My words may be unintelligible to him, but the way he relaxes makes me hope my promise is carried to him on my tone.
“Nay,” he whimpers. “Nay. Nay-mi.”
My heart. I can’t take it. He misses her and it infuriates me. Playing with me, manipulating me was one thing, but she did worse to my son, making him love and trust her. Depend on her.
I thought I knew hate before, but not like this. I thought I understood pain. I had no idea. The pain you feel when someone hurts you is nothing near the suffering inflicted when someone hurts your child. It burns white hot with an intensity that bleaches out the world, blinding you to everything but the desperate need to make it better.
His whimpers fade and he dozes off. Quietly, I step out of the tub, wrap him in a towel and carry him to my room. Once Hatch is asleep, not much wakes him. He doesn’t stir when I put a diaper on him, place him in the center of my bed, and pull a blanket up to his waist.
Dani peeks in the room.
“He’s asleep,” I sigh, and grab the receiver to the baby monitor, clipping it on my waistband.
She follows me down the hall and out the back door, and it’s clear she needs to say something. Judging by the way she chews her lip, I doubt it’s good news.
“I talked to Agent Hems earlier.”
“He called? Any news?”
“No, I called him because…I thought of something.” She perches on the edge of a deck chair, and I sit in another across from her. “The letters addressed to Naomi that were sent to the label. They weren’t really investigated or anything. I mean, I know they said they’d try to track them back, but it’s not like they fingerprinted them or anything, right?”
“No, but what the hell difference does it make now?” Why is she worried about some fan being pissed at Naomi after what she did?
“I know you don’t want to talk about her, but this isn’t about her, really. That’s the point. Remember the wording?” She taps her phone, reading aloud. “‘Do you think you’re better for him than me? Do you think he actually loves you? He’ll never love you like he does me. Stay the fuck away from him.’ Ax, what if they weren’t referring to you? What if the letter was warning Naomi away from Caden? I know you’ve seen the video of Beverly saying she doesn’t know her. She could’ve sent those letters.”
Biting back my words, I shake my head. “That’s what you told the feds?”
“I asked them to test the letters. Fingerprints, DNA, whatever they could do to see who sent them.”
“And what did he say?”
“He promised to look into it.”
Pinning her with my gaze, I try not to raise my voice as I ask a question she better have the right answer to. “Have you talked to her?”
The guilt and anxiety on her face give me her answer before she utters, “A text. She was worried about Caden. All I told her was that he was fine.”
Part of me understands why she wants Naomi to be innocent so badly, but my anger overrides it. “Whose fucking side are you on, Danielle?”
“Caden’s,” she murmurs. “He’s crying all the time. Barely eating. Clinging to one of us every second he’s awake.”
My chair grates against the concrete slab, sliding backward as I get to my feet. “Because he’s traumatized! And it’s that bitch’s fault!”
Dani looks up at me. “No, he misses her. He’s already lost one mother, and now another one. She cared for him twenty-four hours a day and then just disappeared from his life.” Her voice wavers. “We both know how that feels, but at least we were old enough to understand. I don’t know what she knew or what’s going on, but I know he loves her, and if there’s any chance that she’s not involved, we should find out. For his sake.” Her eyes settle on mine. “And yours.”
I want to scream my frustration at her, at the sky, at the world. She’s wrong and she’s right and she knows too goddamn much, judging by those last words and the expression on her face. When no words will come to me, she speaks again.
“I know you were together, Ax. And I know how huge that is after what you went through with Renee. I just…I don’t want all that to get thrown away when we don’t know the truth.”
“The truth is that everything is a lie. Don’t be another person I can’t trust, Dani. Stay the fuck away from her.”
No more torturous words exist than what if. Dani planted this seed and it keeps sprouting no matter how hard I try to argue against it.
What if Naomi didn’t know? What if she wasn’t any part of it? What if she was choked, drugged, and then victimized again by being accused of his kidnapping? Jailed, shunned, and hated, hung by the court of public opinion. What if Hatch didn’t have to lose her? What if I didn’t have to lose her?
No.
Naomi is related to Hatch. It can’t be a coincidence. She knew. She did this.
But, what if?
I shouldn’t be here. So many times on the drive up, I started to turn back, but I have to know. Nothing is getting better. My nights are awful. Sleep comes after hours of tossing and turning, and once I do manage to fall asleep, I jump from one nightmare to another. Hours of searching for my lost son, of trying not to open that cursed door, of my father’s laughing face.
The worst isn’t the nightmares but the dreams that filter in between them. Naomi, sitting cross legged on the bed with Hatch on her lap, walking through the park with the sun in her hair, gazing up at me with parted lips as I slide inside her. My dreams of her never turn dark or frightening. They’re…comforting. Until I wake and remember all that’s happened.
The nights are hard, but the days are worse. My son is suffering. How much of his torment is because of the kidnapping and how much is his sudden separation from another person he loves is impossible to know. Even when he isn’t throwing tantrums or refusing to eat, he’s clearly not the happy baby he was, and seeing his listless manner breaks my heart.
No child should know the pain of grief or abandonment. I’m so angry at Naomi that I’m not sure how I’ll manage to talk to her face to face, but if there’s some tiny chance—and I’m not ready to really entertain the thought at this point—of bringing Naomi back around, I have to know. I have to know if that will ever be even a small possibility or if I have to find another way to help him.
I’d like to think it’s all about Hatch and his needs, but even through the anger, I know it’s not just about him. I cared about her. I trusted her. I need to know just how badly I was played. What the fuck was she trying to accomplish?
Gravel crunches under the tires of Elliot’s SUV that I borrowed to make the two hour drive up here as I pull into the parking lot of a ramshackle Bed and Breakfast. If I hadn’t double checked, I’d wonder if I have the right place.
A bell jingles when I enter the front door and a lady rushes out to greet me. “Hello, can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Naomi Wells.”
Her smile expands and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know a Naomi.”
A young man steps into the room in time to hear my reply.
“She’s staying here. Brunette, thin, about this tall.” She just smiles when I hold my hand at Naomi’s height.