by Kylie Parker
“Yes’m,” Franz chimed in, “lemme give ya my address real quick.”
I didn’t listen as Franz rattled off his address. All I could do was think back to the moment I saw my suitcases outside Derek’s door. I thought his body seemed tense while he stared out the windows, and what I thought was shame with a bit of frustration could have actually been him lost in thought. I mean, I’d never seen him get lost in his thoughts, so maybe that’s what that looked like for him.
Maybe?
“Madeline?”
Eleanor’s voice ripped me from my thoughts before I took the phone Franz was holding out for me.
“I still need your verbal approval or denial.”
“I agree to the terms,” I choked out.
“I’ll let Mr. Blake know.”
“Thanks, Eleanor,” I breathed.
“And Madeline?”
“Yes?”
“Take care of yourself.”
And with that, Eleanor ended the call and it was just Franz and me again.
“Well,” Franz groaned as he stood up from the bed, “I don’t know ‘bout you, but it’s time to go grocery shopping.”
“Alright,” I sighed, “let me know when you’re ready and we’ll head out.”
“Well, I’m ready, so let’s head out,” he smiled.
“You’re going out in your robe?” I giggled.
“Girl, you on my side of town. They don’t care what you look like ‘round here. They only care ‘bout how you treat others.”
“Plus, I don’t wanna get my work clothes dirty. Gonna need them for the early shift in the mornin’. Gotta be in by four!”
“Well, then we better get a move on so you can eat and get some rest,” I said before I stuffed everything back into my purse.
“I’ll buy the groceries, you get whatever else you want, and I’ll help ya cook.”
“I thought my rent was cooking the meals?” I asked.
“Well, I like to help sometimes; that bother you?”
And I couldn’t help but smile at the kind man standing in the middle of my temporary room who was draped in his red-and-white striped robe and his house slippers.
“Not one bit,” I smiled.
“Good, ‘cause ya don’t have a choice.”
And I laughed for the second time in almost a month as we slowly made our way out the door and onto the street.
21
It’s been two weeks since Gracie’s been back in town, and not much has changed: Madeline is only at the house twice a week and I relish those moments. I’m usually gone to work before she gets in, and staying late after she heads home, but when I finally enter my home, I can smell her. Her apple-blossom shampoo and her fruity-scented body spray permeates the house, and sometimes I sit down in a spot on the couch that she has been sitting in that day and her smell will waft up my nostrils.
I found that I missed her, and it was hard hiding that from Gracie.
I was sitting at lunch and sipping on my water. I had dodged a lunch date with Gracie and Clara in order to meet two very different people. The first was my lawyer, who was helping me finalize a custody plan into which I intended to throw a great deal of money, and the second was the P.I. who had originally informed me that Gracie was back in town. He was doing good work, and I needed him to help me figure out what Gracie’s aim was.
I needed to know why she was all-of-a-sudden back in town and so willing to play family.
My usual was put down in front of me but I found myself turning my nose up at it: a medium-rare steak with garlic broccoli and whipped potatoes. There wasn’t a better steak in this town than the ones at this little hole-in-the-wall place. Plus, I knew that if I was going to stay out of Gracie’s prying eyes, I had to choose places I knew she wasn’t too familiar with. She knew all my usual upscale hangouts because, well, I used to take her to all of them.
This, of course, meant I now had to avoid them.
“Mr. Blake.”
Rosa, the long-legged snake with the beady eyes of a shark, sat down in front of me before she held up her hand, and before I could bat my eyes good a glass of crimson wine was set before her.
“So, let’s cut to the chase,” she began, “I have an agreement drawn up that says you get full custody of your surprise daughter under the argument that abandoning her on your doorstep is the first step in proving she is an unfit mother. The issue here is that setting a child on your doorstep, especially after she returns, doesn’t make her an unfit mother in the eyes of the court, no matter how much money you throw at it. I will need to fill in a few holes on my end, but if your P.I. can get me concrete proof that she truly is an unfit parent, the courts will have no problems giving you custody of Clara. You’ve done well, staying out of the public eye for the past few years, so your indiscretions in your twenties should be overlooked.”
I was a wild man in my twenties: dating, hook ups, sex parties, staying out late and missing important meetings in the morning. That’s what you do as a twenty-six year old who had the kind of money I did back then: I made more money than I knew how to spend, and that included buying my own island.
Yes, I own my own private island off the coast of the Scottish Hebrides.
“Is there anything else?” I murmured.
She took a sip of her wine and kept her eyes connected with mine. She was studying me as she always did, with great intention and deliberate notice. She was the most ruthless lawyer in the New York City arena, and I kept her on speed dial in case anything went south with any of the businesses I flipped. There wasn’t a contract issue she couldn’t talk her way around, no matter the wording in the official document.
“I want this iron-clad. Gracie’s manipulating me somehow, and she’s using her own daughter to do it. That girl is-”
I clenched my jaw and picked up my water. Taking a big gulp helped to ease the knot in my throat, but I knew she’d seen the flicker of vulnerability in my eyes. That’s the thing about working with a shark: they prey on anything, whether they are in control or backed into a corner.
