She’d grown up a victim. Many victims became abusers. It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t even profiling. It was just fact. Could Heidi use that against her? Would it be enough to lay doubt?
Was that what this was about? Hurting Jasmine?
“I’ll call my lawyer in the morning,” Greg said. “If the motion’s been filed, he’ll be able to see it. And tell us what to expect. What the next step will be. But, for now, we can ask Marianne.” He stood.
“Wait,” Jasmine told him. “Are you sure we should bring her into it? I mean, what if the motion gets thrown out? We don’t want to alert Child Services... It could lay doubts and then maybe they won’t let me supervise your visits.”
She wasn’t sure how that worked, really. The court would have to trust her not to side with her brother and leave him alone with Bella, right? Did they do that?
“Let me talk to Sara at the Stand,” she said, speaking aloud what she’d been thinking on and off all evening. If she’d had her head about her, she’d have asked Sara that afternoon before she left work. As it was, she’d been so determined to not give in to fear that she’d just picked up Bella as though it was any normal day and dared to go home. “She’s not a lawyer, but she works closely with attorneys in domestic violence cases, testifies in court. She’ll keep things confidential and at least give us a clue what to expect, what to do, even it’s just to say to talk to our own legal team.” If nothing else, Sara would help Jasmine get control of her fear enough to be able to help, not hinder, the situation.
“There’s a good possibility the motion will just be thrown out,” Josh said, taking a seat and meeting her gaze. The worry lines on his forehead gave her a physical ache. “She completed her batterer’s treatment program, but as you said before, the law generally doesn’t revisit custody for a proven abuser for five years. It’s only been two. Which means Heidi won’t get Bella, regardless. Bella would just go in the system. And the courts always try to find a suitable family member for placement first.”
Which would be Jasmine herself. Unless it wasn’t.
Logically she knew that Heidi was really reaching this time. That she couldn’t possibly win. “There’s no evidence at all,” she reminded herself. And him. “Other than the time you stopped her from shaking Bella, Bella’s never known violence of any kind. That baby has never even had a bruise on her little body that I know of...”
“Just the time she fell backward when she was first sitting on her own and hit her head.”
He’d called the doctor immediately, Jasmine remembered. And then called her. She’d driven to Santa Barbara, fearing concussion or worse, only to find barely a little bump on the back of the baby’s head. Heidi, who’d still been in the picture then, had been out shopping, and she’d come rushing home, too. And then teased Josh for being overreactive. Still, for the next two months, Josh had followed the baby around with pillows, putting them all around her any time she was sitting on the floor.
“Heidi’s hurting herself with this motion more than anything,” Jasmine said now, pulling herself out of the spiral of fear and back into reality. “She’s showing herself for the mean-spirited person she is, which can only help your situation.” Back on top. Being the helper rather than the helpee.
“And the fact that Detective Johnson called me about it right away... He’s the one investigating her claim against you, and he’s on our side, Josh. We’ve got this.”
Josh nodded, his expression easing. “You’re right,” he said, and then grinned. “She was so happy to see me she peed her pants,” he said. “God, I love that kid. It’s... She’s... Having her...it’s a feeling I never could have imagined,” he said. “I wake up in the morning and know she’s alive and healthy, and...it’s just...” He shook his head. “It’s the best, Jas. You need this, too. You deserve this kind of inner happiness and peace. It’s like a built-in joy that doesn’t go away.”
“I love her, too, Josh,” she told her brother. “She brings magic to my life every single day.”
They’d been through this multiple times, in various versions. Josh wanted her to fall in love and have babies of her own.
She’d tried to help him understand that she’d had her three strikes and she was out. By her own choice.
That one thing she’d learned about herself was that she truly was one of those people who was happier alone.
And yet, as she passed Bella’s room on her way to bed that night, she stood there a long time, thinking about what Josh had said.
She was alone by her own choice. Because she couldn’t make good choices. Just where relationships were concerned, she reminded herself, taking soft, quiet steps as she moved into the carpeted nursery and stood by Bella’s bed.
Only one of Bella’s chubby cheeks was exposed as the toddler lay curled in the fetal position, her favorite blanket and little crocheted ballerina doll cuddled up with her. Calming as she watched her little niece’s chest move up and down with reassuringly repetitive breaths, Jasmine reminded herself that she was a survivor.
Blowing a small kiss near Bella’s ear, she let herself out as stealthily as she’d gone in. Brushed her teeth. Got in her nightgown and slid under her own covers, reaching over to triple-check the baby monitor that would alert her if Bella made a sound.
She closed her eyes and found herself engulfed immediately in another kind of darkness. The kind that hit victims when they least expected it. The kind that you could push away during the day, when others were around, when you were engaged in other endeavors, but that awaited to attack you, from the inside out, when you let your guard down.
She wasn’t normal. Hadn’t grown up in a healthy, happy home. She’d pushed her brother so hard once he’d had to have stitches. She’d been mad that he was putting himself in danger and she’d pushed too hard.
