No One Believes Me

Untitled Part 9

Marjorie doesn't hear anything from Detective Hammond for weeks when she gets a voice mail from him asking her if she can please come down to the station as there have been some developments. He also asks her to bring Dany too so that she can clarify a couple things.

When Dany and Marjorie enter Detective Hammond's office and sit down, he says, "Mrs. Haines, I'm sorry. You were right. Mrs. Dunn was involved in Dany's kidnapping."

Dany shakes her head confused, "Mrs. Dunn? Who's that?"

Detective Hammond looks to Marjorie for permission to continue, not knowing how much Dany knows.

"It's ok, she is going to find out anyway, we might as well get it out in the open." Marjorie shrugs her shoulders.

"Mrs. Dunn is Adam's mom. She, uh," He says fumbling for the right words, "She had an affair with your dad."

Marjorie jumps in, "Before you were born honey. Daddy had an affair. I knew about it. We decided to stay together and work on things. Not long after, I got pregnant with you. Dad spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it."

"Did you know the lady?"

"No, I never met her. I just knew her name."

"Ok, but why would she kidnap me?" Dany asks.

Detective Hammond starts, "Apparently, Mrs. Dunn has been holding a grudge for a long time. Your dad did leave her and never wanted anything to do with her again. She was angry. She, uh, she claims she got pregnant during the affair, but your dad didn't believe her. He wouldn't take her calls, see her, nothing. She let it go for a little while, that is until she found out you were born. Once she heard he had a daughter, she became even more angry. She hated your dad and your mom. She tried and tried to get your dad to come back to her, but he wouldn't. There is even an old protection order we found in the system keeping her from getting too close to you, your mom and your dad. Eventually, it seemed like she had moved on. But she didn't. When she saw on the news that your dad was killed in a car accident and had left behind a wife and daughter, it brought up those emotions again. She began to conspire a way to get back at your mom."

"Me?" Marjorie asks. "Why me?"

"She believes that you took her life. That she was supposed to end up with your husband, not you. She transferred her hate form your husband to you and she decided she wanted to hurt you the way she had been hurting since he decided to leave her. So, she devised a plan to kidnap Dany, sell her into sex trafficking and make you suffer."

"That's a big jump from jilted mistress to kidnapper, don't ya think?" Marjorie asks.

"It is, but she's been harboring ill will for you for over sixteen years. And we also found out that she has recently been working with trafficked teens, she's a social worker, and that's how she found someone to pay her to take Dany. Her teens told her about the trafficker and how it works. She contacted him, set up an arrangement, and then incorporated help from her brother to pull it off. Had she never started working with these teens, she probably wouldn't have come up with this plan."

"Wow. That's quite an elaborate plan. I can't believe my daughter was almost sold, that is so frightening."

Dany jumps in, "So how is Mug, I mean, Adam involved?"

"He wasn't really. The brother, Nick, told his sister that he would only do it if Adam was involved, sort of like an insurance policy. If he got caught, then Adam went down too."

"Poor Adam." Dany says sadly. "I honestly don't think he knew what was going on. I feel bad for him."

"Oh, that's right," Detective Hammond adds, "I wanted to ask you Dany if you ever saw Mrs. Dunn while you were being held?"

"No, I only saw Adam and the other guy. I never saw anyone else. But Adam did tell me that he talked to his mom while we were there."

"That's what we thought. And you are right, Adam is on the autism spectrum. We're not sure how much of what happened he truly understood. From our interviews, it doesn't seem like he knew much."

"So, what's gonna happen to him?" Dany asks.

"He will probably get some time in juvenile detention, possibly probation. But his mom and uncle are his only living relatives and they will probably get locked up for a long time. They've both pled guilty, so they should be sentenced soon. I'm not sure where Adam will go after that."

"So sad." Dany says. "Can I talk to him?"

"That's probably not a good idea right now because of the ongoing case, but you can after he is sentenced."

"Detective Hammond?" Marjorie asks slowly, "Is Adam my husband's son?"

Dany's mouth drops open at the thought. The possibility that Adam was her brother had not crossed her mind.

"We don't know. We would need to run DNA tests. And we would need permission from you to do that."

"Why me?" Marjorie asks.

"We would need to do the test on Dany and because she is a minor, we need to have your permission. With everything that has happened, we weren't sure if you wanted to know."

"I'm not sure."

"I am. I want to know mom. What if Adam is my brother?" Dany speaks up.

"Yea, what if." Marjorie says slowly at what this could mean for her.

Detective Hammond adds, "If we have your permission, we could do the test now."

"Mom please." Dany begs.

"Fine, you can do the test. But I can't handle the results right now, I need some time to process all of this."

"The test results take weeks to come back, so you will have plenty of time."