Page 18 of Unwanted Vows

“Where are the rest of the children?” I ask the nearest worker.

“The rest?” she looks at me, puzzled. “These are the only ones I know about.”

Rylie appears at my elbow. “Family meeting,” she says quietly. “Come quickly.”

We follow her into a meeting room where grim-faced adults are sitting around a table containing a telephone and an envelope. They all look at these objects as if they were snakes, coiled to strike.

“What is going on?” I explode.

“Kidnapping,” Charles says grimly. He has an arm around Kate, whose face is pale, and marked with tear streaks. Her baby is cradled in her arms. “Cece, Isabel and Paul wandered off to the edge of the orchard by themselves. Julia and Austin are out with the dogs and more than half of the security team, trying to track them. So far, all they’ve found is that.” He nods toward the two objects on the table.

I reach for the letter, but Rylie grabs my hand. “Fingerprints,” she says. “A team is on the way from Moor Security home office.”

“Not the police?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we report the children missing?”

Charles shakes his head. “Not yet. I have reason to believe that our local forces have been infiltrated by gang members. Evidence has gone missing from police headquarters, and a couple of people who should have been put away for life are out walking the streets as a result. Austin’s team is better, anyway. If they can’t find them . . .” He turns his head, and his arm tightens around Kate.

Kate begins crying. “I knew I shouldn’t take a nap. Dreadful things always happen when you aren’t paying attention.”

I take a deep breath, and say in my best emergency room nurse voice, “May I please read the letter?”

Silence falls on the room. Rylie picks the paper up with salad tongs, and drags it to the edge of the table where I can read what is written on it.

LOOKING FOR CLUES

ANDREW

I read the ransom note over Ms. Northernfield’s shoulder, following along as she reads aloud. “I have your children. I’ll trade them back to you for an official writ of divorce separating Catriona Ildogis from Leland Lane, plus an official marriage certificate showing that Catriona and Andrew Lane are wed. Except for the Northernfield kid. Since his father is Andrew Lane, I’ll raise him so he can take Albert’s place. It’s what I should have done when the girl showed up in my office.”

“What!” I explode, before Ms. Northernfield can read more. I spin her to face me.

Wide angry eyes glare up at me. “Did you set this in motion?” she demands. “You’ve got some nerve! I tried to find you, and all I came up with is an old man who seemed to think he owned the world. I ran away from him before my baby was born. Thanks to Kate and her family, we’ve been fine. Just fine, until you show up with a whole raft of royal relatives.”

“Madeline?” I say, her face and name finally appearing out of my mental fog. “You are Madeline who says, ‘pooh, pooh’ to the lions in the zoo? That Madeline?”

“Yeah,” she says, poking me in the chest. “And now I say, fuck you! Where is my son?”

“The party,” I say, the memory finally making its way up through the tangled mess that is my traumatized brain. “I was high on the news that I was shipping out with the next Peace Corps contingent, going to work with Doctors Without Borders. God, I was so glad to get out of the States.”

“And you didn’t give a rat’s ass as to who or what you left behind!” She jabs me again with that finger. It hurts like a surgical knife. She’s cutting the heart right out of me. “You left me a disconnected number for a business that didn’t exist. It took an investigation to discover your identity. And what did it get me? It got me threats from Rodri Andrew Aims, the head of Aims Corporation, the biggest, dirtiest business in New York City, that’s what!”

“You spoke to my grandfather?” I say, still trying to process all of this. What the heck did Grandfather Aims have to do with this? The Lanes had cut ties with Aims Corporation before I was born.

“I just explained that!” she says. “And now he’s got my baby, after all I went through to keep us out of the news, from being noticed. I even gave up my scholarship. You asshole!” She curls her little hands into fists and pounds them against my chest.

“Madeline,” I say, trying to calm her. I feel like the worst kind of jerk. Tears are running down her face, and her mouth is set in a deep frown. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was out of the country. We didn’t get much in the way of mail. Two of the caravans that might have had mail were sacked and everything burned. I was badly injured in the second incident, and spent months in the hospital. I would have come home if I had known. At the very least, I would have sent money. I am so sorry.”

“So am I!” she shoots back at me. “You’re just another deadbeat dad, who’s trying to apologize nine years too late. Well, here’s a news bulletin for you Doctor Lane, while you were out being Clara Barton or Dr. Livingstone, I was dealing with the bureaucrats of medical school, part-time jobs, Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC. Now that Paul and I are doing well you turn up and get him k-kidnapped.”

She breaks then, bursting into incoherent cries of rage and grief, beating on my chest with both fists as hard as she can. I catch her in my arms and grab both her hands in mine.. I hold her still, while she sobs, getting my shirt front soaked with tears. I keep trying to process the astounding news. I have a son? One of the kids running around here is my son? And Grandfather Aims knows? Did Richard know?

I feel rage start to boil within me. That old son of a bitch. No wonder Dad had tried so hard to get me to come home. I always knew there was more to that visit than just simple family goodwill. If only father had just come out and told me! But no, he had to be cryptic and pretend that it was just that I was missed. “Come home, all is forgiven,” that kind of crap. And now he’s gone and I’m nine years too late to help Maddy with my son.

“We’ll find him,” I say instead of all the things I’m thinking. “Moor Security is supposed to be excellent with kidnapping cases. I’m sorry, Madeline. So, so sorry. If I’d known, I would have come home. I would have stayed or I would have taken you with me.”

Then I remember barely escaping Mountain Hold with our lives, airlifted out by Lane Enterprises, taken to Ildogis with Leland so he could fulfill the arranged marriage contract my father and mother had made with Tulok Ildogis, that clever old bastard.

Some of what I was saying must be getting through to Madeline, because her sobs taper off to quiet weeping, then sniffles. I hold her, warm and alive, the girl-woman who had filled my dreams as I lay on a camp cot trying to catch some sleep between rounds of nursing cases of malaria, snakebites, and gunshot wounds while recovering from my own wounds and illness. After the accident, I was never sure if she was real, or if she was a fragment of my fever dreams.

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