by Reid, Angela
“Ellia, Willow Mendiola is a highly respected agent in the Bureau. I highly doubt she has involvement in this. What would make you think so?”
“She was jealous of me--of us. I had a weird feeling about her when she was here a few months ago, but I chalked it up to my own insecurities. Something bothered me about her though. Cade accused me of being jealous and paranoid so I never mentioned it again. I know the two of them still talk on the phone sometimes, but I didn’t interfere.” I grabbed his arm. “My gut says she’s behind this somehow, please don’t ignore me.”
He looked dubiously at my clinging hand, so I removed it. He sighed and gave me a look of condescension. “I’ll do whatever I can to help get your son back. I understand that you are distraught and looking at every angle, but I highly doubt Agent Mendiola has any involvement. To put your mind at ease, I will personally check into it for you.”
“Thank you. I trust you,” I said. He nodded and took out his phone, stepping away to take a call.
I called the hospital to check on my mother who was awake and feeling better though suffering the effects of a drug she’d somehow ingested. I explained what was happening and what my suspicions were about Cade’s ex-lover.
“I remember something, Ellia,” my mother said, excitedly. “I smelled cologne, or perfume. It was like a flowery smell, very sweet, but strong. I had just put the baby down, and I was feeling odd, dizzy. I remember thinking I was having another stroke, and I wondered if that smell was a symptom. I blacked out right after that.”
“Hold on, Mom.” I approached Agent Roberts again. He was reading through a file. “My mom remembered a smell from the abduction. Maybe it will have meaning to you.” I handed the phone to Agent Roberts and watched his face as my mother relayed the information. His eyes widened, and I knew there was recognition. It was Willow’s perfume. She always wore it, even when she was in the safe house. Roberts thanked her and handed the phone back to me.
“Don’t get excited, it doesn’t mean anything, but I will check into it.”
I said goodbye to my mother and sat on the couch, watching the agents work around me, following leads on Amber Alert sightings and other tips. Roberts approached me. “No one has been able to reach Agent Mendiola. I think you need to wake Cade. Maybe he will know how to locate her.”
I went to the bedroom and perched on the edge of the bed. I shook him gently. “Wake up, Cade.”
He bolted up at once. “What … what is it? Did they find him?” he asked, his blood shot eyes coming fully awake.
“Not yet, but we might have a lead,” He waited for me to tell him. “Willow’s prints were in the nursery. To my knowledge, she was never in that room. When she was here, Cayden had not even been born yet.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think she’s involved.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Cade, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Willow would never do something like this. Why would she?”
I ignored him and pressed on with the information. “My mom remembered smelling a sweet, flowery cologne. Who wears that scent? You should know better than anyone,” I said.
“Bullshit, Ellia, I know you don’t like Willow, and you are jealous as hell of her, but I will never believe she would take our baby. What would be fucking point?” he asked, his tone full of condescension and anger.
“Well, I guess I don’t care if you believe me or not. Agent Roberts does, and that’s what matters. As for the point? I’m sure your highly intellectual FBI brain can figure that out,” I said, stalking out of the room, beyond irritated at him for not even entertaining the possibility that our child was missing because of his ex-girlfriend. I heard him coming up the hallway behind me, but he merely stepped around me and joined the other agents. I didn’t follow him, just watched from a distance. He shared words with Roberts, and then got on his phone again, pacing. I knew he was trying to reach Willow, but apparently there was no answer. He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read. He shoved his cell in his pocket, and I turned away from him, making a fresh pot of coffee. I had not had any caffeine in months because of the pregnancy and then the breast feeding, but I was about to drop from exhaustion myself. I had only given birth four days prior and my body was nowhere near recovered. My stitches from the episiotomy ached as did my lower back. I downed two ibuprofen and chased them with hot coffee, not bothering with cream and sugar. It wasn’t about taste at that point, it was about energy. Cade joined me in the kitchen, and I handed him a cup of java.
