Mind you, compared to living on the street, as Zoe had been when Kayla met her—down on her luck and down to her last five dollars—staying with Kayla must have been a massive relief. In fact, it was Zoe, an out-of-work child-care provider, who’d suggested she look after Sienna in the first place. So why had she just up and left?
By the time Kayla reached the two-bedroom apartment she rented on the outskirts of Lakeshore, she was no closer to finding an answer. She let herself inside and put Sienna, who’d fallen asleep in the car, into her crib. Kayla paused and gazed lovingly at the little girl. The daughter of her heart, but very much Sienna and Van’s child at the same time.
Why had Van been so distant, so determined that no more of his and Sienna’s children be born? It didn’t make sense. He’d willingly entered into the arrangement with her sister.
Well, whatever, she would still go ahead. She’d made a vow and she wasn’t going to break it. It would take a lot of planning, a lot of organization—two things that had never been her strong suits. But she’d built those skills over time. She’d needed to, in order to prepare herself for becoming a single mother. The important thing, she knew, was to take things one step at a time. So for now, her first major headache would be getting the baby back into the day care where she’d been before Zoe had moved in.
Kayla reached for her phone and noticed she had a message waiting. She frowned slightly, wondering why she hadn’t heard the phone ring before realizing the sound had been turned off. Strange, she didn’t remember doing that. She started to listen to the message, hoping that maybe it was from Zoe, with an explanation about where the heck she’d taken off to today.
But no, it wasn’t from Zoe—it was an automated message from her bank, notifying her that her account had gone into overdraft. That couldn’t be right—in fact, it had to be downright impossible. Nausea rose in Kayla’s gut as she pulled up her online banking app on her phone and checked her balance. But there it was on the screen, plain to see. The entire balance of her account had transferred out last night. But how...?
With shaking fingers, she keyed in the phone number for the bank and went through the menu options that would finally lead her to a human voice. Kayla felt her throat choke as she told the customer service rep just how much money should be in her account. She ought to know. After all, she checked it on her phone every night. And last night... The sick dread that enveloped her thickened and made her stomach flip uncomfortably. Last night she’d been checking her balance when there’d been a knock at the door to her apartment. She’d left her phone on the coffee table when she’d gone to answer and Zoe had been alone in the living room for about five minutes. Through the roaring sound in her ears, she could just hear the customer service rep.
“You made a large withdrawal last night, Ms. Porter. It’s all there on the screen—a payment to one of your regular payees, a Ms. Zoe Thompson.”
“But I didn’t do it. She must have done it herself.”
Kayla swallowed back the tears that collected in her throat. All her money. Gone. How the heck was she going to cope?
“Did you give Ms. Thompson access to your account? Under the terms and conditions—”
“I’m well aware of the terms and conditions, and no, I didn’t give her permission to access my account.”
“Ms. Porter, even if the payment was made by mistake, please be advised that we cannot reverse that payment without the consent of the person who owns the account the funds were paid into.”
“But I didn’t authorize the payment!”
Kayla’s voice rose on a desperate note and in the bedroom she heard Sienna stir—the sound of her mother’s distress obviously having woken her.
“Ma’am, if we assist you to recover a payment made from your authorized mobile device, we will have to charge you an electronic credit recovery fee. You’ll find the fees set out in our guide.”
“Whatever, do whatever you can, whatever your fees are. I accept. I need my money back.”
It was only later, when the bank called her back to say that Zoe had closed out her accounts and the funds could not be retrieved, that Kayla felt all hope die. After filing a claim with the bank and reporting the theft to the police, Kayla finally gave in to the tears that had burned at the back of her throat for what felt like hours.
Kayla looked around her. Her only remaining belongings were her furniture, her personal things and the small amount of cash in her purse. Zoe had left her with nothing else. No backup money, no nest egg. Zip. Zero. Nada. Rage, fear, confusion and a deep sense of violation all jangled within her. When she’d brought Zoe into her apartment, adamant in her belief that giving another person a fair chance to make a good life would help put something worthwhile back into the universe, she’d thought she was making a positive difference in the other woman’s life. And she’d trusted her. So much so that she’d left Sienna with her on a day-to-day basis.
She knew Zoe had had a hard past, having to look out for herself after losing her job and being thrown out of her apartment by her boyfriend. Kayla knew Zoe didn’t trust easily, but she’d believed they’d gotten past that and thought Zoe had learned to see the good things that life had to offer. And Zoe had at that, a scathing little voice inside Kayla said. She’d seen what Kayla had to offer and she’d taken it—all of it.
Kayla brushed tears from her cheeks. It was all her fault. She trusted people. Always. Now it had bitten her well and truly in the backside. The hard reality of what this meant pressed down on her like a ton of lead.
“Think, Kayla, think. And breathe. You can’t lose it now,” she said firmly to herself, desperately trying to calm the shudders that now began to ripple through her body.
She tried to center herself—to breathe in slow and deep and find the inner calm that was usually never far from the surface of her mind—but all to no avail. The police hadn’t been optimistic about her chances of getting her money back. Despite the information she’d given them about Zoe, she was just one opportunistic thief in a great big city full of them. She could even have gone out of state by now.
What the heck was she going to do? Her mind remained a blank. It was hopeless. She was hopeless. She needed money—those precious savings had been for her babies’ future and to help her raise them, not to mention covering rent and utilities while she couldn’t work—but who would loan her what she needed? The bank clearly wouldn’t be any help, since they seemed to hold her responsible for losing the money in her account. She didn’t have any family left. Most of her friends were in the same financial situation as she had been before she’d decided to have Sienna’s kids—choosing to live in the present rather than plan for the future. So, if her friends were out, who did that leave?
One name whispered through her mind, making her nerves vibrate with tension and a swarm of butterflies skitter about in her stomach—Van Murphy. Even though he’d made his position painfully clear today, perhaps with time he’d soften his stance. Surely any man with a shred of decency left in him would want to help his children? It wasn’t as if he was strapped for cash.
But no, she remembered the coldness on his face as he’d threatened to keep her from using Sienna’s remaining embryos. He wouldn’t help her. In fact, he’d do whatever he could to stop her.
There was no way she could afford a legal battle—especially against the kind of lawyers he could afford. She’d have to scrape together whatever resources remained and go through the procedure without any kind of nest egg.
The alternative was giving up on those babies and her promise to her sister completely—and that was something she would never do.
* * *
Van ended the call with his lawyer and calmly and deliberately slid his cell phone back into his pocket. He didn’t dare move, or he might destroy something, although right now a bar brawl