“You know by now that it wasn’t Bedlam who took your shipment,” I tell him.
“I do know that, but it’s not why I’m here. I’m here about my daughter.”
“And how exactly are you so sure that she’s your daughter?” I ask skeptically. “There seems to be another hat in the ring for that title.”
“That’s absurd,” he laughs.
“You should take a walk in my shoes. You have no fucking idea what absurd is. You want to talk to my girl? Well, I want answers. One doesn’t happen without the other. So, if I were you, I’d start talking.”
Callum sighs and pushes a photograph across the table. It’s of a younger Callum, a woman with honey blonde curls like Tricks, and a baby girl sitting between them. “That’s my family before my baby girl was ripped away from me and her mother. She’s mine. I’ve been looking for her since she was a babe, and now, I’ve found her. You want proof?” he claps his hands together. “Fine. I’ll submit to any and all blood tests. Whatever you’ve got. I’m as sure she’s mine as the days are long.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say.
Callum sighs. “I’ll tell you how it all started, but I’d rather have her here—”
Our heads snap to the door where a pale-faced Tricks appears. She’s holding the letters Callum had given her in her shaky hand. “I don’t…” she starts then pauses to collect herself. She holds up the letters. “Is this all true?”
“Eye, every word,” Callum responds.
I stand and pull out a chair for Trick’s guiding her to sit. She passes me the letters.
Callum points to the one with feminine handwriting. “This one first.”
Dearest Fernando,
At one time you were my greatest love, and now you’re my biggest regret.
The child I’m carrying isn’t yours, but you’re not a stupid man, I have no doubt you know this by now. I’m writing this because I need you to know that’s not the reason I’m suddenly gone from Los Muertos and from your life.
I took Gabriella and Mona, my daughter and yours, because they don’t deserve to grow up in that hellish place. I couldn’t live with myself anymore, knowing their lives would always be in jeopardy in one way or another. That they wouldn’t ever get to be kids. Carefree. Without violence. I want them to be loved. To be part of a family. A real family.
I won’t let what happened to Marco happen to them. I saw the devil in his eyes last night as he sat at the table twirling a knife into the wood. My plan was to take him, too, but there’s no saving him now. He’s killed for the first time, and the blood of the poor boy who found himself on the receiving end of Marco’s wrath, has twisted his mind and corroded his soul.
I can’t save Marco, but I can save the girls. I will save the girls.
Then, there was Emma Jean. I knew better than to ask questions about where she came from or why you’d brought her to Los Muertos. What you don’t know is that I spent most of the night vomiting, and not because of the child in my belly, but from disgust. God only knows whose hands she was ripped from, or what fate she would suffer at your own. I tried to tell myself she was a bastard child of yours, and that maybe, you were doing the right thing by bringing her home to raise her yourself. But, there is not a drop of your blood in that beautiful pale-faced gringa. I know because I searched for it over and over again. I won’t allow this child to be a tool in your already cluttered work box or as a pawn in the game of life and death you play so well.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who she is. All that matters is that she isn’t there with you.
As much as I wish to raise the girls myself, I know it’s not possible. In time, you’ll catch up to me and you’ll kill me for all I’ve done. For the evidence I handed over to the FEDS that has landed you in prison. When you do, you should know the girls won’t be with me. They’ll be somewhere else. Somewhere safe.
I have made many, many mistakes in my life, Fernando.
This is not one of them.
When I die, they will live on.
I’m not asking you to spare my life, but I am asking you to spare the lives of Mona, Gabriella, and Emma Jean. If you have any ounce of humanity left in you, please, don’t look for them. Don’t bring them back to that place. If you love your daughters at all, and if you ever truly loved me, then please, let them go.
Yours,
Camilla
Intrigued and baffled I flip to the next letter, surprised to find it’s actually from Fernando himself.