“Thanks,” he said, taking it from me and sipping it. “I’m sorry I got shitty with you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, putting my hand on top of his. “I don’t want to fight with you, but we have to explore every angle. This is not about petty jealousy. I’m not trying to hurt you or make this harder for you.”
“I know, Ellia. I am sorry.” He looked in my eyes. “I recognize the scent you described. I had it developed for her from a company out west for Christmas that year we were together. She’s worn it every day since then. Have you had any sleep? You don’t look well.” I shook my head and cried again, my hormones keeping the emotional roller coaster running. He held me close and stroked my hair. “It’s your turn to rest. Forget the coffee and go lay down for a while, okay?”
“I won’t sleep, Cade. I can’t, not yet. This is the first lead that’s come, and I want to stay informed,” I said, clinging to him.
“I will wake you, just like you did me, if any new information arrives. Please, Ellia, you went through a very hard labor, and you’ve had little rest. I need you, so please take care of yourself.” He didn’t give me a chance to protest as he took my hand and led me down the hall. It was his turn to push me down on the bed. He sat on the edge of it after tucking me inside the covers. His hand stroked my face before he leaned in and kissed me. “I love you,” he whispered with his forehead touching mine.
I returned the words, and he left the room, shutting the door behind him. After laying there a long time, I realized sleep was impossible. Gruesome scenarios played in my mind, trying to drive me to madness. My cell phone vibrated in my purse, and I got up to retrieve it from the dresser. It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” Nothing but silence came at first, and then I heard Cayden crying, making milk spew into my nursing bra as tears fell from my eyes. “Who is this? Where is my son?”
“Your son is fine, Ellia,” said Willow. “I will take excellent care of him. This is a courtesy call.”
“What do you mean? Why did you steal him?” I begged, fighting hysteria.
“I loved Cade more than anything else in this world, and I wanted to marry him and raise his children. But he couldn’t get over you. He couldn’t commit his heart because of a lingering teenage dream of a girl he used to know. You don’t understand how hard it was for me to let him go, and I only did so because I figured once he finished the case, he would have the closure he needed. You ended up with a boyfriend, and I believed you’d both move on from each other. That’s not what happened at all, and seeing you pregnant with his child, infuriated me. You are all wrong for him. He is a good, strong man, and you are nothing but an unstable, psychoneurotic, selfish bitch. You and your family caused every heartbreak that Cade has ever had to endure.”
“So you want to create another one for him? What kind of love is that, Willow? Cade loves his son more than he loves anything in this world, even me. Taking his boy away from him would break him to the point of no return. What the hell is wrong with you? What does this gain you? You will never get him back like this.”
“I am not doing this to get him back, nor is this even about your inability to be a good mother. I took Cayden to protect him, Ellia. Camerson’s enemies know where you are, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill your son. Our operatives on the inside informed us of such though I am sure Cade didn’t tell you. He understands how mentally feeble you are. So, I am stepping in to assure that Cayden remains unharmed until after the tria
l. He will be safe with me until this gets resolved, or you are dead, or maybe both. Your bad blood can only taint his life and endanger him,” she said in an icy tone. “Stop being so egocentric and understand what I am doing is the right thing for your child. He is a piece of Cade, and I plan to do everything in my power to keep your filth from ruining his life.”
“I am his mother, and he needs to be with me. I would die protecting our son. You can’t use this case to justify stealing our baby. Give him back! He is not yours!” I screamed the words into the receiver. Cade burst through the door. “It’s Willow,” I said through my tears. “She has Cayden.” He snatched the phone from me with such force, I stumbled backward as his hand shot out to steady me.
“Where the fuck is my son, Willow?” I was only privy to his side of the conversation. “What the hell are you saying? Bullshit. She is not unstable. That doesn’t give you the right to take our child. That’s my job, not yours.” Cade walked out of the room, and I followed him. He motioned to his coworkers what was going on, and they plugged something into my phone so we could all hear what she was saying.
