Page 123 of Heartbeat

“Because I didn’t know until a month ago that I even had a living daughter.” And then he began to explain, from being in Saudi Arabia, to trying to get home to his wife only to find her comatose and dying, and what his in-laws told him.

Louis was in shock. “You’re saying your in-laws told you your daughter was born dead and deformed and had already been cremated? That your wife had been in a coma since the delivery, and she died in your arms less than an hour after your arrival?”

“Yes, and I have birth and death certificates to prove this.” Then he pulled out the file and began laying out papers. “This is a picture of me and my wife on our wedding day. This is a picture taken less than two weeks ago of me and my daughter.”

Louis was stunned. Except for the fact that Wolf was older, it could have been the same woman in both photos.

“These are the DNA tests proving she’s my daughter. This is the note left within the blanket she was found in. A handwriting expert will tell you this handwriting matches the handwriting of my wife’s father. I don’t know what doctors and nurses were paid off to say my daughter died, and I don’t know who they paid to take her out of Louisiana to dump her, but she was found at approximately six days old in an alley in Hot Springs, Arkansas, dirty and too weak to cry, with that note inside her blanket. Read that note, please.”

Louis looked. “They mentioned a family history of mental illness.”

“Yes! Except that’s a lie, and I’m guessing it was meant to keep anyone from ever wanting to adopt her, thereby ensuring her a misery of foster care and orphanages. There’s another birth certificate in her case file. They gave it to her after she was found. Her surname came from the street on which she’d been found, and her given name came from the nun in the hospital where she was taken. Amalie Lincoln. My daughter grew up without me and without my name. I want them dead. I will settle for the rest of their lives in prison.”

Louis took a deep breath. “Sir. I can’t begin to understand your emotions, but you do know we’ll have to do our own investigations into the information you’ve given us and that will take time. Where did you get the info from her childhood?”

“From my daughter. At her request, her caseworker gave her a full copy of her own files after she aged out of the system. The caseworker’s name and location are in the file. The DNA results came through tests we had done at the hospital in Jubilee, Kentucky, only a few weeks ago. At my request, the lab results came to me. Everything else in that file is either an original or a copy of the originals I have in my possession. So, investigate away, but in the meantime, I suggest you bring them in for questioning immediately, because tomorrow I’m holding a press conference stating what I’ve just told you, and that I have filed charges against them with the NOPD.”

Louis flinched. “Are you threatening the validity of this police force?”

“I don’t have to. I’m just telling you what the court of opinion is going to do to your police force if nothing is done to follow up on the information I’ve just given you. And, just so you know, I have already retained my own lawyers here in the city. A criminal defense lawyer and a litigation lawyer. We will be filing a civil lawsuit against my ex-in-laws, as well. Their cards are in the file, too. I understand he’s one of the best attorneys in the state. I don’t play games, Detective.

“Twenty-eight years ago, two residents of your city kidnapped my baby and trafficked her on the day of her birth without giving a shit about what happened to her, as long as she didn’t die in Louisiana. Paid off God knows how many people to get away with it, and then sat back and watched my world coming down around me. If you have any further questions for me, I am at the Roosevelt Waldorf Astoria. Presidential suite. I will be there until they have been arrested and charged. After I am gone, you can communicate to me through my lawyer. Oh…and that file is yours. I have another one just like it, with all of the originals.”

Louis was horrified by the story, and more than a little scared of Wolf Outen, but if everything Outen just told him could be proved by the info he’d given them, this would probably become the biggest scandal in recent history. He grabbed a pen.

“I assume these people still live here in New Orleans, or you wouldn’t be here, so I’m going to need names and an address.”

“Carter and Leigh Bullock. Pillars of old-money New Orleans. Evil to the core. I’m sure you already know where to find them. We’ll see ourselves out,” Wolf said.

The moment he stood, his security was right beside him. They sandwiched him between them as they walked single file out into the hall and disappeared.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Louis muttered. He grabbed the file and headed for the captain’s office. They couldn’t stop Outen from saying whatever he wanted to say, and he was famous enough to get the media’s avid attention with a single phone call. Outen hadn’t threatened them. He’d just shortened their time to make decisions.

Carter was at the putting green between his wife’s azalea bushes and the wisteria-wrapped pergola at the back of the property when the housekeeper came scurrying out, trying to wave him down.

“Mr. Carter! Mr. Carter! You need to come quick!”

Cursing the stroke he’d just flubbed, he jammed the putter into his golf bag and rolled it back into the house. He could hear raised voices, but when Leigh began screaming, he took off running.

The last thing he expected was to see the NOPD on his doorstep and his wife being taken out the door and put into the back of a police car.

“Stop! Stop this instant!” he roared. “I’ll have your jobs for this. I demand to know what’s going on!”

Detective Louis Giraud stepped forward. “We’ve received some serious allegations regarding you and your wife, and we need you to come down to the station for questioning.”

Carter threw up his arms in disbelief. “How dare you? How fucking dare you? I’ll have your jobs for this!” he said and started fighting them.

Louis didn’t play games. He didn’t argue; he just cuffed Carter without responding.

“I’m calling my lawyer!” Carter shouted.

“You can call him from the station,” Louis said, and took Carter’s elbow in a firm grip and led him to the cruiser.

When Carter realized they were putting him and Leigh in separate cars, he panicked. “I want to be with my wife!”

“No, sir. We’ll be questioning you both separately. I’ll see you at the station,” he said, then shut the door and watched them drive away.

Louis knew this was just the beginning of a big ugly mess, but Wolf Outen’s charges had to be addressed, and the proof he’d brought with him was shocking, to say the least. However, it was the captain’s decision to pull the Bullocks in now, so that when Outen held his press conference, the police would already have the jump on it. At this point, nobody was being charged or arrested, but Carter and Leigh Bullock had a world of explaining to do.

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