My Dearest Camilla,
I’m writing this letter to you from Prison, but you knew that’s where I’d end up because you’re the one who became una rata and handed over enough evidence to the FEDS to send and keep me here for a minimum of fifty years to life. By my count, I’ve got forty-six more to go. Although, I won’t make it that long. I’m afraid I won’t even make it through the month. So, life it is.
I’m sick. Very sick. Which is probably why I’m writing this letter to you now after all this time, knowing you’ll never read it. I’m a coward like that. I always have been. At least when it came to you. You see, the cancer has spread to my brain, amongst other vital organs—like my heart—which the prison doctor assures me I do have, despite your past accusations to the contrary.
You were right, mi amor. About so many things. I did come for you, just like you said I would, and I did find you…and, well you know the rest.
I would tell you that I’m sorry, but apologizing to the dead is like whispering in a deaf man’s ear.
Pointless.
I admit I did what you asked me not to do. I located the girls. It was clever how you put Gabriella and Mona in one foster home and Emma Jean in another. You knew I’d be looking for three girls together. I also like the last name you gave Emma Jean. Parish. Your mother’s maiden name. Cute. It was also clever how you were able to have their records sealed. No doubt due to the deal you’d struck with the FEDS in return for my head on a platter. It’s too late now, but you should have demanded witness protection as well.
I really wish you had.
Back to the girls. Clever or not, it only took one phone call and I had all three of their files in my hands, addresses and all.
I was arrested before I had the chance to retrieve them and bring them back. I did have plans for Emma Jean. To use her in a way that would benefit Los Muertos. I was going to have Marco carry out my plan, but then something happened. It was Marco. He came to the prison with a file I’d asked him to bring. Power of attorney documents, and other boring paperwork that needed to be taken care of so Marco could take officially take the reins and become the leader of Los Muertos.
But then something fell out of the documents as I was signing them. It was a sealed envelope. A letter. Your letter. Written on the day you ran off. It must have fallen from the table or been pushed into the drawer with the file.
My deepest regret was and still is having read it three months too late.
As if I was making up for not reading it then, I read it a hundred times a day during the weeks leading up to my sentencing and several times a day still.
It was your letter that opened my eyes. So much so that when Marco came to see me again I was finally able to see the devil in his eyes, as you so eloquently put it. He never even asked about his sisters. Not once. It’s like they never existed at all in his mind. It’s all my fault that he’s become a blood-thirsty power-hungry monster. I raised a soldier, not a son. Even as a young child, when his mother had just died soon after giving birth to Mona, he didn’t shed one single tear. I didn’t recollect that until now. I didn’t see or didn’t care what I was doing to my own boy, and you’re right. It’s too late for him.
But it’s not too late for me. Not my body, that’s clearly on the way out. And not my soul, I pissed-out that withered up thing long ago. But since you can’t apologize to the dead, I can at least respect the dead’s final wishes.
I never told Marco about my plans for Emma Jean. Instead, I let the girls b
e. That is, until very recently, when I arranged for Emma Jean to be placed in the same home as Gabriella and Mona in hopes the three of them will grow up and navigate this lonesome world together. I can’t give them the family you wanted them to have, but I can give them each other. If I could, I’d send Emma Jean back to where she came from, or rather, where I’d taken her from, but it’s too late now. It would only bring about more harm and pain when my intention is, for the first time, to bring about less.
Several times a day, I start writing letters to Mona and Gabriella. Every single one winds up in a crumpled ball beneath my mattress. I know I’m poison, and would be so even from behind cell bars. I don’t want them to get to know the dying man version of me, and I don’t want them to know the man I was.
I know this letter is growing long and dull, but I only have a few things left to say to you. The first, is that I forgive you for finding comfort with the Chief when I offered you none in the life I was supposed to share with you, not make you fearful of. And I’m not really forgiving you, because you have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who needs forgiveness, for taking your life and the life of your unborn child, but as I’ve said, I’m not seeking it.