“Where are you Willow? Let me come and get Cayden.”
“No, he is fine here with me. I love you Cade, and I’m doing this for you because you mean everything to me.”
Cade looked exasperated. “If you care about me like you say, you wouldn’t do this.” He listened with his jaw clenched and twitchy.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. If you leave Ellia, we could be together. She is a terrible person, you must see it, and her father caused all of this danger to you and your son. The two of us could raise Cayden and keep him safe forever. Don’t you love me at all anymore?”
The tech guys were listening and recording. “Willow, I loved you, but that was years ago, and you walked away from the relationship. Everything is different now, and I won’t leave Ellia ever again. You’ve always known how I felt about her, so why are you dredging all of this up again. Please bring Cayden home. I am begging you ….”
“Bye for now, Cade. I will keep your son safe, I promise.”
“Don’t hang up on me. Let’s meet and work through this.”
“Are there agents listening to us right now?”
“You abducted our child. What did you expect?” I watched his hand fist into a ball as she disconnected. He threw the phone, and it smacked into the wall, a hard case the only thing protecting it from shattering.
“Fuck!” he yelled, pacing again. I went to him, but he turned away from me and addressed his colleagues. “What do we have?”
An agent at the bank of computers spoke. “We traced the cell to a central location, and it seems she is near the Mount Pleasant area right now. We will alert the local authorities.”
“Good,” said Cade. “Let them know I am in route. Let’s go Roberts.”
He headed for the door without so much as acknowledging me. I ran up behind him, “I want to go with you.” He turned to look at me as if he’d forgotten all about me.
His face softened, though, and he put his hands on my shoulders. “You need to stay here, and rest. You are in no condition to be running around the state. I can handle Willow, and I will be back with Cayden soon. She won’t get far.” He kissed me and told me he loved me before he flew out the door.
I turned to find a room of feds staring at me. A breakdown of mammoth proportions was about to occur, and they didn’t need to stand witness. I ran down the hallway and deposited myself back into Cayden’s nursery where I screamed into a stuffed animal until I lost my voice. I reached into the crib and picked up his baby blanket again, holding it to my face to breathe in his scent. Sitting in the rocking chair, cradling an empty blanket, I rocked the rest of the day away while silent tears fell like endless rain.
It was nightfall before the need to urinate and change my saturated maxi pad drove me from my vigil. I was tired but too afraid to sleep. I went to the kitchen where agents were eating pizza. One of them offered to make me a plate, but I refused. I didn’t want to eat. The depression was consuming me again, and it felt like a crushing weight that threatened to decimate me. I was all alone as my hands roamed my tummy where my baby no longer lived.
My phone was still on the floor, and I picked it up to check for missed calls or texts, but there was nothing. I dialed Cade’s number, but it went to voicemail. I hung up, not able to think of anything to say. That awful black numbness was swallowing me whole. I felt like a complete zombie, and I wondered if Willow was right. Maybe I was unstable and didn’t deserve to be a mother.
I went to the bathroom and took a shower. When the steam cleared, I looked at myself in the mirror. Dark circles rimmed the underside of my eyes, and I was stark white. I hated my reflection in that moment, knowing I’d caused all the discourse in Cade’s life either directly or indirectly by being related to my father. In rational thought, I understood it wasn’t my fault, Camerson’s men were gunning for Cantrell’s whether I was in the picture or not, but it was my father who started the whole war from the beginning. There was culpability in being the child of a monster.
I was bleeding hard again, and the cramping was fierce. Thinking it was normal, I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I fell asleep at some point, only to be woken by Lucas as I flailed and screamed from a nightmare.
“Ellia,” he said holding my arms. I sat up in the bed, feeling the beads of perspiration rolling off of me.
“Sorry, I guess I had a nightmare.”
“Don’t be sorry, this has been traumatic for you. Are you okay now?” he asked.