No. Her rational mind told her. She knew her psyche was playing with her. Told it to stop. And still, as she drifted off to sleep, she was reminded that Heidi knew about her past. Heidi knew she was her father’s daughter. And that it was possible that somewhere deep inside Jasmine some of her father’s same vile temper could be lying dormant.
CHAPTER 7
Greg spent the weekend with his parents in Las Vegas. They’d just moved from Boston to Seattle, and all three of them were eager for some rest and relaxation, Johnson family style. None of them were good at just sitting around. They always had to be going and doing, and Vegas had long been a family favorite getaway, even before he’d been twenty-one. They’d done the shows. The food. The racetrack—as in driving race cars around a real track. And at night, he’d lie in luxury in his room in the suite they’d always reserved, watch movies and order whatever he wanted from room service while his folks spent a few hours in the casino. They never stayed out late—had always returned in time to wish him good-night...
More recently, Greg was the one who spent more time gambling. And he didn’t always make it back upstairs in time to tell them good-night. He didn’t share a suite with them anymore, either.
But the weekend away was good. Just what he’d needed, he told himself as he landed in LA Sunday night, retrieved his car from the garage and drove up to his home in Santa Barbara. He’d gone hours without thinking about Jasmine Taylor and was ready to carry on with the case from a more distanced standpoint.
Heidi Taylor had grown up a victim. She’d married a victim. Become an abuser. And was now a victim again. That theory was completely believable. He’d done enough work with the High-Risk Team, both as a prosecutor and an investigator, to be well versed on domestic violence profiles. The disease, what it could do to the psyches of all involved, was insidious.
But it didn’t have to be fatal. Or lifelong. Heidi had gone through treatment. She knew herself, the laws, the signs of relapse, the dangers. If she thought Jasmine Taylor was a danger to her daughter, Greg needed to talk to her about that. He had to know what she was saying to others.
What she believed. And why.
It was the only way to prepare William Brubaker, the prosecutor on whose case he was now working, for trial.
He had a couple of other cases on his desk as well. Interviews to do. A couple of visits to make. One a simple burglary count, and the other a murder case. He spent most of Sunday night studying every single page of notes again, looking for anything that would give him an edge to use when he went the next day to re-interview witnesses.
It was the kind of work he was good at. The kind of work he was comfortable doing.
And by lunchtime on Monday, he had two new witnesses willing to testify on other cases. He hadn’t forced them to do so, or coerced them, but a previous testimony from a young girl had jumped out at him the night before. That account had led him to a group of children who led him to a couple of women who were willing to talk to the prosecutor. Greg had just happened to find their vulnerabilities.
Usually when there was the will, there was a way, and one thing Greg had in abundance, when it came to seeing justice done, was the will to make it happen.
In a dark suit and tie, with a somewhat wrinkled white shirt, he was feeling pretty good about himself as he headed back to his office for an interview with Heidi Taylor. He’d called the woman earlier that morning, to set up the early-afternoon meet. And was eager to get to it.
If the day’s luck continued, he could get a mini climb in that afternoon and still be home with a beer in hand by sunset.
A couple of prosecutors at the office, fellow lawyer buddies, had tickets to a game in LA that night. They’d invited him to join them, and he was thinking about maybe doing that. Instead of the climb and the beer. Either way, the evening was going to be good.
Well deserved.
That afternoon, he waited while Heidi took a seat at the table in a conference room down the hall from his office and turned on the recording device before closing the door and seating himself across from her.
“First, I need you to know that while I’d like to ask you some questions regarding the custody motion you filed last week, you are under no obligation to answer me, and I have absolutely nothing to do with that case,” he said. “Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Can you answer out loud, please? For the recording?”
“Yes, I understand.” She didn’t smile. Or frown. Her look was earnest as her hands lay on the table in front of her.
“My interest in that filing has solely to do with anything that might come up with the court that could affect our case.”
“I understand,” she repeated, nodding again. Whether she’d curled her hair for this meeting, or it stayed naturally that way, he didn’t know. But the waves gave her a sense of vulnerability, in his opinion. Her hair had been in a ponytail the other times he’d met with her.
If she was trying to work him, as Jasmine Taylor would have him believe, the move could be deliberate. He made a mental note. And followed it with another—to keep Jasmine’s views out of this interview. And out of his perceptions, too.
He was there as an unbiased party, interested only in the truth.
“Have you ever seen Jasmine Taylor act in any way abusively toward your daughter?”
“No.”
She didn’t even hesitate.
“Never. No.”
“Has the child ever reported anything to you that makes you suspect Jasmine has mistreated her?”
“No.”
“Does she raise her voice to her? Or has Bella ever indicated that she’d done so? Or indicated impatience of any kind?”
“No.”
Confused, he took a second to reassess. A second that allowed Jasmine’s words a say in his head.
One whose need to lash out and hurt someone is more powerful than her maternal instincts. He shut it down. He had no proof of that assertion. And Jasmine was understandably prejudiced.
“I read your motions. You said you didn’t feel Bella was physically safe with her. You’re afraid Jasmine is going to physically abuse her.”
