Annabel got off stage and she greeted her parents and Stevie just smiled at her. "Are you okay now?"
"I want to get to the bottom of it..." Annabel sighs when they get back into Stevie's dressing room.
"Okay, why don't you go back to the hotel and make some calls. Your mom and I will join you after we perform." Lindsey looks at her.
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea." Annabel nods.
"Annabel, I know it's only been a few days, but I love you. I really do love you." Stevie grabs her cheeks and kisses her forehead.
"Thanks mom." Annabel sighs collecting her stuff and heading out to the cars to head back to the hotel.
Before Annabel did anything, she got in the shower and then she changed into a pair of light blue silk sleep shorts and a gray tank top. Afterwards, she plopped into her bed and dialed Garrett's number.
"Long time no hear." Garrett answers the phone.
"I know I'm sorry...Tour with dad has been crazy...but I found something out." Annabel sighs.
"What did you find out?" Garrett inquires.
"I think Edith may have kidnapped me." Annabel falls into her pillows.
"What?" Garrett gasps.
"Stevie and Lindsey, my biological parents both told me that the social worker that took me from then was named Edith Charleston."
"Wasn't that your...adoptive mom's maiden name?"
"Yes, yes it is...that's why I believe that I was kidnapped." She states.
"So what are you going to do?" Garrett asks.
"Well, I come home tomorrow. I think I'm going to have to go back to Utah. Talk to some judges, and the court house...I don't know, I don't think my adoption was legal. If I can't find anything out in Utah, I'm going to have to dig in California and I'm freaking out."
"Well, you'll be home tomorrow, and we can talk about it in more detail when you get home." She huffs.
"I'm going to need a lot of help Garrett, because I don't know if I can do this by myself."
"I will...I help you the best I can. Look, you sound exhausted so gets some sleep." He tells her.
"Yeah, I will. See you tomorrow Garrett."
When she hangs up the phone she does a lip twill and then she starts flipping through her phone. Her contacts mostly...and her thumb hoovered a woman who she hasn't talked to in years. She rolls her eyes and throws her phone to the end of the bed. She doesn't know how long she blankly stares at the wall, memories from her childhood coming back to haunt her, but the next thing she knows, someone is knocking on the door.
"Hey, can we come in?" Her father asks.
She huffs and scoots up slightly. "Yeah."
When he and Stevie walk into the room, he lingers in the corner, Stevie crawls on the bed with her.
"What's running through your mind?" Stevie asks.
"Mama."
It takes Stevie a moment but then she registered that she was the one being spoken too. Mama was a foreign word to her, especially coming from Annabel because it was usually Stevie or Mom.
"What baby?" She turns her head. She was squished on the edge of the bed. Annabel was laying on "Stevie's side" of the bed, so when she crawled in with her, it was just a natural feeling to wedge herself on the edge of that side of the bed, half of her butt was literally on the night stand.
"Will you hold me?" Annabel questions moving over slightly to give Stevie a little bit more room. Stevie smiles sweetly at her and shifts with her and statues herself actually on the bed, her back supported by the pillows. Stevie doesn't answer her she just pulls her into her arms and cradles her head to her chest. One hand strokes her hair the other rubs her bicep and Lindsey clears his throat.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Well, tomorrow you guys go to Canada, I'm going to go home stay with the dogs for a couple of days and give Sam and Will a rest and then I'm going to drive out to Salt Lake City. Garrett's going with me. I have to talk to my a-Mike's sister, and then I'll probably go to the court house and the hall of records, see if I can get anything from them. If I can't I'll go to Cedars-Sinai. They have to have my birth records, I'm over 18 so they should release them to me. That way I can find out the agency I was taken to and then I can track them down." She sighs.
"Keep us posted though." Stevie soothes before kissing her head. These moments right here, cradling her daughter close was just a dream that she thought would never come true so she's trying to cherish it.
The room was quiet for a while, No one really knowing how to approach anything and then Lindsey chuckles.
"I hope you're comfy Steph."
"M'not, why?" She asks throwing her head back against the headboard.
"Because she feels safe and protected with you...and the reason I know that, is because she's out."
"What?" Stevie asks.
"She fell asleep." Lindsey points.
"Lindsey, I can't sit like this very long it's going to kill my back I..."
"Here." He sighs crawling in on his side of the bed. He tries to pry Annabel away from her mother but like a defiant toddler who doesn't want to wake up yet, she just boomerangs right back to the position she was sleeping in.
"Can I at least get you a few more pillows?" He asks.
"Two for my back, one for my head." She rolls her eyes. "And Lindsey, if I'm sleeping in here like this with her, so are you."
"She's 26, isn't it weird to be sleeping with her father at 26." Lindsey crosses his arms.
"Does she fall asleep on you?"
"I mean, if we're watching a movie on the couch. But we don't sleep there, I carry her into her own room when it's over." Lindsey states.
"It's not going to be any different. And besides we haven't shared a bed in years...it might be nice." She shrugs.
"What are you hinting at Ms. Nicks?"
"Well, I mean you're divorced now...I'm single." She gnaws on her lip.
"Stevie I don't..."
"I never wanted you to leave." She looks down.
"You were the one who told me to?" He raises an eyebrow in a questioning manner.
"I didn't think you'd actually listen to me, you never did. That was the only time you listened to me and I really wished you hadn't." She shakes her head.
"I didn't want to hurt you anymore." He shakes his head.
"It wasn't your fault Linds." She closes her eyes.
"But it is...If I had passed my drug test..."
"They would've taken her anyway Lindsey...They told you they wouldn't but they would've taken her anyway. I posed a threat to her health." Stevie shakes her head.
"Alright, but you have to stop blaming yourself too."
"But it is my fault...I was addicted to cocaine and it..."
"Steph, she's okay. She's perfectly fine and healthy. She's right there in your arms...it's time to stop blaming yourself," He had made his way to her side of the bed to give her the two other pillows on Annabel's bed. He'd go get his own pillows from his part of the suite, and placed his hand on her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned her head into his palm. "Right now, you have the opportunity to change things. Change your life, her life, you can make it better. She's not mad at you, I'm not mad at you. She's an amazing woman Angel, it could've been so differently if we kept her."
"She's everything to me Linds."
"I know she is, the moment you found out you were pregnant, she was your everything. And she will be your everything until the day you die. She loves you just as much. She might not show it, but deep down she does." Lindsey smiles before walking to the door.
"You better be coming back."
"I will." He assures.