Page 26 of Written with Regret (The Regret Duet 1)
I’d lied—because it seemed that was all I ever did—and told her that the police needed the nice lady’s help with something as they escorted Hadley to their car. Covering for that woman felt like a gut shot, but I made peace with it because I’d lied for Rosalee’s sake, not Hadley’s. There was no way I was explaining what she had done wrong until I had some solid answers of my own. Hopefully, all of which would lead to her skipping town again and me never having to tell Rosalee anything about her at all.
After calling the cops, Ian had phoned my attorney. God bless Doug. He was there in thirty minutes and spoke to the police on my behalf, explaining our situation, while I split time between losing my shit in my bedroom and consoling Rosalee with the promise of another party.
From the moment I saw Hadley until the moment I had her car towed from my driveway, the entire ordeal lasted under two hours. But the hell of Hadley’s return was just getting started.
“Four hours,” Doug said, swirling a glass of scotch.
It was now past nine. Alejandra had cooked us all a dinner we didn’t touch and bathed Rosalee before leaving. She’d offered to let my girl spend the night with her in the guesthouse, but after the day we’d had, I felt better keeping her close.
This turned out to be the best decision, because only four hours after her surprise return, Hadley Banks was released from police custody.
“How is that possible?” I asked as I paced my kitchen. “They just fucking let her go?”
Ian walked past me to the fridge and pulled out two beers. He handed one to me then resumed his position on the barstool next to Doug. “Keep it down. Rosie’s still awake.”
I tipped the beer up for a long pull, but it was going to take a tranquilizer dart to get me to calm down.
“They were ready,” Doug replied. “From what I’ve heard, her attorney was waiting for her at the station with a whole pile of paperwork. They spent an hour in questioning, rushed her through processing, and released her on a fifty-thousand-dollar bond.”
I raked a hand through the top of my hair. “You have got to be shitting me.”
“She has no record, Caven. They couldn’t charge her with theft of your property because, as we expected, none of the prints lifted at your old apartment matched. A date has been set before a judge on Monday for the child abandonment charges, but I’m warning you: Her attorney is good. I’m not sure the prosecution is going to be able to keep up.”
The blood thundering in my ears reached new decibels. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means, I don’t know that she’ll be convicted of anything. If I were her attorney, I’d argue that she didn’t abandon the child, but that she was unable to care for it and simply asked a friend to deliver her baby to the father. The endangerment that happened after that wasn’t her fault. Personally, I think the prosecution’s best bet would be a neglect charge. And I don’t doubt that they will see that too. But with it being her first offense and since a judge would probably agree that Hadley did what was best for Rosalee by leaving her with you, I can’t imagine she’d get slapped with anything more than a misdemeanor and some community service. Though, if that happens, we could definitely hit her hard with a child support case.”
I loved Doug. He’d been my attorney for a lot of years, and despite the fact that he was creeping up on seventy, I even considered him a friend. He’d been there for me every step of the way when we’d first found Rosalee, and he’d gone so far as to invite us over to his family’s house for Christmas dinner a few times. But never, not once, in all the years I’d known him had I considered ripping his head off his body like I did in that moment.
“Child support,” I hissed. “You want me to sue that woman for fucking child support.”
“Caven, listen.”
“No, you listen. I don’t need whatever measly check a judge orders her to write. What I need is for that woman to scurry back into the pits of Hell where she belongs. She told me today that she wants to be there for Rosalee. To be a part of her life. And please, Doug, tell me you hear me when I say that is not going to fucking happen.”
“I hear you, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent. Look, my specialty isn’t family law, but if we get the neglect on her record, then she gets dinged on the child support because she can’t afford to pay four years all at once, the chance of her getting any kind of custody is—”