The second thing I want to tell you is about the girl you call Emma Jean, which I’ve now taken to thinking of her as myself. I must have been muttering when I brought her to Los Muertos that night. You always said I was not much of a talker and more of a mutterer. And, Camilla, I’m only telling you this because it’s not possible for you to ever tell another living soul. You didn’t get a chance to take this secret to the grave, but I’m taking it to mine. Her name isn’t Emma Jean.
Her name is Imogen.
Imogen Egan.
The daughter of Callum Egan.
I won’t see you in this life or the next. I’m pretty sure there are no elevators up for visits, and if there is, I’m pretty sure you’d be smart enough to refuse me. So, I will simply say this, goodbye, mi amor. And even though you can’t apologize to the dead, for what it’s worth, and I know it’s not much, I’m so very sorry.
Yours Forever,
Fernando
Eleven
Emma Jean
While Grim reads the letters, I can’t wrap my head around just yet, Callum sings under his breath.
“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral
Too-ra-loo-ra-li
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral
Hush now, don't you cry
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral
Too-ra-loo-ra-li
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral”
“That song,” I say, “I hear that song in my head. Always have. What is it?”
Callum stops singing. “It’s an old Irish folk song. Catchy isn’t it? I used to sing it to you as a babe to get you to go to sleep. Worked every time. It’s the only thing that did. You were a stubborn little thing.”
I’m silent as I take in his words. “Could it be really be true? Everything in the letters?”
“You could be his daughter,” Grim answers the question I didn’t think I asked out loud. He sets down the letters “Or, you could be Chief David’s.”
Grim fills me and Callum in on his theory about Marco and the reason for the marriage Marco insisted on. Some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn’t. Why would Marco risk my life so many times if I was so valuable to him? My head feels like a pinball machine. Except in my game, the glass is broken, and the pinballs are bouncing wildly all over the floor.
I’m exhausted. Confused. Grim senses my troubles and places a hand on my knee to steady me.
“We were at home, in Ireland. You were but a wee thing. Your mother and I, well, we never thought we could have children of our own, then you came along. You were, are, very special to us. Our miracle if you believe in such things. One night, we sang you to sleep like we usually did. Your mother and I drifted off shortly after, knowing you were right next to our bed in your cradle, same as you’d been every night since the day you came screaming into the world.”
He stares at the ceiling as he recalls the memory, then looks to his lap. He frowns at his hands.
“The next morning, when we woke, my guards were all dead and Aileen, your ma, is screaming bloody murder.” He looks to me. “’Cause you’re gone.” His fists clench, his words are strained. “We looked high and low for you. Never stopped. I know that this business of mine comes with a price, but there are rules about family. I looked everywhere, to both my enemies and my friends. I had eyes on every organization in six countries, but there was no sign of you anywhere. It was almost like you’d never been born at all. Months passed, then years. But we never stopped looking. Not for one single second.”
Callum reaches into his jacket pocket and slides me a crinkled photograph. It’s a younger version of him standing next to a much shorter woman with the same honey colored curls as my own. In her arms is a laughing baby, frozen mid-clap.
He points to the baby. “That’s you, me, and that there, is your ma, Aileen.”
My mother. I rub my thumb over her smile. My heart thumps in my chest as if remembering how to beat. I inhale and exhale sharply. My chest feels weighted, yet lighter. If this is my mother, then why isn’t she here? A thought occurs to me.
“Is she…” I begin to ask.
Callum cuts me off. “No, no. She’s not dead. She’s fit as a fiddle. Waiting for you, very impatiently, I might add, back in Ireland. It took a whole lot of convincing to make her stay put. If she had her way, she’d been dressed in one of the task force vests and helmets, storming Los Muertos like a single woman herd of wild horses.” He claps his hands together and sets them on the table. “A mother’s love knows no boundaries. No laws. Neither does a fathers.”
