be receiving a notice from Family Court.”

  Rhys took that as his dismissal. His pulse throbbed in his throat. He was back at square one with Ms. Delacroix and Social Services.

  On his way out, his phone pinged with a text. It was from Renee.

  Will you be home by five, five thirty? The boys need to get their things from your house. We could stop by the house after I pick them up from after-school.

  He could be, although he’d said he’d work until dusk with a couple of the other guys. And lately he’d been taking advantage of Neal’s generosity in taking so much time off for the boys. But more than that, he didn’t know if he had the strength to be there for the opposite scenario of when he and Renee had moved the boys into his house.

  His thumbs hovered above the phone’s keyboard.

  No. I have to work until seven in Elizabethtown.

  Let her think what she might about him giving up an opportunity to see Owen and Dylan.

  I’ll call Ted and Mary Hazard and ask them to unlock for you.

  Renee knew his landlords from church. It shouldn’t be a problem. Rhys pressed Send before he changed his mind and said he’d be there.

  The phone pinged again as Rhys drove to the job. Renee’s answer? He’d check later.

  * * *

  Seven o’clock and the prospect of going home to an empty house came too soon. He could stop somewhere for food to kill the time, but despite the six straight hours of physical labor he’d put in, he had no appetite. The empty feeling in his stomach grew the closer he got to home. When the house came into view, an Essex County sheriff’s car was sitting in his driveway.

  His heart slammed against his breastbone. Something had happened to Owen or Dylan, or both of them. He took the turn into the driveway too fast, jammed on the brakes and jumped from the truck.

  A deputy met him at the driver-side headlight. “Rhys Maddox?”

  “Yes, my sons, what happened?”

  The deputy’s brow wrinkled as he flashed his badge. “We have a warrant to search these premises.”

  Every bit of oxygen left Rhys’s lungs. “May I see it?” He forced the words out.

  The deputy handed him the paper and a second sheriff’s vehicle pulled in behind his truck. Trapped. Rhys shrugged off the old unwanted fear and read the warrant. Property had been stolen from his boss’s worksites, places he’d worked at. Neal thought he was involved? First Renee. Now Neal. Where was their so-called Christian forgiveness for his past? Where was God? Why had he thought he could depend on Him, if no one else?

  Rhys dropped his chin to his chest. Because God was all he had when he’d left Dannemora, and He was all he had now.

  “Have at it,” Rhys said. He had nothing to hide.

  “We’ll need a key to the back building.” The deputy nodded at the large shed near the edge of the property along the tree-lined electric company right-of-way.

  Rhys twisted the key off his keychain and handed it to the deputy. “It should be unlocked. My landlord said the lock is kind of wonky and I might want to replace it. Since I don’t have anything in there, I didn’t lock it.”

  The two pair of deputies split up, one heading out back and the other to the house with Rhys.

  He unlocked the door and went in. “Okay if I get cleaned up? Upstairs?”

  One of the deputies who was with him nodded, and they followed him to his bedroom. A deputy stood in the hall with Rhys while the other searched the room before allowing him to grab clean clothes. Then on to the bathroom, where the deputy checked the linen closet, the medicine cabinet and the cabinet beneath the sink and ascertained that Rhys would not be able to escape out the small octagon window and drop two stories for a getaway.

  After his shower, Rhys stepped into the hall to face both deputies. One had his handcuffs out.

  “Rhys Maddox, you’re under arrest for grand larceny in the third degree.”

  * * *

  The phone woke Renee from the doze she’d fallen into while watching the eleven o’clock news. Who would be calling this late?

  “Renee. I’m glad you’re up,” Pastor Connor said.

  “What’s up? Natalie and the baby...”

  “Are fine. But I thought you should know, for the boys, in case it somehow gets out. Rhys was arrested this evening.”

  She straightened in her chair. “For what?”

  “Stealing construction materials from some of Neal Hazard’s worksites. Rhys used his phone call to call me. I just got back from Elizabethtown.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “I agree. But it looks bad. The sheriff’s department received a tip on the thefts and searched the property Rhys rents.” Connor lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. “The deputies found thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen materials in the big shed in the back, and they have a security camera photo of his truck at the latest robbery last Friday night.”

  Hope fluttered inside her. “But he s
old that truck Thursday. The guy picked it up Friday evening.”

  “It’s his word against the evidence.”

  Renee gritted her teeth. Didn’t Connor believe him? She did.

