Page 53 of Bastard

“I just…what an obscure thing to dig up. Wow. Okay. Yes. I met your dad when we were kids. He was my pen pal for several more years even though we never went to camp together again.”

Pen pal. Wow. What an old-fashioned story. And it explained how they stayed in touch.

“Did he know who you were?”

Georgia laughed lightly. “Well, he understood who I was, but I don’t know that it ever sank in until I reached out and asked him to take my daughter and keep her safe.”

“Help me understand. Please?”

“Would you like to sit? Maybe let Jace come out of the shadows?”

Busted.

“That would be nice. Tea?”

Georgia smiled warmly at me as I shuffled in. “Yes, thank you. And maybe something stronger for the two of you.”

We settled in the living room. Sam beside me trembling more than I’d like. I poured her a shot thinking she’d sip on it like normal, but she took it in one gulp. “I’m ready.” Then she jammed her hand into mine.

“You look around now and it’s all so ridiculous. The houses, the companies, the cars…but it wasn’t like this before Bernard. Yes, we were wealthy, but we were as normal as you can be when you have more than normal. I didn’t have security details. I went to summer camps. I had friends. One of those friends was your dad.”

Sam squeezed my fingers so tight I had to readjust them. “What was he like?”

“Toni? Oh, he was quiet. So uncomfortable. I think the idea of spending a whole week with a bunch of strangers was his version of hell. I felt so bad for him I decided to make him my friend right then and there. That evening we had a “get to know you” game of volleyball. Behind the dorms was a sand court. Toni was terrible, but that’s when we all discovered he could be very funny.”

Sam sniffled. It was true. Her dad could be shy but he could also be hilarious.

“On our first snorkeling trip a barracuda followed us around. I was terrified. It was a big one. Six feet for sure. When we got back into the boat, Toni and I sat together and it’s all we could talk about. The other kids did not enjoy reliving every experience the same way we did, so it became our thing. We decided to keep it up after we left and become pen pals.”

“How often did you write?”

“All the time at first. Maybe once a week? Then school started and it became once every other week. Then once a month. Until summer…we always traded more letters in the summers. By high school it became the random ‘Hey, just catching you up on my last six months…”

Georgia sipped her tea and smiled at old memories. “Bernard took over my world, changed it until I felt alone and trapped. Once I realized he was deranged enough to potentially hurt Victoria, I knew I needed to come up with a way to make her disappear. Not just protect her or hide her. Victoria needed to cease to exist. For as long as she was alive, Bernard would see her as a threat. So that’s when I reached out to my favorite old friend who had nothing to do with my real life.”

Sam cried quietly against my shoulder. I rubbed her arm while I asked my questions. “So you had the birth certificates disappear, inserting Sam’s false documents into the chaos? And paid Toni enough money to move to a quiet island and live a quiet life with the daughter they always wanted?”

“Yes. It’s more complicated than that, obviously, but when I looked into Toni’s life, I saw the perfect solution. Here were two loving people desperate to have a family. I had a daughter who deserved a family. While the solution gutted me, it was the right one.”

Sam’s crying graduated to full sobs. I knew from recent experience the best thing to do was let her cry it out. In the end I’d have a soaking wet shirt, but Sam would be exhausted and better..

“Can you tie Bernard’s ambitions to his friendship with the Feyereisens?”

Georgia’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she sipped her tea. “Of course.”

“Does any of it involve a man named Randall Cork?”

“That sniveling jerk?”

So she knew who Randall was. “I think I saw him going into Hiten Feyereisen’s office the other day.”

Sam stopped sniffling and sat up. Georgia stared past me. “What are you asking me Jace?”

This felt like an ideal “lay my cards on the table” moment. It might blow up in my face…or it might finally move things forward. I went with instinct. “I’m asking if you have any direct evidence that the Feyereisen brothers or Randall Cork have done anything illegal. I’m asking because if you do, I might be able to help remove this cancer from your lives once and for all.”

“And how would you do that, Jace?” Her voice was as even as ever. The kind of calm that cuts through diamonds.

“Because I have been systematically building a case against Devil’s Wrath for the last seven years. I just put them in the pocket of the Feyereisens, but my superiors won’t move forward until I have something definitive to nail them to the wall.”

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