29. Cecile

CECILE

“What do you mean I don’t own my house? I’ve owned my house for more than twenty years.” Has the world gone mad? When am I going to wake up from this nightmare? My son was gone, my grandson had been taken from me, and now this.

All of the money in my investment folder was gone, poof, just nowhere to be seen. I’m in the middle of dealing with that, but since this new lawyer who was recommended to me by someone else needs a hefty retainer, I can’t just sit on my laurels while the state runs off with my grandson.

“Check your records again.”

“Ma’am, is this your signature?”

“Yes, but I never signed anything to sell my home.”

“Have you signed anything lately? Fallen for any scams?”

“Of course not. Do I look like a fool to you? I never sign anything without reading it first.”

“Well, ma’am, according to this, you sold your home about a month ago.”

“That’s not right. Why would I sell my home?” She looked at me as if I were the one losing my mind.

“Give me back my house.” I slammed my hand down on the desk.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, or I’ll have to call security.”

“You can’t steal my home; I know what you people do. Thieves!” I could feel myself losing control but couldn’t rein myself in.

The next thing I knew, I was being dragged from the building, kicking and screaming and feeling strangely disassociated from reality. What is happening? Why does it feel as if someone is out to get me? What did I do to deserve this?

My head was spinning in circles, and I had nowhere to turn. I thought of calling my in-laws, but that would be the worst thing I could do right now. If they learn about the house being sold, they’d never believe me.

Who was it? Was it my husband? Did he do this to set me up? Oh, wait, wait. I have life insurance on Dan; I can use that to pay the lawyer as soon as the check clears. I hadn’t been through all the papers I got from his home but hadn’t been through them as yet.

I’ll do all that later; right now, I have to get in touch with the insurance company and get the ball rolling. I don’t care what it takes or how much it costs. I’m going to get my grandson back.

* * *

That was three weeks ago.Since then, a lot has happened, and I’m still left here scratching my head. I got the quarter of a million dollars in insurance I had on Dan, which was no problem, but that was just a fraction of what I needed for the lawyers to fight the courts for me.

I hadn’t told anyone about the house yet, and no one had been by to take possession, so I think there must’ve been some kind of mix-up somewhere, which was a good thing because it’s the only thing I’ve got going for me.

The day I showed up to court for the preliminary hearing, I thought I stood a very good chance because I’m the one who has been in the child’s life since birth. The state had no rights to my kin.

But I didn’t know that there was something else waiting for me there. Not only was Diedre’s bitch of a sister there, but they were now claiming that my grandson was of no relation to me and, therefore, I wasn’t even in the running for custody.

None of it made any sense. They were saying that Dan wasn’t the baby’s father. That Diedre had lied the whole time and that she had to have known the baby wasn’t his because she was already two months along when she met my son.

We were told the baby was premature by Diedre. I sat there and listened as my world was tipped upside down, disbelieving that this was really happening to me. There was no one there for me, and all the lawyer would say was that there was nothing more we could do.

I’d spent all of my money on him, and now he was telling me that it was all in vain. I had no rights, none. Just like that, a child I had known and raised for so many years was just being taken from me. The last connection I had to my son was being ripped away from me, and they were telling me I had no rights.

As if that’s not bad enough, everything my son had left in this world had gone to his ex-wife. It makes no sense; they were divorced for so long, and yet, because he never changed anything, it was all going to her. His other life insurance policy that I knew nothing about, whatever was in his investment file, even the new house he’d bought after the divorce.

He’d made her her power of attorney when I’d thought all along that it was me. He’d even lied to me about his finances and was saving or investing his money while I was supporting him in the last couple of years, but what was worse was that video someone had sent of Dan ranting and raving about his I’d screwed up his life.

In the video, it was obvious that he had been drinking, but those words cut deep, especially since they were the last I would ever hear from my son. He blamed me and not Amanda for everything that went wrong in his life.

He thinks without my interference, they would’ve been able to work things out. It was hard to hear that right in the middle of the court battle; I was fighting for his son. But now he doesn’t have a son, and I don’t have a grandson.

