Chapter 2 - “IF YOU LEAVE, WE TAKE THE BABY”
I didn't take Gaby home.
That was my first good decision.
My old friend Frank Delaney owned a small motel near Tempe.
I called him while driving.
“I need a room.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know.”
Frank heard something in my voice.
“Come around back.”
Twenty minutes later, Gaby and Leo were inside room 214.
The dark SUV was gone.
That didn't make me feel better.
It made me wonder where it had gone.
I bought diapers.
Food.
Clean clothes.
A prepaid phone.
When I returned, Leo was sleeping.
Gaby had showered.
Without the dirt and tangled hair, I could see how much weight she had lost.
She looked ten years older than she had three months earlier.
I sat across from her.
“Start at the beginning.”
She stared at her hands.
“Dad…”
“Everything.”
Silence.
Then she began.
Derek had changed while she was pregnant.
Not suddenly.
That would have been easier to see.
He began with small things.
He questioned why she needed her own savings account.
He said married couples shouldn't keep secrets.
Then he asked for passwords.
When Gaby resisted, he acted hurt.
So she gave them to him.
Then Brenda started appearing almost every day.
Always helpful.
Always smiling.
She organized medical paperwork.
Insurance forms.
Hospital documents.
She told Gaby she should rest.
“You're family now,” Brenda would say.
“We take care of our own.”
After Leo was born, Gaby barely slept.
That was when Mason arrived.
He carried a thick folder.
Derek sat beside her.
Brenda held the baby.
“Just sign where Mason marked,” Derek said.
“What am I signing?”
“Routine stuff.”
Gaby remembered one page.
Only one.
At the top was her full legal name.
Under it was a property description.
She asked Mason about it.
He laughed.
“It's estate planning.”
Derek kissed her forehead.
“Trust me.”
So she signed.
Days later, Derek became colder.
Weeks later, he told her the Pine Street townhouse had been transferred.
“To who?”
I asked.
“I don't know.”
“You didn't check?”
“I tried.”
She looked ashamed.
“He took my phone.”
My jaw tightened.
“What?”
“He said I was becoming paranoid.”
Then came the bank account.
Gaby went to buy groceries.
Her card declined.
She called the bank from the store.
The account held forty-three dollars.
She had saved more than sixty thousand.
“When I confronted Derek, he told me the money had been moved for investments.”
“Did you authorize it?”
“No.”
“And then?”
“I packed a bag.”
Her breathing changed.
I knew whatever came next was worse.
“I put Leo in his carrier.”
She stared at the motel door as though she could still see the old house.
“I reached the front door.”
“Derek blocked it.”
She whispered.
“He just stood there.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You're not taking my son anywhere.’”
I felt my pulse pounding.
“And Brenda?”
“She was behind him.”
Gaby looked at me.
“She smiled.”
That detail disturbed me more than almost anything else.
“What did she say?”
Gaby repeated it exactly.
“If you walk out that door, we'll tell everyone you're unstable.”
I said nothing.
“She told me they had records.”
“What records?”
“Doctor's notes. Messages. Videos.”
“Were you unstable?”
“No!”
“I know.”
I leaned forward.
“What videos?”
“They recorded me crying.”
My stomach turned.
“They woke me when I had finally fallen asleep. Derek would start arguments. Brenda would say things until I lost my temper.”
Then somebody would record her.
A new mother.
Exhausted.
Overwhelmed.
Angry.
Exactly what they needed.
“They said they'd show a judge.”
“And you believed them?”
Gaby looked toward Leo.
“I believed they could take him.”
That answer ended my anger at her.
All of it redirected.
“How did you finally leave?”
“One morning Derek forgot to lock the back door.”
She grabbed Leo.
No suitcase.
No money.
No phone.
She walked until her feet blistered.
A woman at a gas station helped her reach a shelter.
She stayed there two weeks.
Then there was no bed.
After that, she slept near the old bus station.
I had to look away.
My daughter had been sleeping on concrete less than twenty miles from my house.
“Why didn't you find a way to call?”
“I almost did.”
“Almost?”
Gaby went silent.
Then she reached into the pocket of her borrowed jeans.
She took out a folded piece of paper.
A photograph.
It showed me walking out of my house.
The date was printed in the corner.
Three weeks earlier.
On the back someone had written:
CALL HIM AND HE LOSES EVERYTHING TOO.
I stared at the photograph.
Someone had been watching me.
I took out my phone.
“I'm calling Rebecca.”
Rebecca Cole had been my attorney for nearly twenty years.
She answered on the third ring.
I told her enough to get her attention.
She interrupted me.
“Do not call Derek.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Do not call Brenda.”
“I definitely wasn't planning to.”
“Photograph every document Gaby still has.”
“She doesn't have any.”
Rebecca became quiet.
“Robert, where are you?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Don't tell me over the phone.”
That sentence changed the atmosphere in the motel room.
“Why?”
“Because if what you're describing is accurate, I don't want to assume her phone was the only thing compromised.”
I looked at the prepaid device I had just bought.
Then at Gaby.
Rebecca continued.
“I'll pull the property records tonight.”
“When will you know something?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
The call ended.
At 10:47 p.m., someone knocked on the motel door.
Three slow knocks.
Gaby's face changed instantly.
I motioned for her to stay back.
Another knock.
“Mr. Hayes?”
A man's voice.
I looked through the peephole.
Thirty-something.
Dark shirt.
Expensive watch.
Nervous expression.
Gaby came close enough to see him.
She grabbed my arm.
“That's Tyler.”
“Who?”
“Derek's fixer.”
I opened the door with the chain still attached.
“What do you want?”
The man smiled without warmth.
“Derek wants his son.”
“My grandson is asleep.”
“If Gabriella doesn't return tomorrow, they're reporting the child missing.”
I stared at him.
“Tell Derek to go to hell.”
Tyler's eyes flicked toward the room behind me.
Then he stepped closer.
His voice dropped.
“If you want your daughter alive, don't say things like that where Brenda can hear them.”
The hallway suddenly felt cold.
“What did you say?”
Tyler backed away.
“I delivered the message.”
I slammed the door.
An hour later, the prepaid phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
The message read:
I'VE WORKED FOR THE MILLERS FOR THREE YEARS.
THEY OWE ME $180,000.
I KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO GABY.
I KNOW WHY THEY USED HER NAME.
AND I KNOW WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING NEXT.
MEET ME TOMORROW AT 9.
COME ALONE.
Gaby read the message.
Then she looked at me.
Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Dad…”
“What?”
“Derek trusts Tyler with everything.”
I looked down at the phone.
For the first time, I wondered if the man outside our door had come to threaten us.
Or to save us.
Then another text appeared.
One sentence.
DON'T LET GABY SIGN ANYTHING ELSE.
Not even a minute later, Rebecca called.
May you like
Her first words were:
“Robert, we have a much bigger problem.”