“Yes, I will be fine. Thank you. Have you heard from Cade?”
“He checked in an hour ago. There is nothing new to report. I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his hand on my arm.
“Didn’t he want to speak with me?” I asked, knowing how pathetic it sounded.
“You need to understand that sometimes in our jobs, we have to set our personal feelings aside to complete the task at hand. Cade is in that mode. He is trying hard to think like an FBI agent, not a father. Don’t take it personal. He did not ask to speak to you, but he inquired about you. We informed him you were sleeping. He’ll call you when he can, otherwise, we will relay the information to you as it comes to us. Try to go back to sleep. You don’t look well. If you need medical care, please let me know.”
“Thanks,” I replied, as he rose to leave again.
“If you need anything at all, ask. Work aside, Cade is my friend, and he asked me to watch over you. Now rest.” He shut off the light and closed my door, but I had no intention of going back to sleep. I turned on the night table lamp and pulled my blanket back. Blood soaked through the sheet. Wooziness crept over me as I stood up, but it passed once I acclimated to the change in position. I showered again and changed my clothes after stripping the sheets and tossing them in the hamper. The sun rose on the second day of Cayden’s disappearance as I opened my laptop and contacted the local news, requesting they come to my home. I wanted to make a public plea for Cayden since there was not much else I could do. A confirmation arrived in an hour, and I attempted to fix my hair. My oversized pad had saturated through again, and I still wasn’t sure if so much bleeding was normal, but I tossed the concern aside.
Two news crews were out in the front of my home within the hour. Lucas, was not pleased that I’d gone behind his back to arrange a conference before his office prepared a statement, but I didn’t care.
“This is an in-house problem, Ellia. There was no need for a press conference. We would’ve liked to handle the publicity ourselves.”
“I don’t care if you want to cover the ass of Agent Mendiola. She stole my son and people should know she’s a fugitive. Fuck the Bureau and your reputations.” I stormed outside to meet the reporters, but Lucas grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear.
“That’s not what I meant. Yes, we need her picture out there, but you should’ve given us notice to prepare, that’s all I am saying.”
“Too bad,” I r
eplied, yanking myself from his grasp. This was my child missing, and I wouldn’t sit on my hands any longer.
Lucas dialed someone on his phone as I stood in front of the microphones the media set up for me. “As many of you know, two days ago, a woman abducted my son from our home,” I said through angry tears, and I explained who took him. “If anyone has any information on this woman or my son’s whereabouts, please tell the police.” I held up his hospital picture and answered endless questions. Lucas introduced Director James, who had arrived during my statement, and I turned to step away, letting the FBI share their version of events. The vertigo hit me again, and I stumbled. Roberts tried to catch me but missed, and I fell onto the concrete smacking my head. I heard someone yell, “She’s bleeding,” just before I blacked out.
When I woke, I was in the hospital again. My mother was by my side. “What happened?” I asked, confused.
“Honey, there was a complication, something about part of the placenta still inside you, and you lost a lot of blood. They had to do a little surgical procedure to stop the bleeding, but you are fine. It happens sometimes. You should not have waited so long. They had to give you a transfusion since your hemoglobin was so low. You should be better soon,” she said, trying to fake a smile for my benefit. “You’ve got a nasty goose-egg on your head from the fall, but it wasn’t serious.”
I bolted up in the bed. “How long was I out? Did they find my baby? Where is Cade?” I asked in rapid fire succession.
“No--no news on the Cayden yet,” said my mother, who was restraining her own tears. “Cade is still out looking. I talked to him on the phone though. He was so worried when he saw you collapse on TV, but I assured him you are fine. He told me to tell you he loves you, and he will call you soon. You’ve been here at the hospital about ten hours now. You slept a long time due to exhaustion. The doctors said you can go home in the morning.” She stroked my hand. “I am so sorry, Ellia. How I wish your life wasn’t so difficult.”
