Chapter Twenty-Three
Jack
“Where the fuck have you been? And why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?” King bellowed before I could even walk through the door far enough to close it behind me.
“Hello to you too.”
I walked over to the bar for a drink. Archie passed me a beer just as King yelled again.
“Get your ass in church. Now!”
Fuck me.
I sucked down as much as I could and slammed the bottle back on the bar. I stepped through the double doors and went to my seat. No one said a word. They all just glared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Why the fuck did you leave her at the hospital alone?” Cash questioned angrily.
“I didn’t leave her there alone. Jingles was there,” I said, looking at the table. I knew it was an asshole move. But she didn’t want me there. All I did was hurt her.
“She needed you, Jack. She’s your woman. Your responsibility,” King remarked.
“You were there. She wanted me to leave,” I reminded him. “So I left. I needed to clear my head.”
King shook his head, letting me know he was disappointed in me.
Well, join the fucking club, buddy.
I was disappointed in me too.
“Let’s get to work. We have a couple of issues we need to deal with,” Cash stated. “Jingles, play the recording.”
We sat there around the table and listened as Sammy and Carrie’s voices filled the air. Throughout the recording, Carrie switched from frantic to subdued and back again. When the recording ended, we all sat there.
No one knew where to begin.
“Samantha also recorded the conversation on her phone. They had a few more words in the parking lot outside. Her phone might have picked those up, if she didn’t turn it off inside.”
“Nav, do you have anything on the husband?” King asked.
“Yea, he got the papers. Signed for them himself. He’s in Arkansas. He’s shown up for work every day, without fail. I don’t know how he was getting those notes to them, but he wasn’t doing it in person,” Nav concluded.
“Uh, Samantha and I talked about it at the bar before, you know. We both came to the same conclusion. Carrie has an unhealthy obsession with her or Charlie, maybe both.”
Jingles confirmed what I was thinking. Carrie was not who she appeared to be.
“She’s faking the notes,” I announced.
“What? How is she faking them? Wouldn’t Sam recognize Derek’s handwriting? They were together for what, five years?” Blade asked.
“I don’t know if Sammy ever saw them,” I said, shaking my head. “Fuck, I’m so stupid.”
Standing from my chair, I ran my hands through my hair, pulling on the ends.
“When I took Sammy to the house to get her and Charlie’s things, as soon as we walked in the door, Carrie said there was another note. I asked her to see it. She told me she destroyed it. Said she didn’t want Sammy seeing it.” I leaned my hands on the table. “What if there were no notes? What if Carrie has been lying about the notes?”
“Why?” Ghost asked.
“To control Samantha. Carrie controls where they live, how long they stay there. I would bet a note showed up every time Samantha got close to someone,” Cash piped up.
“But she’s been close to Rachel, Grace, and Lily for almost two years. Why wait so long?” King asked.
“Maybe it isn’t about Sam at all,” Blade concluded. “It’s Charlie. Sam having friends isn’t a threat. But Charlie’s dad, that is the biggest threat there is.”
“Why not leave as soon as Sam knew Jack lived here?” Colt asked.
“Maybe she thought it would be too suspicious?” Gunner answered.
“That was her mistake. The one scenario she didn’t plan for. The girls weren’t a threat. In fact, they gave Samantha a reason to be out of the house more. Allowing Carrie to have more time with Charlie,” Jingles reasoned.
“But Charlie’s dad has the potential to take Charlie away from her. Which is exactly what you did as soon as you learned you had a daughter,” King pointed out.
“Is Billy still watching the house?” Ghost asked.
“Yea, until we know where she is, I want eyes on that house,” King replied. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we have him break in again and get something with her fingerprints. Dec can run them, and we can find out who she really is,” Ghost suggested.
“Call him. Get him in there tonight. I want multiple things to test, just in case. Send Mimic out there to pick it up,” King said, pulling his phone out, I assumed, to text his brother. “Tell him to bring it all back here. Dec can bring the kit here. And Nav can run it.”
I sat back down in my chair. King put his phone away and moved on to the next order of business.
“I got the footage from the bar. Nav, put it on the screen.”
We all sat there watching as Sammy and Jingles sat down. Saw them talking with Grace and Johnny. The video didn’t have sound, but I saw Sammy place her hand on Jingles’ arm. I turned my focus and looked at him pointedly.
“Completely innocent,” he claimed.
“Better fucking be,” I growled.
The video continued, and we watched Jingles stand and walk outside. Then we saw the son of a bitch approach Sammy at the bar. They talked for a minute, and then Sammy looked at Johnny.
“That’s it. Right there.” Ghost pointed. “Back it up and run it slow.
“Son of a bitch!” Colt barked. “When Johnny looked at Sam, he reached over her glass for a napkin.”
“This wasn’t the first time this bastard has done this. Not with how smooth it was,” Cash commented.
“Unfortunately, he never looks forward, so we can’t see his face,” I said.
“Looks like we should all hang out at the bar a little more often,” Colt stated.
There was a knock at the door just before it opened.
“Sorry to interrupt, Prez. But he was insistent, threatened to arrest me.” Archie opened the door, and the sheriff walked in.
“Adolescent asshole,” Declan muttered, shoving his way in.
