“Alright,” Rob said reluctantly. “What is it?”
“Adam found something while he was researching Michael’s father. He found Michael’s birth records, and on the birth records it shows that his father’s first name was Jack.”
“So what?” he asked. “You need to stop letting Adam get in your head so much. It’s starting to make you paranoid. You know that he still would take you for himself if he could, so keep his motives in the back of your head and take everything he says to you with a grain of salt.”
“I know that,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t trust Adam. I forgave him for what he did at The Sanctuary and I’m not being paranoid. That wasn’t the piece of information that I need figured out.”
“What is then?”
“The address on Michael’s birth certificate is the same address as my father’s.”
Rob abruptly turned his face to look at me. “Fuck.”
“Okay, well that wasn’t exactly the reaction that I was hoping you would have,” I said with a frown. “Weren’t you just the one telling me not to be paranoid. There’s a logical explanation for this. It’s probably a mistake or something.”
“That would be one hell of a coincidental mistake,” he said.
“Can you please just look into it for me?” I asked. “Use your police clout or something to check it out and get an answer as to why his birth documents would have my family’s address on them.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” I said as we pulled into the store parking lot and I got ready to get out of the car. I didn’t really need anything at the store, but I was going to go inside and walk with Rob while I figured out what explanation to give Michael for why I left the cabin so quickly just now.
“Lisette, what if Michael’s father and your father were the same guy?” he asked before we got out.
I took my hand off the door handle and turned to look at him.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “I’m not even the least bit worried about it because it’s such a completely absurd notion to even consider. Michael and I grew up in opposing families on opposing campuses. Both of our moms were rivals and our dads were rivals too, at least until his died and mine faked his death. Everyone in town would have known if we had the same father, and our mothers certainly wouldn’t have kept it hidden, at least not from us.”
“If you’re not worried about it, then why did you run out of the cabin to come to the store with me instead of staying at the cabin to make love to Michael?”
“I just wanted to talk to you about it and ask for your help,” I lied. The truth was that I just needed to get away from everything for a minute. “The only thing I’m worried about is that Michael will find out about it and end up worrying needlessly about something that is obviously untrue.”
“Oh okay,” Rob said. He didn’t look at all like he believed what I was saying to be true. “I thought that maybe you ran out to come to the store with me because you were afraid to go back in that bedroom with Michael right now.”
“Why would I be afraid of that?” I asked.
I could feel my face getting hot and my palms getting sweaty.
“Because if what Adam is implying is true, and by the look on your face it sure seems like you are at least slightly concerned about it; then that would mean that you and Michael are siblings.
There wasn’t even a word to describe how tangled the knot in my stomach was becoming.
It felt like there were at least a few thousand butterflies waging a war inside my abdomen.
When we got back from the store, I was initially worried that Adam might have already told Michael what he had found. But since the two of them seemed to be in good spirits with each other, I knew that he hadn’t. I needed to remember to get Adam alone for a few minutes and tell him to keep his mouth shut before he was tempted to open it. At least until Rob had found some solid evidence to disprove the crazy theory.
Rob took his laptop outside to sit and do some work, which I knew meant that he was actually doing what I asked him instead, since he had been planning to work on his cycle today and not do any computer work.
I came up with a halfway believable story about needing to grab an emergency box of tampons, which not only provided a good excuse for why I rushed to the store, but also gave me a reason for not wanting to have sex for the next couple of days. It was a good thing that none of the guys seemed to know when my cycle came and went, because otherwise that excuse wouldn’t have worked.
Rob spent most of the afternoon outside on his laptop and phone. I had to give him credit for putting a valid effort into helping me whenever I asked him to. I went out to the greenhouse to clip some of the herbs that had been growing to use in a homemade pasta sauce for dinner. When I turned around after cutting a few sprigs of basil and oregano, Adam was standing just inside the doorway and it made me jump.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I actually wanted to talk to you anyway.”
“So do I,” he said. “Lisette, you need to stay away from Michael, at least physically.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Of course I’m not going to stay away from him. This whole theory of yours is ridiculous and Rob is working on figuring it out right now.”
“It’s not ridiculous and you know it,” he said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be faking your period in order to get out of sleeping with Michael tonight.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Running a halfway house meant making sure all the teenage girls there had what they needed each month. It kind of became a habit to keep track of it,” he said.
“That’s not why I’m doing it,” I said.
I was really hoping that he didn’t ask me for the reason why I was doing it then, because I was starting to run dry on last-minute excuses.
“Yes, it is.”
“You can’t tell Michael about this,” I pleaded. “Not until we have the proof that it was just a mix-up. He’ll drive himself crazy overthinking it.”
“How could he not?” Adam asked. “I’d be overthinking it too if I suddenly found out that I was in love with and having sex with my sister.”
