Eric, Jody Kaye [well read books TXT] 📗
- Author: Jody Kaye
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Book online «Eric, Jody Kaye [well read books TXT] 📗». Author Jody Kaye
Without thinking, I spare the few seconds and sprint the few paces to Richardson’s Market’s automatic doors. His license is in the card flap. About to hand it to the nearest cashier, I spy the guy reaching into his back pocket. He thanks me and offers me a twenty as a reward, which I politely decline. I’m happy to pay it forward to someone when others are kind to me.
I dash out of the store as fast as I’d gone in, with a spring in my step, only to falter and trip over the curb.
The back door of the convertible is wide open and Corey is missing.
I scream and customers come running out.
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My clothes are soaked and my extremities chilled despite the warmth of the spring rain. Water splatters off of the grocery store roof’s overhang where the man from the next car over helped to move me to while the manager called the police. He suggests I’ll stop shaking if I go inside. But I refuse to leave the parking lot and scrunch up next to the outer wall and the ice cooler. Leaving got me into this mess.
The three squad cars surround the convertible, the blue flashing lights on the one closest to me wail out my mistake for everyone to hear. My child’s gone. The only evidence the police have found is Corey’s diaper bag on the floor in the back seat. According to a stoic officer who keeps glancing at me sideways, pulling prints in the rain proves problematic.
Eric’s momma is the first to arrive. She’d been right telling me Corey would be my heart living outside my body. My chest has an empty hole in it. Miss Rose shields me from the people entering the store who gawk at the sheriff’s deputies.
Their voices shame and disdain me. What should they have expected leaving a baby alone?...Tsk tsk, Teen parents...They got what they deserved...Not old enough to take care of themselves let alone a child...See Mary Sue, money does not solve your problems. Customers make every nasty comment under the sun.
Rose tips my chin. “The only other person whose opinion matters is the man giving his statement to the police.”
Right off the bat, he made it a point to mention I was a good person for doing what I had. The guy is sorry he’s the cause of the trouble, saying I don’t deserve the outcome.
Maybe I do. I left my baby alone. A baby I wasn’t supposed to have.
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29
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Against its own will, my leg furiously taps in the passenger seat. I have enough wherewithal to grab the oh shit handle as we take the final turn into the parking lot. The tires of Daddy’s Cavanaugh truck squeal and we jerk to a stop.
There are officers everywhere and I still don’t believe it. The cops have to be wrong. How could something like this happen? Who kidnapped our baby? It’s surreal.
I push through a crowd, shoving one of our town's finest when his stance on letting me through is as impassive as his expression.
“It’s my fucking kid!” My composure breaks.
He seems confused, maybe because of my age.
I run across the parking area. Spotting Ginny, my stomach bottoms out. Her arms are empty. My son is gone. She loves Corey too much to let anything happen to him.
I fall to the sidewalk and crawl toward Ginny. My pants are dingy from working in the field in the rain with my siblings. Sand grinds through a hole in the knee when I kneel. The puddles create big wet circles in the fabric.
Her mouth hangs open.
Speech leaves me.
I cry because she’s crying. Convulsing into wracked sobs, unable to stem the way any last hope is pouring out, hollowing my soul. What the detective told me over the phone about my son’s disappearance is true.
Momma pulls me closer to her and Gin. Her lap was always big enough for more than one. The way she holds both Gin and me gives me the impression of when we were small. Rough and tumble, it was rare when only one of us at a time got a skinned knee. She can’t put a bandage on this or kiss the hurt away, but she kisses our foreheads nonetheless.
Daddy stands to the side, speaking with the officer in charge.
“Mr. Cavanaugh, I’m Detective O’Banna. There isn’t much more we can do here. Forensics is running the prints. There were at least a dozen. It’s a waiting game now. We’ve got our best people out there looking for your grandson. If you don’t mind, I’ll follow you to Kingsbrier to talk to your son and daughter-in-law. We have more questions and there are things parents should be aware of.”
“What about a reward?” Ross asks. The cop affords my father some respect because of his standing in the community, but I can’t let my dad take the lead, functioning as the head of the family, while it’s my family falling apart. I’m Corey’s father and I refuse to crack any more under the pressure. This is as much my responsibility to bring my boy back.
I disengaged from my wallowing, loosening the death grip I have on Gin while refusing to let go of her touch.
“Will they ask for a ransom?” I don’t know where I’ll come up with cash. Air-tight or not, maybe I can borrow against my trust.
“Don’t focus on money right now, son. Our first priority is finding your son. I mentioned Kingsbrier, but you may want to consider taking your fiancée to the hospital,” Officer O’Banna suggests with discretion. “I think she may need to see a doctor.”