  “DMV records show it wasn’t registered to the new owner until Monday. Rhys’s lawyer is going to try to get hold of the buyer tomorrow.”

  “Rhys has a lawyer? A public defender?”

  “No, I called a friend from college. He’s a criminal attorney in Glen Falls.”

  That information soothed her. A private attorney wouldn’t let Rhys be falsely convicted, as the overworked public defender in Rhys’s overturned bank robbery conviction had. Would he?

  “Rhys is home?” she asked.

  “No, they couldn’t get a judge to convene Justice Court for an arraignment hearing until one tomorrow afternoon. He’s in a holding cell at the Essex County Sheriff’s Department until then.”

  A chill shot through her at the thought of Rhys in a cell, hearing the door clank shut behind him.

  “Renee, are you still there?” Pastor Connor asked.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes. You’ll let me know what happens tomorrow afternoon?” The way they’d parted last night, she doubted she was on Rhys’s list of people to confide in.

  “Natalie and I are praying for Rhys and Owen and Dylan—and you.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. For everything.” She didn’t know why Pastor Connor was including her in his prayers, only that she needed them. Her conscience told her that she was partly responsible for getting Rhys into this mess. She had to find some way to fix it and—if it wasn’t too late—to fix her and Rhys.

  * * *

  “Miss Renee, I forgot,” Dylan said late the next morning as she turned into the school parking lot to drop him off after his dentist appointment.

  “Forgot what?”

  “It’s my turn to bring the after-school snack today. I gave Daddy the paper before, before we had to come and stay with you. I don’t want to get in trouble with Grandma Hill for not bringing it.”

  Renee turned the car around in the church parking lot. She was sure Karen would cover for Dylan if Renee explained, but Dylan was too upset. “We can run over to Tops before I drop you off and get cookies and juice. How does that sound?”

  Dylan sniffled. “My favorite cookies and party punch juice?”

  “Of course.” Both Dylan and Owen were being stronger than two little boys should have to be. They got that from their dad. Rhys’s inner strength was one of the many things she admired about him. But the boys and Rhys didn’t have to go it alone. They had people who loved them. Renee gripped the steering wheel. People like her.

  On the way out of the store, Dylan squeezed her hand and pulled her to a stop. “That’s the man,” he whispered, “the bad man who came to our house.”

  Renee followed Dylan’s gaze to a man approaching the store. Jason Clemons. He’d worked for Neal, and rumor was that Neal had fired him for theft, although as far as she knew, Neal hadn’t pressed charges. She moved to shield Dylan from the man’s view, even though Dylan had told her he was out of sight when he’d seen Jason at the house, and scurried the boy to her car.

  “You’re sure that was the man you saw?” she asked Dylan as she checked his seat belt.

  “Yes.”

  Rather than heading to the Northway after dropping Dylan off, Renee turned on Hazard Cove Road in the direction of Neal’s house, praying he’d be there and not at a worksite or at the GreenSpaces office in Ticonderoga.

  “Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his truck in the driveway. She hopped out of her car and went to his garage office.

  “Hi,” Neal said when she opened the door. “This is a surprise. Were you and Claire finally successful in talking your landlord into going solar to cut your electric bills?”

  “No, only in letting us get a dog.”

  “Okay, then. What brings you here?”

  “Rhys. Did you give the sheriff’s department the tip that Rhys had stolen property—your property—in his storage shed?” She had to know where Neal stood.

  “Absolutely not. Sit down.”

  Renee sat and told him about Rhys’s arrest, what Dylan had seen Saturday night, Dylan identifying Jason Clemons as the man he saw at the house, Jason giving Rhys a false name when he bought his old truck and Social Services removing the boys to her house.

  “That dirty scum.” Neal slammed his palm to the desk. “Jason. He stole from me when he worked here, though nothing on the scale of the recent robberies. I caught him red-handed.”

  Renee’s heart leaped. Would that information be enough to clear Rhys?

  “I deducted the cost of the stolen materials from Jason’s pay and fired him,” Neal continued. “He was furious, thought I’d give him a second opportunity after taking the money back from his pay. I went out on a limb hiring him in the first place. He had prior robbery convictions. When Jason left, he threatened to make me hire him back, said I wouldn’t find anyone in the area as qualified as him. And I couldn’t—until I met Rhys.”

  “You’ll help me clear him?”

