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“Mother, no offense, but I’m not carrying a gun.”
“Talk to your father about it before you dismiss the idea. Ashlie Thebideux is a maniac, Adam. She’s proven that she’ll stop at nothing to get that baby back now. Are you willing to risk your life because you don’t want to carry a gun?”
“Can we change the subject? I’ve had a pretty upsetting day.”
“What’s your mother done now?” Butch said, coming into the room.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Adam said.
“I’ll help you install a fence this weekend.”
“Pa, that would be great. I was just telling Katy that. With a gate.”
“Absolutely, a big, locked gate.”
“Sit down and eat, son,” Paulina said. “Where’s Maw Maw?”
“She’s back with the baby,” Butch answered. “So I’m going to voice my opinion.”
“Pa, just let it go for now.”
“Hear me out, Adam. I think your mother will agree with me we can afford to fortify this place for you, do the alarm, the shutters, the fence. Everything you need to stay safe.”
“Thank you so much, but I’ll manage it,” Adam said, weary of the mess. For the first time in a while, he blamed having sex with Ashlie for the current trouble. He would not bring that up now, but one act started the chain reaction.
“You’re going to get it when we die,” Butch countered. “Just let us so we can stop worrying about you.”
“Pa, don’t worry about me. I’m twenty-nine years old.”
“Do you think that ever stops? You’ll worry about Adelaide until you die. Ask Maw Maw.”
“Ask me what?” Genevieve asked, coming in with the baby in her arms. “This one was awake. She opened her eyes and looked at me and I swear, she grinned at me.”
“I was just telling my son that you still worry about me,” Butch said, answering his mother.
“Around the clock,” Genevieve said.
“I’ll fix a bottle,” Adam said, smiling at his grandmother holding Adelaide. She lay there, clueless about all these people focused on her.
His family crowded around the baby. As exhausted as he was, it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t alone.
Chapter 5
The Cypress Cove Sheriff Station occupied a beige brick building at the edge of town. Sheriff Dave Chastain came into the interview room with a cup of coffee for Ashlie fixed the way she said she liked it, with milk and sugar. He remembered her from high school although she was a freshman when he was a senior. At the time, she was slender and sort of plain, but she’d fixed herself up since then. He’d heard she married a plastic surgeon and when he looked at her face, he thought there were some obvious things about her that were different—puffed-up lips beyond what was natural the most noticeable. And her hourglass figure was exaggerated, but he tried not to pay attention to it. Maybe it was from childbirth.
“Do you want to tell me what happened today?”
“If I’m already arrested, what difference does it make?” she asked, sipping the coffee.
“You’re not arrested, yet. This is your story, Ashlie. Adam is going to give his statement. The women at the day care had a lot to say. This is your chance to give your side of it. You can call Jack Armstrong to come in.”
“It’s going to look bad no matter what I say. I don’t want Jack here. Not yet.”
She lifted the coffee cup to her mouth again, holding the cup with perfectly manicured, bright-red lacquered fingernails. Dave waited. Interrogations were better if the suspect led them, so he let her take her time.
“I’ve been following Adam,” she said. “I got fired from Saint Anthony’s on a morals clause because I got pregnant out of wedlock. Can you believe that? In this day and age. Plus, the nuns practically forced Adam and me together from the time I was a student teacher. We had gone to the same school, but magically, they expect you to be attracted to each other when you come of age.”
“Is that what happened?”
