***
The dark-haired woman stepped into the room, her hands twisted behind her back and secured with handcuffs. River wasn’t keen on how the woman made her appearance, but Preston continued to urge the woman into the room.
Penny.
Ridge’s gorgeous ex-wife had clearly seen better days. The woman that had been turning their lives upside down for the last few months. The woman that cradled the little girl River loved so much when Delilah had recognized her.
Ridge whispered the woman’s name. A breathy sound that River couldn’t decipher. He had told River that he loved her, but this woman's arrival could change everything and River wasn’t confident she was prepared for the downfall.
What looked like affection from Penny was mirrored on Ridge’s face, and as the mother of his child River could understand, but it didn’t hold up the breaking pieces of her heart.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ridge snarled, and River realized that it wasn’t affection he felt toward Penny; it was a cacophony of fury, anger, and worry.
“Well,” Preston began as he kept a steady hand on the cuffs behind Penny’s back. “I thought it might be better for Ms. Riner to tell you exactly what she told me. I have the official statement, but I thought it would be better for you to hear it directly from her.”
River had only heard bits and pieces of the story as Penny had spoken to Preston. She was too focused on Ridge’s health and safety that she had tuned out most of the woman’s confession. Ridge’s uncle moved to stand beside River, offering her silent support as he clasped her shoulder in his hand. River’s second attempt at removing her hand from Ridge’s was quickly thwarted with a firm squeeze from his uninjured hand.
Sighing, River relaxed her shoulders and settled in to listen to Penny tell her side of the story.
“I want to start off by saying how sorry I am that I left Delilah at your apartment in California. I was in a bad place, but I was trying to get better. I had gone off the drugs for a few days and thought I was going to turn my life around. I struggled after our divorce, you know. I forgot what it felt like to be cared for and-”
Interrupting her, Ridge growled, “Let’s keep it related to why I’m lying in a hospital bed, okay?”
Penny had the decency to look ashamed at her tangent, then continued. “Right, anyway, I had overheard Dominic talking about wanting to use Delilah in some way to traffic drugs. I freaked out and immediately packed up her things and sent her to you.”
Beside her, Ridge was vibrating with fury. River suspected that if he weren’t strapped to the machines next to the bed, he would have launched himself over the foot of the bed and strangled the woman. She should have never allowed her daughter to come so close to a sinister man like Dominic.
“It broke my heart to leave her that day because I was trying so hard to make things better. After that, I couldn’t figure out which way was up or down and lost myself again.
“When Dominic realized that I no longer had Delilah, he was furious. I had thwarted his plan and he took it out on me. I spent a week in the hospital only to realize I needed to find a way to let you know he was going to come for her.”
“The letters,” River whispered as things started clicking into place. Penny was sending the letters as a warning to keep Delilah safe. “Why did you send some of the letters to me?” River asked the woman curiously, surprised as a flash of jealousy flickered across her face.
“I wasn’t exactly sure which house was Ridge’s since you went back and forth so frequently. I could only leave the letters at night to stay hidden. Dominic. . .he. . .he was tracking me. I had stolen one of his cars not knowing that there was heroin in the trunk with a tracker. But I knew enough that he considered me his property, and Dominic didn’t just let go of something that belonged to him. No one was safe.”
“So was the plan just to keep us in the dark until he showed up?” Ridge questioned in anger.
“I didn’t have a plan, Ridge. I didn’t even know his plan. I just knew that he was coming.”
“None of this makes sense,” Ridge replied, directing his statement toward Preston. River had to agree, the story seemed outlandish and she wondered why Penny didn’t just send an anonymous tip to the police.
Preston chose that moment to put together more pieces to the story, mentioning how Dominic had an in with the police department, which gave him access to Ridge’s whereabouts when they filed their own reports in Carson.
“So, you’re saying we led him straight to us?”
“Not exactly, but the town is small. It didn’t take Dominic long to figure out where to find you.
“From what we learned, he was desperate, and thanks to River’s quick thinking, he sustained a significant knife wound to his spleen after the attack. Alexis was able to trail his car and stop him just before he entered the highway.
“We weren’t sure of his motive until Penny demanded that we search his car. That’s when we found Delilah’s toy. Even I was surprised at first that the entire mess was over a pink stuffed teddy bear, but Penny told us to cut the back of the bear open.
“We found roughly five ounces of cocaine and millions of dollars in stolen gemstones.”
“Holy shit,” Ridge and River whispered in unison.
Continuing, Preston added, “It seems that it wasn’t so much your daughter that he wanted, but to use baby toys to move drugs and stolen goods across state lines. Businesses and police aren’t as skeptical when you have an actual child.”
“So, why is Penny in handcuffs?” River asked, her sympathy for the woman growing with each passing second.