Chapter Nine #2
During those sleepless hours of the night, Judson had considered that.
And more. “If Elijah planned to abduct Lily and Rose for a payout, there would have likely been easier targets. Targets closer to his home, anyway. So, maybe this wasn’t about getting a ransom.
Maybe it was about getting his hands on Yvette’s settlement money. ”
Addie was quick to mutter an agreement. Obviously, she’d done some nighttime thinking about this as well.
“If Elijah made Yvette believe he was going to take the twins,” Addie spelled out, “then he could have been hoping that Yvette would steal them herself and that she would perhaps be killed or at least incarcerated in the aftermath. Then, he’d be a big step closer to getting his hands on Yvette’s money either through receiving a ransom demand or convincing Jennifer to hand it over to him. ”
She stopped, sighed. And Judson knew why.
“Elijah would have had an obstacle or two, or three, to flat-out inheriting the money,” Judson spelled out. “Trevor, for sure. Also, Jennifer and Shane. I can’t imagine Trevor or Shane just giving him Yvette’s money the way that Jennifer might.”
“Same,” Grace said. “And it’s why I’m trying to get a copy of any will that Yvette might have. That might give us some answers.”
Yes, it could, but it was a shame they couldn’t question the woman herself.
“Are we certain there’s actually money?” Addie asked. “I mean, we know Yvette received a settlement, but could she have already spent it?”
Grace shook her head. “There’s money. I got her financials, and Yvette has every penny of it stashed in CDs. She hasn’t tapped into any of it, and it’s accumulating a nice chunk of interest each month.”
That was indeed motive, then, for Elijah, Jennifer, Shane or Trevor. But motive didn’t mean any of them had actually done anything wrong. In fact, the only guilty person was Yvette. An eyewitness had put her with the babies, and the woman had confessed to taking them.
And that brought Judson to more of his late-night thoughts.
“Yvette could have orchestrated it all,” he said.
“The anniversary of losing her kids is coming up. Along with it being their birthday, that could have triggered something in her. Or if she’s using drugs, she might have become delusional, thinking that the twins were actually hers.
She could have taken them and then gotten cold feet about what she’d done. ”
“Yes,” Addie said, taking up the explanation. “After she left the babies with the farmer, she possibly could have rushed home to get things to make an escape and then run into Courtney.”
Grace nodded. “If Yvette killed her, then the attack and that phone call could be about covering her tracks. If she could pin all of this on someone else, like Elijah, for instance, then she could walk away a free woman.”
That would wrap everything up in a neat little package. Or rather, it would have been neat if they actually had Yvette.
Judson heard some voices at the front of the house, and at the same time, Grace got a text. “Trevor’s here, and he’s being frisked,” Grace relayed to them, already getting to her feet.
She stopped and seemed to be considering how to handle this. “Why don’t the two of you come with me to greet Trevor? If Yvette didn’t stage that attack on you, then maybe Trevor did. I’d like to see how he reacts to seeing you.”
Judson wanted to see that as well. Too bad he couldn’t hook Trevor up to a lie detector or dose him with truth serum, but he was at least hoping he’d get some kind of vibe from the man. Because if Yvette had enlisted anyone for help, it would likely be the man she’d married.
The three of them left their coffee and breakfast and headed toward the foyer, where Judson immediately saw Bennie, Livvy and a beefy man in jeans, a white muscle tee and a brown leather jacket that was almost the same color as his hair.
Judson knew from the bio he’d read on Trevor that he was forty-nine, but he looked at least a decade younger than that.
“No weapons,” Bennie announced.
Livvy added, “And I’ve given him the Miranda.” Livvy also made introductions.
Trevor didn’t acknowledge anything that Livvy or Bennie said. Nor did he look bothered about being frisked and treated like the suspect that he was. Instead, Trevor’s attention was on Addie.
“Addie,” the man finally said, aiming his weathered blue eyes on her. “I recognize you from the media reports,” he quickly added when he must have noted the alarm on Addie’s face. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe Yvette would have taken those babies from you.”
So, the man wasn’t going to defend his wife and proclaim her innocence. Interesting.
“Have you heard from Yvette?” Addie asked, not bothering to address the man’s comments.
Trevor sighed, shook his head. “No. And I can’t find her. None of her friends have heard from her, either.” He stopped. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Addie pulled back her shoulders, practically coming to attention, and her gaze combed over his face. “I don’t,” she admitted after a long pause. “How do you know me?”
Trevor’s mouth turned into a slight smile. “You were just a kid, and it was a long time ago.”
“How do you know me?” she repeated, this time her voice a snap, when Trevor didn’t continue.
The man’s smile faded, but he kept his attention on Addie. “When you were four or five, I went out with your mother a couple of times. With Rowena.”
Because Addie’s arm was against his, Judson felt her muscles tense. “She’s not my mother.”
“Yes, of course,” Trevor was quick to say.
“I wasn’t aware of that at the time. Rowena introduced you as her daughter, and I had no idea what she’d done.
Murder,” he added under his breath. A look of disgust tightened his face.
“Trust me, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with her if I had known the truth.
I didn’t find out until a year or two later when I saw it on the news. ”
Judson considered all of that, and he’d need to try to figure out if what happened back then had anything to do with what was going on now. It seemed a stretch since it would have been almost thirty years ago, but it was an eerie coincidence that Judson didn’t like.
