The Girlfriends S5/E5: Don’t Mess With Texas

Novel Last Time on the Girlfriends Trust Me Babe. Mike finds a new name in Dorry's iPad, another woman in Texas Derek's been communicating with. He comes up with a plan. It's a Tuesday morning. A woman named Tracy has just started her work day. She's in the admissions office of a busy rehab facility on the outskirts of Dallas Fort Worth.

Who do we have coming in? Who do we have discharging?

It's gearing up to be a busy day when her phone starts to ring. No caller ID annoying.

My first thought was spam.

Tracy picks up. A man introduces himself as Mike Elcare Special Agent.

I'm with the NCIS in you know, I need to talk to you.

And I'm just like okay, Special Agent Mike is trying to reassure.

It was just like, hey, you know, I need to speak with you. You're not in trouble. I'm like, yeah, no, I haven't done anything.

Tracy's not the kind of person who needs a lot of reassurance. Her mind is already worrying. She's pretty sure she knows exactly who this will be about. The guy she's been dating for the last two months.

The closest thing I could come up with is okay, ncis is military. He's supposedly military.

A Navy pilot and college professor Richie Taylor.

God, did he kill somebody?

Special Agent Mike wants to meet in person asap, somewhere public, anywhere of Tracy's choosing.

Okay, I'll meet you at Starbucks, because I'll see you at ten.

Thirty Later that morning, in a busy coffee shop in downtown Fort Worth. Special Agent Mike is seated at a table.

Tracy walks in heels and a short skirt.

It wasn't hard to recognize him. For one, he didn't have any coffee.

For another, classic establishment haircut, buzz cut.

She sits down and I could tell that she is not happy. She almost looks like she wants to kill somebody. This is going to be interesting.

He's got this portfolio and he opens it up, and here's all these paperwork and stuff.

I had some pictures of Derek in uniform.

Courtesy of Dorry. She'd snapped to cheeky pick of him sitting on her porch in his navy blues. Mike shows the picture to Tracy. It's not yet clear to Mike what Tracy knows about Derek Ordrett, Well, exactly she's so angry about or whose side she might be on.

He was saying, do you know this person? And I go yeah, He goes, well, here's what his real name is, Derek Aldred.

And there's a warrant out for his arrest over credit card fraud of a woman in the colony that's less than an hour's drive from where Tracy and Mike are meeting that morning.

And I'm just like, this isn't real. I can't make sense of it.

And there's more.

They said, to listen, we think he's been involved in doing this type of activity across the country. Once he realizes he's in trouble, he doesn't stick around, usually takes off.

It doesn't take long for that new info to sink in. Mike needn't have worried about winning Tracy over.

It just enraged her.

You can't take advantage of people, you can't steal. I mean, who do you think you are?

I think personally she just wanted to wring his neck out.

And then Mike comes to the real reason he's asked to meet him in a coffee shop this morning. Mike needs to arrest Derek Audred asap before he figures out he's being investigated, and for that he needs Tracy's help. If Derek is in the dark about what Tracy knows, then maybe she can lure him into a trap.

Let's get him off the street before he runs, and then we can go from there.

It would be the perfect plan except for one slight complication.

I just dumped him this morning, only.

A couple of hours earlier. As she sewed him out of the passenger side door of her car, Tracy made it abundantly clear to Richie Taylor that she wanted absolutely nothing more to do with him.

I said, listen, I'm not telling you for real. I just need you to help. Just bs him a little bit.

And he's just like, Okay, can you get him back? It's like, yeah, of course I can. It's easy.

Derek is about to learn the hard way.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart podcasts. You're listening to the girlfriends Trust me, babe, episode five, don't mess with Texas you. Tracy is a country girl through and through. She grew up in a small town in Texas.

The only thing going down there was a little country store, two gas pumps, the post office, and a little automotive garage. That was it.

And what does a young girl do in the country when there's not much going on.

Find stuff to shoot out? You get your gun, you get your dog, you get your horse, and you just ride.

Sounds like me and Tracy had pretty similar childhoods. I certainly shot a few cans in my time, although I had a mini motorbike, not a horse.

I was a tomboy, obviously.

