Baby Love(41)
I sprang up immediately; he had my full attention.
“Where is she?”
“Whoa, wait a minute. I want to make sure that if I give you this information that I am not going to be dragged down with her for this. That’s why I am calling you first. If you can’t give me that assurance, then all bets are off.”
“Daniel don’t f*ck with me,” I hissed. “If you don’t give me the information than you are withholding evidence in a felony kidnapping. If she has taken my baby across state lines, it’s a bigger felony. Besides, there is a reward being offered if in fact your information nets us the return
of Preston.”
“Really?” he asked, “Well I wasn’t looking for any monetary reward – just your assurance that I won’t somehow be incriminated in all of this shit.”
By this time Trey was up hovering over me as I continued the conversation. He was shaking his head at me indicating he wanted me to back off of Daniel.
“You have my assurance. Please tell me what you know.”
“I got a call from her a few hours ago. She apparently ditched my SUV because the heat is on her and the word is out. She’s such a dumb bitch at times. Anyway, she gave me a sob story about how she only took your baby because she had lost mine and she wanted us to be a family again. I didn’t mention that you had been here. I acted as if what she was telling me was the first time I had heard it. I acted shocked and appalled.”
He paused for a moment, chuckling at his apparent ability to pull the wool over her eyes.
“She asked me if anyone had contacted me or if the authorities had been around questioning me. I told her no. She admitted to having a nice chunk of change stashed away and wants me to meet her at a Greyhound Bus station in Wheeling, West Virginia. She gave me the arrival time of her bus and said she would be looking for me. I agreed to be there. She wouldn’t tell me what city she was departing from. She probably doesn't trust me a hundred percent since she's screwed me over so many times."
‘Did she call you from a track phone?”
“Nope – she is playing it way cool. She called from a pay phone that had a Georgia area code on it. Same area code that you cell phone has a matter of fact. I wrote down the number of the pay phone if you want it. She had to keep feeding change into it. Now I won’t hear from her again before the bus arrives in Wheeling. Oh, just so you know, I did hear your baby crying in the background.”
My heart lurched. Oh dear God, Preston was crying.
“I did ask her if she felt like she would be recognized and she said she had taken care of it. She wouldn’t tell me anything further. She said that I would see for myself when she found me at the bus station.”
“Daniel I am going to put Trey on the phone. You give him the details, okay?”
“I guess,” he replied somewhat reluctant. “Don’t f*ck me over on this Tylar.”
The irony was not lost on me with his warning. I handed my Blackberry to Trey and scrambled to get a pen and paper for him to jot down the information. For the first time I held out hope and prayed that this would lead us to getting our baby back.
Trey was scribbling away and responding to Daniel in a very re-assuring and encouraging tone. That is why I let him take over; I knew he would handle it more diplomatically than I ever could. I wasn’t above thinking that perhaps Daniel had been involved all along. As long as we got our baby back we could deal with the rest of the issues later.
Trey ended the conversation by telling him that he would phone him within the next hour to work out the details. He made sure that he mentioned to Daniel that he would be financially rewarded if this led to getting Preston back in our possession. He thanked Daniel for ‘doing the right thing.’
As soon as Trey was off the phone he swung into action. He phoned the detectives and relayed the information that he had obtained from Daniel. I scrambled to get dressed and get an overnight bag packed before he finally noticed what I was doing.
"Tylar - what are you doing baby?"
"I'm getting packed and ready. We're going to West Virginia aren't we?"
"Sweetie," he sighed, sitting down on the bed and pulling me onto his lap.
"The feds are involved now. We have reliable information that she intends to take Preston across state lines. I know as screwed up as this is going to sound to you this is actually a good thing. Up until this point while we had notified the FBI of her abduction, the jurisdiction remained in the hands of state and county law enforcement officials. Now that it is likely she is taking Preston out of state, the FBI can step in because they have jurisdiction in every state. This is mandated by the Federal Kidnapping Act also known as the Lindbergh Law."
"Okay Trey, I appreciate the Government lesson and I'm glad that the FBI is on it, but are you telling me that we can't go to Wheeling to make sure they know that it's Maggie? Obviously she is wearing a disguise and is savvy enough not even to let Daniel know what it is so that he can't recognize her. She's not entirely stupid you know? If she smells trouble closing in on her she may very well be disguised to the extent she can elude the FBI agents."
Maggie was not an intellectual by any means, but she had street smarts and she was excellent at playing people. If Trey and the FBI agents thought for one minute that she was going to throw her grey wig on and a pair of glasses to preserve her identity, they were na?ve. I pointed as much out to Trey.