“How…how did you find me? Why now? After all this time?” I ask without taking my eyes off the woman who is, without a doubt, my mother. “It doesn’t make any sense. Marco apparently thinks that I’m the Chiefs daughter. He even married me so he could extract benefits from the tribe.”
Callum chuckles. “Marco’s an idjiot of the highest degree. A soon to be dead idjiot at that. You see, when his father Fernando died in prison, he died with a secret he never planned on telling a soul.” He reaches under the seat and hands me an envelope with two crumbled letters inside. “Except, in the end, he did. A guard recently found those behind a loose brick in a cell in the State Penitentiary.”
“And he contacted you instead of handing it over to the proper authorities?” I raise my eyebrow.
Callum shrugs. “The proper authorities don’t pay as well as I do.”
My mind wanders back to the letters. “Marco assumed I was Camilla and the Chief’s daughter…” I think out loud.
“If he did, it makes sense. The three of you were together when he found you in the foster home. Camila had taken you all at the same time. I can see how he could make that assumption,” Callum admits. “You know, the first time I saw you I didn’t even know it was you.” He shakes his head and looks to his hands. “Didn’t even recognize my own daughter. You were in the park, being roughed up by Mal. In all fairness your hair was different then. Straight and much darker. I saw your yellow shoes from afar. I may not have known who you were, but maybe my subconscious knew, because all I could think about was getting that bastards hands off ya.”
He’s talking about the day in the park. Around the time I discovered that Grim was Tristan Paine, the boy from my past.
Grim leans forward. “It was you, wasn’t it, Callum? You’re the one who shot into the crowd,” he accuses.
Callum’s forehead wrinkles as he considers his reply. “Yes…and no. Despite what’s said about me, about who I am and what I’ve done, I’m not a wolf in the woods. My decisions, my actions, they are carefully calculated. The code I live by may not be up to church standards, but I don’t go about killing women and children or shooting into crowds like some lowbrow hoodlum. Aye, I pulled the trigger that day, warning shots, nothing more…and they worked.” He sighs. “Mal let you go, then when the crowd
scattered I lost sight of ya. Didn’t see you again until the surveillance video at the marina stadium.”
“The what?” I ask, an uneasy feeling burning in my chest. The video? Of the night Grim and I… I feel my face blanch as all the color rushes to my quick beating heart.
Grim answers before Callum can. “The marina surveillance video. The night of Belly’s funeral. He showed me pictures at the station, of me kissing you.” There’s an ever so slight emphasis on the word kissing which leads me to believe that’s all Callum saw. Grim’s words douse the uneasy feeling. Inwardly I sigh in relief as the color returns to my face.
“Aye, and I told him then that I knew it wasn’t just a kiss,” Callum adds. “I know love when I see it. I remember what it was like when I first met my Aileen.” He looks to the ceiling as if he’s watching the memory playing out above his head. “I imagine we looked a lot like the two of you did in that video.”
A realization crashes into me. “So, you knew who I was and you knew there was something between Grim and myself, and that he wasn’t responsible for abducting me, yet you still ordered your men to shoot to kill him when you stormed the compound.” It wasn’t a question, it was an outright accusation.
Callum doesn’t bother denying it or apologizing. “I did, but just like there is no real Agent Lemming, there is no real Task Force either. Those were my men, Clan Egan men, and they already had orders not to shoot Grim, well, not to kill anyway, since I suspected he might beat me in getting to you. Smoke and mirrors and all that.” He spreads his fingers and, with open palms, circles the air before him much like a magician after a magic trick. He shakes his head and smiles. “I may not have recognized you the first time in the park, but I knew it was you in that video. My heart leapt from my chest and splattered out before me. My Imogen, right there in front of my eyes, for the first time since you were a babe.” His wags his pointer finger at my hair. “Those curls of yours, your mother’s curls, they don’t lie. Even in black and white.”
Permission: The Perversion Trilogy, Book Three Page 5