“What? How? I don’t understand. Where was she?” He was the one that needed to sit down now.
“I don’t have a lot of details yet, but from what I have gathered, she was accidently found. They raided a big time drug smuggle
r, and he had Shelby.”
“Did he hurt her?”
“I don’t think so. The agents that came to tell me said that he raised her like his own daughter and was very good to her.”
“How noble of t
he son of bitch. I hope I get the chance to see him face to face.”
“You won’t. They killed him.”
“Is this real, Liz?” he asked again, feeling like he too suddenly had asthma.
Liz blew out a puff of air. “I think it is, Manny.”
Emmanuel sat up straight. “Okay, I need to get this project finished and hand it over to Cody. I’ll head out first thing in the morning. What time will she arrive?”
“I’m not sure yet. Someone is supposed to call me later with the details.”
“Okay, call me as soon as you hear something. You’re not screwing with me are you?” He had to ask one more time.
“No, Manny
, our daughter is coming home.”
Liz knew she should call her parents. Maybe she would wait until morning. She needed someone else at the moment.
“Hello, Ms. Rimmer. How are you?”
“Connor, come over,” she spat out.
“Where’s Reese?” Oh, yeah… Reese. She forgot for a second that she didn’t want her daughter to find out that she was screwing her Math teacher.
“Wait until around 10.”
“We have school tomorrow. You never want to see me during the week. What’s going on Liz?” He knew something was up. She was the one that needed to keep their little secret in the dark, not him.
“I’m calling off tomorrow.”
“You can’t call off tomorrow. It’s the last week of school.”
“Mom?
Pizza? Doorbell? Money?” Reese said with her hand out.
Was the doorbell ringing?
“I’ll explain later,” she told Connor as she walked to get her purse.
“Explain at 10 tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, that will be fine,” she said, trying to be discrete around Reese.
Liz and Reese sat at the table talking about Shelby as they ate their pizza.
Each of them had a million questions, concerns, and fears. Liz had no idea what kind of life she had lived. Was she stable, difficult, demanding? Did she go to school? Did she have any medical problems? The list seemed to grow by the minute. At the rate she was going she was going to need to stock up on inhalers.
<><><>
“Quill, you need to pack what you want to take with you,” Seri had to coax again.
“I don’t know what I should take. I’m kind of used to just running away and leaving everything behind. I don’t need much. I’m only staying there until I turn 18, and then I am leaving.”
Seri shook her head. “Give it a chance, Quill. Don’t go into this with a negative attitude. Your family loves you very much. Give them a chance.”
“How can they love someone they don’t know?” Aquilla asked, retrieving a big blue duffle bag from her closet. The first thing she placed in it was the purple laptop.
“Why don’t you leave that here? I will buy you one that actually works.”
“I don’t need another one. This one works just fine. My father downloaded stuff on it for me that I want to keep,” Aquilla replied, placing items from her dresser into the bag. She looked up when she heard the noise coming from the room next door. She was in the hall before Seri could stop her.
“What are you doing!?!” she screamed at the two guys, flipping Julius’s room.
“Get her out of here,” Malone demanded.
“Look here, I bet we can find all sorts of evidence on here.” One of the men said as he took the purple laptop from the closet.
“Check this out, Malone,” another guy said as he tried to take the ocean painting from the wall, searching for a safe or anything that might help them locate Julius.
Aquilla watched from the door. She hated them rummaging through Julius’s room and destroying everything that they touched. They didn’t care. They were just tossing all of his belongings, flipping the mattress, and throwing his clothes from the closet to the floor.
“It looks like your little Julius was a bit of a pervert. Did you know he watched you?” Agent Dick Face asked, turning to Aquilla.
“Can I see?” she asked. Was Julius really spying on her?
Agent Malone waved his hand in a cocky manner, giving her permission for him to rub it in.
Aquilla slid the tiny lever on the frame, and sure enough, she had a perfect view of her room. It actually explained a lot, mostly how he would know about things she had talked to her friends about. He had been watching her for four years.
“Come on, Quill,” Seri coaxed her out of the room.
Aquilla went right to the painting in her room. You couldn’t see the little window at all in the waves. She couldn’t believe she had never noticed it before. Hila had to know about it, she was the one who cleaned the two rooms. That’s why the one time she wanted to move her bed to the other side of the room, Hila was so adamant about her not doing it. She had talked her out of it.
“Quill, I have to call your mom. She may ask to talk to you.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Okay
, I’m just going to step out into the hall.”
Aquilla nodded. She continued to pack her belongings alone in her room. She didn’t cry. She was a Chavez. Chavez’s didn’t cry. Why the hell did she want to curl up into a fetal position and do just that?
“Hello,” Elizabeth Rimmer cautiously answered the unknown
, 819 number.
“Hello, i
s this Elizabeth Rimmer?”
“Go to your room, Reese,” Liz demanded holding her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Mom! I want to hear too!” she whined.
“Yes, this is her,” Liz answered, pointing upstairs with a stern look
and a straight finger.
Reese stomped off
, it wasn’t fair. It may be her daughter, but it was HER sister, she had a right to know what was going on.
“I’m Agent Strokes
, I’ve been with your daughter for the past couple of days,” she began.
