Cape Refuge and Southern Storm by Blackstock Terri

Author:Blackstock, Terri [Blackstock, Terri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Array
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2009-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 86

Caleb was not in a foster home. The HRS had no idea where he was. When Jonathan questioned them about reports of child abuse, he learned that they had only interviewed Jack Dent but had never actually removed the baby from the home.

After Sadie thought of several names of people with whom Jack might have left the baby, she, Jonathan, and Morgan took off for Atlanta.

They found Caleb at the home of one of Jack’s girlfriends who lived in a trailer park with mounds of garbage festering in a ditch outside. She answered the door with a glazed look in her eyes.

“Stacy, did Jack leave Caleb with you?” Sadie asked.

“You bet he did,” the woman said, letting them in. “It’s about time somebody got here.”

They heard Caleb crying in a back room. Sadie ran through the house and snatched him out of a playpen. The child was dirty, with thick caked snot crusting his nose. “Sadie’s here, sweetie,” she said, crying as she pressed her face close to his. “Oh, honey, Sadie’s here.”

His sobs faded into hiccups, and he looked up at her with mournful eyes. She held him tight as he laid his head against her chest.

“Jack said two days,” the woman shouted. “Two days, and here it’s going on a week. I thought that kid’d never shut up.”

She ran and got his diaper bag and the things she had in the refrigerator, threw them into the bag, and thrust them at Morgan. “Take him. Good riddance. And tell Jack Dent that he owes me big for this.”

“I’m sorry, Stacy,” Morgan said. “But Jack’s dead.” The woman gaped up at her, then turned to look at Sadie.

“Is that true?”

Sadie nodded. “He was shot . . . trying to kill me.”

Stacy was quiet as they gathered the rest of Caleb’s things and loaded them into the car.

As Sadie hooked him into the car seat they had brought with them, the child put his thumb in his mouth and looked up at his sister.

“I missed you,” Sadie cried softly. “Big time. I’m sorry I left you. I’ll never do it again.”

He hiccuped another sigh, and she kissed his wet cheek. Morgan leaned over him with tears in her eyes as she saw what a beautiful child he was. “We’re so blessed, Sadie,” she whispered. “Jesus is watching over us.”

“I know,” Sadie said. “He’s answered my prayers. He saved me from death . . . and from Jack. And he saved Caleb too.”

Before they left Atlanta they went by the jail, where Sadie had a brief reunion with her mother. Morgan and Jonathan got to know Caleb in the car, keeping him out of the jail so as not to traumatize him further with the confusing sight of a mother he couldn’t touch. Sheila Caruso signed the papers allowing Morgan and Jonathan to take temporary custody until she was out of jail.

She was neither surprised nor saddened to hear of Jack’s death.

In fact, no one mourned Jack’s death.

No one at all.

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