Authors: C A Vincent
“How do you know about the high turn over rate?” Dimitri asked.
“Not relevant,” Nate cut in. Dimitri scowled but didn’t comment. “So her pals are Eileen Gellar and – Fucking hell! Get security down to the mail room. Now!”
Without waiting to see if anyone followed his order, Nate stormed from the IT department and headed for the elevator. According to Dimitri, Alicia resorted to using regular post when her attempts at email failed. If Marjorie and Debbie stopped her attempts at calling, then it stood to reason Eileen prevented her letters from getting through.
He paced the elevator like a caged animal. The door was barely open before he barrelled through it into the very bowels of his building and raced to the mail room. Everything was neat and tidy, waiting the arrival of Monday’s mail delivery. Nate did a slow turn, mentally cataloguing every box, container, desk drawer and file cabinet. When the security team arrived, he ordered them to rip it all apart.
* *
“I’m sorry, sir. There’s nothing here.” The place was a complete shambles. Every last nook and cranny had been emptied. There was no secret stash of letters to be found. Nate could feel himself losing control as he did another visual sweep of the large cement and cinder block room. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in his bones. But what, damn it? What was pulling at the back of his subconscious?
“Stop, Nate,” Dimitri said quietly. “Bring them in for questioning. If Gellar had even half a brain, she would have destroyed any and all evidence of – ”
“No. Something isn’t right. Something is off. Damn it!” He started to pace and stopped short at the sight of Liz in the doorway. Her eyes were huge as she took in the disaster zone.
“Sorry, man. I called in reinforcements,” Dimitri said sheepishly. “I know you well enough to realize you’ll do this to the entire building if you can’t find what you’re looking for down here.”
Nate heard his friend talking but didn’t register exactly what he was saying. All he could see was the baby carrier strapped to Liz’ torso, and the tiny nearly-bald head peeping out over the top of it. Did he have a daughter? Or a son? He swallowed hard as he was hit with emotions so intense he could barely breathe.
“It has to be here,” he rasped. “If they’re as full of themselves as Marcie implied, they won’t get rid of the evidence. They’ll hang on to it so they can feel powerful. Help me find the letters. You said it yourself. You saw us together.”
This last was said to Liz. He was practically begging her. She sucked in a deep breath and nodded.
“I did,” she said as she slowly turned and took in the chaos. “The way the two of you – Wait. What’s that?”
Everyone turned to face the direction she was facing. Without waiting for a response, she headed toward a door. It was very narrow, almost half the width of a regular door. Nate’s heart rate spiked as he stormed past her toward it.
“Isn’t that where all of the mail deliveries come in?” Marcie asked.
“No. That one is,” one of the members of the security team answered. He was pointing to a heavy steel door at the back end of the room. Without having to be told, he approached the narrow door and started trying his master keys in the lock. After nearly five minutes, he’d tried them all. None of them worked.
“This is it,” Nate said, nodding. “Someone go to maintenance and get some tools. I’m getting into that room.”
Alicia couldn’t decide whether to cry or laugh. Tristan and Ryan were being their amazing, loveable selves and yet she found herself sinking deeper and deeper into depression. It was going on three days since her conversation with Dimitri Marek and she had yet to hear from Nate. Not even the excuse of his being away on business calmed her. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to pick up the phone and make a call. If Nate would just let her know he’d received her message, it would give her hope.
“Dance, Mommy,” Tristan said, pulling her out of her funk for a moment. “Pwease. Hamster dance wiff us. You yike dat.” Ryan, her quiet boy nodded in agreement. Then he added a soft, “Pease Mommy” that nearly broke her heart. Tears stinging her eyes, she nodded and got up from her favorite seat in the living room to turn the stereo on. Before pressing the power button, she turned to ask them a question.
“What if Mommy sold our house and used some of the money to take you on a trip? Then, when we get back, we can use the rest of the money to buy a smaller house that isn’t so empty,” she said. They stopped their pre-dance warm-up in mid-jiggle and looked at each other, their mouths wide open. Almost immediately, they started shaking their heads “no”.
“Okay,” she whispered. Of course they would say “no”. Just as she should. Why uproot them? It was obvious Nate wanted nothing to do with her.
But it’s not me I want him to be involved with
, she thought as she turned the music on. Tristan and Ryan immediately started dancing, even before their favorite song was playing. She chuckled.
Alicia moved half-heartedly to the lively, silly song. Ryan pulled out all the stops to get a favorable reaction from her, from galloping like a horse to attempting a break-dancing move he’d seen on television the other day. Tristan was doing his own thing, imitating a ballet dancer. Pretty soon, she was giggling then laughing at their silly antics.
All of a sudden and in perfect sync, they started doing the Robot, a dance move Justin had taught them. Surprised and amazed, she watched them move in perfect rhythm with one another, their actions jerky and robotic, just like they’d been taught.
Grinning like a fool, she dropped to her knees in front of them and pulled them into a huge bear-hug. These were her babies, she realized. They loved her and trusted her to take care of them. They didn’t want some man whose picture she showed them. They were happy with her. The thought saddened her, but at the same time released her from the never-ending worry about having to do what was right. For the first time since coming to terms with her pregnancy, she realized that what was right was in her arms and they were all that mattered.
“Come here so I can eat you up,” she growled playfully.
“We’re ‘specially yummy today!” they cried, giggling. Alicia cheered and gobbled them up, eliciting the most incredible snorts, snuffles and laughter she’d ever heard.
* *
Nate tried not to run as he approached the house. The last two and half days had been hell. Between the investigation into Eileen Geller, who was actually Eileen Mager, the very lengthy interview he’d conducted with Justin Mager in an effort to get a better handle on the situation, and going through the massive volume of letters and other assorted correspondence Eileen had secreted away, he’d barely slept a wink. He was actually feeling light-headed as he walked up the front steps and knocked on Alicia’s door.
