Chapter 79
"Is that true?"
I got a bit excited - finally, some news.
"Absolutely true. Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I do. I've got something to handle here. I'll talk to you after I'm done." I couldn't wait to go out and find the child.
"Okay."
Right after I hung up, Faye sent me a video.
In the footage, Jessa was with Hayden, eating desserts. Seeing the smile on Hayden's face, he seemed pretty happy.
I figured Jessa probably didn't take him away with bad intentions.
Since the Arabella incident, Jessa had barely come around. Probably because she was afraid Levi would hate her, and she'd toned things down quite a bit.
Why would she take Hayden away?
"How did he end up with her?" Cleo looked completely confused.
"Aren't you two close? Don't tell me you're both messing with me."
I'd rather believe they were teaming up to play a trick on me than believe Jessa would specifically pick up Hayden and make everyone worry.
Cleo rolled her eyes. "If I knew he was with her, I wouldn't have come here at all."
"Let's go find Jessa and get to the bottom of this."
I didn't want to waste time with her. Any more talk would just be pointless back-and-forth.
I drove while calling Levi. Following the address he gave me, we arrived at Jessa's place.
Jessa wasn't living with the Greer family anymore. Maybe until Arabella got out, Chase wouldn't treat her well.
He was determined to cut ties with them. The chances of Jessa returning to the Greer family were pretty slim.
Cleo rushed to the door first and pressed the doorbell.
"Cleo, you're here! Hayden was so good. I even took him to the amusement park today." Jessa opened the door with a smile.
"Mommy."
When Hayden saw Cleo, he went up and hugged her waist. After a day apart, he probably missed her.
But Cleo didn't hug the child back. Instead, she started questioning Jessa.
"Why is Hayden with you?"
If she hadn't asked, I would've suspected this was a scheme between the two of them, deliberately trying to make things difficult for me.
Jessa suddenly noticed that Levi and I had come too. She'd been so focused on talking about taking care of Hayden.
"Levi, you're here too?"
"Don't change the subject. Tell me why Hayden is with you."
Cleo pulled Hayden to sit on the sofa, looking like she was there to demand answers.
"I ran into your husband. He seemed a bit overwhelmed, so I offered to help watch the child and said you could pick him up from my place tonight."
Jessa ran into Cleo's husband?
"The child and I waited for you for a long time. He asked me several times when you were coming. I don't have much experience with kids, so I just let him watch TV for a while."
"He had the child with him? Where did you run into them?"
"At that mall where we went shopping last time."
Jessa's speech slowed down. She sensed something was off.
Cleo looked completely skeptical. "When I dropped Hayden off, he'd already left for work. There's no way he could've been with the child again."
"Did you pick up the child yourself, and now you're blaming him?"
Jessa frowned. "Cleo, please don't accuse me. I've only met your husband a few times. I wouldn't do that."
"If you don't believe me, ask Hayden."
Cleo turned to the child and raised her voice. "You tell us - did she take you out?"
When her voice got loud, Hayden got scared and didn't want to talk.
I'd noticed this many times - whenever Cleo lost her temper, the child would clam up.
"Are you mute now? Say something!"
Cleo pushed the child. Hayden got so scared that he ran over to me and hid behind my back.
"Oh my God, I was just trying to help. Is there some misunderstanding here?" Jessa didn't know what was going on either.
"What misunderstanding could there be? Hayden is at your house - that's a fact. You need to explain this clearly. Are you trying to use the child to threaten my brother?"
Jessa was even more confused. What kind of logic was this?
"Cleo, what are you talking about? What does my watching Hayden have to do with Levi?"
"You want him back. You want to use Hayden to threaten him."
I had to admit, Cleo's train of thought was really something else.
If Jessa wanted to use Hayden as a hostage to threaten Levi, she wouldn't have gone to such lengths last time to use Cleo to get close to Levi. She clearly cared a lot about Levi's opinion. Using this method would be digging her own grave. No one would do something so stupid.
"Cleo, I really didn't mean that. Why don't you ask your husband?"
Cleo glared at her. "Why would I ask him? So he can find out you're using the child to seduce my brother?"
"You're really being hurtful. Fine, I won't hold back anymore. If I hadn't seen him with another woman, which wasn't good for Hayden, I wouldn't have offered to watch him. I was thinking of you, thinking of what's good for the child..."
Jessa was almost in tears from frustration. She blurted out that Cleo's husband was with another woman.
"What are you talking about? He..."
Cleo had never wanted Levi to know about her husband's affair. Now that Levi knew, she couldn't imagine what would happen...
I kept my head down, not daring to look at Levi's face. I'd heard about this from Cleo before.
I quickly covered Hayden's ears. He shouldn't hear these things.
"I really regret not keeping evidence, or I'd show you whether he was with someone else or not!" Jessa felt wronged.
Cleo was still trying to tough it out. "Now I've seen your tactics - kidnapping my child and then slandering my husband."
"Cleo, you change your tune faster than flipping a page. You told me yourself before about your husband's affair. What are you playing at now?"
"When did I ever say that? It's completely made up. Don't make up stories just to get yourself off the hook."
Jessa was so angry that she had to lean against the wall. "My good intentions were completely wasted. I really should've minded my own business."
"Stop acting." Cleo scolded her. "No wonder my brother doesn't want you anymore. You have bad intentions."
"You..."
The two of them kept arguing back and forth. I could barely keep up.
Levi's eyes darkened. He knew his sister - whenever she got this worked up, it meant someone had hit a nerve.
"Nothing to say now? I really misjudged you. I even let you use me before. You know how pathetic you are? That boyfriend of yours won't even spend much money on you."
Jessa was hit where it hurt, too. "Let's stop arguing. Call your husband over, and we'll confront him face-to-face. Let's see if he was the one who gave Hayden to me."
"Why call him over? You did it, but won't own up to it."
"Unless you're the one who's guilty, call him over."
Cleo immediately made a call, telling her husband to come over right away.
Levi and I were caught in the middle, very uncomfortable, but we couldn't leave. This matter had to be cleared up.