She’d wanted Johnny to know, though. Even though it didn’t matter at all to their relationship.
Braden took a breath, then straightened, and Tabitha waited for whatever he had to say. Again, a touch of Mallory’s hand silenced him.
“That night changed Mark. It’s significant that earlier the same week he’d been told that his mother’s liver disease had progressed. Also of significance is that he still lived with her. He’d never gotten a place of his own, even in college. And until her liver failed, she’d always been healthy and active. There was no reason a thirty-year-old man needed to be living with her, other than the fact that she didn’t want him to go, didn’t want to be alone...and he didn’t want to leave her.”
“That doesn’t sound like Matt at all,” Braden interjected.
“It didn’t sound like the man I thought Mark was, either, not that there’s anything wrong with a man living at home, necessarily. It’s just that the codependency between them was in jeopardy with Martha, Mark’s mom, getting sick. And since it happened at the exact time he and I had an...intimate encounter, he was suddenly gluing himself to my side. Acting like we were a married couple intending to spend the rest of our lives together. Talking about moving in together. He was scaring me, but I got him to understand that I needed to take things slowly.
“I was trying to figure out what was going on and how to extricate myself from the situation without making things awkward at work or in our crowd. And then I didn’t have to worry about any of that because he quit to take care of his mother. I had to threaten him with a restraining order to get him to stop calling me, but it worked. I didn’t hear from him again until we ran into each other at the hospital one day about six months later.”
“You were showing,” Mallory said.
Tabitha nodded. “Mark did the math. He knew I hadn’t been seeing anyone else, that I hadn’t had sex in over a year before him. We’d used a condom, but...”
Johnny grabbed his soda. Downed the entire thing, then looked around, as though wanting help from the staff.
“Was he at the hospital to see you?”
Tabitha felt it should’ve seemed odd that Mallory had homed in on the same suspicion she’d had in the million times she’d rethought that meeting, but it didn’t. The other woman seemed to be in tune with Tabitha’s life—though, more likely, her nurturing personality just made her more empathetic than most.
“He was there to attend a going-away party for one of his colleagues who’d joined the Peace Corps.” That was the story he’d given her. She’d known the woman slightly, knew her by name and knew she’d joined the Peace Corps. It wasn’t until later, after Jackson’s disappearance, that she’d wondered if there’d really been a going-away party, and then confirmed that there hadn’t been. At that point, the best she could figure was that someone had tipped him off to the fact that she was pregnant. There’d been no reason for any of their peers not to mention her pregnancy to him. From what she’d understood, though, none of them had seen o
r heard from Mark since he’d left the hospital.
One of the officers on the case had suggested that Mark had been following her.
She hated to think that.
“Mark pressured me for parenting privileges.” She forced out the words. “He wanted to attend doctor’s appointments, to help financially, but I knew that until the baby was born, I could legally put him off. After that... I wasn’t going to have much choice. He could compel a DNA test and I’d lose any chance of coming to an amicable agreement with him. I had absolutely no reason to believe he’d hurt Jackson, no proof whatsoever that my son would ever be in any danger with him. On the contrary, there were dozens of people who could testify that Mark was wonderful with children. I certainly couldn’t use the fact that he lived with his ailing mother as a reason for him not to see his son.”
She’d been trapped. Instinctively she’d known that something wasn’t right with Mark, but she’d had no evidence to back that up. Earlier, when she’d threatened him with a restraining order, he’d immediately stopped harassing her. “So I told him that while I wasn’t naming him on the birth certificate and wanted no money from him, if he’d leave the DNA issue alone, I’d let him have regular visitations with Jackson and would include him in major life events like birthdays, future school functions and sporting activities.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Mallory said.
Tabitha looked at Johnny when he grunted. “I would’ve advised you to get it in writing,” he said, then added, “But you came up with what was probably the best-case scenario, under the circumstances.” She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
She wasn’t privy to his inner thoughts. Didn’t expect them. And suddenly needed them.
“It worked for that first year. Mark had Jackson regularly, but never overnight because of his mother’s needs. I always dropped him off and I’d usually pick him up, too, since Mark had his mother to contend with. Jackson was always fine. Never fussy or seemingly upset. He was always dry and the bottles I sent with him were empty and cleaned. That last time I dropped him off, though... Mark’s mom had died, but he hadn’t told me. Or anyone we knew. He seemed perfectly normal when I dropped Jackson off. I had no idea...”
Which was part of what ate at her. Shouldn’t she have known? How could she not have known?
“The police said later that it was obvious he’d been planning to take Jackson for some time. He’d just been waiting until his mother’s death. He’d made arrangements to have her buried with no visitation or services, and he’d bought the casket and grave site months before.”
There’d been more. Emptied bank accounts. Visits to the dark web, visiting sites where one could learn about fake IDs. Purchase them, even. He was a smart man with a plan.
“I had refused to be his new codependent,” she said now, relaying what an analyst with the police had told her. “Unfortunately, I gave birth to the perfect alternative. Like mother, like son. Jackson was the perfect gift...”
One she hadn’t meant to give Mark. One she’d never forgive herself for letting go.
One she’d been looking for ever since.
Now it was time to get him back.
Chapter Eight
“So, what are you asking me to do?” Mallory Harris’s tone gave nothing away. Johnny was impressed. He couldn’t tell whether Tabitha had won her over or not.