A drop of blood all tastes the same, no matter the situation or consequence.
“I don’t play when it comes to children,” she murmured lowly.
It prompted me to turn my gaze towards her. The tone of her voice and the way her eyes iced over… it was as if I had hit a nerve I didn’t understand I was toeing around.
“I’ll pay whatever necessary,” I bit out bluntly.
“I know you will,” she shot back.
“I’ll let you know when my P.I. contacts me.”
“No need.”
Both of us panned our gazes up as Chris Waterback came into view. He used to be the head detective in the Special Victims Unit of the New York police force, but when he retired, he lost his wife to cancer and started up his own private investigation firm. He was the news headline for weeks, talking about how he couldn’t cope with his wife’s death and how he couldn’t handle his retirement alone.
They ripped him to shreds until he started to consult with the exact same police department, making double what he had been making, doing exactly the same job. The man was a genius, and I admired someone who could raise their head high after being mutilated like that and spit in their face while taking their money.
He reminded me vaguely of myself.
He pulled a chair over and turned it around before straddling the entire seat. Then he slapped a manila envelope onto the counter as Rosa and I both looked at it blankly.
“I can’t appreciate theatrics until I know why they’re occurring,” Rosa murmured.
I grabbed the envelope and opened it up. I slid out picture after picture of Gracie in front of a doctor’s office whose name I recognized immediately, and at first I was confused… until I flipped to the very last pictures and saw Gracie, without my daughter, kissing some man in a white coat outside of the building.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays when your nanny is at the house, she goes here,” he pointed, “Every Tuesday
and Thursday like clockwork.”
“That’s the doctor’s office she told me she had her health appointments transferred to,” I said.
“I just snapped these pictures because I figured I’d come back and tell ya she was cheating or something. She goes there, meets him outside, ‘macks for a while, then goes in. I assumed she was just… doin’ the doctor that was caring for her.”
“But…?” Rosa asked.
If you could pique Rosa’s interest, then you knew you had a story on your hands.
“She told you she had cancer, so I wanted to just double-check and make sure. I did some digging, made some phone calls, and made a trip to the hospital where she gave birth. I even schmoozed a nurse who let me have a peek at her files.”
“You dog, you,” Rose smirked.
“Not that kinda schmooze, hun.”
“What did you find?” I interrupted.
“I found the official record of Clara’s birth; and she did have her uterus removed. There was a tumor that was growin’ alongside Clara the entire time. Issue is, Gracie told you the hCG levels of her pregnancy were keepin’ the tumor at bay. Not true: the hCG levels in her body were prompting it to grow. When she had Clara, they removed her uterus at her request. The tumor was benign.”
I white-knuckled the pictures in front of me as my vision began to fade to black. That bitch strolled up into my home, held my daughter in her arms, and told me she had been dying of cancer. For the love of fuck, she ripped off a wig.
What was she doing? Shaving her head?
“No treatment for it, no nothin’,” Chris said.
“I’ve been giving her checks for her treatment because she doesn’t have health insurance and I can’t legally cover her unless we’re married. Where the hell is that money going? I check my bank accounts regularly, and they are being cashed at that doctor’s office!”
“This is where you get two for the price of one, Rosa,” Chris said as he turned his head towards the woman. “You get to give this man his daughter and put away a doctor for embezzlement.”
“He’s cashing the checks for appointments and treatments not happenin’, and then taking that cashed money for himself.” Rosa smirked at this.
She always loves a good story.
“Is that embezzlement if the treatments aren’t even taking place?”
“It is when you have me in court,” Rosa said as she fingered the pictures lightly.
“How long has she been seeing this doctor?” she asked.
“That man is Dr. Timothy Raul, and I did some serious diggin’ into him.”
And that was when he turned his head slowly towards me and asked me a very pointed question.
“How long were you and Gracie together before she got pregnant?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just… how long?”
My heart rate was skyrocketing and I couldn’t see straight.
“Uh… a little over a year. Why?”
I felt myself beginning to sweat. My curiosity had turned to anger; my anger was morphing into panic. Madeline wasn’t at the house, which meant this disgusting human being was currently feeding my daughter from the bosom another man was probably suckling on twice a week.
The thought made me want to puke.
But nothing that was running through my head could’ve ever prepared me for the next document he slid out of the manila envelope.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Blake,” Chris murmured as he slid it over.
The only things that registered were the words “Certificate of Marriage.” At that point, everything else became a blur. Rosa ripped it from my hands and began rattling off her strategy for how she was going to tweak the custody agreement, and she was already drawing up plans to put Dr. Raul in prison for at least a decade. But all I could think about was the sham the past two years of my life had been. The free-spirited, loud-mouthed, kinky woman I’d fallen in love with had been fucking married.
And at any other point in my life, I wouldn’t have given a shit.
But that bitch had my daughter, and I was done looking through this damn envelope.
“Sum it up, Waterback,” I bit.