“Mr. Cates, do you understand the Miranda rights that Deputy Walsh recited to you?” Grace asked, clearly shifting the subject. Maybe because she could see how uncomfortable Addie was.
That got Trevor’s attention, and he finally turned toward the sheriff. “You’re the one who arrested my stepdaughter.”
“I didn’t arrest her,” Grace was quick to point out. “However, she is being questioned. So is your stepson.”
Trevor nodded as if he’d fully expected that. “Jennifer doesn’t get along with her mother. And I’m certain she despises me.” He stopped. “Did Jennifer do something to Yvette? Is that why no one has heard from her?”
“We did hear from her,” Grace said.
The silence settled over the foyer, and Judson watched the alarm go through Trevor’s eyes. “When?” he snapped. “Where is she?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to get into the details,” Grace said. “But we’ll talk about that during the interview. I’ve set that up in the formal dining room, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” he muttered, almost absently. His focus was clearly still on the contact they’d had with Yvette. “What did my wife say?” Trevor asked. “Did you tell her I was worried sick about her?”
Again, Grace dodged the question and motioned for them to follow her. She started walking at a very slow pace toward the dining room.
Trevor muttered some profanity. “Yvette has to be terrified. I really need to talk to her. If you’ll just tell me where she is—”
“So, is this your first visit to the Horseshoe Ranch?” Grace asked. Maybe it was more question dodging, or Grace could possibly want to learn if Trevor was familiar with the house and the grounds.
“My first,” Trevor grumbled. They stopped outside the dining room, but none of them went in. Instead, he shifted back to Addie. “My wife’s a very troubled woman. If you saw her or spoke to her, you’d know that.”
“Troubled? How?” Addie questioned, sounding a whole lot like a cop.
Trevor certainly didn’t jump to answer. He seemed to be calculating how to handle this. Maybe because he was worried that Yvette had said something incriminating about him.
“Losing her kids has stuck with her,” he finally said. “It’s an obsession for her.”
“What do you mean?” Judson pressed. “She lost the kids years ago.”
“And she’s never gotten over it,” Trevor insisted. He stopped, groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Look, I love my wife, but I can’t always understand why she does the things she does.”
“Like kidnapping two babies?” Grace supplied.
After several more of those long moments, Trevor nodded. “It’s as if she can’t get past what happened. As if she needs to relive it, with the illogical hope that she can somehow change things.”
Addie and Judson exchanged a glance, and he could see she was just as confused as he was. Judging from Grace’s next question, she clearly was, too.
“Explain that,” Grace demanded. “And then we can begin the interview and get all this and more on the record.”
For a moment, Judson thought that would get Trevor to back down, to try to wave it all off. But he didn’t. “Yvette is obsessed with reading everything she can about the Horseshoe Ranch,” he said. “Random mentions in the press, for instance. She’ll print out and save those articles.”
That did seem obsessive, considering that Jennifer and Shane hadn’t spent much time here before being adopted.
“Over the years, Yvette’s contacted any and all parents who had kids who ended up here,” Trevor continued. “She tries to talk to them about their experiences. A sort of therapy, I guess you could say. But most don’t want her pushing them about stuff like that. They’ve moved on. Yvette hasn’t.”
“Did you ever try to get your wife help for this?” Grace asked. “Maybe have her see a counselor?”
“Yes,” he said on a heavy sigh. “I’ve tried many times, but she always refuses to go.”
“Yet you married her,” Judson pointed out in case Trevor was exaggerating Yvette’s mindset.
“I did because I loved her. Still love her,” he amended.
“But love doesn’t blind me to her faults.
To this obsession she has with the Horseshoe Ranch and her kids.
And I’m worried all this now caused her to go over the edge.
When I’m done here, I need to make a few more calls so I can try to find out where she is,” Trevor added a heartbeat later.
“Who else could you contact that you haven’t already?” Grace pressed.
Trevor lifted his shoulder. “Yvette has a file with the names and phone numbers of those people I told you about, and she’s in touch with a lot of them. Parents who lost custody of their children. Especially mothers,” he said, turning back to Addie again. “Like yours.”
Everything went tight inside Judson, and he saw some of the color drain from Addie’s face.
“What do you mean by that?” Addie asked. “Are you saying Yvette has been in touch with Rowena?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Trevor confirmed.
Addie made a soft sound, part gasp, part moan, but Judson figured there was nothing soft about what she was feeling right now. Just the mention of Rowena was enough to trigger some god-awful memories for her.
“Yvette visited Rowena in prison many times,” Trevor went on. “In fact, that’s how I met Yvette. Apparently, Rowena mentioned me during one of those visits, and Yvette looked me up.”
Judson was going to have to check into Trevor’s relationship with Rowena, but that tidbit didn’t mesh with anything Jennifer, Shane or Elijah had said about Trevor. Then again, the three of them might not know that Rowena and Trevor had once dated.
“Rowena,” Trevor repeated, and he snapped his fingers as if recalling something. “I was leaving for my camping trip, and the last thing Yvette said to me was that she was on her way to visit her. It’s possible that’s where Yvette is now.”