Adrenaline surged as he heard Alicia speaking to her – his – sons. When she asked what they thought of her selling the house and taking them on a trip, he nearly had a stroke. She sounded so damn sad.
His first thought was that she would take them away somewhere where he wouldn’t have access. Then he remembered the bank account Mager told him about. The one she’d started so she could bring them to see him. He calmed his racing heart and listened for a few more seconds to see if they would answer. When all he heard was the beginning strains of children’s music, he frowned and knocked on the door.
Did they answer her? Was the subject dropped? Would she really sell her house in order to come up with the money to take them to Miami? Why wait until now? All of these questions and more raced through his mind as he waited for their answer. When they didn’t and the song looped through a second time, he knocked again.
By the end of the third loop – obviously their favorite song – he realized they couldn’t hear him. Desperate to see them, he tried the door. It was unlocked. Nate sucked in a deep breath. Did he dare? The last thing he wanted to do was scare them. He knocked again, this time with more force. After about thirty seconds more of no response, he walked in.
Nate closed the door quietly behind him, feeling very much like a stalker-creep. His heart stuck in his throat, he took two steps toward the sound of the music and laughter and peeked around the doorjamb.
Seeing his sons for the first time as they danced with their mother made him go weak in the knees. Worried he’d topple over and terrify them, he knelt and feasted with his eyes on the sight of his baby boys. Two identical blond heads were bobbing and weaving. Two sets of chubby arms and legs were tossing and flailing with wild abandon. Even he could see the similarities ended there, though.
One of them seemed rough-and-tumble, with his hip-hoppy break-dance moves and the other was gentler as he kicked and twirled in an imitation of ballet. Neither of them was keeping in time with the silly song about hamsters. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Except their mother, of course.
For a split second, Nate tore his gaze away from his twisting and turning sons to look at Alicia. Deep pain lanced his heart when he saw how incredibly thin she was. She was barely a shadow of herself, he realized, taking in the sight of the many visibly outlined bones in her body. He felt he was somehow to blame.
The “if only’s” he’d been plagued with since finding her letters and the other various packages sent by Mager and a Judge Herman Michaels whirled and twisted through his mind in a dance that rivalled his sons’ wild abandon. She’d developed a nervous stomach, Mager said. He’d dragged her to countless specialists over the last two years to no avail. Her GP threw up his hands at the end of it all and declared “nerves” to be her illness. For her seeming frailty though, she appeared to be happy as she danced with her babies.
His attention back on them, he watched as their frantic spins and twists brought them alongside each other. Then, out of the blue and without saying anything to one another, they both started doing a robot dance. Their moves were as identical as they were, not to mention in perfect sync as they squared themselves up, turned and stomped. Nate was sure his jaw was on the floor as Alicia laughed out loud and dropped to her knees in front of them.
Jealousy and envy surged through him as she pulled them in for a hug. Even in her silliness, the way she held them was protective and loving. Seeing her like that reminded him of the times he was in that same space, that same circle of love and comfort and, all of a sudden, he
wanted to be in it again. Hell, he didn’t just
want
it. He
needed
it. With his heart jammed solidly in his throat, he called out softly.
“Can I have some, too?” he asked, terrified and hopeful, both at the same time.
At the sound of an unfamiliar voice in her house, Alicia practically flung Ryan and Tristan behind her. In the next instant, she was on her feet and moving toward the kitchen, her phone, and the patio doors to the back yard. She was just grabbing the handset when her brain registered the angles and lines of the face of the intruder in her home. Shaking from her head to her feet, she turned to look at him again.
As her pace slowed, then came to a stop altogether, Ryan cried for her to hurry up. Hearing the terror in her son’s voice caused something protective and primal to well up inside her. With a shriek of pure, unadulterated rage, she flew at Nate.
“How dare you! How dare you scare my babies,” she screamed. She clawed and kicked and punched at him with all her might. At first he withstood the onslaught, likely because he was too shocked to react. Then he caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back. One of his big hands held them while his other arm pinned her against him, writhing and hissing. She’d never been so furious in her life.
“You left,” he said. He was looking down into her face as he spoke. His brown eyes were blazing with – pity? Alicia howled with rage and renewed her fight. Within minutes, she was tapped out. Angry and terrified, she slumped against Nate and broke down.
“Don’t take them. Don’t take them from me. I did everything I could to get a hold of you. I couldn’t afford to bring them to see you. Not yet. I was –
Mmmphh
!”
* *
Nate silenced her with a kiss. He didn’t mean to. There were too many unanswered questions. He wanted everything resolved between them before they decided whether they would try to pick up where they left off. But seeing her, holding her and feeling how frail she was, did something to him and his resolve to stand firm vanished like smoke on the wind.
“You left,” he breathed into her face, breaking the kiss.
“Phillip d-i-e-d,” she answered, spelling out the word. He spared a glance at his boys. They were huddled, hugging and terrified in a corner of the dining room. Guilt crashed through him.
“I didn’t mean to walk in. I – wanted to see them. I – ”
“So you got my letters then?” she asked. Her voice was tight with pain and confusion. It tore at his gut. He made a silent vow to make Eileen, Marjorie and Debbie pay for what they’d done.
“Not until the day you talked to Dimitri,” he said. “When he told me what you said, I couldn’t figure out why, after three years, you would still be wanting to get in touch with me. Especially after the way you left.” Nate knew he sounded like a broken record, but he wanted the full story. There was more to Phillip’s death and her departure than Alicia was telling. He could feel it in the set of her damn-near-emaciated shoulders.