I sat outside the courtroom because I couldn’t take another step. My phone rang, and I answered it in a daze. “You stupid bitch, what did you do now?”

“What’re you talking about?” The world must be ending for my husband to call me.

“There are people here with the sheriff’s deputies to take possession of the house. You sold the fucking house?”

“I didn’t, that’s a mistake.”

“A mistake? I have the papers right here in front of me.”

“It’s got to be a scam. The sheriff doesn’t move you out of your house when it’s been sold.”

“We were supposed to move out almost a month ago. Do you know what my parents are going to say when they hear about this?”

“No, you can’t tell them.” He hung up the phone, and I found the strength to get up and go.

He couldn’t tell his parents about this; I know them. This would be the end of the road for me. They might not have cared about their son’s happiness when they forced him to marry me, but they cared about their money and their legacy.

They were already blaming me for Dan’s murder because someone had told them everything, from the pregnancy to my part in running off his wife. I’d forgotten how much they’d liked her. They were some of the ones who claimed that she was good for my son and how much she had done for him when they were younger.

It’s true she’d gotten my son to do his homework and pay attention to his studies, but so what? I was his mother; I was the most important woman in his life, not her.

I rushed home to find a mess. There were marshals and moving trucks all in the driveway, and my husband was on his phone. How had it come to this? How had everything I’d done in my life come to this?

I was almost seventy years old, and I had nothing left. No family no real friends, and now the last thing I had to hold onto in my old age had been stolen from me. I felt tired and alone as I watched my husband leave as soon as I arrived. Two guesses where he was going.

* * *

DIEDRE

* * *

“Jessica, what are you doing here?”

“Hello Diedre, long time no see.”

“How did you find me?”

“I didn’t, actually. The McCalls found me.”

“Who?”

“Thunder and Amanda, you know them.”

“How do they know you?”

“That’s an interesting story. How do you think the courts here know all about your past in Arkansas?”

“What’re you saying?” Amanda was the one who ratted me out? I always suspected her husband had something to do with the weed that was found in my house, but when I brought it up to the public defender, he’d all but laughed in my face and told me that if I wanted to get Thunder McCall involved, I’d have to find myself another lawyer, one that he obviously knew I couldn’t afford.

“Anyway, since you’re my son’s birth mother, I thought I should at least come and put your mind at ease that he’d be taken care of while you’re in here.”

“What do I care about your son? Wait, what did you say? Birth mother? What do you mean?”

“I mean the child you knew as Junior. I’m changing his name, by the way, since we now know that Dan was not his father. I won’t be telling the real dad either since you’re both a waste of space, which he never needs to know. I’ll tell him that you died in an accident.”

“You crazy bitch, you can’t have my kid. I didn’t sign my rights away.”

“You didn’t have to. The courts decided for you when they saw the videos of you drugging and abusing him.”

“What are you talking about? How did you….?”

“How did I know? Your ex had videos of you doing that and a whole lot more.”

“Dan knew?”

“Yes, and now so does everyone else. Looks like when you slept with my husband, you did me a favor; that seems to be your forte because, from what I’ve learned, you did the same thing to Amanda, and now she’s with someone who’s much better than the ex you stole. You always were a winner.”

“So this is where those looks you were so proud of got you. Then again, free room and board for the rest of your life is more than some people have. I hope every day in here is the worst of your life you deserve it. Meanwhile, I’ll be raising my son to never remember you or even know that you exist.”

She got up to leave, and I grabbed for her, but the chains that held me tied to the table would only let me reach so far. I screamed threats at her back as she walked away without a backward glance.

I slumped back down on the chair, defeated. Nothing had gone right for me in longer than I care to admit. The drug charges, the murder charge, I know that my life was pretty much over, that I would never see the light of day again, but I refuse to accept it.

It couldn’t all end like this. I deserve so much more in life. There was so much I wanted to do. The stupid lawyer kept going on about how lucky we were that Arkansas had waived extradition because of the extent of the two cases I was facing here.

