Spiraling Part II
“Hello?”
“Hi sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that?”
“You are my wife. What else should I call you? Love? Darling? Baby? How about, mother of my child?”
She looked to the ceiling as tears filled her eyes to the brink and spilled over in a cascade onto her cheeks. She let a sob out.
“Why are you crying, sweetheart? There is no need to cry. I mean, what could possibly be wrong about anything I said which would make you so sad you would cry? Perhaps because you hid my daughter from me for seven full years?”
At her silence he continued speaking.
“I imagine she is in school now. I am on my way to your home. I expect that she is there at some point this afternoon so I can meet her. What time does school get out?”
“Two–thirty.”
There was no point lying despite the way her mother was waving her hands in front of her face in crisscross motions to make her
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deny it. He knew.
“Then we will have a full ninety–minutes to discuss everything which has transpired.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, and it settled like an eight ball in her stomach that he’d sunk with perfect precision. Silently she rubbed her belly as it ached with the agony of his pending arrival. Based on his words, it meant he was only ten minutes away. It wasn’t long enough for them to get Kaylee and run. He’d found out too quickly.
“How?” she croaked the word out.
“How did I find out you have my child? Well, Ford and Glenn were having their usual weekly lunch. Glenn’s son Mitsos had a doctor appointment this morning, so he opted to keep him. out for the day. Apparently Ford kept staring at Mitsos and comparing him to the kid who brought in the skunk. Then he noticed the photo on Glenn’s phone taken of you on Sunday afternoon at a gas station which I’d sent to Glenn earlier in the week. He pointed you out as the mother of the child who looks like Mitsos. Now, I’m quite confident you and Glenn never made a baby because you aren’t the cheating kind and my brother is not a dog. If your daughter who apparently can be my nephew’s twin, is truly yours, then it stands to reason, my darling, that she is also mine. I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I have a daughter.”
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“Gulliver.”
“There is no need to chat this all out now. I’ll be there in less than six minutes.”
“You found everything so quickly.”
The comment from her father was not missed by Gulliver.
“The minute my IT fellow had January’s professional name, and I threw in a couple of thoughts of my own, he had it together in under five minutes. He simply hacked your friend Davis at the FBI. I should say, the reason you’re not hearing from him is because he’s being scolded quite vigorously by his superiors over the fact he diverted assets to help a family friend. I got copy of a few of his emails to you, Terrance. He really liked to paint me as a super villain, huh? I mean the one where he said I was wanted in eighteen different countries for everything from extortion to rape and to murder, well, that was a bit overkill.”
“You’re going to be the head of a mafia family.” Her father’s accusation hung heavy.
“You have declared my guilt and culpability and yet, neither I nor my grandfather have ever been arrested for anything in association with what your friend in the FBI alleges. I’m a businessman. Am I a bit ruthless in my business, perhaps, but the crimes they say I committed, well, they are the kind which yogld land a man in prison for a very long time. I can romise06
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you there is not a warrant out for me in even one country let alone eighteen. We will certain have a clear and open discussion about how you have been my judge, jury and executioner without me being able to stand a trial. This is not really the American way, is it?”
His English accent was heavily influenced with his Greek one in the moment and yet the underlying threat in his words as he spoke eloquently made January give her a father a very worried look.
“If you want to talk about people who are guilty of crimes, let’s talk about your friend Davis who had a crew of his friends enter my home illegally and surreptitiously on the day my wife disappeared to plant unauthorized listening devices and to erase my home security footage. Interestingly enough, it took five days for my IT guy to figure out it was the feds who got into my system. They have a guy on their payroll who is damn good at covering their tracks. My guy was better at figuring out who was in my system, but it never dawned on me until today that they were part of her disappearance.”
“Is this where you make threats against him?”
“Why would I do such a thing? I have no need to threaten him. I have simply asked my barrister and my entire legal department to begin proceedings because not only were the listening devices he implanted eight years ago put in illegally and we have an
going case against him for the illegal wire taps, but we
w
personal reasons.”
“He was protecting my daughter. For all we knew you targeted her because of my brother. You faked your marriage to her because you were hoping to find out what he was working on before he died.”
“Wow. That’s a stretch if I ever heard one. Analia, I imagine you’re sitting right there. The rosebushes look lovely. I cannot wait to see what you’ve done out back.”
The sound of tires crunching the gravel of the driveway made them freeze. His next statement had her father moving fast to text Moe.
“Terrance, call your buddy Moe and make sure he knows to stand down because I have an entire crew coming my way and we’re not walking away from my daughter without a fight.”
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