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“I should have. I’d missed my period. Guess I was in denial or something.”
I nod, understanding the paralyzing fear of being young and suspecting you might be pregnant. But in my case, I had a boy who loved me. Joyce had been raped by her own stepuncle. “What happened then?”
“The shit hit the fan. I told them about Wyatt. About all the times he forced me into one of the horse stalls or wherever he could get me alone. I told them about him killing Starlight and him threatening to kill me. But none of it mattered.”
“They didn’t believe you?”
“No, they fucking did.” She makes a snarling sound. “But they preferred the image of a teen pregnancy by an unnamed boy over the scandal of their daughter being raped by Joan Franklin’s stepbrother. One made for gossip, the other would make news.”
“Are you saying they covered it up?”
“That’s exactly what they did—to protect their reputation.”
But not their child. “What happened to Alden?”
“They sent him away and spun a lie about him getting a great job in Alaska on an oil rig. All very nice and tidy. The way my daddy likes things. He said we’d start with a clean slate and move forward as if none of that happened.”
“Pretty hard to do when you’re pregnant.”
“Pfft. That was the best part for him. But for me it was like a death sentence. I couldn’t have it. No way. I begged them to take me to get rid of it. I couldn’t have an abortion in Kentucky at the time without parentalconsent. My father wouldn’t hear of it. End of discussion. He spouted on about the miracle of life, like what happened to me was a blessing. He actually used that word when the doctor said I was carrying a boy.
“I tried to get rid of it myself. Took a hammer to my stomach. After that, they never let me out of their sight. So, I had their fucking demon seed. My father even named him after his granddaddy. Dwayde Davis. The apple of my father’s eye. Made my skin crawl.” She shudders.
There are women who choose to have babies born out of rape, and they love them. Joyce wasn’t given any option or support. Instead, her parents added to the brutal assault by forcing their traumatized child to give Franklin a male heir.
“You waited until Dwayde was four to take him, why?”
“They wanted me gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was using. Just weed and hash then. Pills sometimes. They threatened to send me away. Said they wouldn’t tolerate drugs around their precious son. They called him that,” she says curling her lip. “Their son. I knew they had a plan to get custody and raise him as theirs. I never signed that document. But I knew what they wanted. They’d already given up on me. The kid was all they cared about. So, I took him and ran.
“I would have paid to have seen their reactions when they woke up to find him gone with no idea where I’d taken him or what I’d done,” she says with twisted pleasure. “I moved around to make sure they never found him. I did what I had to do to survive. Whatever it took. I wanted to make them pay. Make them suffer.”
And in so doing, destroyed herself and hurt an innocent little boy in the name of revenge. “You told all this to Dwayde?” I surmise.
“Sho’ did,” she admits without a shred of remorse. “Every time I looked at him, it was like looking at the fucking devil. My father’s eyes in Wyatt’s face. You have no idea what that was like.”
“No, I don’t. What you went through, Joyce, is unconscionable. But it doesn’t justify abusing Dwayde.”
“Pfft. I could have sold him for a pretty penny to any pimp out there. I could have made money off him when the johns eyed him up. But I didn’t. He got better than he deserved. You think he’s going to grow up to be any different than the piece of shit his daddy was?”
“Yes, I actually do. Dwayde is an amazing child and he’s going to grow up to be a good man.”
“Yeah right. Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better about helping him. But good men don’t exist. They’re all fucking scum.”
In her world, that’s sadly true. I stand, feeling sickened by the tragedy of it all. I’d come here for answers and gotten the ugly truth in spades.
But it’s not lost on me that the implications to Dwayde are far more reaching than just the case.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Micah
Late that Saturday afternoon, Deeand I board a private flight back to Chicago. She works for most of the time while I keep checking my watch, counting down the minutes until we land.
Right after leaving the prison, Dee had contacted Calista to confirm what she could of Joyce’s chilling confession. The only reason information had been collected on Wyatt Alden was because he’d been a former employee at Franklin Farms and the stepbrother of Joan Franklin. There wasn’t much in the PI report, no red flags at the time. Not so, when you know what you’re looking for.
