Baby Love(30)

He turned to Trey.

"This will calm her," he explained. "She has had a major shock with what she has been through today. She will be out in just a few minutes."

A few minutes were all she had so I needed to work fast. I approached her gurney, taking her hand into mine.

"Susan," I said gently, "We want you to calm down and relax. You need to take care of your health for the moment, okay? No one is angry with you, do you understand?"

She nodded pathetically, totally grief-stricken about what had happened. I needed to get some questions answered before she drifted off.

"Okay," I said, steadfast in my mission. "Can you please tell me what happened to Preston?"

"Nurse Bradley took her," she choked out between tears. "During the interview, Preston started fussing to eat. I asked Nurse Bradley if she would hold her while I went to the kitchen and warmed up a bottle of your breast milk. She was more than happy to do so," she said.

"I heard the baby stop fussing while I was out in the kitchen. I went ahead and finished heating up her bottle."

Susan was sobbing now, totally absorbed in her tears and guilt. I could see that.

"What happened?" I prodded as Trey stood by in a zombie-like trance.

"Well, when I came out with Preston's bottle, I saw that Nurse Bradley was sitting on the couch with her. She had her blouse unbuttoned and she was . . ."

Susan stopped to sob louder now, clearly disoriented by what she had observed. I needed her to finish.

"What Susan?" I pressed, my voice louder and more demanding than I had intended.

"She was nursing the baby," she wailed. "Preston was latched onto her breast, nursing from her!"

"What the f*ck?" I said loudly.

Susan starting wailing louder; Trey had turned into a statue again.

"Susan…Susan," I said firmly. "What happened then?"

I could tell that she was starting to feel the effects of whatever drug she had been given.

"I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. She said she had lost a baby but kept pumping her breasts. She said she had been donating her breast milk to the Fulton County Milk Bank. I told her she needed to leave and I went to take Preston from her. She kicked me with her foot and I landed on the floor. She laid Preston on the couch, grabbed the poker from the fireplace and bashed me on the head with it. The next thing that I remember is being here."

She continued sobbing; my heart went out to her. Trey leaned down, kissing her and stroking her hair. He told her that everything would be okay.

I had one more question that I desperately needed to ask Susan before she sank into oblivion.

"Susan," I said loudly. "I thought Nurse Bradley had retired from the hospital. How could it be that she was still of child-bearing age?"

Susan looked me dead in the eye when she answered.

"Tylar, there was no way that lady was any older than forty years old I swear. I don't know what age it is that nurses can retire, but grey wig and all, I could tell she wasn't more than late thirties or very early forties."

"Wig?" I asked.

It was too late. Susan had drifted off to sleep. I had no further description from her other than she knew that the faux Nurse Bradley had been wearing a grey wig and that she in no way looked liked she was old enough to have been retired after twenty years spent as a nurse.

I did recall that the resume at our apartment for this Sheila Bradley had said her nursing years had been spent at North Bay hospital where I had delivered Preston. We needed to get there.

Trey was still in shock. He was on the phone with one of his partners letting them know the situation. They assured Trey they would pull all strings possible with the authorities to get an Amber Alert issued. The problem was we had nothing to go on. Susan was not even up to talking to a sketch artist at the moment. We had no clue what the perp was driving, though I strongly suspected it was a newer model, white SUV. The same vehicle that had struck Jean.

The attending physician that had been treating Susan came in to let us know that they were admitting her overnight for observation of her head injury. Trey wanted to stay with her but he didn't want me to be alone at home. He was right. Seeing Preston's stuff and anything that had been a part of the struggle with Susan against my mother would be disturbing. I stayed with Susan while Trey made a couple more phone calls. He called Clive to let him know what had happened. Gina had returned to Atlanta the previous day. He called her to see if she would come and get me for the night. He let me know that she was on her way to pick me up and that I was to stay there until I heard from Trey in the morning. He had talked to Tristan and Nigel as well; Tristan was getting the first available flight to Atlanta. Trey needed his family's support right now. I was glad that he had a family that was supportive.

I didn't want to be away from Trey but I knew that both of us could not stay with his mother. Trey was constantly on his Blackberry with the police and state highway patrol. I knew that this wouldn't do any good. My mother if nothing else was good at duplicity and avoiding detection. What she had failed at was the realization of how much I loved my baby and that was her fatal mistake. I would bet the whore's life on it…

Once off of the phone, Trey cautioned me to say no more about my suspicions relative to my mother. I wasn't sure if it was because he thought me delusional but the reasoning he gave me sounded logical. He said that if the local authorities deemed this a "domestic incident" it would delay getting the FBI involved. Trey wanted every resource available to be involved in finding Preston. I would not hinder that in any way. Trey said we could not discount that this had been a kidnapping for ransom in which case, we wanted the assistance of the feds.