He probably goes around doing that mess to people all over the place; how hard can it be to pin this all on him if it comes to that? Right now, the most important thing is getting the car back before Felix notices that it’s gone.
I found my car in the store parking lot, hoping I didn’t run into anyone from the night before; how embarrassing would that be. I was well on my way out of the city when I was struck by a sudden thought. “Oh hell, where’s Victoria? I calmed myself with the thought that Felix had taken her home.
VICTORIA
I sat in the dingy booth in the rundown diner someplace in New Jersey, listening to the man who claimed to be my father speak. He seemed overly excited, reminiscing about things I’d long forgotten if they ever really happened; meanwhile, I’m just here for information.
He’d tried getting me to go home with him, which I staunchly refused. No doubt home for him is a grimy apartment somewhere in the city. That much I remember from my childhood, messy, broken-down apartments and the smell of onions and burnt food in the hallway.
A vast difference from the life I live now, and I have no plans on going back. I just need to know why she lied. “Where’ve you been?”
“About that…uh, your mom didn’t tell you?”
“She told me you were dead.” No, she hadn’t, not exactly, but that’s the story she’d drilled into my head when we bounced, and it kinda became my reality after a while, until now.
I was too young back then to know much of anything, but hunger is something that sticks with you no matter your age. All I remember of this man is bitter disappointment, or was that the story mom told? The look that came across his face said that there was no love lost between those two.
“I did a stint up at Rikers.” At least he had the decency to look ashamed. Just a few hours in his presence and already his very essence from his speech down to the way he looks is making me feel tainted. That’s the reason I insisted on us coming across the river. The horror of someone running into us in the city though slim, was enough to make me gag.
He droned on and on, asking very leading questions, which I answered with everything but the truth. No way I want this loser showing up at our door, turning my life upside down. I played the part of the put-upon daughter who’d been lied to, even going so far as to produce a few tears while he complimented me on how well I’d grown and blah-blah-blah.
I dried my tears with my fingers and looked through my purse for some tissue. “I’ll be right back. I need to wash my face.” On my phone, which I’d been playing with throughout our conversation, I saw my Uber was about to pull into the parking lot.
I slid into the backseat and watched him through the plate glass window, taking a sip from his coffee cup as we drove away.
BECKY
I pulled into the driveway, a little bit apprehensive at the sight of Felix’s car parked there. I’d spent the last five hours hashing and rehashing the story that seemed most plausible and hoping that life would take a break from stomping me in the ass at least for one day so that I could catch my breath.
For the first time since I walked into this house as his wife, I felt unsure of myself, nervous. He obviously knows that something is going on since he’d bailed me out, so there’s no way around that, but will he believe the story I’d concocted?
I slid the key in the door and almost jumped out of my skin when he pulled it open from the other side. It’s been some time since sexual wiles worked to lure him in; in fact, not since those first few days after Adrienne died, and he was lost and confused has he really initiated anything with me. I’m always the one turning to him in bed when the need arises.
I’ve tried everything over the years but to no avail. In fact, it seems that once he came out of the mourning fog, the guilt had killed any attraction he’d had for me. I knew it was a risk seducing him just days after she kicked the bucket, but it was a chance I was willing to take. I’d played the concerned friend to the hilt, had made sure he’d seen each time I helped his precious little girl do something, or held her when she cried.
I have Adrienne to thank for giving me the idea. In life, she’d always gone on and on about how much he loved his little girl. How she was the light of his life, and I’d seen firsthand the way he was with them. It was not pretended either. I know a con when I see one, this man had doted on his wife and child, while me and mine had nothing and were barely scrambling to hold onto the life I’d scratched out for us here… Why the hell am I thinking about this now? Now is not the time.
“Oh, Felix, you’re home. What a horrible day and night. Can you believe the bank of all places is giving out counterfeit money? I thought they had those machines that detected that stuff and kept this from happening…” I kept throwing things in the air, not giving him time to think. “It’s a good thing they started to believe me, or I’d never have made it out. Even the judge didn’t believe I’d done it; that’s why he let me go without much fuss. But why didn’t you wait for me if you’d already come all that way? I thought maybe you rushed back to go to work.”
“I never went to New York. When I called to find out what was going on, I was told it would be a wasted trip, so I didn’t bother.” His voice seemed odd; there was a note in it I’d never heard before.
“When you were told? Told by who? How did you find out if they weren’t the ones to call you?”
“The Feds were here with a warrant; they’re the ones who told me what was going on.” My heart stopped beating; I’m certain of it. All the air in my body seemed to now be stuck in my lungs, and I was afraid I would pass out. “War…war…warrant?” It took me three tries to get the word past suddenly dry lips. My eyes felt like they’d grown to the size of saucers and my feet were too heavy to lift. Did they find…?
“They didn’t find anything thank heaven, or who knows what I’d have been dragged into.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something? If I was really into that stuff, they would’ve found more.” Are cops really that dumb these days? Used to be the underwear drawer and freezer were the first places they’d look, though I never expected them to come here to this mansion in one of the most affluent communities in the country.
It was then I noticed the disarray of the living room, but later for that.
“Well, where’s Victoria? How did she get home?” I’m sure with technology being what it is, he could’ve paid bail online or over the phone or something, but she was another story. Those fools were adamant about not releasing her without an adult.
“About that, I was told that her father picked her up.”
“What? What nonsense are you speaking?” I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity.
“That’s what I waited here to ask you. I thought you told me her father died long before you moved here to New Hampshire?”
“He did. There must be some kind of misunderstanding, some sort of mix-up.”
“I doubt it. When I tried convincing them that something was wrong, they told me that the man who they contacted to come to get her was indeed her dad and what's more, she went with him willingly without argument and seemed to know him. I wasn’t allowed to make a report of any kind, and since I had no idea what was going on, I had no way to start a search.”