Page 116 of Hacking His Code
Hunter’s eyes train on the woman who had raised him for the last twenty-four years. “But-but…you’re my mother…”
“I am,” the Ernestine imposture says, a morose look on her face, “but I wasn’t always. Once upon a time, I was your aunt.”
Hunter’s face goes pale, and I see a single tear in the corner of his eye.
“Hunter,” Rand says, “give us a chance to explain.”
Hunter
Staring at the woman who I thought was my mother fills me with profound sorrow. Part of me wants to strangle her; another part wants to hug her close to me.
Lucy looks down at her lap, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I loved your father so much. With all of my heart…but I never had the courage to tell him. Or at least, I didn’t until it was too late. Ernestine had come to visit, and she read my journals. She demanded to know who I had a crush on, and I told her. She insisted I act on in. We had been drinking, and she had me send Rand a text telling him everything, and then…I passed out.”
My father looks down guiltily. “Lucy wasn’t the only one who was a coward with their love, so when I received the text, I felt a mixture of relief and joy. I told her I wanted to discuss it in person, and she offered to meet me at a hotel. We met up, but she wasn’t interested in talking. I’ll spare you the details, but that night was significant in that it’s when you were conceived.”
“You can’t be serious,” I say, my eyes darting between Lucy and my father. “Please tell me this is some kind of sick, twisted joke?”
“Afraid not,” Lucy says, “and I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
Every part of me wants to scream with rage, but there’s more to the tale, and unfortunately, I’m in too deep to turn back now.
Father clears his throat. “When I found out Ernestine had played a trick on me, I was crushed. I told her it was a one-time thing, and I never wanted to see her again. Then, three weeks later, she told me she was pregnant. I decided I had to do what was right. At that time, I still didn’t know Lucy had feelings for me. I thought that was part of Ernestine’s con. Then, we told her about the pregnancy.” Father exhales a heavy breath. “The pain in her eyes was palpable.”
I look to Lucy with scorn. “So…my conception marks one of the worst moments of your life. Great.”
“I think you should look at it this way,” Lucy says. “Your birth is the day I got to meet one of my favorite people.”
I’m too angry to consider her words, let alone fully process them.
“Lucy buried herself in the government projects we had going on,” Father says. “And I played house with Ernestine. We didn’t have much in common, and she went out shopping all day, leaving you with nannies. Or at least I thought she was shopping.”
“For whatever reason, Ernestine became obsessed with pretending to be me,” Lucy says. “Sometime during our teenage years, Ernestine and I drifted apart. She went into acting; I went into computers. While she was on location overseas, she attracted a rather unsavory crowd. She liked the element of danger. She never introduced herself as Ernestine, though. She would tell people that she was me, visiting Ernestine while she was on location.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I reply. “Why would she do that?”
“At first, it was to cover her own ass and save her reputation,” Lucy says, “but then she realized that Lucy’s proximity to the Davies family gained her access to people and money she wouldn’t have had otherwise. She began calling me, asking me about my work. I didn’t think anything of it and chalked it up to sisterly camaraderie, but she was using our daily talks to subtly figure out things I might be working on. Eventually, she decided to relocate close to me, so she could seduce Rand. I guess she figured she could still act while continuing her side gig.”
“But why would she do that?” I demand. “She was a famous actress with more than enough money!”
“Because it was exciting,” Lucy says. “She didn’t want to act in a movie; she wanted to be in a movie. She made her life into a spy thriller.”
“What the actual fuck!” I shout.
“I know this is hard,” Lucy says.
I glare at Jim. “Why the fuck did the FBI cover up her death? Why wasn’t anyone charged?”
“From what I can gather, they thought they had Lucy. They found communications from her with an unsavory organization and took her in for questioning. Then, she died unexpectedly, and they went to her apartment. The cops were already there, finding a mountain of evidence against her, and unfortunately, someone called a reporter. If there’s one thing the FBI likes, it’s control, and at that point, they had lost it. They booked it to Davies Corporation to give Rand a head up before he heard it from the news.”
“Jesus,” I mutter.
Father continues with, “The FBI told me they had taken Lucy into custody, and she’d perished shortly thereafter. I thought they were crazy because I knew full well that Lucy was working in the secret workstations you saw earlier today. Then…it just kind of clicked, and things began to unravel quickly after that.”
“My life was ruined,” Lucy says bitterly, “but what had happened was far bigger than any one life. The bureau asked me to pose as your mother to see if anyone would try to contact her, and I couldn’t refuse them. I played the role of Ernestine for months, but in the end, she didn’t seem to have any contacts as Ernestine.”
“Wouldn’t she have had more contacts as Lucy?” I ask. “Why didn’t you just go on being yourself?”
“Because someone had poisoned Lucy,” Jim says. “So they’d know something was up.”
