The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  Leaning back, and looking aimlessly around, Simon connected the dots in his head. "We need to get Fiona away from Abigail," he finally said, as if he had it all summed up.

  "Okay," Andrew agreed uncertainly.

  "As long as Fiona remains with Abigail, her life is in serious trouble, do you understand?"

  "No," Andrew answered, shaking his head, like he was now in a bad dream. "I don't understand. Abigail's your sister, Fiona's aunt?" he said, like Fiona being with the woman, in that situation, made her safer.

  "That’s what she wants you to think! Which is exactly why she told you. Look, I don't have time to explain, do you understand?" Simon said with a clenched jaw. "Family history can be a curse and it can be a blessing. Right this minute, it's a curse, do you follow?” he asked, knowing from the look on Andrew’s face that he didn’t understand.

  “I need you to trust me on this. Abigail is a danger to Fiona, that's all you need to know."

  "Time." Andrew jumped at the voice of a guard who had just appeared.

  "I'll be in touch," Simon said as he rose from his seat and was escorted back to his prison cell. Andrew stared after the man and felt as if he couldn’t breathe. The room spun and the thoughts and emotions that raced through his mind and body made him ill.

  His soulmate was in big trouble and her father was locked away and could not help her. And although he was a free man, and had a burning desire to save Fiona, he was the one man that Fiona didn’t trust or love anymore and never wanted to hear from or see again.

  Chapter 11

  For the first time in a long time Fiona was thrilled to be going clothes shopping. Hoping that the third dress she had changed into was the one frock that would fit perfectly and look just right, she stepped out of the fitting room in the upscale department store. "What about this one?" she asked Abigail who sat on a chaise lounge delicately sipping a cup of strong tea.

  "That's more like it," the older woman responded, in her genteel upper crust British accent, noting how the pale pink color and the formfitting lines of the dress really suited Fiona's complexion and figure. "I think that's the winner, so far."

  "So far?" Fiona asked, admiring the dress in the full length mirror. "How many elegant evening dresses does a girl need these days?"

  "Lots, my dear," Abigail said with a chortle. "We have many events to attend in the coming evenings and one or two outfits will not cut it, I'm afraid. That's a lovely dress but not appropriate for the opera, for instance. Let's pick out one or two outfits in a darker color, something a tad more sedate, shall we? Black must look fantastic on you, with your coloring and gorgeous blonde hair."

  "Okay," Fiona said, only partly sounding doubtful. She had been mollycoddled for hours and hours, many days in a row, and felt as if she was as manicured as a pet French poodle. Her locks gleamed, after being trimmed and washed and conditioned with expensive, organic natural hair products, and her entire body had been massaged, buffed, waxed, manicured, and pampered, until she felt like a princess.

  "If you say so."

  "I do say so and besides, this is all a business expense. You are my 'Plus One' and you must look the part, so enjoy yourself. Go wild, buy fifteen elegant evening gowns if you like, I don't care!" Fiona smiled and continued shopping.

  Hours later, weighed down with shopping bags, from most of the up-market department and fashion stores of Beverly Hills, Fiona and Abigail looked both exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. "Let's put our shopping in the car and have ourselves a spot of lunch, what do you say?" Abigail suggested.

  "That sounds amazing," Fiona said, anxious to ditch all the shopping and get off of her feet.

  "I can't tell you how much fun I'm having," Abigail exclaimed, her smile suggesting that she meant every word. "I've been dreading living here in exile until you came along and now look at me! It's like I'm living a new life all over again! You make me feel young, Fiona."

  "Oh, please," Fiona rebuffed. "You can't tell me that you don't go out on dates and stuff because I know you do," she said teasingly.

  "I assume you're referring to my good friend, Augustus," Abigail retorted with a coy grin.

  "Your good friend, yeah, him," Fiona said with a smirk.

  "Yes, well, he has been trying to woo me, I can't deny that but having male friends can be so... what's the word, exhausting, sometimes? With a girlfriend I can merely be myself, have fun, and not worry about saying or doing something that can be misinterpreted or hurt someone's feelings. You know exactly what I'm talking about," she said conspiratorially.

  "Yeah, I guess," Fiona admitted. "Like walking around on egg shells sometimes."

  "That's exactly what I mean."

  Once at lunch, in a busy Italian restaurant, the two of them sat at a table by the window, away from the busier, more central section of the place. "This is so much fun, Abigail," Fiona said as she glanced out the window at the passing affluent pedestrians, a mix of well-to-do LA locals and tourists. "Thank you so much for saving me, in more ways than one."

  "You would have done the very same. Have you decided on your order, my dear?"

  "Yes, I think so," Fiona said uncertainly as she returned her gaze to the menu.

  "There's something on your mind," Abigail added after they had ordered and their waiter served their drinks and some exotic-looking bread sticks for them to munch upon.

  "You're not still thinking about your ordeal, are you?" Abigail asked gently.

  "No, actually, it’s not that. I guess I really can't get over the fact that my father never told me about you. That you are my aunt. I never knew you existed and even when you were coming over to this country... he never uttered a word? That's beyond weird, don't you think?"

