Page 14 of Madison

“They prey on people that are in grief. Just as you were when they approached you. Then Daniel stepped in and sent your DNA to a site that they subscribe to, and they had to act fast. The deadline that they gave you for that money? It was real. If you didn’t claim it, which is what I did for you by that night at midnight, they were to receive the lump sum of all the policies for each of them, at, as I mentioned, double because of the way that we think they were killed.” She asked him if there were other families that they did the same thing to. “There are a dozen of them. Yours has the most payoff. They would have retired if I hadn’t stepped in and made it known that David, Daniel, and I weren’t there to get your money.”

Chapter 4

Kyle was enjoying the kid’s room that he’d been in for the last couple of weeks while recuperating at the hospital. He knew that he should have been released a few days ago, but the doc, his bestest friend, had been running more tests on him that required him to stay another day.

Luckily, she told him they’d not found anything but that he needed more protein. He found out that he simply loved boiled eggs with a bit of salt on them. But, she’d told him yesterday, she was running out of reasons to have him stay hidden in the hospital.

“Your father is out of jail now and making trouble again. He and your mother are out scouting around to find you.” He asked her if they were going to go to jail again. “I don’t know that. I’ve been looking into things, and I believe that the rest of the family is as well. So we’ll see.”

He looked at her when she said his name. “I guess I’m going to be coming back to the emergency department to see you again. If he doesn’t kill me first.” Doc Layla said that she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “He’s fit to be tied, you know. I didn’t want to tell you, but he was here last night complaining about how he and Mom have been having to do all my chores. Mostly, I do all the cooking and cleaning, but it’ll be ten times harder when I get back because I don’t think they’ve done a single thing that they tell you they have.”

“A friend of mine was there just yesterday, and I think whatever you think it’s going to look like is about twenty times worse.” He grinned at her, thanking her for the heads up. “You’re so very welcome. But we do have that court hearing in the morning and I told you that all of the Walsh family is going to be there for you. And we’ve been collecting evidence about how they treated you, too. Did you know that he’s not even your biological father and that he’s never married your mother? Not that it matters all that much, but she’s living in subsidized housing and claiming that she lives there with you and a sister. Did you have a sister at any time? Wayne has lived there since she moved in.”

“I knew that he wasn’t my real dad. He told me that every day when I didn’t do something that he told me to. But no, no sister that I’m aware of. Not that they’d tell me anything. Some days, it was when he had me in the backyard picking up leaves as they fell out of the tree one at a time.” Doc Layla pulled him into her lap and held him there. “I don’t know that anyone has ever hugged me. Not in all my life.”

“I’m so sorry, Kyle. So very sorry indeed.” Kyle let her hold him. It was kind of nice to be held and not held down, and he told her that. “I would like to say that after tomorrow, you’ll be able to get all the hugs you want, but I have no idea what the judge is going to say. Madison and Edgar are going to be working to get you out of the house, but they neither one knows this judge and what his take on child abuse is like.”

“He’ll probably put me back there after telling Wayne and Mary not to hurt me anymore. Like that will be something that they do. I think I’ve been beaten up since I was a little tiny baby.” She held him tighter, and when Madison showed up, she let him go. “Whatcha got there, Mr. Madison? Is it more food? I don’t think that I could take another meal like the one you brought to us earlier. I’m so full I’m about to bust.”

Kyle was also hurting, not from anything that had been done to him in there but just his heart. He had it in his head that his parents, whatever they were to him, were going to kill him so he’d be no more trouble to them. And he’d been a lot of trouble, he’d heard from his mom when she got to call him yesterday. They were having to move out of their nice house because he told the people that he was being mistreated.

“Kyle?” He looked at Mr. Madison after whipping away the tears. “Ah, son, don’t do that. Don’t be looking for trouble when you don’t know what’s going to be happening to you. You never know what tomorrow will bring.”

“No sir, I don’t. But I can guess pretty good.” He told him what his mom had told him yesterday when she spoke to him. That she had a week to move out of the house that she was in. “She also isn’t allowed to get the food card anymore either. That was a lot of money she told me that she’s now going to have to steal. I don’t think she meant that, did she? That she was going to steal from the stores that she can’t shop at anymore.”

“I’d not put a thing past her.” He noticed that the doc was gone and he asked him about it. “She had some things that needed her attention in the emergency department. I didn’t know she was on call today. Did you?” Kyle pulled out the cell phone that he was given.

“Doc Layla gave me this phone so that I could call her when I get to feeling sorry for myself. She said when I call her not to expect her to be all friendly like she is during the day. Anyway, it has her schedule on it so that I can have her paged here at work if I need her. She’s a really good doc, did you know that?” Kyle laughed. “If you ask her, she’ll tell you that. I really like her, Mr. Madison, but I don’t think she’s all that friendly to many people. But like I said, I really like her.”