  “In a New York minute. Using the electric company right-of-way, Jason could have easily planted the stolen materials in the shed when Rhys wasn’t home, without anyone seeing him from the road. We need to get to the sheriff’s office.” Neal stood and started for the door. He paused. “For another thing, at the time the sheriff estimates last Friday’s theft took place, I was talking to Rhys on his landline about getting the boys together to go fishing on Sunday. I called him.”

  More hope blossomed inside Renee. “Did he say anything about selling his old truck?”

  “Yes, that the guy who bought it had picked it up earlier, and Anne mentioned that she saw the truck at the general store during the time I was on the phone with Rhys. She got home just after I hung up and asked if I’d gotten hold of him, saying Rhys might be at the store. She didn’t know he had a new truck.”

  “Rhys couldn’t be in collusion with Jason,” she said.

  “No, he couldn’t,” Neal agreed.

  Outside she said, “You go ahead. I’ll take my car. I want to call Pastor Connor so he can get hold of Rhys’s lawyer.”

  Neal roared off, and she called Connor.

  “Renee, you just caught me. I’m on my way out for Cassie Reynolds’s funeral. Is something wrong?”

  “No, something may be right, very right.” She explained and asked for Rhys’s attorney’s name and phone number.

  Pastor Connor gave them to her. “I’ll call him,” he offered. “Are you and Neal on your way?”

  “Neal left. I’m taking my car. I just need to call my boss to let him know that I’ll be late.” Or not in at all, if things went well with Rhys. She closed the car door with a bang.

  Regardless of how things went, she had a lot of things she needed to say to him, whether he wanted to hear them or not.

  * * *

  Rhys sat on a cot in the holding cell, waiting for his arraignment. Pastor Connor had a funeral this morning. His lawyer had court in Glen Falls, and then an hour’s drive to Elizabethtown. So he sat waiting and praying—or, more accurately, thanking God over and over that Owen and Dylan and Renee hadn’t been at the house getting the boys’ things when he’d been arrested. As for his other attempts at prayers, the ones for guidance in doing what would be best for Owen and Dylan, he kept going in circles, uncertain if his thoughts were his despondency or the Lord answering him.

  His insides felt scraped raw at the idea, but if he couldn’t escape his past and make a good, stable home for his sons, maybe they’d be better off without him. If only he could be sure someone like the Hills would adopt them, he might be able to let go. His chest ached. If he faced prison again, he’d have to ask them—or Renee. He wouldn’t
allow Owen and Dylan to be bounced around the foster care system as he had been.

  Now that he’d had time to think, he saw that Renee had only done what she thought was best for Owen and Dylan, what he’d been trying to do since Owen was born and had failed at miserably without a partner to help him.

  Rhys closed his eyes and tried to picture Gwen, him and the boys when they’d all been together and happy. Instead he saw him and Owen and Dylan—with Renee, moving the boys’ things into the house on Paradox Lake.

  “Okay, Maddox.” Two county sheriff’s deputies stopped beside the cell. “Time to go.”

  One of them slid open the cell door with a loud clang that shot through Rhys.

  “Hands out in front,” the officer said.

  Rhys placed his hands in front. The deputy put handcuffs on him, and with the clink of them snapping shut, all feeling drained from his body, leaving him a hollow shell.

  On the short drive in the sheriff’s van to the county building, Rhys only felt numb. He was tired of fighting for a good life for Owen and Dylan, and now he had a backup plan to give them one if he couldn’t.

  “All right, out,” one of the deputies said after opening the back door. The two deputies walked him into the building.

  As they passed through the courtroom doorway, Rhys spotted Renee and Neal talking with his lawyer, Pastor Connor and the assistant district attorney. A rush of anger and embarrassment flushed out the numbness, putting his every nerve on end. He dropped his head and walked to his seat without making eye contact with anyone.

  “Rhys.” Greg Conrad, the attorney Pastor Connor had contacted for him, sat next to Rhys.

  “Go ahead. Give me your worst,” Rhys said.

  “It’s good,” he said. “It looks like the district attorney won’t press charges.” He explained the new information from Neal and Renee.

  Rhys’s heart swelled to bursting. Renee and Neal had come to help him. They believed in him. No one had ever believed in him before, except Gwen, and after he was convicted of the bank robbery, that belief had rightly waned. As time passed, he’d realized Gwen visited him only for Owen and Dylan’s sake, Owen’s mostly, since Dylan had hardly remembered him.