Trumped Up Charges Read Online Free PDF

be connected to a bitter divorce and custody battle?
    If it was, a lot of unexplained issues suddenly made sense. The man could easily have a key to his mother-in-law’s house. And the girls could have just gone back to sleep without a fuss if they woke up and found themselves in their daddy’s arms.
    But there were two significant problems with that scenario. Hadley’s panic and terror were too real for her not to believe the girls were in real and imminent danger. If she feared her husband were behind that, she surely would have told the cops to go after him.
    It was difficult to imagine that a man could ever hurt his own children, but it happened. All fathers were not created equal. No one knew that better than Adam. R.J. hadn’t been physically abusive. He simply hadn’t been around. The scars he’d inflicted were invisible.
    Apparently R.J. wanted to play catch-up now. The old reprobate was probably worried about facing his maker and trying to atone for a few of his sins. He couldn’t even do that without manipulating the situation and attempting to screw up his children’s lives.
    Hadley returned and Adam pulled his keys from his pocket. The saga of R.J. and his latest scheme would be continued later—when Lacy and Lila were safe.
    * * *
    M ATILDA SAT IN the back of the small hospital chapel, her hands folded in her lap. She didn’t pray like her friends at the neighborhood church did. Some might not call what she did praying at all.
    Mostly she just liked to sit in the quiet and envision God’s arms wrapped around her to comfort and guide her. Today her thoughts were so troubled that nothing could calm her spirit. It might go down as the worst day of her life and that was saying a lot.
    She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on Janice O’Sullivan. Janice believed they were friends. Matilda never saw it that way. The gulf between employer and employee was too wide, especially from her side.
    It wasn’t simply that Janice was the boss. It was more about the money and the lifestyle. Janice had all she could ever want. Matilda struggled every week to make ends meet.
    Not that Janice didn’t pay her a fair salary. It was well above minimum wage and she provided generous Christmas bonuses, as well. She’d even bought Matilda a new washer and dryer last year when hers went out.
    Janice’s husband had died of a heart attack five years ago and left her an extremely profitable investment portfolio, a paid-for house worth over a million dollars in a posh Dallas neighborhood and a sizable life insurance payout.
    Matilda’s husband, Brent, had been shot and killed when he’d inadvertently walked into an armed robbery in process. He’d stopped at the convenience store after he’d left the night shift at a local plant. He had no insurance and no savings. At the time, Matilda had no employable skills and two young children under the age of eight.
    Janice’s only daughter was a jewel, thoughtful of her and a model mother to those precious girls. Matilda’s daughter was only sixteen, but she was also pure joy. She was an honor student and on the school cheerleading squad.
    Her eighteen-year-old son, Sam, was the rebel. He’d never gotten into any real trouble the way her brother, Quinton, had at that age, but he was resentful and eternally pushing Matilda’s rules. He was attending summer school now just so he could replace the fake graduation certificate they’d awarded him for a real one.
    So, even though Matilda liked Janice and appreciated what she’d done for her and her family, they weren’t bosom buddies.
    But they were close enough that Matilda really hoped the morning’s surgery would leave Janice cancer-free. Good news on that front would be a huge relief, but it would be overshadowed by the twins’ disappearance.
    But the tragedy wouldn’t devastate Janice the way it might some. She had more spunk and grit than a prizefighter. Matilda envied her that.
    She stood and slipped quietly out of