by Dale Mayer
“There’s only instant coffee.” She glanced at the teakettle, then back at his face and broke out laughing. “You do know what that is?”
“I know what it is,” he snapped. “But it’s right up there with green beans as far as I’m concerned. They’re both poisons. Coffee should be brewed slow and hot and very, very strong.”
“You’ll deal with this or do without.” In saying that, she took out an extra cup, poured in some crystals, poured water over them, stirred it and walked across the room and placed it in front of him. “If you brought coffee, then you could make real coffee, but, in the meantime, that’s all I have to offer.”
Within minutes, Warrick came back inside, several bags in one hand, and what looked like food and a couple thermoses in the other.
Corey took the instant coffee to the sink and dumped it.
“Hey, I could have had that,” Warrick said.
Corey brought the cup back, reached for the thermoses and proceeded to pour Angela a cup. Then he rummaged in the cupboard for a second cup. All the while, he never said a word.
She realized how completely inhospitable she’d been. She was frustrated, angry and pissed off that somehow walking away from Corey the other day had brought him back into her world. Yet at the same time it was damn good to see him. She sat down at the table as Warrick handed her a sandwich.
“Eat. It’ll help put the grizzly bear back inside.”
She didn’t say a word but chowed down. But all food tasted like sawdust now. When she was finished, she sat for a long moment. “I’m sorry. I should be more thankful. I know you came with the best of intentions.”
“You have us for a few days, so deal with it,” Corey said.
She looked at him. “What do you think you can do in a couple days?”
“No idea. Maybe you should start talking to us, telling us exactly what the problem is.”
Bitterly she said, “Do you want the whole sordid story?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then inclined his head. “Yes, we do. We need all the details. But the bottom line is, is somebody trying to kill you?”
She took a deep breath and shrugged. “Maybe.”
Corey and Warrick exchanged hard glances and turned to look at her. “Start at the beginning.”
“I don’t really know where it all started.” She launched into a short description of her marriage, her son, her walking away and thinking Greg was okay with her leaving because he had this other woman and son, to finding out he had planned to never let her see her son again.
“The last time I saw Joshua was in the mall.” She took a moment to catch her breath, realizing tears were already pouring down her cheeks. “After that incident, things got bad. The threatening notes came almost every day. Greg would text and email. And the last one read I know where you live. Say your last goodbyes.”
“Well, that’s definitely a death threat.”
Warrick stepped in. “Did you tell the detectives about any of this?”
“I did. But I don’t know if anybody really gave a shit. I think they had labeled me as a neurotic mother. And quite possibly not a fit one, as Greg was implying.” She stared off in the distance. “I’d have given up my life so Joshua could have a good one, but not having his mother can’t be the best for him.”
“Every little boy should have a mother,” Corey said gently. “And I know you would be a good mother.”
She gave him a lopsided smile. “You always were a good cheerleader.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe. I’ve grown up a lot since then too.”
She nodded. “I almost didn’t recognize you at the coffee shop.”
“Well, you don’t look a day different,” he said. “A little more stressed. But then this is a pretty rough time for you.”
Warrick’s gaze went from one to the other.
She dropped her gaze, waiting to see if Corey would explain, but he didn’t. She figured he would tell Warrick later in private.
She said, “So I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Somebody apparently is after me. I place the blame for that firmly on Greg’s shoulders. He’s doing everything he can to make it appear I’m an unfit mother so he gets to keep Joshua.”
“Do you have the name or any other contact information of this other woman?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t. Oh …” She reached up and touched her temple. “There could be another reason he might be trying to kill me.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just too rattled and tired. I should have mentioned it first.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I dropped Joshua off two weeks ago, the one and only time I actually took him to his father’s place, where we used to live, his dad was really angry. Greg said he’d be with us in a few minutes and went outside. He was basically yelling on the phone. On a table in his home office were a ton of photos. But they were pretty ugly. They looked like photos of people in various compromising positions. There were also a couple spreadsheets. I didn’t know what the hell it was all about. I quickly took pictures, and, no, I don’t know why I did that.” She looked up at the two men staring at her intently. “I didn’t think of them again until just over a week ago after I saw Joshua at the mall. Greg was surrounded by all these bodyguards, and no one would let me talk to Joshua. I was so upset that I seriously started to look at what I could do to get my son back.”
“And what do you think all those photos were?” Warrick asked.
She looked at him. “At a guess, I’d say blackmail. You have to understand that I thought my husband was a beautiful man. But really the facade was beautiful. Inside, he’s as rotten as any man I’ve ever met. He was probably blackmailing other people. The spreadsheets appeared to be payouts, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t understand most of that stuff. And I didn’t have time to look.”
“Where are those photos?” Corey asked urgently. “Do you still have them?”
She nodded. “I downloaded them and emailed them to myself.”
“Can you access them from here?”