“Ugh,” I said exasperated. “You don’t even have a sister.”
“True,” he said. “But it might be possible that you have a brother; another one.”
“Adam please, just stop it. And don’t say anything to Michael until we have it all resolved. I just finally got him in a good place with things.”
Adam shrugged his shoulders which was definitely not a convincing gesture of agreement.
“Please,” I said again. “Promise me that you’ll keep this to yourself.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I really think you should abstain for a while. Like you said, at least until it’s resolved.”
I didn’t say anything in response to him. I simply walked out of the greenhouse to take the herbs back into the kitchen. On my way, I passed Rob.
“Anything?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” he said. “And Lisette, I’ve tried looking everywhere I can. I even called in a few favors and had some of the other guys check into it for you. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any answers for you. There’s literally no information on Michael’s father at all.”
I heard Adam walk up behind me and make a small noise that sounded like a “humph.” I turned to face him with hot cheeks that I knew were as red as the encroaching sunset.
“Just because Rob couldn’t find any answers, doesn’t mean that the answer you’re hypothesizing is the correct one. There is still way more proof on the side that it was just a glitch, than there is that somehow my father had an affair with Michael’s mother and somehow no one even knew that our fathers were the same person. I mean, think about it. If Marta wasn’t married to another completely separate man as Michael’s father, then who in the hell was she married to? No
one?”
I was angry for letting myself get mad about this. It was ridiculous and I wasn’t going to waste even another single moment on the crazy idea. I walked back into the cabin, leaving both of the other guys outside to mull it over between them, and went straight into the kitchen to set the fresh herbs down on the counter.
“Hey,” Michael said when he heard me come in and got up to come over and wrap his arms around me.
“Hey,” I said as I smiled and leaned forward to kiss him.
His body pushed into mine as my back pressed up against the kitchen counter. Everything was perfect now. I loved him, and wanted him, and digging into all of that stuff about his dad was a stupid idea. But, none of it mattered because Michael and I were lovers, and most definitely not brother and sister.
And even if I didn’t have concrete proof, I knew that in the pit of my gut.
Michael and I were not related, and I had to find the shred of evidence that proved me right.
24
“I’ve found something,” Rob said to me as I rubbed my eyes open while I waited for the coffee to percolate.
Michael was in the shower and Adam was just walking in to get some coffee too.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“I’ve found someone that knew Michaels’ dad,” he said.
“What, really? That’s great!” I said. “I want to talk to him. This is exactly what we need to put an end to all of this nonsense.”
“I’ve already arranged it,” Rob said. “We can meet with him in an hour in town.”
“An hour?” I asked as I stared at the coffee dripping slowly into the pot and wished it would hurry up.
“Yeah, apparently, he happens to be here in Asheville on business for the next couple of days, so now is our chance. Get dressed. I’ll grab your coffee and we can leave before Michael gets out of the shower and asks where we’re heading off to,” Rob said.
“I want to come along too,” Adam said.
“Nope, you need to stay here and come up with some excuse to tell Michael about where we’ve gone,” Rob chuckled. “You’re pretty good at coming up with shit, as I recall.”
I ran in the bedroom to throw some clothes on and tied my hair up in a quick and messy ponytail on top of my head. By the time I had come out, Rob had my coffee poured into a travel mug and I could hear that the water from Michael’s shower was still on.
“Okay come on, let’s go,” Rob said as he grabbed his keys and walked toward the door.
I stopped to talk to Adam quickly before we left.
“Don’t tell him anything about this,” I said to him again. “Remember that you promised me you wouldn’t.”
“I actually didn’t promise,” Adam said.
“Well don’t say anything anyway,” I said.
“Lisette, we need to go,” Rob called from the door.
Adam’s eyes watched me leave over the top of his coffee cup. I really hoped that he would keep his mouth shut. Since he hadn’t actually promised, that didn’t give me much hope that he would keep his lips sealed, but hopefully, Rob and I would be returning with news to disprove all of it anyway so it wouldn’t matter.
Rob had tracked this guy down somehow by looking through old court records. Apparently, Michael’s dad and the man we were going to meet, had engaged in a lawsuit against another company together years ago. He had called the guy to make sure that it was indeed the man who knew my father and when he found out that it was, he arranged the meeting.
When we pulled up to the diner where we were meeting the man, we walked inside, and Rob knew how to spot him from the profiling that he had already done on the guy. Rob led the way as we walked over to the table and the two of them shook hands. We sat down and the waitress brought us another round of coffee that I was extremely grateful for.
“Lisette, this is Gary James. He is the one that I was telling you about who was in a collective lawsuit with Michael’s dad,” Rob said.
I smiled and nodded my head to the man, although I wasn’t really sure why. If he had any dealings with Michael’s dad, and if Michael’s dad was anything like the rumors that I’d heard, then this guy was probably a shady criminal too.
