Page 55 of Keys

It was a very real threat and one I’d been tempted to act on many times over the years. The only thing that held me back before was making sure that my mother was no longer stuck in my father’s shadowy oppression.

He blustered but didn’t manage to speak any real words once he heard the reminder of the leverage I held. “What do you want?”

“That’s a private matter. I’m certain your secretary will thank me if she isn’t party to the information that I have this time as it might mean her testimony will be necessary in court.”

“Come to my office, the door will be open,” he directed before hanging up on me. I smiled at the receptionist as I handed the phone’s handset back to her.

“Three doors down on your left,” she informed me before grabbing her purse and skedaddling over to the elevator. Apparently, being on the same floor with me was too much for her.

“What is it you want this time?” The beady-eyed man asked as I grabbed the paper out of the folder I held and tossed it on his desk.

“I want to know where in the hell my mother is. Then, I want her brought here to me immediately.” The man, whose name I knew but refused to use, scanned the information and turned his eyes back up to me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” He growled between clenched teeth before picking up the phone and dialing my father. Someone answered, and immediately Grady yelled into the line. “What have you done?” The man listened intently for about half a minute before Quickshot leaned over and pushed the button to engage speakerphone so that we could hear the other side of the conversation too.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I’m busy at the moment,” my father was saying.

“Do you know who I have sitting in my office as we speak?”

“How would I know something like that? I’m not psychic.”

“Your daughter,” the pasty lawyer told my father.

“What the hell is Aubrey doing there? Last I heard, she shoved off to be a waitress in some mountain town in order to piss me off.” My eyes narrowed as I turned toward Quickshot who looked away guiltily. He knew. Son. Of. A. Bitch.

“Not Aubrey,” Grady explained. “Your other daughter, Sarah.”

“Sarah is there?” My father questioned. “What does she want? I thought we already paid her to go away.” That was weird, considering the note that was left behind stated that I was to be traded for my mother.

“Something about her mother being missing and you being responsible for it,” the lawyer interjected, obviously not believing my father’s bullshit.

“June isn’t missing. She’s being taken care of. It’s time to finally end this farce. My career is going nowhere since I didn’t win the reelection for my Senate seat,” he lamented. “Now, I can retire and finally be with the love of my life.”

“She’s married to another man now.” I growled, unable to keep calm and quiet any longer.

“That was a mistake.” My father was clearly delusional. “We’re going to have that corrected.”

“Are you also going to tell the world about your years-long affair, your illegitimate daughter? All of it?” I asked.

“If I must in order to prove to your mother that I’m serious this time around.” I couldn’t believe he agreed to do it. Then again, it was probably all bullshit anyway. He had kidnapped my mother. There was nothing real about what he was doing where she was concerned.

“And what of all the other women who you helped to disappear so that they couldn’t tell your secrets? What happened to them? Where are they?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he denied emphatically.

“Oh!” I cried out. “So, in other words, my mother can hear everything you’re saying, and you don’t want her to know that you’re involved with a sex trafficking ring, and that some of the women I have you photographed with are missing underage girls. I wonder what she’d think of that?”

“You’re making that up.”

“Obviously, you don’t know who the hell I am. Not that you ever did. See, I am part of an organization who has worked to take down the trafficking ring where you get your women. That’s how I found the connection between you, the missing girls, and the assholes we’re working to take down.”

“If you ever want to see your mother again,” he began to threaten me. His lawyer blanched, finally understanding there was a much larger picture and that he was truly representing a monster.

“My niece!” The lawyer finally whispered.

“What?” Quickshot and I asked at the same time.

“My niece disappeared several years ago. My nephew tried to find her, and we stopped hearing from both of them.” He tipped a picture toward us that had been sitting on the desk facing him. It was then that I realized how obscenely connected everything was. The picture was of MiMi and Paul.

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