The joke here is that this is very much not obvious. Unlike me, Tracy didn't stick with her boyish roots. She's got a gorgeous blond blowout for one thing, But that scoutfinch tomboy independence is very much still there.

In a typical man's world. You have to be strong because otherwise you're gonna get run over. It's called survival. Don't ever depend on anybody to do anything for you depend on yourself.

That's the woman that Richie Taylor aka Derek had found himself up against. But why are they already on such bad terms before Tracy had even stormed into Starbucks to learn the truth. Just a week earlier, Tracy and Richie had been gearing up for a very special weekend.

Were supposed to be gone to pass some Kingdom Lake that weekend.

Possum Kingdom Lake, Rugged Cliffs, Crystal clear waters of the Brasis River, just a few hours drive out of town. Tracy's even purchased a doggie life vest for her beloved Pooch, a rescue boxer.

She was pretty lazy, so I couldn't guarantee how well she would swim. Still have the dog floaty.

But on the Wednesday before their special weekend, while Tracy's at work, she gets a phone call from Richie.

He was at one of the hospitals in the emergency room. He goes, my chest is hurting really really bad.

Tracy heads down to meet Richie at the hospital.

They want to do a heart caf the following morning.

A heartcath is where they stick a tube up a vein to evaluate your heart problems. With Richie now safely in care, Tracy heads home for the evening.

I'm literally about to walk up the stairs in my apartment and he's calling. They've cut my pain meds in half. I'm in so much pain. I can't take it. Come back and get me. And I'm like, I Am not going to come back and get you.

Tracy thinks he'll be fine in hospital for one night. She'll go in the morning. The sun hasn't even risen. The next day before Tracy's phone is ringing again.

He calls me about four four thirty in the morning.

Strike one. As far as I'm concerned.

He goes, were you going to come up here? And I said, well, of course.

Thursday morning dawns a more reasonable hour this time, just after six am. Tracy arrives at the hospital and Richie is in preop for his procedure. She stays by his side until he's taken into surgery.

But he wasn't in there. Fifteen twenty minutes. Here comes a surgeon and he's like, I didn't find anything. I can't explain why he was having those kind of pains. I didn't see a previous stint.

This strikes Tracy is odd. Richie had told her about a previous stint from an old war injury.

He said he was in Afghanistan. He'd gotten some shrapnel in his body ended up having to have a stint put in his heart, blah blah blah.

But the doctor seems to be saying he couldn't see it.

So I'm just like, Okay, that's weird.

But on Friday, Richie is discharged. They're supposed to be leaving for their big weekend that day, but now Richie needs rest from the procedure that you did not need. When asked about all of this, Derek said, as far as my cardiac history goes, it is extensive. I've had multiple surgeries. He doesn't address the war injury half of

So we plan on that Saturday morning.

Saturday morning arrives and Richie seems to be doing fine, but Tracy can't help but note that he doesn't seem to have organized a car for their weekend away.

Yet he goes, well, let's go get my carr out of the shop.

Richie claimed to have totaled his car a few weeks earlier, but it should be fixed by now, just a simple matter of picking it up from the auto repair shop in Dallas.

So that's Saturday. We leave, go to Dallas.

Richie has Tracy driving all over the place.

I'm like, why are you having a try time knowing where your car is?

He can't seem to direct them to the right shop for ages, and then when he finally does closed, he suggests they rent a car have it delivered, so I'll be waiting for them at Tracy's when they get home. Richie gets it all sorted while Tracy drives all the way back to hers. But by the time they arrive, where is it at?

No car.

Richie makes a big fuss of yelling at a customer service rep from the rental car company, but by nine point thirty that night, they're no closer to setting off.

So now I'm really mad. My tongue can be very sharp, and I'm like, no, I'm going to try to be a better person than that.

Gracefully and with great decorum, Tracy goes to bed.

I left him in the living room. I'm thinking, I'm a crappy person because you should be a little bit more patient.

But inside, if she's honest with herself, she's had enough. This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened with Richie. Here's another great series of unfortunate events. Conveniently, none of them Richie's fault. I don't want that kind of hassle. The next day is Sunday, and Richie doesn't appear to be making any moves in the direction of Possum Kingdom Lake, or any moves at all.