I tuck my nose into Gin’s damp hair, uncertain if moving her is the best option. Don’t ask me how, but what if Corey comes back? It takes a few minutes to clear the fog in my head.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” I tell her.
I scoop Ginny up with my free arm, holding her by the midsection. Her toes hardly touch the ground and I brace the weight of her body against mine. Her head lolls on my shoulder. The fight is gone from her, but I can fight for us both.
Bending at the waist, Momma stretches to retrieve Ginny’s purse as her phone rings. A deputy takes it, setting the cell on speakerphone. None of us are prepared to hear the voices on the other end of the line. Corey’s soft whimpers are audible in the background.
Gin claws my hand, her eyes widening. O’Banna hits mute before she gasps aloud.
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30
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The windshield wipers swish to-and-fro while I watch a young guy let my stepdaughter go by as if she’s a lady and not some two-bit Kingsbrier whore.
Diana says she’s gotten engaged. Stupid people shouldn’t breed, let alone inherit millions of dollars for spreading their legs. Damn her. Ginny lives in the lap of luxury while I’m on the edge of bankruptcy.
The fucking bank has been up my ass for months. I texted a real estate broker. The agent came out, took a quick look around the flea-bitten hole Diana’s dead husband left, and said it needs work to be in saleable condition. Even if I fix it, the price is far lower than I anticipated. I think the agent’s low balling us for a quick turnaround.
As a last-ditch effort, I’d driven to Corpus Christie to try my hand at the slots. They’d always been lucky for me before last year. The boss found out and I got canned for calling in sick.
Diana thinks my hours have changed and requested I get a gallon of milk on my way home from work. She left the cash on the table this morning with a note. I crumpled up the note and pocketed the bills. It’s enough for a scratcher. I’ve lost on every lottery ticket I’ve purchased recently. I’ll be smart this time, double-check the rolls to see how many the store has sold, take my chances on where the best windfalls are at. Maybe split the money in my pocket on a one-dollar and a two-dollar card, if the payouts add up to something big.
The first time I played the lotto, I won enough cash to get out of Bangor. Drowning my sorrows at the slots in Atlantic City gave me the funds to get to East Texas. It was in the eighties and Dallas was big on television. Seemed to be easy strike-it-rich money to make. No one told me those people were like the Kingsbriers and had invested in oil land long before the popularity of the show. Well, at least I’d taken the chance. It was like the dozens of times I pulled the handle on the machine before it came up all cherries and tossed out those coins. Sometimes the stakes don’t go your way. I’m feeling lucky today, thinking of all the stories you hear about the guy with only enough to his name for a quick-pick and being the sole beneficiary of millions by the end of the night.
What the hell is that girl dumb doing in the rain crouching beside the car and going back inside the store?
I should call the cops on her for child endangerment and make the damned Cavanaughs pay a hefty price in the court of public opinion. They have enough of cash to make anything go away. Not one person in this county, utters the name Kingsbrier without dollar signs flashing in their eyes. The Cavanaughs are loaded. People like them have lawyers to keep things quiet and deal with unsavory characters. Lawyers like the one in Houston I contacted after leaving the Cavanaugh’s mansion last spring. Hell, the man was likely on the Kingsbrier payroll.
The ass wearing an expensive suit and sitting in his high-rise Houston office sent me a bill for three-hundred dollars...And all the shithead did for an hour was bicker at me about the statutory rape laws in what I now consider the not-so-great-state of Texas. My stepdaughter wasn’t under seventeen when she made me the laughingstock of this town. Her slackass boyfriend was not over eighteen. The sheriff’s office couldn’t file charges against the Kingsbrier kid.
I’d hedged my bets, thinking this attorney would take the case based on those high-profile bastards, and I should have gone after the money-grubbing ambulance chaser instead.
I leave my car’s ignition running. Raindrops roll down the side window of the convertible Ginny drives. Still, it’s clear to anyone the kid is inside.
I open the back door and unlatch the seat belt from the carrier. Taking the whole contraption out, the handle wobbles, but the baby doesn’t wake. I set it on the seat, press two red buttons, and click it into place. No sense hurting my insurance policy. Those Kingsbriers like nice things and won’t pay top dollar for a defect. The carrier gets wedged in the backseat well before hightailing it out of the parking lot.
On the rural route home, I consider how much I can rake the Cavanaughs over the coals for. Two, maybe three hundred thousand dollars? How much is the Adair name worth?
Rumor has it those kids are getting millions, so why not up the ante? Make all five do-nothings pitch in part of the money they haven’t raised a finger to earn. It serves them right when hardworking folk like myself
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