Part 29 (1/2)
”No s.h.i.+t?” Jackie managed to choke out the words as she spit a mouthful of beer on the coffee table. She quickly wiped the liquid off the file folder and turned to look at Sydney.
”I s.h.i.+t you not,” Sydney said with a shake of her head.
”Anne Burbank?”
Sydney nodded.
”Wow! Just wow, Jackie repeated, completely dumb-founded.
”And I caught them in my bed.” Sydney glanced at her watch and added, ”About an hour ago.”
”And Meredith just left?”
”Not without giving me a little c.r.a.p.”
”Just a little? I would have thought she'd go ballistic.”
Sydney emptied the contents of her bottle in one gulp and stood up. ”Would you like another one?”
Jackie picked up the file folder. ”Sure,” she answered as she pulled out several doc.u.ments and laid them on her lap.
”I think Meredith may look for a way to cause me trouble,” Sydney said as she handed the beer to Jackie.
”Well, whatever she does, I'm sure you'll be able to handle it.”
Sydney nodded at the papers on Jackie's lap and asked, ”What do you have for me?”
”Before I give these to you Syd, are you one-hundred percent sure this is what you want to do?”
Sydney nodded. ”I think right now, this is the only thing in my life that I am sure about,” she said, reaching for the doc.u.ments. She looked at Jackie. ”How's she doing at EMCOR?”
”Very well actually, as a matter of fact, two days ago she was promoted to Senior Designer.”
”That doesn't surprise me a bit. She always wanted to be an Architect,” Sydney said as she looked at the doc.u.ments.
They were both silent for several minutes as Sydney digested the information and with each pa.s.sing minute, the color in her cheeks grew redder. Finally, she raised her head to look at Jackie. ”How long has this been going on?” she asked.
”From what I can tell, it seems to have started right after they were married,” Jackie answered. She had been dreading Sydney's reaction from the minute she discovered these new details. She pushed several pictures across the table toward Sydney.
”Why didn't we know about this before now?”
”I never had a reason to check hospital records. I only did so after noticing the small bruise on her cheek when I saw those pictures.”
Sydney looked at the attractive blonde-haired woman in the photo. The bright blue eyes sparkled in spite of the large purple and green bruise covering the woman's right cheek. Her eyes were still as beautiful as Sydney remembered yet she looked different. The face staring back at her looked sad, haunted, not the bubbling, happy, I'm grateful to be alive woman she used to know.
Jackie pulled out several doc.u.ments stapled together from the file folder and slid it across the coffee table to Sydney. ”This is a little more detailed and gives the so-called reasons for her injuries.”
Sydney looked at the first entry on the paper. ”This happened less than a month after they were married.”
”Yeah, says she slipped and fell while getting out of the car. She just so happened to break her arm in the process.”
Sydney used her finger to scan down the list of entries. ”She was treated for a concussion four months later when she accidentally fell down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.” Sydney shook her head. ”She was pregnant when these things happened.”
”She's been to the hospital fourteen times in the last eight years but none in the past year though, which seems odd since most abusers don't just stop in my experience.”
”St.i.tches, concussions, broken bones, cracked ribs, fractured wrist, you name it, and she's had it. Why in the h.e.l.l would she stay with a man like that?”
”You know as well I do that some women come up with all sorts of reasons to justify the abuse and somehow it's always their fault. His supper was late or she forgot to renew his newspaper subscription. You know the drill, Syd.”
Sydney shook her head again. ”It has to be more than that. He must have something on her. The woman I knew would never put up with this.”
”You haven't seen her for almost thirteen-years. People change.”
Sydney's anger was almost to the boiling point. ”That son of a b.i.t.c.h. I'd like to see him do that to me,” she spat, tossing the photos on the coffee table. ”What about Caitlyn and Alyssa?”
”From what I can tell, he doesn't lay a hand on the girls, just their mother.”
”He's not Caitlyn's biological father but I think if he were abusing her I would have seen the signs.”
”Not necessarily. There are more ways to inflict abuse on a person besides physical. He's definitely a real piece of work. Take a look at this,” Jackie said and handed Sydney two doc.u.ments.
Sydney scanned the doc.u.ments. ”I don't understand, what is this?” she asked.
”Well, after I found the hospital records, I had a friend of mine in D.C. do a little deep digging for me. Seems that Mr. Eddie Ashburn isn't who he claims to be.”
”Do tell,” Sydney said with a smile.
”Edward Ashburn, born June 16th, 1964 in Scottsdale, Arizona died at childbirth.”
”Are you kidding me?”
”Nope,” Jackie said.
Sydney looked at the doc.u.ments again. One was a copy of a death certificate; the other was the birth certificate for Edward Ashford, infant son of Martha and Samuel Ashford. ”Then who the h.e.l.l is he and why is hiding out under an a.s.sumed name?”
”Your guess is as good as mine but I intend to find out.”
”I want you to make this priority number one and the minute you find out what Mr. Ashburn is hiding, I want to know,” Sydney said as she gave the doc.u.ments back to Jackie and stood up. ”Whatever he's hiding has to be pretty d.a.m.n big.”
”My thoughts exactly. Most people who change their ident.i.ty are on the run. We just need to find out what he's running from. It would make my job a little easier if I could get my hands on a set of his prints,” Jackie said as she put the doc.u.ments back into the file folder and followed Sydney over to the door.
”I'll see what I can do about getting those for you.” Sydney laid her hand on Jackie's shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. ”Thank you Jackie, I really appreciate everything you've done for me.”
”That's why you pay me the big bucks.”
Sydney playfully pushed Jackie through the open doorway. ”You know it's much more than that.”
”You're right. I do,” Jackie laughed as she stepped off the porch. She stopped and turned to look at Sydney. ”I should know something in the morning and I'll call as soon as I do but before I go any further I need to ask you one more time. Are you really sure, I mean one hundred percent sure you want to go through with this crazy scheme of yours?”
Now it was Sydney's turn to laugh. ”We've been following their lives for almost ten years now. So yes, for the umpteenth time, Jackie, I am sure and before you say anything else, let me a.s.sure you that I know what I'm doing.”