“No problem, Archie. I should have let you know he was coming,” King admitted. “You could be nicer, Dec.”
“It’s too fucking late to be nice. What did you find with the footage from the bar?”
“Fucker avoided the cameras,” I grumbled.
For the next two hours, we discussed Carrie, the GHB that was making its way around the surrounding towns, and Derek. Another topic we briefly discussed was Julie, the waitress at The Diner, and her history with an MC. Nav was adding her to a list of things to look into.
The knock on the door had us all sitting up. Ghost opened the door and Mimic walked in with a half dozen items Billy, the prospect, had lifted from Carrie’s house. He dropped the items on the table and immediately left.
“Tell me he wore gloves when he picked these up,” the sheriff asked.
“Trust me, he knows what he’s doing.” King grinned. “He doesn’t want you getting ahold of his fingerprints.”
The sheriff glared at his little brother.
Declan was a good cop, but he took care of his brother, and by extension, us.
Declan opened his kit and pulled on his gloves. He removed each item from its bag. A hairbrush, a bottle of perfume, a TV remote, a glass, a book, and her vibrator.
“I am not dusting her fucking vibrator,” the sheriff barked, shaking his head. “Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?”
We all did our best not to laugh out loud.
We all failed.
“Why did he grab so much?” Declan asked, holding the book in one hand and a glass in the other.
“We didn’t know if Samantha had been in her room, so we wanted to have a few items to make sure the fingerprints are all the same,” King explained.
“If she’s in the system, her picture will come up,” Declan told his brother. “I only need one thing.”
The sheriff started with the glass, explaining that was likely the best surface to get a clean print.
He dusted the glass, and the powder revealed multiple prints. Transferring the print to a small clear vinyl tab, he handed it to Nav, who took a picture and uploaded it to his computer.
“Do I wanna know where you’re running that print through?” Declan asked Nav.
Nav looked up at the sheriff and smiled. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Then focused back on his computer.
The sheriff groaned. He didn’t like when we straddled the line, but he understood it. It didn’t stop him from looking over Nav’s shoulder, waiting for the results.
“Fuck!” Declan muttered, right after Nav’s computer pinged, letting us know the results were in. “I knew I recognized her.”
“Who is she?” I asked as we all stood and walked over to Nav’s computer. We all crowded around to get a look.
“You guys know I can put it on the screen, right?” Nav said, pointing to the mug shot showing on the large screen at the front of the room.
The picture on the screen was a younger version of the woman we knew as Carrie. Her real name was Marsha Wade, thirty-four years old. She spent two years in prison for aggravated assault against a social worker.
In 2015, CPS removed Marsha’s daughter from her custody on the grounds of medical abuse. Doctors discovered that Marsha/Carrie suffered from Munchausen’s by Proxy.
Munchausen’s by Proxy was a serious mental disorder where individuals fabricated illnesses in others to receive attention. The victims were most commonly children and the elderly. Innocents who often had no way of fighting back.
Marsha had been poisoning her two-year-old daughter to make her appear sick. After changing her doctor for the fifth time in sixteen months and a battery of tests that revealed what was going on, the doctor reported his findings to Child Protective Services, who then removed the child and placed her in foster care.
In 2016, Marsha attacked the social worker during a supervised visitation, putting the woman in the hospital. She received a sentence of two years in prison. While in prison, the courts stripped Marsha of her parental rights.
After being released, she changed her identity and became Carrie St. James.
“Son of a bitch!” I hissed. “She has been taking care of Charlie since she was born. What if she hurt her?”
“We can talk to Sammy tomorrow and find out how often she’s had to take her to get checked. We can also talk to Charlie and see what she can tell us,” Blade suggested.
“No.” I looked at my brother. “I don’t want Sammy to know about this. She’ll blame herself.”
“We have to tell her, Jack. You can’t keep this from her,” King pointed out.
“Shit.”
“Hey, she’s with us now. She’s safe,” Gunner said as he tried to calm me down.
“What do we do when we find her?” Colt questioned. “She hasn’t actually done anything illegal.”
“She has a warrant,” Nav replied .
“For what?” I asked.
If there was a warrant, we could hand her over to Declan.
“Marsha Wade was released on parole. She changed her identity and never checked in with her PO,” Nav told us.
“That makes her a fugitive. Find her and I can take her in. She’s been running for over five years. She’ll go back for quite a few,” the sheriff informed us.
“Ok, let’s end this here, and we can pick this back up in the morning. We need to work out a plan to find this woman. Everyone, go get some sleep.” King slammed the gavel on the table, and we all shuffled out of church.
I didn’t hang around downstairs. Making my way to Charlie’s room, I needed to check in on her. See her safe in her bed. When I opened the door, Charlie wasn’t alone. Sammy laid in the bed, snuggled up with our daughter.
After what I learned tonight, I stripped down to my boxers and climbed into bed with my family. Sammy had the right idea. Though, I knew she slept in here because she was mad at me. But right then, I didn’t care, I just needed to hold them both.
I laid my arm across Sammy’s hip, and she stirred.
“Jack?”
“Shh, baby. I know I fucked up. We can talk about it in the morning. Right now, I just want to snuggle with my girls.”
I laid there listening until her breaths evened out, and I finally relaxed enough to get a few hours’ rest before I had to shatter my woman’s heart.