“Mr. James,” I said in my most polite voice. “Thank you for meeting with us. I was just hoping that you might be able to provide some clarification on who, exactly, the man was that you knew.”
“Who, you mean Jack?” he asked.
Even the sound of the name instantly reminded me of my father and brought an unpleasant visual to the front of my mind. There may have been a million guys in the world named Jack, but I still would hate the name no matter which particular person it belonged to.
“Yes,” I said as I pulled up a picture of my father on my phone that I had found online from an old article that preceded his initial, fake death.
“Is this the man that you knew?” I asked while I held out my phone for him to see.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said with a wrinkled brow and slight frown. “But how can you not be sure if this was the man you knew or not?”
“Well I never actually saw Jack.”
“What?” I shot a glance over at Rob, who looked equally as surprised as I was to hear that this guy had no idea what Michael’s father looked like.
“I thought you said you knew him,” Rob said. “And that the two of you worked on several dealings together and even partnered on a lawsuit together.”
“We did,” Mr. James said.
“Then how is it possible that you don’t know what he looks like?” Rob asked.
“I only ever spoke to him over the phone,” he said. “We never met in person. All of our dealings were either through phone calls or emails. Even the hearing for the lawsuit was settled via phone teleconference.”
“What about video calls?” I asked. “Surely you must have seen each other at least through the screen before?”
“Nope,” the man said as he shook his head. “All that video chatting stuff is for you young kids. I stick to voice calls and emails. Those things are much more efficient and easier to document. Plus, I’m not much of a camera guy. My wife says I’m not at all photogenic.”
I was sure that I agreed with her, considering that he was obesely overweight and had more chins than I had digits on my hands.
I slumped back against the booth seat in the diner. This was a complete waste of time and energy. And all I could think about was that I hoped Adam had managed to keep a lid on it until we got back.
“Mr. James,” Rob asked, unwilling to let the trip be a waste and feeling bad to have gotten my hopes up. “Is there anything at all that you can tell us about Jack? Anything either professionally or personally that might give us some insight into who the man actually was?”
He laughed and all the rolls of fat around his neck jiggled into a sickening ripple that looked like an ocean made out of Jell-O.
“Jack was quite the sneaky guy, wasn’t he?” he said rhetorically. “He never did like to be in the public eye. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that even those who thought they knew him the most, probably didn’t know him that well at all. He liked it that way. It was just his personality, I think. What was her name again?”
He rubbed his fat fingers against his temple as he tried to remember the name of Michael’s mother.
“Paula? No, Marta. That was it. It was Marta.”
I sat straight up in my seat. “Why did you say Paula?” I asked.
“It was Marta,” he said. “I just got confused there for a moment. Jack used to hang around quite a lot of women, sometimes it was hard to keep them all straight. He settled down though once he got married, I think.”
“Was one of the women’s names that he hung around with, Paula?” I asked.
My heart was racing, and I could feel my nerves burning against my veins. Having the same name as my father was one thing, a mistaken address on his birth record was a bit less easy to swallow; but there was
no possible way that both of our fathers were with a woman named Paula.
That was one too many coincidences for me to feel comfortable.
“No, not that I remember,” he said. “Not sure why that name popped in my head. Maybe I saw it somewhere today. Could be the waitress’s name for all I know.”
I raised my hand with my coffee cup clenched in my fingers and motioned to the waitress for a refill. Rob looked at me like I was crazy as I tried to gulp down the hot coffee before she reached the table with the pot to refill a cup that was already full. She looked at me a little strangely too, but then went ahead and filled the inch of space that I had slipped out of the cup. I looked at her nametag while she poured the coffee.
Her name was Kathleen.
“Please, is there anything else that you can tell us?” Rob asked for a final time.
“Not really,” he said. “Why is it that you two are so curious about a dead man? Pretty sure his wife is dead now too, isn’t she? I think the only thing left of that guy is his kids.”
Again, something that made me feel like I was going to be sick.
“Kids?” Rob asked. “As in more than one?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” he said. “I always got him and that old Goldshire headmaster confused. I think his name was Jack too, wasn’t it?”
The man chuckled. “Funny coincidence. One of them had a couple of kids I think; can’t remember which one it was. I know that the Jack I knew had at least one kid though, a boy, I think. I remember seeing pictures of him when he was a baby. Cute kid. Although all babies kind of look the same to me.”
That wasn’t any help either. He might have been thinking about my dad and about me and David. Since Marta had an affair with my dad, I can see how it would have been easy to confuse everyone. A lot of the lines got blurred. But David was legitimately my half-brother. We shared the same father. Michael was not. He was from an entirely different family, a product of Marta and her husband.
Vicious: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 3) Page 20
