Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Chapter Forty-Two
Josie’s hands lay laced in her lap, her muscles tensed to the point of cramping as she waited for Mr. and Mrs. Davies to arrive. Their lawyer sat across from her and Zach, seemingly relaxed as she typed into her phone.
Zach put his hand on top of hers, squeezing lightly, and she gave him a small nervous smile. He looked exhausted, and she knew he was, because he was being torn in every direction as he worked to both locate Reagan and offer support to her. And she was grateful, so very grateful that because of him, she was able to turn her attention to her found child with the full knowledge that absolutely no stone was being left unturned in the hunt for her friend.
Zach removed his hand from hers just as the door opened and her own lawyer, the man Zach had helped her retain directly after she’d learned of her son’s fate, escorted them into the room.
As introductions were made and the Davies’s lawyer greeted them, Josie took in the attractive couple. The woman’s eyes were red and puffy as though she’d been crying, and her face was etched with shock. She was petite, with straight shoulder-length brown hair and wide blue eyes. Her husband was tall with wavy dark-blond hair and a short beard. He glanced at his wife worriedly, and then they took their seats.
They all stared for a moment, the couple obviously as curious about Josie as she was about them. These people who had been raising her child, these people who knew everything about him, whereas she knew nothing.
“My clients have been informed about the sequence of events and the illegalities of their adoption of Reed.” Reed. Josie had been informed of the name his adoptive parents had given him, the name he’d gone by all of his short life, save for a handful of days when he’d been with Josie, but she couldn’t seem to think of him by that name. In her heart he was Caleb, and thinking of him by any other name made him feel like a stranger to her. “They’d like to come to a mutual agreement as far as visitation,” the lawyer finished.
“Visitation?” Josie’s gaze whipped to the couple, who were staring at her with wide, sad eyes, their fingers laced. “He’s my son,” she said, her hands fisting in her lap. “He was stolen from me. I don’t want to visit him. I want him back. I’m his mother.”
“Ms. Stratton,” Emery Davies said, her eyes imploring as she reached toward Josie, pulling her hand back as though it’d been an unconscious movement and she’d just realized what she was doing. “We can understand the deep devastation you must have experienced losing Reed the way you did. We do. We’ve spent the last few days crying tears not just for ourselves, but for you as well.” Her voice sounded so even, so…placating, and resentment made Josie’s throat constrict.
“You can understand?” She looked back and forth between them. “You can understand what it’s like to be drugged and kidnapped from your bed at night? Shackled to a wall? Deprived of food and water while sitting on a cement floor? You can understand giving birth all alone on a filthy mattress and then having your child ripped from your arms, never to be seen again?” Her voice had risen as she’d spoken, her heart pounding as pressure expanded in her chest. “You can understand that?” she demanded of the pretty woman whose face had turned white as she’d spoken. The woman her son called Mom.
Emery Davies cast her eyes down. She was holding back tears as well. “No, you’re right, of course. We can’t understand that. We only know that the loss you must have felt—are still feeling—is unthinkable,” she said softly. She met Josie’s eyes and Josie saw the tears shimmering there. “But please, think of Reed. We’re the only parents he’s ever known. To take him from us would be to detonate a bomb in his life.”
Josie took a moment to get ahold of herself. They both appeared so deeply troubled, and she wanted to be understanding toward them; she did, and rationally, she was. But there was also this red haze that filled her brain when she looked at them. An unrelenting bitterness and, yes, she could admit it, jealousy that gripped her and made her want to shake them. To scream. Surely there had been clues that the adoption wasn’t completely legitimate. Had they seen her story on the news? Had they ever wondered just once at the timing… Had they decided to turn a blind eye? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t help wondering. Couldn’t help the deep hurt that rose up inside her when she thought of how she’d felt during that time, the debilitating grief she’d been crushed under, not knowing whether her baby was dead or alive, if he was suffering, if he was safe. These people could have stopped that pain. These people had been holding her baby while her arms were empty.