She studied them both for a long moment. “If we have internet, I can. Otherwise …” She pulled out her phone and tossed it over to Corey, “The originals are still on there.”
*
Corey picked up her phone, quickly flipped through to the photos and brought them up. “It’s really hard to see them on here.”
She nodded. “They were hard to see anyway. But on the laptop we can at least blow them up.”
He lifted his gaze from her phone. “The only thing I have to question here is why you would take pictures of all of this.”
She winced. “Because I already had an inkling he might make life very difficult for me. It’s not that I wanted any money out of the divorce, but I did want my son. I was open to sharing visitation in many ways. But I wanted sole custody. I wanted to make sure my son was looked after.”
“But, as he is potentially blackmailing others, you were picking this up to blackmail him,” Warrick said.
She sat back and stared at him. “I hadn’t thought of that. I just wanted to protect myself,” she said. “To make sure Joshua would be okay.”
“Had he ever hurt your son? Is there any hint he would be anything other than a good father?” Warrick asked.
She shook her head. “Outside of being a disinterested yet controlling father, no. But he was already starting to make threats about how I would end up with nothing, including Joshua. And that Greg had all this evidence, saying, if I ever crossed the line, he would make sure I didn’t get custody.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why I took those pictures. But the photos were all wrong themselves. Greg was up to something. And I just didn’t know where it was going. It was instinct that had me taking photos of it all.” She shrugged. “And maybe I’m a shitty person, but everything inside me said to make a copy.”
Both men nodded. Corey handed the cell phone to Warrick. “Can you see anything there
?”
He glanced at her. “How is the internet here?”
“I just arrived last night, so I have no idea. I brought my laptop in, but I haven’t hooked it up.”
“Why don’t you bring it out then?”
“Are the pictures important?”
“Potentially. And, if the wrong person knows you made copies of those things, then you might be a whole lot easier to get rid of than to worry about what you might know.”
Corey watched the color drain from her face. He had seen divorce battles get really ugly, and custody battles were worse. It was interesting she’d actually chosen to take pictures of everything. It would have been his instinct too, if he had seen the photographs were incriminating. Because, if her husband was up to something really ugly, then that gave her leverage over anything he might try to do to her. It was something all his friends would’ve done.
He just hadn’t expected her to do it.
And he could see she was racked with guilt over it. He watched as she stood and walked into a small room.
“Interesting cabin.” Warrick looked up from the phone. “This is a perfect getaway for the summers.”
“I could actually live here all year round,” Corey said. “It’s a great step out of society.”
“And it’s her aunt’s?”
“Apparently. Bridget said it was. We haven’t asked her specifically.”
Just then Angela came back into the room, carrying a laptop. She opened the lid and hit the Power button.
“Your aunt doesn’t live here anymore?” Corey asked.
“She never lived here. It was her summer cabin. I don’t think they ever came up any later than October.” She took a seat and picked up her coffee. “When I needed to get out of town, I didn’t have any other place to go.”
“It’s a good thing you did leave town, considering the state your apartment’s in.”
“How bad is it?”
The two men exchanged a glance, then looked back at her. “Pretty bad. It will take hours to put everything away again, or it might be easier to get a Dumpster.”
She sighed. “And that’s not something I have money for.”
“When did you start doing website work?” Corey asked.
“I’ve always been into graphic design. I worked for a large company before I got married. Greg didn’t like me working. So I slowly wound down my work to spend more time with him, thinking that, you know, it might be what I was supposed to do in my new future. I was going to be a housewife. And, when I found myself suddenly separated and cut off from Greg’s accounts, I had to come up with a way to pay the bills.”
“Do you not have any money?”
“No. We had joint bank accounts. Next thing I knew, they were emptied. And what little money I had saved went to the first two lawyers to fight for Joshua. The trouble was, that got very expensive very fast.”
“Have you had any meetings over the custody yet?”
“Greg’s speaking to somebody next week. He wants to force me to have a mental evaluation to confirm that I’m an unfit mother,” she said bitterly. “I’ve talked to many medical doctors myself. But nobody so far was willing to take my side.”
“Interesting tactic.”
“Why? If I’m an unfit mother, he gets to cut me out of Joshua’s life.”
“Your husband doesn’t like to share, I gather?”
She was busy clicking on the laptop. But at his words, she lifted her head, looked at him in surprise and said, “No, he doesn’t. Why?”
“Joshua.”
She nodded slowly and sat back. “It never occurred to me that he would be like this. I figured he’d be happy to let us go. Instead he went the opposite direction and is making sure I don’t get anything.”
“We often only really understand what’s inside a person when something like this happens. Divorce doesn’t bring out the best in any of us. But, if he’s become violent or is doing something illegal, that’s a different story. There’s no reason you can’t both have access to Joshua. And, if Greg’s pulling any kind of stunt over that, then that’s something the law should be able to sort out.”
