I thought of the list of things I needed to do this afternoon and decided to send Rowdy a text and ask him to bring home dinner when he got off shift at the towing company. When I stopped in the driveway, I pulled my phone out and sent him a text message asking him to call me before he headed this way so we could talk about what he should pick up. My phone dinged seconds later and I smiled when I saw his reply.
“Sounds good. Love you.”
I dropped my phone into my purse and grabbed the strap of it to pull it out with me as I got out of the car. I was turning around to walk toward the house when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and jumped when I saw a woman I didn’t recognize standing just a few feet away pointing a gun at me.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“And here’s the little wifey, home from town, getting ready to take care of my family,” the woman snarled before she reached up and slapped me across the face.
I reeled back in shock and turned to sprint into the house, terrified since I hadn’t seen or heard the girls nearby.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll shoot you in the back,” the woman yelled.
“Beverly, where are the girls?” I said after I screeched to a halt and turned back to face her.
“They stole my baby!” she screamed as she again walked closer to me.
“Who stole your baby?” I asked her quietly, trying to figure out what the fuck she was talking about without riling her up any more than she already was.
“Where is Rowdy?” Beverly asked as she used the hand not holding the gun to sweep her hair out of her face. “I told him I’d be here.”
“You told him?”
“In my last letter,” she said, exasperated. “Let me guess - he’s not here because you didn’t let him read it. Have you been hiding them from him, you little bitch?”
“Rowdy has gotten all your letters, but he refused to read even one of them. He gave them to his lawyer every time.”
I knew instantly that was the wrong thing to say, because Beverly’s face got red enough that I started to hope that she was having a heart attack or better yet, a stroke.
“I am here to pick up my daughter and my boyfriend,” Beverly took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. “Since Rowdy doesn’t seem to want to talk to me, I’ll just take the baby and my daughter and go.”
“Where are the girls?” I asked her again, terrified that she had hurt them already.
“I told you... they took my baby!”
“My... I mean... the girls took your baby?”
“God, I don’t know how he can put up with you if you’re really this fucking stupid. Yes, the two girls took my baby,” Beverly blew out a breath, but then her face started to get red again as she worked herself up. She screeched at me, “I don’t even know for sure which one is my daughter because I’ve never even seen a fucking picture of her. Can you imagine what that feels like?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine that. Where did the girls take the baby? Are they in the house?”
“They dropped down a fucking hole in the floor and locked the door behind them and they have my baby down there!”
“They’re in the tornado shelter,” I whispered, relieved. “Beverly, the girls aren’t going to come out of there until they know it’s safe. Rowdy will be home in a little bit and he’s going to be so pissed. You don’t want him pissed at you do you? After all these years?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want him to be mad at me. They poisoned his mind against me already and I can’t fix that. I don’t want him to get angry.”
“Then you should leave before he gets here. The girls will take care of your baby for you until you can come back and talk to Rowdy when he’s calm.”
“You’re going to make them come out of there.”
“I can’t,” I shook my head. “If it’s locked from the inside, I can’t get in and they can’t hear anything from the outside.”
“Then how will they know when Rowdy comes to get them out?”
I scrambled, realizing that I may have painted myself into a corner, “He has a secret knock. I don’t even know it. Only he and Leia know it.”
“Leia?” Beverly whispered. “That’s her name?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Her name is Leia.”
“Come with me,” Beverly moved so quickly, I wasn’t prepared when she grabbed my arm and jerked me to walk beside her. “I’ll call out to her. She’ll know it’s me since I’m her mother. A little girl can trust her mother.”
My eyebrows rose and I tried hard to silence my features. If she saw that I thought she was totally insane, she’d get mad again. I needed her calm while I figured out what to do.
My first thought was to get some sort of weapon out of the tack room, but she jerked me along behind her so fast, I didn’t have a chance to even glance in there before we passed it.
“Leia!” Beverly screamed over and over again. “I’m your mother, Leia, and I order you to come out right this instant!”
I could tell by the sounds in the barn that our horses were agitated because of Beverly’s screaming and when I glanced into the stall that held the newest rescue, I saw her face through the bars of the door and realized she was crazed. I could see the whites of her eyes and she was breathing hard. I knew that any second now she would go off and be uncontrollable.
I almost laughed when I compared the horse to Beverly in my head and then realized that I must be losing my fucking mind
