My Life Had Stood
Chapter 20: There is Another Sunshine
Ted Gregson swallowed and fidgeted, the room Rossi had brought him to, to talk undisturbed, unbearable. Though not because of any physical flaw. It was Rossi's questioning that made him want to flee.
"Gregson, it won't take long, based on Jenna's revelation and Ms. Kaurich's accusations, to get a warrant for a DNA test. So I suggest you start telling the truth." Rossi warned, after Gregson had attempted to deny what the agent had overheard.
Ted Gregson nearly denied things again, but instead changed his mind. He turned pale.
"It wasn't my idea." Ted mumbled, clenching and unclenching his fists on the table. "Fifteen years ago, I...my ex-wife Nicole gave birth but there were complications. I swear I had no intention of taking another child. Neither did Nicole."
"But you did." Rossi replied, his words only partly a question.
"Yes, well...yes." Ted sighed and covered his face with his hands. The sound seemed filled with relief. After another sigh, he cleared his throat and dropped his hands from his face.
Rossi's gaze roamed over the man, taking in every muscle twitch. He had expected more resistance to the kidnapping accusation, especially since Ted Gregson loved his daughter. "So, Isabel Kaurich is Jenna's biological mother?"
Ted nodded. "Look, I know you likely think Nicole and I as horrible people, taking Jenna from Isabel, but she..." He drew in a breath, recalling the moment fifteen years ago. "We just lost our own daughter. Just a few hours old and we lost..."
"You were grief-stricken, losing your child. I know what that's like." Rossi grimaced as he spoke, and drummed his fingers on the table as he watched Ted Gregson react to his words.
"You lost a child? So you understand, the pain, the grief..." Ted started, only to falter seeing Rossi scowl. His mouth twitched, his eyes hesitantly studying the agent.
"I understand all right. I also know what the biological parents must've went through. And what they will feel when they find out the truth." Rossi added, his jaw taut as he mulled over the emotions battling inside him. If the stuff dealing with James hadn't happened, he'd probably be feeling more empathetic for Ted Gregson. Now he just felt more empathy for Isabel Kaurich. "Here's what I don't get. Your background fifteen years ago was clean. You and your ex-wife were both stable, physically, mentally, and financially. Yet, instead of trying for another child or adopting, you kidnap another couple's baby by switching children. You made the other mother think her daughter died. Made her go through the same grief."
"No. That's not...that's not what..." Ted inhaled sharply after false starting twice in his response.
"What? That's not what happened?" Rossi retorted, recalling what Garcia had found out. "Or not what you wanted? Because it did happen, you not only took the baby but also made the mother think her baby was dead."
"No. That was that hospital. That doctor and nurse...they..." Ted gave an exasperated and tired sigh, before averting his gaze in shame. Rossi watched him and waited, despite the urge to snap at the other man. "They had already told the mother that her baby was dead. Nic...I overheard them talk about another family they'd expected to sell the baby to had backed out or something. And Nicole, she...no, I confronted them. And..."
Rossi felt sickened hearing what Ted was saying, and also furious. "Nicole bought Jenna from her kidnappers. She bought Isabel Kaurich's baby within hours of that baby being born." Rossi shook his head, glowering at the thought. He interrupted Ted when the man insisted he'd been the one to do so and not Nicole. "It's no use protecting your ex-wife. Regardless of who's idea it was, what you two did was illegal."
"You don't understand." Ted interrupted, his tone and body language becoming defensive. "After...I looked into that 'family' that was the expected buyer. The father was a pervert who got himself arrested for raping and killing a three year old. If we hadn't taken Jenna, that doctor would've sold her to god knows who."
"That's your defense? That if you hadn't bought Isabel's baby from its kidnappers, she would've ended up with worse people?" Rossi shook his head, repulsed by such an excuse. "Why didn't you or Nicole go to the police with this information? Your testimony would've gotten that doctor arrested as well as his accomplice, and would've prevented other children from being sold. Who knows how many more children were sold to perverts because you didn't do the right thing and tell someone about this." Rossi seethed, his eyes glaring at the other man. He knew allowing himself to get riled up wouldn't help matters, but he kept thinking about James.
"I'm sorry, all right? But you got to understand, Nicole and I love Jenna. We never hurt her, and probably provided a much better home than her real mother could." Ted fell silent as Rossi shook his head.
