"Go back inside," I ordered. "We're dealing with something."
"Who is that?" she asked as Payslee started yelling again about how she was going to sue us and send us to jail for kidnapping.
"Evil stepmother," I said, ushering Josie back through the front door.
My brothers and I watched on the security feed as Hunter's car drove up, followed by the police thirty seconds later.
Garrett and I hurried down the driveway. When we slipped through the gatehouse door, Payslee and her lawyer were arguing with the police.
"They have my son. It's kidnapping." Her voice sounded like she was whistling every so often. In the early-morning daylight, I could see it was because several of her teeth were missing. She had to have been only a few years older than me, but she looked decades older.
"I have permission from his father to have guardianship of Henry Svensson," Hunter countered.
As mad as I was at Hunter, he was a lawyer, and I felt more secure having my older brother talk to the police.
"He was abandoned," Hunter continued in that semi-bored, condescending tone he had. "We have the paperwork. He was sent here with a birth certificate and a social security card."
"It was temporary guardianship," Payslee's lawyer argued. "And his mother is revoking it." I didn't like him. He had a doughy face with the cauliflower nose and broken cheek blood vessels of a major alcoholic.
Garrett's mouth twitched. He held up his tablet. "Itwasabandonment. Payslee hasn't seen Henry in fourteen months. She hasn't just abandoned Henry. She abandoned her other six sons, who are here now. Instead of taking care of them, she chose to go to Las Vegas"—he flipped to an image on his tablet—"where she hooked up with this man." A mugshot came up on the screen. "We have eyewitness accounts."
The police officers looked at the tablet.
Garrett kept talking. "Then Payslee came to New York and shacked up with this man." A picture of Payslee making out with the lawyer came up on the screen.
The police looked at the lawyer.
"This is the twenty-first century," he sputtered. "You can't keep a mother from her child just for being a sexual being."
"That's right," Payslee said, nodding. "He's my son."
"Why now?" I countered. Garrett elbowed me.
"I made a mistake," Payslee said. "But I'm ready to fix it. I want to be a good mom. Not just to Henry but to all my boys."
I snorted. I didn't believe her for a second.
"You need to make them give him back," Payslee said to Susie.
The police officer looked between us and Payslee. Was Susie going to take Henry just to spite us? I tried to silently plead with her. She nodded to me then turned to Payslee.
"I can't just hand a child over to someone who says she's his mother. There's a process. I need identification and a Harrogate, New York, residency confirmation. It can be a driver's license, utility bill, or voter identification card. Otherwise it's not my jurisdiction, and I can't entertain the complaint," Susie said.
Payslee opened her mouth to complain, but Susie held up a hand. "You are trespassing on Mr. Svensson's property, and you need to leave."
We watched as Payslee got into the car with her lawyer. She seemed furious.
"I'm going to get that boy!" she yelled through the passenger window as the car sped off. "You don't have any right. No right!"
"Thanks, Susie. We owe you," I said gratefully.
She snorted. "Please. The city of Harrogate may have turned around, but when you go into greater Harrogate, you still have the trailer parks and methheads. I've dealt with too many domestic violence calls to take an innocent child from a lovely home and give him to someone like that." She took her sunglasses off her collar then looked each of us in the eye. "You all need to sort this out, legally speaking," she warned. "Payslee could escalate."
Josie was sitting on the steps of the grand staircase in the foyer with my little brothers huddled around her when I walked in. I stood in front of them, doing a head count to reassure
"You heard Payslee outside, I'm sure. Now, none of you talk to that woman. Don't look at her. Don't contact her, and if you see her, tell me."
41
