Page 41 of Sins of the Father

"I need a full investigation on Orla Kelly," I say. "Everything. Background, financials, phone records. I want to know what she ate for breakfast when she was twelve."

"How deep?"

"Ocean floor deep." I drain the glass. "And Matthews? This stays between us until I say otherwise."

He nods and leaves. I pour another drink.

Three days of waiting. Three days of watching Orla work at her desk, answering her questions, letting her touch me while suspicion eats at my gut like acid.

The first report arrives Tuesday. Bullshit employment history. References who remember her face but nothing else. A background that crumbles when you push.

Wednesday brings phone records. Multiple calls to Detective Fergus Doyle. The same cop who's been sniffing around our business for twenty years.

My blood turns to ice.

Thursday's delivery hits like a sledgehammer. A newspaper clipping. Obituary for Thomas Nolan, accountant for Kavanagh Import & Export. Survived by daughter Orla.

I stare at the photograph. Younger, but unmistakable. The woman who moaned my name in New York. Who let me inside her body while she planned my destruction.

I call my father.

"The accountant's daughter has been in my bed," I tell him without preamble.

Silence. Then: "Which accountant?"

"Thomas Nolan. She's been working for me as Orla Kelly. False identity. Meeting with cops."

"Bring her to my office," he says. "I'll extract what we need to know."

"Don't kill her. Not yet."

"I make no promises."

I hang up and watch Orla through my office window. She types at her computer, efficient as always. Beautiful as always. Lying as always.

My father appears in the main office, casual as Sunday morning.

"Ms. Kelly," he calls. "A word about the Robinson account?"

She follows him, trusting. Why wouldn't she? She's played this game for months.

I activate surveillance and spread the evidence across my desk like a war map. Every lie. Every deception. Every moment she made me believe.

The feed shows my father settling behind his desk. Orla sits across from him, hands folded. Picture of innocence.

"Your aunt in Chicago," my father begins. "Margaret, wasn't it?"

"She moved to Arizona," Orla replies smoothly. "The heat helps her arthritis."

Lies flow from her mouth like water. My father nods, cataloguing each one.

I think of her beneath me in that New York hotel. How she said my name like a prayer. How she fit against me like she was made for it.

All fake. All calculated.

My phone buzzes.Meeting concluding.

I wait outside my father's office, evidence file in hand. When Orla emerges, her step falters the moment she sees me.

---