Chris slid the rest of the folder over to Rosa as she continued to remove handfuls of documents. Bank statements and credit card accounts, more pictures of them together and buried pictures of their marriage ceremony and honeymoon.
“We’ve got her,” Rosa whispered. “Derek, we’ve got her: her and him.”
“And she’s got my daughter,” I growled before I stood up and buttoned my coat.
“I’m coming with you,” Chris stood.
“And so am I,” Rosa added.
It was then that I turned my icy gaze slowly towards Chris and drew a deep breath through my nose.
“The summary, now, just so I know I’m drawing the right conclusions.”
“She was married when she met you, and my guess is she saw an opportunity for some money and took it. If that wasn’t her aim before, it sure as hell is now. Your cashed checks are spilling into a bank account linked to both of them. My guess is she would’ve played this charade as long as she could’ve.”
I felt the wind rush from my lungs even as I rolled my shoulders back. I could feel the blood pulsating through my ears even as my hands stayed calm at my sides. I shored up my body and turned towards the door, and when I began to move, they followed right behind me. Chris got on the phone with someone and Rosa called her office to start making changes to the document. She said something about needing a hard copy by the end of the day and Chris rattled off something about arresting officers at some address or whatever.
But I wasn’t paying attention.
I wouldn’t be all right until Clara was in my arms and Gracie was in handcuffs.
22
The three of us stood in the elevator, going up, Chris and Rosa still on their phones. Chris was being sent photos of Dr. Raul being dragged out of his office in handcuffs, and Rosa was busy making some last-minute tweaks to the custody agreement before she sent it off to be printed and rushed over. My only fear was the fact that Gracie had caught on and was already running with Clara, but when Chris told me they had that doctor in custody I knew she wasn’t going to get far,,,
…Not without him.
The elevator parted its doors and spilled us out onto the penthouse floor of my home. My legs strode heavily along the floor before my hand darted to the doorknob, and my heart plummeted to my toes when I realized the door was unlocked.
I half-expected her to already be gone.
But, when I opened the door, I saw Clara swinging in her little swing asleep while Gracie shoved clothing haphazardly into a suitcase. I stood there for a second and took in the gleam of her bald head. This woman had gone so far with her ruse as to fake a fucking terminal illness in order to get my money. Did it not even occur to her that I’d give her money simply because she was the mother of my child?
Did it not occur to her that I could actually be a decent person?
It occurred to Madeline that I could be. I was decent around her. She brought out a side in me that I didn’t even realize I had. She took my shit without taking my bullshit, and she was exciting without being a mystery. She was easy to read, easy to decipher, and I almost always knew what she was thinking.
Things were better when she was around…
“Going somewhere?”
My voice pierced the silence and I watched her whip her head towards me. Her wild eyes were already laced with fear before her eyes darted to the two figures that emerged at my sides. Then all Chris did was hold up to her a picture: one showing her practically stripping in public for the doctor who was now being arrested.
“Do you know this man?” he asked gravely.
But all she did was flick her gaze towards me.
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh, I know. That’s why I had to hire a P.I. in order to figure out what the fuck it was,” I breathed.
Then, Chris took out his phone, swiped at it a few times, and turned it around so that she could see a picture of her husband being carried away by the police.
“Do you recognize him now?”
Gracie strode around the couch and walked up to the phone as tears crested her eyes. She ripped the phone from Chris and enlarged the screen, and before she could say anything I heard the elevator doors open down the hallway.
“That would be my cue,” Rosa said as she stepped forward.
“Here’s what we can offer you,” she began as she held her hand out over her shoulder. Someone was huffing behind us and papers were being rattled, and when her hand appeared back in front of her she had a stack of papers in her hand that she simply held out towards Gracie.
“We can offer you supervised visitation every other weekend, as well as full access to her health and medical records. You’ll be legally included on her HIPPA statements as well as have the ability to participate in whatever parent functions her schools-to-be might throw. In exchange, you forfeit your parental rights, the ability to make any medical or educational decisions on her behalf, and the right to challenge this custodial agreement in the future unless it can be proven that Mr. Blake has become an unfit parent.”
“And I promise,” Rosa said as she dropped her voice, “that no court will find him as unfit a parent as you are, Mrs. Raul.”
Gracie looked like a deer in headlights. Tears were pouring down her red-stained cheeks. Clara continued to sleep soundly in the whirring swing. Suddenly, the suitcase Gracie had been jamming full of clothes popped open and cascaded wildly-colored lingerie all over my living room floor.
That’s when I lost it.
I charged her and grabbed her by her upper arms before I picked her up and walked her over to a wall. I felt Chris’ hand come down on my forearm as I pinned her to the wall, and it didn’t matter that I was hurting her. I didn’t care that she was scared, and I didn’t care that my anger was flooding out of control.
All I wanted were two questions answered.
“In the beginning, were you after my money?” I growled. I held her trembling body in the palms of my hands while my eyes burrowed into hers, and her chest was panting for breath before Chris’ hand squeezed harder.
