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Kathy Dale wasn’t even an American citizen, but a white woman who had been born in Japan. Cheryl was adopted by the same parents as she had been when the girls were about five after their own parents had died in a head-on collision. Their last name had been Chong. They had one daughter of their own, and her name was Mia. She found all of this out with a great deal of searching outside of the criminal records, of course.
Next she checked to see the status of Cheryl’s citizenship. She had become an American citizen ten years ago when all three women had come here, just as Mia had done. It was only Kathy who had failed to do so, and even further digging supplied the reason. She had been arrested almost as soon as they’d arrived, but bailed out by Parker Chou, a fellow student at the university they had attended. She had been living as an international citizen ever since.
“They all know each other, and they were all at the same college,” Kady whispered as she rubbed at her temples. “Archer knew Parker back then. I wonder if he knew these three women as well.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t find any evidence to either prove or disprove any affiliation between Archer and the three women either during school or after graduation. However, since he knew Parker as a work colleague for several years, it was possible he’d interacted with one or more of them during that time. So, the real question was, what was really going on here? Did Archer know more than he was letting one? Had he really told her the truth at all?
Kady hated the fact that she was doubting Archer at all. He had taken her off the streets and given her a home. He had also opened his heart to her as well, and they were about to have a child together. But what if the things Mia had said the other day were somehow true? What if, right before he’d gone to jail, Archer had gotten her pregnant, and once he came out of jail he intended to be with the other woman instead of her? The unwilling thoughts tumbled through her head until she could finally get a hold of herself.
“Stop this!” she scolded herself. “There’s no way he had a chance to have sex with her. We were inseparable that whole week.”
And Kady desperately wanted to believe that Archer was innocent in all of this. That all of Mia’s disgusting lies were just that, blatantly made-up and desperate lies.
Still, there had to be something between Archer and Mia in order for her to become as obsessed with him as she was. Kady was still fairly new to the whole situation. She’d only known Archer for just shy of seven months. She didn’t have any clue about most of his past except the fact that both he and Daryl had proclaimed that he had been a playboy.
Maybe Mia was one of the women he’d slept around with sometime and she hadn’t gotten it into her head that they were through. It made more sense than any other theory she could think of. And Parker, her loving brother, had been mad about it all these years and finally decided to get his revenge. Yes, that must be what had happened.
Certain that she’d solved the mystery at last, Kady was finally able to drift into a restless sleep. Her dreams were populated with playboy parties and diabetic syringes that kept her mentally running away the rest of the night.
Chapter 35
The following day when Kady went to see Archer she found Mia just stepping out of the visiting room. Fury and dislike surged through her at the odd coincidence. Since she had been told that the woman would never be allowed to come to the facility at the same time she was there, this was very disconcerting. She stepped over to one of the guards and told him they had a restraining order between them and this was her day, but the unhelpful guard said that if she didn’t like it she could leave herself.
“I’m not going to miss visiting Archer just because somebody let that woman in here on my day with him,” Kady complained. “I’d like to speak to your supervisor right now.”
“He’s on vacation.”
“Yes, I can tell,” said Kady with a frown. “You would never treat me this way if he was standing right here watching you.”
“Well he’s not,” said the guard. “And this young woman has been telling me quite the earful about you. You shouldn’t even be here at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kady growled, tired of everyone falling for Mia’s blatant lies. ‘Whatever she told you it’s an outright lie. If you don’t believe me you can ask Archer yourself.”
“Archer can’t have visits back to back, you know,” the guard said then. “Mia is already signed up, so you’ll have to wait an hour if you hope to see him at all.”
“Why is Mia signed up to visit Archer?” Kady gasped. “He doesn’t want to see her.”
“If he doesn’t want to see her, he could always refuse,” said the guard.
“Are you new around here?” Kady asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you here before.”
“Fairly new,” he said with a smirk.
“Excuse me,” said Kady as she stepped towards the desk.
“Where are you going?” he said, grabbing her arm. “I told you already, Miss Chong has already signed up to see Archer. You have no business up there.”
“You’d better let go of my arm, sir,” Kady told him. “You have no idea why I’m approaching that desk, so back off.”
His face turning red, the guard released her arm. Kady stepped to the window and said, “I’m here to see Parker Chou, please.”
Both Mia and the guard’s jaws dropped.
“Why you trying to see Parker?” Mia demanded hotly.
“You’ve deprived me of my visit with Archer, I may as well find something to do to pass the time,” Kady replied as she signed the slip of paper the woman behind the window gave her. She slipped her identification card back into her wallet and found herself a place to sit and wait.
“You got nothing to say to Parker,” Mia insisted, a sudden nervousness shining in her bitter gaze at Kady’s unexpected move.
