Chapter 46 - Cat's Family
Why would Leo want to see her? Cat looked at Trey and put her phone on speaker.
"Mr. Tipton, I don't know what crazy train Leo fell off of, but what makes him think I will come and see him? The only time I want to see Leo is when I testify against him in court or when he dies so that I can spit on his grave." Cat couldn't believe the nerve of him to request she come for a visit.
"Miss Cox, I think you owe it to Leo to at least hear him out. He did take you in as a child and provided for you for six years. How can you watch your uncle rot in jail when he's the only family you have?" Cat felt her blood boiling at the lawyer's words. Her face was getting hot, and she was shaking with outrage.
"Listen here, you son of a bitch. That man didn't take care of me unless molesting me for six years counts. How about the way he passed me around to his friends? I guess I should get on my knees and bow to him for the wonderful piece of shit he is. If you dare pick up your phone and call me with a request from Leo, I will file charges against you for harassment. Go fuck yourself, you snake." Cat hung up, and even though she felt like throwing her phone out the window, she calmly put it in her purse.
Trey looked over at her; he was worried she would be upset by that call. To his surprise, she was staring straight ahead, not with tears but with fire in her eyes. He and Atlas felt like killing both Leo and the scumbag lawyer for the little stunt they'd just pulled.
"Are you okay?" Trey put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
"What would get him to want to see me? I swear, if I see Leo face to face, I may kill him myself." Cat was trying to get her fury under control. She didn't know what had gotten into her. A call like that would have sent her into a ball of fear a few weeks ago. However, now she didn't feel anything but pure anger.
"I don't know, but if we report it to Roger, he can ask the prosecutor to add tampering with a witness to his list of charges." Trey glanced down at his phone when they were at a stoplight after feeling it vibrate. There was a text from Ellie. She said that she dropped off an envelope at the pool house for him.
"Yes, please tell Roger. I want him to have so many charges on him that he gets life plus twenty years so he can be locked up in hell too." Cat felt the fire starting to leave her as she leaned against Trey while listening to Atlas purr. They always knew how to comfort her no matter what emotion she was having.
They parked in the driveway next to the walkway that led to the pool house. As they approached, he saw the manila envelope stuck in the door. He had an idea of what was inside; he just hoped he was right.
"What's that?" Cat asked in confusion.
"Ellie dropped it off. Let's go inside so we can look it over together." Trey opened the door and led Cat into the house. They walked to the couch and sat down.
Trey opened the envelope and pulled out some papers that were inside. On the top of the pile was a picture of a teenage girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and delicate features. He heard Cat gasp next to him.
"That's my mom." She snatched the picture out of his hands and looked at it closely. Cat's tears began to pool in her eyes.
"This is your mom's senior high school picture. Most likely, she was pregnant with you when this was taken." Cat smiled as she looked at the picture. Even though she couldn't see her mom's belly, it was the only picture of them together.
"How did Ellie find this? I owe her big time." Cat continued staring at the picture of the face she had dreamt about a million times before. Her mom looked exactly as she remembered her.
"I told you, we have our way of finding out things. Ellie has some other things here, too. Let me know when you're ready, and I'll read them." Trey glanced over at what Ellie had found and dreaded telling Cat any of it.
"You can tell me now. What else did she find?" Cat couldn't stop looking at the picture in her hands.
"I'm sorry, but what she found wasn't good." She looked up at Trey and saw the worry in his eyes.
"It'll be alright. I'm ready to hear it." Cat took his hand in hers as she waited.
"Your mom became pregnant with you when she was eighteen, as you know. What you don't know is that her stepfather, Martin Edwards, Leo's biological dad, raped her. Leo's dad is your dad, meaning he's your step-uncle and your half-brother." Cat's eyes got wider and wider as she listened to him.
She had always felt that whatever led to her birth wasn't good, but she never imagined that Leo's dad had raped her mom. Cat couldn't believe she was related to that cockroach.
"What about my grandmother?" Cat asked while still trying to process what he had just said.
"She died when your mother was fifteen. It says that she fell down the stairs in their house and died instantly. There was speculation that Martin killed her; they just couldn't prove it. Your mom reported him to the police right after he raped her, and he was sent to jail."
"Do you have a picture of Martin? Do I look like him?" Trey pulled out a mug shot of an obese man with greasy black hair and mean-looking brown eyes. Cat could tell he was Leo's father; they looked alike, except Leo was blonde and thin. The only thing she had of his was his black hair.
"He was killed in prison soon after he was convicted." She took a sigh of relief.
"Good. He doesn't deserve to walk this Earth. Why would my mother have me after what happened? How could she stand to even look at me?" Cat's heart hurt for the pain her mother must have endured. Not only from the rape and losing her mother but also from having her rapist's baby.
"According to what Ellie has here after Martin was arrested, Emma went to stay with a friend while Leo was sent to foster care. Your mother's friend said many people tried to get her to have an abortion, but she refused. She loved you before you were born, no matter how you came into this world."
Cat turned back to the picture of her mother and scrutinized it. She tried to see if she could see any sorrow or regret in her mother's eyes, but she didn't see any of that. In the picture, her mother looked happy.
"I want to see Leo. I need to know why he looked for my mom. Why did he want to see her after he got out of foster care? I have some questions for him, and even if he doesn't answer them, at least I tried." Cat felt like some of the pieces of her history were coming together. She was finally getting some closure.
"There's more." This part he knew was going to hurt Cat more than anything.
"What is it?" Cat couldn't imagine what other things Ellie had discovered. What else was there?
"The last time your mother went into the hospital when you thought she had died. She didn't. While she was there, she signed you over to Leo to temporarily make him your legal guardian while she was getting treatments. She also gave him power of attorney over her health care. He had her deemed incompetent, so he made all the decisions over her cancer treatments."
Cat felt she wasn't going to like what was coming next. She quickly stood up and sat across Trey's lap so she could lean her ear against his chest to hear and feel Atlas.
"Okay, tell me what happened." He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him, wishing he could take away all her pain.
"Cat, he stopped your mom's treatments and had her sent to a hospice facility. She didn't die when you thought. She died about six months later."