“That’s right.”
“On what basis?”
“Have you ever been abused, Detective? Or witnessed familial abuse?”
“No. But I’ve worked many cases involving domestic violence.”
“So you’re familiar with the patterns of abuse.”
“Yes.”
“She fits the pattern.”
To one way of thinking, anyone who’d ever been abused fit the pattern. Which was why profiling was mostly illegal and definitely frowned upon. You couldn’t judge a person solely but what had happened to them.
“Many, many, many victims of domestic violence move on to have happy, healthy, productive lives and relationships,” he said. No judge worth the robe was going to grant Heidi her motion based on amateur profiling alone.
Chances were, it wouldn’t even be heard. It would be tossed.
“Jasmine has...issues.”
Giving her a voice, as the prosecutor has now done by charging Josh, gives her a strength she’s never had before. The voice slipped in. He showed it out.
Heidi leaned forward, as though telling him a secret. He noted the maneuver. “Jasmine knows she’s got it in her to lash out,” she said. “She’s afraid of herself.”
“How do you know this?”
“She told me so.”
“When?”
“Several years ago, but something like that...it doesn’t just go away. You know what you’re capable of, and deep down, she knows she’s capable. She just hasn’t had an instance yet that drove her to breaking point. She’s a time bomb waiting to go off.”
Greg was listening. And at the same time knowing there was no way Heidi was going to be able to prove what she was saying in a court of law, which made it all moot. Especially to him, because the only thing he was there to find out was if she had anything to say that would hurt William’s case against Josh Taylor. Anything that might make his star witness—Heidi Taylor—seem less credible.
“I know exactly how she feels, Detective, because I was her. I knew I had it in me, too. And, like her, I thought I had it under control. Until I didn’t. I’ve since learned how to recognize early signs and take action so that nothing like that will ever happen again. She’s still living in denial.”
“And Josh? You think he was living in denial, too?” Why hadn’t any of this come into her testimony with William? It was actually quite compelling.
She shook her head. “Josh wasn’t like us. He didn’t have any doubts. He was certain he’d never, ever hurt anyone he loved. We three talked about it. When Josh and I first got together, all of us were tight. We talked about all that stuff. Because we found understanding between us. I thought I’d finally found my little piece of heaven when I met Josh and Jasmine Taylor. I thought God had finally found me. Blessed me.”
He thought she was going to tear up. Automatically braced himself not to go into Liv mode. Not to be an unsympathetic ass.
She reached for a tissue, held on to it. Looked at it for a moment, and then back across at him.
“Josh isn’t Oscar Taylor’s biological son. He couldn’t possibly have been born with his dad’s temperament.”
Greg didn’t like surprises this far into a case. They pissed him off almost as much as drama did.
But...he wasn’t that far into the case. Had, in fact, only received it six days ago. And the perp’s biological parentage really didn’t hold much bearing on his case.
“Jasmine is Oscar’s biological child, and it eats at her,” Heidi continued.
There’s no telling what she’ll do. Josh and I have been fighting her illness for years. Giving her a voice...
“She’s been in three committed relationships,” Heidi continued, passion in her tone, and yet, maintaining control, too. Upping his respect for her another notch.
“And she ended all three of them. She’d never say why, but I knew. She was afraid of herself. As soon as things started to get a little intense, you know, real life instead of new love, she’d bail.”
“To your knowledge, did she ever get violent in any of those relationships?”
“No. That’s the whole point. She got out because she was afraid she’d get to that point. I could see it in her every time. Because, remember, I’ve been there. So what happens when Bella is sick all night and whiny and Jasmine has to get up and go to work, but finds out that she has no water because a pipe burst? What happens when she’s stuck with a full-time toddler all alone and can’t bail?”
He understood the concern. And knew that no one could be convicted on what-ifs. Or even be considered unsafe because of it.
Even if there was truth in what Heidi was saying, he figured Jasmine had a handle on it. She was thirty-one years old. Most likely had learned to live with herself. But that aside, he didn’t believe, for one second, the woman would have taken in her niece if she had any fears that she had the capacity to hurt her.
“She hasn’t ever shown any aggression or anger toward Bella, but she’s hurt Josh before,” Heidi continued. He had to listen. Had to know the whole truth.
“When Josh was only eight, she pushed him into the coffee table, and it took twenty-four stitches to put him back together. That scar... It haunts me when I think of her alone with Bella. Trying to work full-time, run a house by herself. And now taking on single parenting for someone else’s child...”
The telling might have been more effective if he hadn’t already heard the story. In full context.
Still, for his purposes, Heidi seemed to have valid points. Convincing points. Not enough to convince the court to remove Bella Taylor from her aunt’s home, probably. Almost assuredly. But enough to maintain her credibility as a witness against her ex-husband.
With her having support of the system, we’re going to need professional help to stop her.
He was feeling pretty certain that there was nothing in the filing of this new and separate motion that was going to hurt William’s case against Josh Taylor.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 70