He's laying around all day long. All this time, I'm getting more and more angry because my apartment was small. You have been faded my space. I cannot stand needy, whiny men. It just it's repulsive. I don't want to deal with it. I'm not gonna sit in the house all day long. So it's like, Hey, do you want to go to Fred's and grab a burger? We have lunch, we have a couple of drinks, get ready to go get the bill. Oh, he doesn't have his wallet? All right, strike too, so I pay for it.

Needless to say, the Possum Kingdom Lake weekend never happens. By the time Tuesday morning rolls around, Tracy's expecting Richie to go to work.

Tuesday morning, I'm like, thank god, I get up. I'm getting ready for work. It's about seven and he's just laying there and I'm just like, got class today and he's like, yeah, I don't have class till nine thirty. And I said, it's now seven thirty. You better get ready. I said, if you're going to be having to get an uber, you better get on it. This whole time, he's texting on his phone and I'm like, what the hell.

Ritchie looks up from his phone.

He's like, I really need to go get a check up. And I'm like why, and he goes, well, I didn't want to say anything, but last night, while you were sleeping, I had a coughing fit and I think I dislodged my plug.

Tracy doesn't know what this means.

I said, just rub some dirt on it. She'll be fine because I'm done. I mean, I'm so done at this point. It's like all I need to do is get him out of the house and I don't talk to him again. Get him in the car, get him out.

And so she breaks the news to Richie.

Okay, I'll drop you back off at the hospital or wherever you want to go, but I need my life back, I need my schedule back. That over you've got to go.

A couple of hours after ditch Richie, Tracy finds herself in a fort Worth Starbucks processing the most validating piece of post breakup info a girl could ever dream of Richie Taylor not just annoying, but an actual con man named Derek Aldred. After the first wave of outrage subsides, the decision is obvious. Of course she'll help catch him. The thing is, Tracy couldn't have made it more clear to the guy that she never wants to see him again.

So I get on my phone and start texting right there in the coffee shop. I'm so sorry about this morning. I was just hormonal.

It won't be very long at all before her phone pings back a new message.

He's like, oh baby, it's okay.

Works like a charm, and then, as though he's orchestrating his own downfall, Derek tells Tracy exactly where he'll be two days later, the hospital.

He's got to come back for a follow up appointment.

So she offers to pick him up afterwards.

He goes our, Thanks babe.

The plan is officially in motion and Special Agent Mike is ready for action.

You keep me updated. Will assemble a team take him into custody.

It's go time. After hatching a plan with Mike, Tracy leaves Starbucks, walks to her car, gets in and closes the door behind her, and.

I drive to work and I'm like, what the hell just happened?

Parked at work, Tracy calls her son. He's met Derek plenty of times over the last two months, but he's only just learning the guy's real name.

Now he gets on the computer and he's finding all of the stuff with the real name, and he's like, holy shit, man, this guy's crazy.

This is how Tracy gets hold of the phone number for Cindy from San Francisco. Her son finds it online.

He's kind of a little sleuth himself.

Cindy is still the unofficial secretary of this ever growing club of Derek harl dread sexes. Sitting in the parking lot of her work, Tracy gives Cindy a call.

She's been tracking him for years. He keeps avoiding the police.

Tracy is the newest recruit, but she's not the only one. In Texas. There's also Dorry.

Cindy connected us. It was very awkward. It was kind of like, oh, okay, you're seeing him too. She met him a day before I did.

Oh, all right, well, what do you know about him?

Tracy tells Dorry that Derek sometimes turned up in a borrowed car for his dates with her while his was in the repair shop.

License plate cover was pink.

It turns out Dorry has a Camaro.

The camera was black, but it had pink on the inside, pink emblem.

The same car.

I said, How did he explain away that, don't mind this car, it's my daughter's.

Another time, Richie invited Tracy round to a townhouse in the colony. He'd cooked them dinner, He'd opened a bottle of wine, introduced her to the dogs.

He told me it was his sister's. It was Dorry's apartment with her dogs. Was very upset about that, and rightfully so Dorry. I'm sorry I did not know.

Then there was the Memorial Day weekend plans.