"That wasn't for either of you to decide." Rossi said after a moment, drumming his fingers on the table's smooth surface. He paused and studied Ted, wondering how the man could justify what he and his wife had done. "Mr. Gregson, what were the names of those who sold you Ms. Kaurich's daughter?"
"I...I don't know."
Rossi glared at Ted, the last of his patience dwindling. "Mr. Gregson, if you don't cooperate and give me the names of the people who sold you Jenna, then I will see to it that you're charged as an accomplice to that kidnapping and any others these people committed."
"I...I only ever knew one of their names. He's the one I made the check out to." Ted sighed, and massaged his forehead. His thoughts recalling the man from fifteen years ago. "Connell. Tobias Connell."
Rossi drew in a breath; hearing that name, while not completely unexpected, still struck him. "Dr. Tobias Connell? He's the one who sold you Kaurich's baby?"
Ted nodded. "Yeah. Though...the thing is, he never cashed the check. I don't know why..." Ted's brow knitted as he recalled that detail.
"...Was Jenna born in August, by any chance?" Rossi asked, after hearing Ted's last sentence. His own brain in midst of forming an hypothesis.
"Yeah, August 8th. I wrote the check for the 10th, after we brought Jenna home."
"That explains it." Rossi mumbled, shaking his head then leaning back in his chair. He caught Ted Gregson's perplexed stare. "Dr. Tobias Connell died the night of August 10th, fifteen years ago. He likely never had the chance to cash that check."
"God, he died? Then that means he didn't take any other children after that." Ted muttered, his voice sounding a bit relieved. Despite the excuses he'd given Rossi, Ted Gregson had felt guilt at not reporting the kidnappers. "...Wait, how did you know that? I only just gave you that name, how..."
"Tobias Connell was a suspect in a similar case." Rossi replied without elaborating, the next moment checking his phone after it beeped.
0
"All right, I understand. And thank you." Leah Clemens hung up the phone, and sighed. She rubbed her forehead, trying to massage away the beginning of a stress headache. It was her day off, but she didn't feel able to relax. Since first dealing with James Rossi at the prison, she had tried contacting the patient she had had before, to no avail.
She also hadn't been able to glean much from her fellow doctors. Over the past few weeks she'd been able to speak with James, and she'd tried to get him to speak about his childhood. What she'd got, however, wasn't much more than what was already in the files.
She could get nothing from James to confirm or deny the sensory deprivation that she was certain he'd been subjected to.
Leah sighed and glanced at the photographs on her desk. One was of her husband and two step-daughters, and it had a lavish wood frame. Another was of her holding her son, taken so many years ago, when he was only a year old and she was 19. Not the 49 years she was now. The third one was small and placed partly behind the other two. It showed her with her first husband, shortly after they had married.
Her first pregnancy had just started to show when that photo was taken. And she had been only fifteen at the time, though she'd pretended to be nineteen so she and her boyfriend could get married. She recalled being so in love that she hadn't given other people's warnings a second thought.
Biting into her lip nervously, she picked up her phone and started dialing her husband's number. Once it reached voicemail, she sighed.
"Jeff, when you get this, please call me. There's something I need to talk about." Leah said, her eyes glancing over the files on her desk. Her stomach knotted.
She leafed through the files referring to James, then to an article written about him. About not just what James had done, but also about how he had been switched at birth. She wrung her hands, her brain reeling over that information.
Unlike the journalist that wrote the article, who assumed the switch had been hospital error, Leah knew from the prisoner files and talking with Rossi when the agent had visited James, that it wasn't. The switch had been deliberate.
She shut and put away the file, nearly dropping it from how much her hands trembled.
"No!" The cry, nearly primal in grief, reverberated through the hospital corridor. It sickened her and she froze, nearly ready to turn around.
"It's all right." Vincent whispered to her, escorting her back to her room. His reassurance hadn't worked at first as the distraught wail echoed in her ears. But what he said next did. "They have another."
Leah picked up the photograph of her with her first husband, Vincent. Her tired eyes marveled at the happiness on her face in the photo. A little over thirty-three years had passed since the day depicted in the photograph yet it seemed an eternity.
She placed the framed photo back and covered her eyes, her first husband's words echoing in her thoughts.
'They have another.'
She trembled, wondering why she'd ever listened to those words.