When it wasn’t that, he was telling me how lucky I was that the state no longer had the death penalty. All while I’m telling him to find ways to get me out of here. I knew I had nothing to do with the drugs, and I could’ve come up with a reason for the murder even with the videos, but now, if Dan had kept video records, it was all lost. And that bitch Amanda was to blame.

* * *

THUNDER

* * *

I’m a mean bastard,I know. I could’ve chosen any day to hit her where it hurts, but I went for the most effect. Why? Because of her part in what happened to Amanda, that woman is a nasty piece of work and though my wife has no idea what I’ve been up to behind the scenes, at least I know that I’ve exacted vengeance on her behalf.

What Cecile didn’t know was that losing her home was just the beginning. It was just by a stroke of luck that I was able to have the kid removed from her care so quickly. When I’d asked Kieran to go through Dan’s house, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I guess you can say we hit the motherlode.

Dan had kept recordings, which he downloaded to a hard drive, which showed Deidre medicating her son, among other things, which was all that was needed for an emergency injunction.

I’d already contacted Diedre’s sister and told her about her nephew and the fact that his mother was looking at spending the rest of her life behind bars. For the rest, I had to pull some strings and grease some palms here and there, but it was worth it.

As I’d long suspected, the kid was not Dan’s, but what was even more fulfilling was what had happened to Cecile in the interim. She’d made herself broke fighting for a kid that wasn’t hers and would never be. That was part of my plan.

I knew she would lose what family she had left when her in-laws learned about the sale of the house because they had a deal, something I was privy to, thanks to my investigation. I also used her journals to prove to them that they had wronged their son, which I found through her family, who had cut her off years ago.

Her sister was only too happy to share them with me. I’m not sure why they never used them against her before, but according to the sister, it was because of the kids. That was her parents’ decision, but now that they were gone, she had no reason to hold back. Plus, I paid her nicely for the journals.

With those journals, her house of cards came tumbling down. Now she was without a home, her husband had filed for divorce, and her daughters wanted nothing to do with her. She was done.

Last I saw, she was sleeping across the street from the place where she’d slapped Amanda. I happened to see her there on one of Amanda’s doctor visits and had my men run her off from there not long after. She had obviously gone insane in the weeks after and was now a resident of the state’s mental wards.

Diedre’s murder case wasn’t over yet, but she’d been given the maximum for the drugs with a chance for parole in twenty. I don’t expect her to ever get out. Her sister had taken the kid with a hefty sum I’d given her, which was from the sale of Cecile’s house, along with the insurance money Dan had left my wife, which she signed off on.

That, along with everything he and Cecile had in their portfolio had been put in a trust for the kid. It was enough for college, a home, and a lavish wedding, among other things and if handled correctly, which I mean to see that it is, it should help him through life.

Now that that chapter in our lives is over, I can look forward to the future with my family with no dark clouds hanging over us. I’d asked Amanda if she wanted to go to the funeral, but she claimed she was too busy with our children and furthermore had no desire to revisit that part of her past.

After the day I gave her the news she hadn’t cried once, nor has she brought it up, I asked if she wanted to talk to someone but she said our talk was all she needed and she had moved on a long time ago so there was nothing more that was needed to be done.

Our whole focus these days have been the babies who are growing faster than I can blink and keeping me on my toes. That daughter of mine seems to want to do everything sooner than she’s supposed to while her brothers mosey along at their own pace.

She can barely crawl across the damn floor but she’s already taken over my house. She’s got an attitude already at barely six months old, but every time I look into those eyes I lose my train of thought and forget what it was the little shit had done to raise my ire.

She always seem to know when her mother and I want alone time because that’s when she starts her shit. She sleeps like she works in the fucking mines. Like she needs to be up at the ass crack of dawn and no one else can get any peace for her.

Her mother claims that it’s my fault because I always give in to her demands but I don’t know what else she expects me to do when the kid is always dragging me into her shit.

She refuses to let anyone else come near me on her time, so now I have two jealous ass females vying for my time, while my sons try to steal my wife with their whining baby shit. And Amanda’s already making hints about wanting more. That’s easy for her to say, she wasn’t sick as a dog the last time. No way in hell I’m doing that shit again.