Chapter 8
Paige~
I didn’t care about lying to Harding since it was the least that he deserved. Still, I’d been too emotional to give any real consideration to my phone number being the source of the calls and texts, so to remedy that error in judgement, I’d gone to the store for a burner phone to finish what I had started. Especially, now that I was armed with more information about Trista Preston than I could have ever hoped for.
Now, while I was still trying to find a way into her social media accounts, I had both of her parents’ phone numbers, including her ex-husband’s. They needed to know what was going on because her ex-husband had a right to protect his children from their whore of a mother. He had the right to choose which type of people should be around to influence his kids, and now I could see why he had divorced her.
Of course, I had no idea who had divorced whom, but that didn’t matter. Right now, considering what all I knew about his ex-wife, Frank Indigo had the benefit of the doubt. In fact, we were probably going to become good friends since we had betrayal as a common denominator. Yeah, I was going to have to dig deeper to find out why they’d gotten divorced, but I had no doubt that he was going to end up on my side no matter what. I could already feel him becoming a kindred spirit.
I stared at my phone, re-reading my latest post.
When you are duped by an imposter, you’re only choice is to look to God and prayer as you grieve the loss of all that you once believed. While family and friends are what you need to hold you through the rough times, only God is strong enough to save your mental and emotional wellbeing. You also have to find strength to resist Satan as your heart bleeds for justice. Luckily, when your faith is strong, it helps you choose the Christian path of righteousness, and that’s been proven by how I have chosen to rise above all the hurt and betrayal that has been thrust upon me through no fault of my own. I will continue to look to my faith, family, and friends, and let my character speak for itself. Everyone that knows me can attest to how pure my heart is and how I have always chosen peace. Negativity is not well for the soul, especially a troubled one.
Satisfied with my latest post, I let out a steady breath as I dialed Lloyd Preston. Yeah, it was a bit late in the evening, but it was also reasonable to assume that law enforcement didn’t keep regular working hours. Besides, I was counting on Mr. Preston to be too upset to care about minor details.
I dialed his number, and my heart might be racing if it weren’t for how angry I was at what his daughter had done to my marriage. In fact, once I was done with this conversation, I was going to call her ex-husband for a little chat.
When the call went to voicemail, I wasn’t exactly surprised. These days, no one ever answered phone calls, especially from numbers that they didn’t recognize. So, I dialed the number again, and I would continue to dial his number until he answered.
Finally, after three calls, Lloyd Preston’s voice came over the line. “Hello?”
“Mr. Lloyd Preston?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Nancy Jenive, and I’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said, proud of how calm my voice sounded.
“Uhm…okay,” he replied hesitantly. “What about?”
“Trista Preston,” I answered, and I could actually feel his surprise through the phone.
“Trista’s my daughter,” he confirmed. “What’s this about?”
“She’s currently being investigated for fraud, and we’re looking into other possible victims,” I continued, honestly just making it up as I went along. “Has your daughter been in trouble before, Mr. Preston?”
There was a moment of silence before he asked, “And who did you say you were with? Which police department?”
Shit.
“Just please answer the question, Mr. Preston,” I said, knowing that lots of people weren’t brave enough to stand up to law enforcement most of the time.
“Actually, I don’t think that I will,” he said, and if he thought that he could get away with this, he was wrong. “What I’d like is your badge number and your supervisor’s name, so that I can verify that I am actually speaking to an actual detective.”
“Mr. Preston, are you saying that you are refusing to cooperate with a police investigation?” I asked, adding more depth to my voice. “That’s obstruction of justice, sir.”
“I am not saying that at all,” he denied. “I’m merely asking for confirmation of who you are and what this is about.”
“Well, if this is the response that we get for trying to do our jobs, it’s no wonder your daughter has turned out the way that she has,” I bit out, upset that he wasn’t cooperating. “When people have no respect for law enforcement, they have no respect for themselves or anyone else.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or why you’re calling me, but if you call me again, I will call the real police and report you,” he threatened, and I could feel anger slither down the back of my spine.
How dare he!
“You better watch your back,” I warned him. “Your daughter is a criminal, and if you’re not careful, she’s going to take you down with her.”
I hung up, my heart racing with anger. What kind of monster defended a whore like Trista Preston? What kind of piece of shit didn’t honor or respect law enforcement enough to hear them out and cooperate? It also didn’t matter that I wasn’t a real police officer, either. Honestly, for all that Lloyd Preston knew, I could have been. Besides, with as much as I donated to our local police and fire department programs, I might as well be a member of the protective community. I was also very engaged with city council concerns and did my best to make a difference, so Lloyd Preston could just fuck off with his refusal to cooperate with the law.
As I began to pace the bedroom, I thought about Trista’s ex-husband. Since her father had turned out to be a bust, it was reasonable to assume that her mother would be of no help, either. They obviously had no desire to take responsibility for raising a horrible person, and so they were a dead end.
I ignored the ringing of the burner phone, knowing that it was probably her father or mother trying the unknown number for clues, but I was smarter than they were. In fact, I was smarter than Harding had ever given me credit for. People like to believe that church folks were weak because we always chose kindness over retribution, but that wasn’t true. God’s soldiers were the strongest people around, and Harding and his new piece of ass were going to learn that lesson one way or the other.
Continuing to ignore the ringing phone, I thought about the best way to approach Trista’s ex-husband. Now, while his social media accounts showed that he was in a relationship with some tramp named Ebony, that didn’t mean anything. Men were easy to manipulate if you were evil enough to use your sexual advantage on them. Again, they couldn’t help themselves.
I quickly grabbed my phone, then began scrolling through old photos. While I did my best to keep my appearance up, there was no fighting the hands of time, and at forty-four, I was accepting of what I looked like now, which was in no comparison to what I had looked like twenty years ago. I was still me, but I had the wrinkles, the bits of flabby skin, and my complexion no longer glowed like it’d had in my twenties and thirties. So, to lure Frank Indigo away from his current squeeze, I was going to have to get creative, especially if I wasn’t his type. Where his ex-wife and current girlfriend were brunettes, I had red hair that didn’t always appeal to all men.
Deciding to fight fire with fire, I took a quick picture of some cleavage, then added some filters to make the photo look sultry. I sent it to Frank in a private message, hoping that he was on social media enough to see it soon. The plan was to play it off as a mistake, letting him believe that I’d meant to send it to someone else.
As I waited for Frank’s reply, I pulled up my own account, and the number of likes on my latest post were impressive. People were really identifying with what I was going through, and their support meant everything to me. It showed that I wasn’t alone in all this, and that was the help that I needed to see this through.
Watching your children have their hearts broken is always worse than your own broken heart, but that pain can also unite you in a way that you hadn’t imagined. Together, my children and I, we will get through these troubling times, and we will come out stronger on the other side.
I posted my latest thoughts, then realized that I still had to speak to my kids about what Harding had done. They needed to be warned that their lives were about to be turned upside down, and I needed to be the one to deliver that harsh news.
After all, it wasn’t like their father gave a shit.