“Hi, Abby,” she said once I had her on the line.
“Travis and I wondered if we could drop by this evening.”
“Sure, but why?” I asked.
She lowered her voice. “My mother is right around the corner. We’re just finishing up with the funeral director after setting up Uncle Graham’s services. Is seven okay?”
“Fine, but—”
“Great.” She hung up.
That was strange. Did she want an update on the mother hunt? If she did, was I ready to tell her all I knew, even the latest? That apparently her birth mother had had an affair with her father and—
“Holy shit!” I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Now I get it.”
19
I took Diva’s face between my hands and put my nose an inch from hers. “James Beadford adopted his own daughter, cat!”
She was not impressed by my lightbulb moment. She struggled free and ran off, leaving me with a handful of calico hair.
I should have considered this possibility sooner. Why else would James Beadford have brought the child of the woman who’d nearly ruined him into his home?
I had to tell Megan, but was tonight the right time to load her up with a heavy dose of family and company history, none of it too pretty? No, I wanted the DNA report in hand and Kate sitting beside us when that conversation took place. Kate’s the expert on dealing with emotions.
I unzipped the cookie bag—I definitely needed a chocolate fix—and ate while I dumped the contents of my purse onto the kitchen table to look for Jug’s card. Three cookies later I had him on the line and he sounded as cheerful as when we’d last seen each other.
“Sorry I don’t call sooner, miss. But Martha, she be having so much trouble.”
“Oh no. Her pregnancy?” I asked.
“Yes, but everything irie now.”
“Irie?”
“Means everything fine. We got us a new daughter yesterday. We call her Rose.”
A tiny lump formed in my throat. “Thank you, Jug.”
“Me the one be thanking you. Where you get so much money to be giving it to your taxi man?”
“Doesn’t matter. I want to hear about the baby. How big is she?”
“Let me figure in American.” He paused. “Ten pounds. So hard on Martha. She say no more babies, mon.”
I laughed. “I don’t blame her.”
“But I got more news, miss. Found your midwife. The one who delivered that baby you been asking about.”
“You’re kidding!”
“She be some booguyaga. I’d never trust no birthing to her. Gravelicious woman, though, so your money talked loud and clear. She told me everything.”
I wasn’t sure what those odd words meant, but I got the gist. “And what’s everything?” I asked.
“That she was paid to drug your lady after she gave birth—kept her drugged about a week, if she remembers right. She gave the little girl to a lawyer from the U.S. and told the mother the baby died.”
“This lawyer’s name didn’t happen to be Caleb Moore?” Moore—the man who’d handled the Beadford adoption.
“Ya, mon! That’s the one. You know him?”
“Not personally, but I know who hired him.”
“I see you been working hard on this, miss. Me, too. I found out who made the fake death certificate. Man be dead now, but you be needing that, too?”
“Not now, but maybe later. You’ve done a great job, Jug. Kiss that new girl for me.”
We said our good-byes, and I’d no sooner hung up when Jeff called. By the time we finished talking, the cookie bag was empty. He told me his stakeout had been productive last night, but now he had a mountain of paperwork and would probably crash at the station tonight. Boo-hiss, I thought after I hung up.
After my nonstop cookie fest, I skipped dinner and instead managed to get a few more boxes unpacked before Travis and Megan arrived. I made a pot of coffee for Travis and me. Megan said she was too jittery for coffee. She did seem fidgety, and with each passing day she was looking more washed out, her porcelain skin now blotched and her eyes heavy with fatigue and worry. How I wished what I had learned about her past could bring her some relief, but that didn’t seem remotely possible.
Travis helped me move several boxes blocking one chair in the living room, and once we were seated, Megan spoke.
“I think Travis wants to explain why he lied to you.” She squeezed his hand and nodded. “Go ahead, honey.”
Travis looked like a dog after a neutering—pained, pissed off, and sad. “Truth be told, I had to keep my story straight. It’s what I told Fielder so I thought I’d better stick with it when you asked.”
“Why lie about knowing Megan had hired me, even to Fielder?” I asked. And why keep lying, I said to myself, Jeff’s impression of Travis still fresh in my mind.
“I wasn’t about to talk about Megan’s private business. Not with Fielder. It wasn’t right.”
“So you were protecting Megan?” I sipped my coffee and leaned back against the sofa cushions.
“Who said she needed protecting?” he shot back.
Megan switched her grip to his knee. “It’s okay, Travis. Abby’s helping us, remember?”
He released a long breath. “Yeah. I know. But I’ve never seen you hurting like this, Meg.”
“I can help you,” I said, “but you need to come clean, Travis. What did you argue about with Megan’s father because I saw it. Holt must have heard it and Fielder now knows it.”
His stare went from Megan to me, and all the tension and then some returned. “That’s no one’s business.”
“You don’t believe that and neither do I,” I said. “What’s the big secret? At least tell your lawyer if you won’t tell me.”
“What happened between James and me that day will stay between him and me. Just know I would never hurt Megan by killing her father.”
“But if you have nothing to hide, I don’t see—”
The sound of breaking glass made me start, and coffee spilled onto my jeans. Good thing it wasn’t hot enough to do any damage.
“What was that?” said a wide-eyed Megan.
Diva provided a clue when she flashed past us and raced up the stairs.
“She probably knocked something over in the kitchen,” I said. “Let me make sure she didn’t hurt herself.”
I found her cowering under my bed. She hadn’t left any bloody footprints on the stairs or in the bedroom and was probably just spooked, so I offered a few soothing words and left her where she was.
“Sorry about the interruption,” I said when I returned to my guests. “Now, Travis. I—”
“They argued about money,” Megan said. “Travis was too embarrassed to tell you.”
Travis’s earlobes were red, his eyes downcast. Had they concocted this story while I was distracted? And if so, why? “Money?” I said, my tone infused with all the skepticism I felt.
“My father had agreed to pay for Travis’s last year at graduate school, but he took the offer back the day of the wedding,” Megan said.
“What a nice gift for his newest relative. And that’s the story worth lying about to the police? I don’t think so, guys.”
The sound of Megan’s cell phone prevented a response.
By the look on her face after she answered, the call was not welcome. “Slow down, Roxanne. I can’t understand you.”
Megan listened for a second, then said, “I’m at Abby’s house. Why do you need to know?”
More silence, then Megan said, “You’re scaring me, Roxy. What’s wrong with you?”
I held out my hand for the phone. “Let me talk to her.” God knows I’d had plenty of practice trying to interpret Roxanne’s peculiar communications.
When I had the phone, I said, “What’s up?”
“Like I told Megan, this is fate, Abby. They’re with you, just as they should be.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”