49. Glorious Truth
WESLEY
Chief Hillsborough could suck starta Glock for all I cared. The man was entirely too gleeful about putting me in the cell at the Smithson County jail, to the point where he moved his desk over so that he could grin at me over the rim of his coffee cup afterwards.
He made it really hard to regret setting his shed on fire. My one phone call kept getting pushed back because he was “busy” with paperwork, yet all I had seen so far was him dismissing the other deputies on duty and refilling the old Keurig several times. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it was getting to me however, so I let him keep digging himself a hole. If he wasn’t aware of my educational background or the strings I could pull, he could find out the hard way.
After what felt like an eternity, I was permitted to call Phillip.
“Where are you calling from?” he asked instantly.
My back teeth ground together. Hillsborough eyed me suspiciously over the top of his computer monitor.
“I need you to come bail me out of Smithson County Jail,” I replied. “Just bring a blank check.”
The traitor snickered. “And what have you done now?”
I rolled my eyes. “Can you just do what I pay you for? Please?”
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. I’m already on the way there because we have an even bigger problem.”
That piqued my interest. “What do you mean? What did you find out?”
“Wrap it up, inmate,” the sheriff called. Malice lit up his face as he said it. The fucking prick.
“Prepare to make a generous donation,” I advised Phillip before hanging up.
Hillsborough shook his head. “That kinda thing isn’t gonna work around these parts. We don’t care about your dirty money.” He firmly gripped my shoulder to steer me back into the cell before angrily slamming the iron grate.
I glared at him, but wisely kept my mouth shut for once.
Within an hour, Phillip arrived. By that time, several other deputies and clerks had also shown up, which proved to be beneficial when Chief Hillsborough tried to deny my bail.
“B-but, sir,” the clerk stuttered, “that’s a million dollar check. That more than pays Mr. Madden’s bail and fees.”
The sheriff silenced him with an evil stare. “Are you questioning me?”
“Look,” I finally yelled out from my cell. “I am sorry for what I did. I take full responsibility for your shed and what happened last night, Chief. All I’m trying to do is get my girl, get my kid, and leave River’s Run. Let me out and I will pay for everything to be replaced.”
Hillsborough assessed me critically from across the room. He slowly approached, hand on his duty belt near the badge on his hip. “You’re prepared to take care of Celeste and Iris now?”
I nodded emphatically. He couldn’t possibly know how badly I wanted that.
“Then it sounds like you’ve finally grown up, boy,” Hillsborough said. “Ain’t no reason to be leaving your hometown if you can finally act the way a man is s’posed to.”
You could’ve knocked me over with a cotton ball. My jaw audibly dropped as I gawked at him like an idiot.
Another deputy opened the door for me so that I could join Phillip and Hillsborough at the front of the jail. My eyebrows were stuck on my forehead.
“Would you quit lookin’ at me like I’m the anti-Christ?” Hillsborough snapped.
“All this time, I thought you hated me!”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want some punk kid raising hell in my town,” Hillsborough explained. “But then Doug Hendricks died still believing in you. I’ve watched for years as his poor daughter suffered under the hands of that woman he married. If you’re willing and able to get Celeste and Iris away from her, then I reckon you’re all right. Nobody deserves to be treated the way they have been.”
The fact that even a douche canoe like Chief Hillsborough noticed how poorly my soulmate and my daughter were being treated made my blood boil. Not nearly as much as the call that came through the radio perched on the desk, however.
“All units respond. B and E at The Comfy Cushion. Possible SA. Victim ID’d as Celeste Hendricks…”
I was out the door before anyone could react, Phillip close behind. We tore down the county highway toward The Comfy Cushion faster than was legal, three sheriff cruisers hot behind me. Sirens blared, but I couldn’t really hear them. The dispatcher’s voice kept playing on loop in my head. “Possible SA. Victim ID’d as Celeste Hendricks.”
“Tell me what you know,” I screamed at Phillip, although I already had a sinking feeling in my gut of what he was going to say.
“There was never a restraining order,” Phillip said. He pulled a large manilla folder out of his briefcase and flipped through all the paperwork it contained. “Technically there shouldn’t have even been any charges against you. Turns out they were all going to be dropped, but your father paid the judge to keep them, then paid him again to put you on probation. Probably so that he could have some leverage over you.”
“FUCK!” I slammed my hand repeatedly on the steering wheel, nearly causing the car to swerve off the road.
My assistant scowled. “There’s more, but I’ll tell you when you aren’t in a position to kill me.”
If Celeste’s life weren’t in jeopardy I would have skidded to a stop in the middle of the road and smacked him until he spit it out. Right now, there were far more important things. I wouldn’t be able to process a word he said anyway until I knew that she was all right.
And whoever the motherfucker was who had done this to her, he better hope the cops found him before I did. That was the only chance he had of living through the night.
* * *
Outside the diner, Main Street turned into a scene out of Criminal Minds. There were squad cars, an ambulance with a pair of EMT’s, and two fire trucks. What they were doing, I hadn’t the faintest idea because there wasn’t so much as a flicker of a flame. Maybe everybody on duty just wanted to feel needed.