He said he was taking me to the lake with an Airbnb and Tracy goes, no, that's where we're going. I really think that he was going to take my car and stuff and go with Tracy.

It's no wonder Richie, or should I say, Derek hadn't booked a car for the Possam Kingdom Lake weekend. He must have been expecting access to Dori's Camaro until she inconveniently discovered the truth.

He was whining and dying Tracy on my dime. All those charges I saw for airbnbs and concerts and flowers and gift cards, it was all for Tracy. I just felt so used.

As for Tracy, she didn't feel used as much as she felt outraged. Derek hadn't stolen her credit cards yet.

He'd already had Dorry's credit card. I didn't know that, of course, but he probably knew it was time to move on from that one, to get another one to continue on.

Derek Aldred had used the exact same alias and cover story for both Dorry and Tracy. A college professor, a naval officer, catching lifts to and from the airport for his many trips to solve world crises in Washington.

I drop him off at the airport and here ten minutes later, Tracy said, she comes in and picks him up. He tells her he's getting into town, tells me he's leaving, and literally we were both like passing each other, probably at the airport.

And with that a situation so unbelievably brazen that you just have to laugh. Dorry and Tracy became fast friends. Dorry had been through a lot.

I was very hurt by it, beat myself up really bad about it.

But now she's got Tracy in her corner.

She helped me through it a lot.

Tracy just turned to humor and we just started laughing about all the stuff that he got away with that we allowed him to get away with.

She is a bull in a china shop.

She is a strong, funny, don't take anything from anybody type.

Of girl, exactly what Dory needed.

That's a real shit human being to do that to another person. That made me angry because she did not deserve that. She's very loving, she was very trusting. She's a very good person, and it does anger me that somebody had hurt her and made it where she feels less trusting of humanity. That's sad, because she is wonderful. It was her money that was taking me out.

Often amusing dry. Tracy's got a new reason to hope. Special Agent Mike's plan goes off without.

A hitch, and it's just like, I can't fix it, but here's something to show that he's going to get his.

Hopefully by early afternoon. On first of June twenty seventeen, Special Agent Mike and his team of undercover agents have the hospital in Fort Worth surrounded. It's raining, it's.

A big compound. It's really a big campus. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of cars.

Ambulances are coming in, people are being transported, people are parking.

Even if darrek Udred trusts Tracy enough to show up today, there are ways this could all go pear shaped fast.

He could have escaped anywhere, he could have hit any word.

It's really hard to keep track of somebody, so we really had to have every area covered.

There's a lot of activity there.

Tracy has told Derek that once his procedure finishes, she'll pick him up at the valet area in front of the main hospital entrance.

She wanted to take him in the custody you herself.

But Mike has been clear, just keep the team updated, stay at work, leave this one to the professionals.

So we were getting updates every thirty minutes, maybe an hour.

A lot can happen in forty eight hours. For one thing, the Colony Police Department haven't quite got the memo about stealth.

Today we have another be on the lookout video on.

Their Facebook page. They've published a video announcing for all to see that they're looking to arrest Derek Audred.

So, Derek, Richard, rich whatever name you want to.

Be called by, give us a call.

We'll keep the light on for you. We have nice jail for the rest of you out.

Special Agent Mike isn't happy. If Derek sees it, he might decide to flee and this whole plan will be for nothing.

A lot depends on Tracy and her believability and her pushing Derek back into her arms.

On the afternoon of Derek's follow up procedure. Dotted around the hospital complex are agents from Special Agent Mike's team.

At this point, everybody has a picture of him. We had some people on foot, we had some people in cars.

The officers on foot are in playing clothes, trying to look like normal hospital visitors.

Which is had people kind of walking around nothing that would spook him or tip him off, relaying back if they've seen him. We don't know what he's wearing, but we know what he looks like.

This is the hospital where Derek's hert cath took place. It should be any moment.

We're just kind of waiting to hear from her.

They haven't heard anything in a while, and time is ticking closer. Nobody has spotted him yet, and then it's Tracy with an update that threatens to scopper the whole plan.

He's not at that hospital.

This latest twist has caught Tracy by total surprise. Derek is not at the hospital she thought he was.

I really thought he was going to go back to the original hospital where he had the procedure done, because that's what would make sense. So they had that hospital surrounded.