“I do, too.” He could see that. Kyle might only be a kid but he could see that Mr. Madison was all mushy around her. It was kind of fun and sort of gross at the same time. When Mr. Madison tickled him, he laughed with the man. He was storing up all his memories of the two of them so that when he was put in a cage again, he’d have them to keep him warm at night. “When are you going to marry her? She seems like a good person to me. And I can tell that you really like her. Maybe that’s love, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about love.”

“I am married to her.” That surprised him, and he asked him when they’d done that. “The day that I met her. I needed to be there for her…no, that’s not the truth. I was mad at her for inconveniencing me, and I had the papers filed that said that we were married so that I’d be able to collect some money for her. Forty million dollars.”

“Is that legal? I mean, sheesh, you didn’t even get down on one knee and ask her? You just did it?” He said that he did. “She doesn’t even wear a ring from you either. That’s not right, Mr. Madison. I’d think that a man like you could afford a pretty ring for her, too.”

“I never thought of that until right now. Thanks, Kyle. I’m going to call my mom so that I can have her bring me in one of the ones that I have—”

“No. It needs to be one that you picked out because it reminds you of her, like a pretty stone that has her eye color. I read that in a book once. I don’t think I should have read it, but I did. And now I can help you out. I hope. You are helpable, aren’t you, Mr. Madison?” He told him that his mom probably didn’t think so. “Well, I’ll help you. You’ve been really nice to me so I’ll help you be nice to her. Also, you need to take her out to dinner. Not to talk about stuff that is going on. Just about her. Girls like that stuff, I guess.”

When Mr. Madison hugged him, it took him a few seconds to remember that he’d not hurt him. Usually, Wayne had him in a hug like this while he was trying to cut his air off. But this hug was different. It was like he was telling him something. Like he liked him or something. When he pulled away, he asked him if he had some paper that he could make a list on.

The two of them were having so much fun writing down things that Mr. Madison could do for Doc Layla. It was silly things, too. Like he should rub her feet for her using peanut butter and jelly. Fill a bathtub with roses and leave the thorns on them. He was nearly sick with laughing so hard that when he laid down on the floor, he still couldn’t breathe all that well. It was even funnier when the doc came back and asked them what was going on.

“Kyle here was telling me about some of the smut he’s been reading in his spare time.” They both laughed and that was when he noticed that Doc Layla wasn’t. She did put a shopping bag on the floor that he noticed. Not asking her about it as he might usually have done to tease her, he didn’t get a chance to ask her about what was bothering her because Mr. Madison did it first. Good for him.

“I lost a patient.” He knew better than to joke around about that. If she lost a patient, then it was because they had died. Not that she’d physically lost them. “He was just a young man and had such a bright future for himself had he only stopped taking drugs. There is only so much a doctor can do if the patient doesn’t want to be helped.”

He knew about that, too. His buddy down the street had been taking drugs since he was his age, he told him once. Benny was a good friend anyway and would slip him food and water if he found out that he was out in the yard alone again after dark. Most of the time, he’d be chained to the tree or something, but he’d help him out. Not only that, but he would also bring him a blanket if it was too cold, even for a dead man to be out. He used to tell him that all the time. Right up until he died robbing the house down the street from the two of them and was killed with a shotgun that the owner had. It hurt his heart when he thought about that sometimes.

“How about you and I take the little man here and have some dinner. I know this really good doctor that can have him signed out for a few hours.” She said that she thought that he could be released tonight. “Even better. We’ll go get some pizza. I love a good hot pizza when it’s chilly out. Then after that, we’ll head to my new house and find us a comfy room that we can sleep in. The mattresses were delivered today so that’ll be one less thing we’ll have to worry about. Then we’ll have the best night’s sleep we’ve ever had.”

He wondered if he’d heard anything that he’d said to him about taking the doc out to dinner. But when he winked at him, telling the two of them that he also wanted to let Kyle sleep in a real bed for a change, they both agreed.

“I’ve never been to a restaurant before.” He had whispered that to Mr. Madison, not wanting to embarrass him if he did something wrong. “I don’t have any clothes either. The ones that I was brought in here with were dirty then. I’m betting that not even the best kind of wash-up stuff would get them prettier looking.” Layla had to return to his room for a second, and they waited for her to return, still talking about going out to eat.

“I have you something to wear, Kyle. I knew you were coming home tomorrow or the next day, so I got you something other than a gown to wear for it.” He went into the bathroom to change into a nice pair of blue jeans that actually fit him, as well as a shirt like the one that he’d seen on other boys in school. There was even a nice-looking man riding a horse on it, too. They’d gotten him some underwear that wasn’t his father’s to wear when he was first brought here and he loved them. But pulling out the boots, made of real leather, he couldn’t have been happier than he was at that moment.

“Look at you, all duded up. She did all right, getting you things that you can wear.” He had to turn around so that Mr. Madison could see the whole thing and was feeling really good. Until the elevator opened and there stood his parents. “Don’t say a word. Not even look at them. All right.”

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