They wheeled Celeste out on a stretcher with a thick gray blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, her lips pale and trembling. Although there was no visible sign of trauma from where I screeched to a stop, that didn’t mean she wasn’t injured. My desire to incinerate the bastard increased tenfold.
A sheriff protested when I dove under the caution tape they strung up along the street, but I ignored her in my haste to get to Celeste.
“Tell me everything,” I demanded the paramedic wheeling the stretcher.
“Are you family?” he asked quizzically.
“Duncan Thompson, I beat your ass in tenth grade for talking shit about her and that’s gonna look like a toddler’s tantrum compared to what I’m about to do to you!” I’d never wanted to tear a man’s head clean off his body until today. “What the fuck happened?!”
I stepped back long enough for them to adjust the wheels and load the stretcher into the back of the ambulance before clambering in after them. Celeste’s hand was ice in mine; no matter how hard I squeezed, she did not give me a response.
“She’s been out cold since we arrived on scene. You’ll find out more at the hospital,” was all Duncan the Dumbass offered.
“Hey you!” I screamed up to the driver. “FLOOR IT!”
Everything happened in lightspeed once we arrived at the hospital. A doctor and three nurses flew out to greet us, barking orders and ushering Celeste into a room. The words “rape kit” were used, making my heart drop to my stomach. It was all I could do to sink into a crouch on the floor outside her room and wait. Part of me wanted to pray to God, like Nana always talked about, because I figured right now it couldn’t hurt. But I didn’t know how to begin and he’d probably think I sounded like a whiner anyway.
Phillip arrived shortly after, asking me how she was doing. I couldn’t form coherent words to answer him, and for the first time ever, my assistant hugged me. It was oddly comforting. Somehow, Phillip’s strength gave me strength, and I was able to draw a shaky lung full of air for the first time that morning.
He stepped away to call Marla for me. I couldn’t handle being the one to tell her something else happened to Celeste. When he stepped back, he said she was on her way.
A nurse came out at around the two hour mark to let me know that they believed Celeste’s system crashed after the traumatic shock of her “incident.” Right now there was nothing to do but wait because Celeste had to wake up on her own. Her pulse was low, but steady.
I thanked the nurse and turned to Phillip in a daze. “Give me your news. I need something else to focus on right now or I’m gonna drive myself crazy.”
He pursed his lips. “I doubt what I’m about to tell you will prevent that.” Withdrawing the manilla folder from his briefcase again, Phillip flipped to whatever document he was searching for. “So I have a friend who works for LexixNexis, the legal site for judgment orders, and they pulled some paperwork for me. Doug Hendricks didn’t leave anything to Desiree. The house, the land, everything that he owned went to Celeste. And get this—The Comfy Cushion has actually belonged to Celeste since her mother passed away. It was left to her in trust with Doug and a woman named Suzanne Moffitt…any idea who that might be?”
“That’s Nana,” I replied distantly as my mind whirled to track all of this information. That meant that this whole time, Desiree had been leeching off my girl and Celeste didn’t even realize it. Desiree had no legal right to any of it. Given the number of times we had seen her speaking to Mr. Hendricks’ attorney at the hospital in Atlanta, I had a tough time figuring Desiree was unaware of this information. If anything, she must have gone to great lengths to keep the truth hidden from Celeste.
“What’s more, Doug Hendricks had a three million dollar life insurance policy. Turns out, the Hendricks family land is worth far more than we thought. Guess who was the beneficiary?”
“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!” I roared. Kicking a chair down the hallway, several hospital staff members poked their heads out of rooms and the nurse’s station to check on us.
Phillip raised a hand. “So sorry! Everything’s fine!” he called out to them with a fake smile plastered on his face.
No, everything was decidedly not fine. Celeste had been killing herself at that diner for years when she should have been enjoying every moment she could with our daughter. Iris could have the dance studio of her dreams to practice in.
“And let me guess—somehow Desiree Hendricks was the one who received every penny.”
Snorting, Phillip nodded. “And blew through it. A gentleman at the bank was very accommodating in giving up Desiree’s financials. She’s insulted just about everyone on their payroll, apparently. The woman doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Of course she doesn’t.”
How many more times could my world get flipped around in 24 hours? All of this changed everything, and judging by the paperwork in Phillip’s hand, we were accumulating the paper trail necessary to take her down.
Phillip’s face contorted as he opened his mouth to say something, then second guessed himself and shut it. His fingers were tapping out a rhythm on his hip, one of his tells that he had news he was reluctant to share with me.
“Out with it,” I snapped at him. We didn’t have time for games.
“Bank statements also show Desiree has been receiving a monthly payment of twenty-five thousand dollars…since roughly the time Iris was born.”
The entire world was gonna go up in smoke with my rage. Wrath like I had never experienced before made me murderous. It was difficult to breathe and control myself enough to reply, “Take me to him. Now.”