She was sitting at work when the call from Derek came in.

He's like, baby, I'm not at that hospital. I'm at the doctor's office at the other hospital. I said, oh, okay, don't worry. I said, I'll be there and just a lot a bit. I just got finished up touring a family sort of take me a little bit. And he's like, no hurries, you know, I'll go on and get dressed and I'll just wait for you.

As soon as she hung up, she called Mike immediately. He's been on high alert waiting for her updates outside the hospital. When he hears the news about a sudden change of location.

Oh, this guy is screwing around. This guy knows.

Tracy has tried her best to buy them a little time. But right now Mike and his team are all at the wrong location. The new location is just across the street at a neighboring hospital.

He goes, give me a few minutes. I said, okay.

So at that point, everybody's scrambling. We had some people already out on foot that were able to get.

There quicker, but Mike is in a car.

You're trying to circle around red lights and stop signs and cars and l people walking.

You're trying not to hit me. He's like, come on, hurry up.

When Mike outlined the plan to Tracy, he made it crystal clear that she should stay put.

We got it, like, don't interfere. She didn't listen.

In the admissions office at her work, Tracy is on her feet, phone in hand, and.

I said, well, I gotta go.

If Derek Audred is really about to be led away in handcuffs, Tracy wants a front row seat, and she knows a few other women who want to see it too.

I said, I gotta go. Take pictures.

After pulling up at the hospital across the street, special Agent Mike and some of his team enter.

The building, walked into the waiting area. Who was sitting there by himself. All I said was Derek and he said yes, and I said, cool.

Stand up, you're underrest. Most people go, what's this about? What are you doing? What did I do? And he was just calm as a cucumber.

He was like, okay, stood up and didn't fight, didn't ask questions, almost like he didn't care.

And then we walked him out.

By the time they were coming downstairs out the building, I had just pulled.

Up as Derek has let out an agent on either side of him. Tracy has pulled into the hospital and abandoned her car in a no parking zone.

Put it in part, put on my hazards, hop out. I've got my cell phone, got the camera ready, and i can see him being brought out with these two officers in handcuffs.

I pointed at her and I'm like, get back in your car.

And I'm like, mm M, don't care. I'm getting pictures.

When I tell you to stay in the car, I really need you to kind of like stay in the car.

And so I start running.

I'm just like, oh my god. Please.

The other officer held me back, going no, you know, don't jeopardize this case, and it's just like, well, I'm not going to jeopardize it. I just want to take some pictures to show everybody.

Between her and Derek is a van.

Behind the van is a pickup. That's part because that's where he's going into. I start inching my way down the side of the van.

And that's when she gets into view, and.

I'm staring at him. You know, he's got his head down, and then he turned around it and he's about to get in the pickup and he looks at me, and I look at him.

Tracy hadn't planned to interfere. She really did just want to take some pictures. But in that moment, she realizes she has something to say to this man.

Never fuck with the country girl.

She just had to get it out of her system.

I've got my mom's mouth. It just flew out. So but she would have never said that word though dropping the F bomb. She would have slapped me in the mouth. Head. She heard me say that, he just hung his head and got in and I'm just like, well, shit now what.

Dorry is on her couch holding onto her phone for dear life when it finally lights up.

I'll never forget getting those pictures. It was just like winning the lottery.

Thanks to Tracy. The news spreads like wildfire. Lisa, our hockey loving mom from Minnesota, sees Tracy's pictures roll in too.

I was just like girls, I can hug you right now when that sucker was arrested.

Also watching the pictures roll in a woman in California.

That was sensational for me. He got caught.

She's been waiting not years, but decades for answers.

This person has been deceiving people since he was a young man and it needs to stop.

And now Derek Aordred is finally in custody.

Are doing good?

I do good?

Coming up on the final episode of The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe?

Have you ever shard in the military?

No way. I cannot believe all this is happening. Dude, what are you thinking? They don't play in Texas. He's going to get what he deserves.

The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel Dot Audio The series is hosted by me Annasinfield and this episode was produced by Valeria Rocker and Leona Harmid. Our editor is Joe Wheeler. Production management from Sharie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact checking by Dania Suleman, Sound design,