“Only if you have money,” she exclaimed. “If I don’t have that, then I’m up against his lawyers, and there’s just no way to fight them.”
“Why do you think he wants Joshua? Is it really because he doesn’t want to share, or do you think he has some other reasons?”
“I think he wants his son solely so I can’t have him. I think he wants his girlfriend to be his new wife, and then he’ll have two sons. His second son was born around the same time as Joshua. Only I was the idiot who didn’t know.” She added this last bit with enough bitterness for both Corey and Warrick to stare at her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he ditched the other mother as well.”
“You have her name or contact information?”
“You asked me that already.” She shook her head. “I just know her name is Julia. Julia Webber. Her son’s name is Daniel.”
Corey brought out a pad of paper and quickly jotted down the information. “Have you heard of any problems between Greg and Julia?”
“I just found out about the other woman two weeks ago, when I left and then Greg kicked me out. So, no, but then Greg doesn’t talk to me.”
“What about your son? Did he mention anything about meeting them or what it was like being around Daniel and his mother?”
“He was thrilled to have a brother. He was thrilled they got to play,” she admitted. “But I don’t know how much is real and how much isn’t real. He’s only six. And of course he’s dazzled by all the good things that happen when he’s there.”
“Versus being with Mom who doesn’t have the money to take him out and buy him stuff?”
She nodded.
Warrick pointed toward the laptop. “Can you see if you have internet access here please?” He handed the phone back to Corey. “I’ll be setting up on that little coffee table over there.” He nodded behind them. Pushing his chair back, Warrick stood, grabbed one of the bags he’d carried in and brought out a laptop.
Corey knew what Warrick was doing, just not exactly how he would do it. But then that was why Corey had brought an IT guy. Between the two of them fussing on the laptops, Corey felt useless. He went out on the deck to take a closer look at the surroundings, the neighborhood and security—if there was any in the place. He applauded her parking around back.
When he’d first arrived, he’d had no idea if she was here. As he went around the cabin, he’d seen her car. But, by that time, he’d already caught sight of her down on the dock. Even then, he was still trying to fit this current woman, who seemed to have nothing but trouble in her life, with the woman who had left him all those years ago. Everything had been sweet and simple for her back then. Until the miscarriage.
He wondered if that had started the difficulties for her or if this was new.
He wandered around, checking out the hiding places anybody skulking around could use, what he could see across the lake and whether anybody there could see them.
It was very much country living. A lot of trees on a hillside, a nice gradual descent to the lake. But the cabin was hidden from most of the neighbors. Although there were open areas where he could see across the lake to the other properties, those were a long way away. A high-powered rifle with a scope could definitely make things more visible.
Warrick called out, “Corey, come here for a sec.”
He wandered back inside to see Warrick sitting on the couch near the coffee table, laptop open, with a couple other gizmos on the side that Corey recognized as boosters. He sat down beside Warrick. “What did you find?”
“I downloaded the images off her phone.”
Corey sat down and watched as Warrick brought up the images one by one. “Wow. These could be damaging.” One was of two men in a sexual clench. Another was of a man and a woman in a similar clench. Another was of a man talking to somebody, handing a packet of something across. “I wond
er where the hell Greg got these photos.”
“He could have taken them himself. Or paid for them. I don’t know,” Angela said from the kitchen table. “He had a lot of strange people through the house. Less after I moved in and Joshua was born. When I asked him about it, he said it was out of consideration for us.” She raised her head. “But then I realized he just used the home office more. So people came in and out of his office but never entered the main house. He had glass doors leading outside, which were on the side of the house closest to the driveway.”
“So people could drive up, stop in to see him and leave, and you’d never know?” Warrick asked.
She nodded. “And it happened all the time, all hours of the day and night.”
The two men looked at each other, then Corey said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Did you share a bedroom?”
She lifted her gaze, locked onto his and in a shaky voice answered, “For the first few years, yes. He moved out about a year and a half before we split up.”
“And is that when the difficulty started?”
She shrugged. “No. He had logical reasons, all kinds of them.” She snorted. “Actually the end was well before that. Don’t forget Daniel is only a few weeks older than Joshua, so Greg obviously had an affair with this other woman at the same time he was married to me.” She leaned back and raised both hands, palms up. “And, if he’s got two, maybe he has three or four women. I don’t know.” She ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t care about that anymore. I just want my son back.”
Corey wasn’t sure what to think. But of course it happened. He nodded silently, brought out his notepad again and started taking notes. “Do you remember what day you took these?”
“It’s on my phone. All the images are dated. I don’t know if it’s got a time stamp or not, but it should have a date stamp.”
Warrick pulled up the images and pointed out the time and date stamps on the bottom. “Any idea how long they had been in his office?”
“No, because I had just arrived. I was dropping Joshua off, but my son was upset I was leaving, so I was still there when Greg got off the phone.”
“Why did you go to his office to drop Joshua off? Why not just at the front door?”