“How is she?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. She’s somewhat of a mess right now. She was never aware that she was taken from her family until this morning. She’s confused, hurt, and sad that her fath__, the man that took her was killed. There are some things that I think you need to know before we arrive.”
“Okay,” Liz beckoned for her to continue.
“Well, for one, she doesn’t want to be called Shelby.”
“There’s no way I am calling her whatever that bastard named her.”
“Ms. Rimmer, you need to understand that she loved that bastard. She grew up thinking that he was her father. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to hate on him around her.”
Wheeze…cough…inhale. This may not be the happy homecoming that she had dreamed of for years. “What did he call her?”
“Aquilla.”
“A what a?
What kind of name is that?”
“To her, it is her name. It’s the only one she’s known, Ms. Rimmer.”
“Go on,” she urged. What else did she need to know about the little girl that was raised by a monster?
“I’m not sure of all of the details, but I am pretty sure
her and the man’s son were pretty intimate.”
“
Wait, wasn’t she raised to believe that he was her brother? How old is he?”
“Yes, he got away. He’s 25. I think she is pretty wounded that he left her. She is planning on finding him when she turns 18.”
“Like hell she is. Is she messed up? Why would she want to find him? He took advantage of her.”
“She doesn’t see it that way.”
“So she has like Stockholm Syndrome?”
“No
, Stockholm syndrome is when you fall in love with your abuser. She was never abused, Ms. Rimmer, she was treated like a princess.”
“Did he have sex with her?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.” Of course she was sure of it. She was there. She practically had sex with her daughter.
“I’ve got one of our best psychologists coming to work with her.”
“She needs a shrink?” Liz asked, concerned, very concerned.
“Ms. Rimmer, this is going to be a major adjustment for her. Yes, she is going to need someone to talk to. Monica is one of the best. If anyone can get her talking
, it will be her. She’s scheduled to come first thing Tuesday morning. I’m not sure if you were told, but I will also be staying with her for a while.”
“Yes
, I was made aware of that. I have an extra room downstairs that you are welcome to use while you are here.”
“Is that close to Aquilla’s room?”
Her name is not Aquilla!!!! “It’s downstairs from where her room will be.”
“Maybe I can have a cot brought in or something. I need to stay with her.”
“Are you afraid she’ll run away?”
“I am afraid of that.”
Liz didn’t want her to share a room with Shelby. She wanted to bunk with her. She wanted to talk for hours into the night about mother daughter things. Her happy reunion was turning into something frightening.
<>
Seri sat in a corner chair, staring out to the ocean. Aquilla sat on her bed, staring blankly at nothing. Where was Julius? How could he just leave her to deal with this on her own?
“Seri?” she spoke.
“Hmm?” she responded, turning to her.
“I need to go into my father’s office.”
“They kind of have it as a crime scene, Quill. We can’t disturb anything in there.”
“Who’s here?”
“Just Agent Dick Face now, everyone else left for the night.”
Aquilla smiled as much as she could.
“They won’t know. There’s something that I really would like to have from there.”
Seri took a deep breath. “Come on, but no funny business.”
“I promise.”
The two girls quietly made their way down the stairs, careful not to let Malone hear them. Aquilla opened the door and Seri closed it behind them. Seri watched as she moved the filing cabinet, shushing her as it screeched across the hardwood floor.
She lifted the vent and pushed a hidden button. Seri shook her head. Not one of the guys would have been able to locate that. Aquilla moved to the corner of the room where a small door on the floor had just been revealed.
“What’s in there, Quill?” Seri whispered.
“Mostly pictures of me growing up. I always had them taken, but my father would never put them out. He didn’t want them to get messed up,” she smiled a crooked grin, knowing her father was afraid of someone recognizing her.
Aquilla picked up the thick book of portraits, a manila folder and the envelope full of cash.
“I need to see that, Quill,” Seri couldn’t help it. She didn’t trust her.
Aquilla handed her the book, but held the folder in her hand. It only took her a sec
ond when Seri placed the book on the desk to stuff the money in the back of her shorts.
Seri flipped through the album with a smile. He did take many pictures of her. “Your mother would love to see these.”
“She can have them,” Aquilla assured her. It wasn’t the pictures she was after.
“What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the folder.
“My milestone record.”
“UH?”
“You know, a record of everything I have ever done in my life. First lost tooth, first day with no training wheels, first report card, first skinned knee, just stuff like that.”
“Are you done in here? We need to get out of here.”
Aquilla sadly looked at the brown leather desk chair. She would never see her father sitting there again, ever. He was dead. They killed him. “Yeah,” she offered with a deep breath.
<>
“I have a king sized bed. You don’t have to sleep in the chair,” Aquilla offered, pulling down her covers for the very last time.
“Promise me you’ll keep your hands to yourself?” she teased.
“Yeah, I promise,” she chuckled. “Do you want something more comfortable to sleep in?”
“No, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I haven’t had a shower in two days.”
“Yuck, go take a shower. I’ll get you some clothes.”
“I’m not about to go in that bathroom and shower while you escape into the night.”
“Where would I escape to, Seri? We’re on a 32 mile island. How far do you think I am going to go?”
“A shower does sound awesome.”
Aquilla got up and opened her drawer. She tossed her a pair of neon green thongs that her and her friends had ordered from Victoria Secret, unbeknownst to her father, of course.