  "Well, like I say, family dynamics can be complicated. You'll have to ask him all these questions, of course, but I always had the feeling that he, well, I shouldn't say, it's not very fair to the absent, is it?"

  "You can tell me," Fiona insisted, her voice soft. "I'm sure he has his own reasoning but I'd like to hear yours."

  "It's quite simple really," Abigail said sadly as she sipped a glass of white wine. "When our father died, it was I, they decided, who would go back to England and take his place. He was high up, you see, and they wanted someone of the same... lineage to replace him. I was the eldest, so that’s why, I suppose, they choose me."

  "That's when you left your marriage with Professor Dowling?"

  "Yes. They wanted it to be all very hush-hush, as they do with everything important. It was top secret. I wasn't allowed to tell him, to tell anyone, as a matter of fact. That's just how it was," she said with a hint of sadness and regret. "Simon was left here and I think he has resented me ever since. He's never admitted it, of course, but I really think that he would have loved to have gone back and filled our father's shoes, instead of me."

  "But why would he take it out on you if it was someone else making the decisions? That's so unfair."

  "Perhaps he expected me to turn it down, I don't quite know. We were younger then, and so uncertain of ourselves and of the roles that we needed to play. Our family comes from a long line of those serving the brotherhood; there's a tradition to uphold, you understand. I didn’t feel that I could let them down. I couldn’t let my father down. I felt obligated. Perhaps Simon was resentful; maybe he felt like he was being passed over, missing out on his golden opportunity. He was left here in this country, out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. Whereas I continued to move up in the ranks, while his status and position stalled then bottomed out. In a way, I don't blame him; perhaps I would have felt the same… had the situation been reversed."

  "Yeah, but to have kept your name silent all these years, denying me my family, after I’d already lost my mother, not knowing that I had an aunt?" Fiona said like she couldn't get her head around the injustice and as if, possibly, her father’s failure to disclose Abigail was unforgiveable. "That's serious sour grapes, right there," she said as the waiter arrived with their main courses. "So
, why is my father still in prison, I don't understand," Fiona asked delicately when the waiter left them alone. "Why has no one been helping him?"

  "Oh, he has been getting help, don't concern yourself with that. He may have told you that he wasn't being helped because, according to the legal experts, the case against him is so strong. I'm afraid your father dug himself into quite a big hole, criminally speaking, one not so easy for the organization to dig him back out from."

  "I see," Fiona said sadly as she played with her food, her appetite abandoning her. She felt almost blindsided by how disappointed she was in her father.

  "But, chin up, I've got a surprise for you after lunch. Our lovely girls’ day out is just beginning, as a matter of fact," Abigail said warmly. Fiona smiled at her aunt, greatly appreciating her cheerful attitude, and hoped that, whatever the surprise might be, it would actually uplift her.

  After lunch Abigail had her chauffeur drive them to some kind of medical facility near downtown Los Angeles. Taking her niece into a very modern-looking lab, filled with scientists in lab coats, Fiona wondered about the reason for their visit.

  "I don't claim to be a scientist by any stretch of the imagination," Abigail explained as they walked around the lab full of high-tech medical devices, "but I wanted to give you a glimpse of the future," she said proudly.

  "Cool," Fiona said as she looked around and tried to appreciate whatever it was that Abigail found so fascinating. "How do you mean, the future?" she then asked respectfully.

  "The future of humanity is written in our DNA," Abigail explained with enthusiasm. "This is where they study its potential and probe its mysteries for a solution."

  "A solution to what?"

  "A solution to the human condition. A solution to get us out of the mess that we find ourselves in; a solution to ensure not just our survival but our spiritual evolution, our elevation, as a species."

  "Elevation as a species?" Fiona asked, intrigued by the concept.

  "Our elevation above greed and selfishness; man's penchant towards violence, waging wars with one another, dominating each other. In here, we are searching for the next-level human; the human being that aspires to live peacefully and in harmony with every living thing on this planet and is capable of doing so. We can no longer wait for the slow progress of nature to naturally evolve people for the path ahead; in fact, to do so could possibly be suicidal. We'd never make it. We'd annihilate the planet, and ourselves along with it, just as we have so narrowly avoided in the recent past."

  "I see," Fiona said, looking around with renewed appreciation. "The next-level human, cool."

  "We have the science now, you see?" Abigail said, clearly excited by the possibilities. "We can take evolution into our own hands, through our understanding of our DNA, and create a human with potential that is greater, more spiritually beautiful, more evolved."

  "Wow."

  "We can tell a lot about a person by their DNA, did you know that, my dear?"

  "Yes," Fiona answered, vaguely aware.

  "This machine can analyze the complexities of a DNA sample and, within days, can tell you all about a person's past and, by their DNA sequence, their propensity for trouble or success in their possible future. Fascinating," Abigail said as she watched the flashing lights of the machine and listened to the whirring sound it was making as a central disk spun at a massive speed. "Have you ever had your DNA analyzed?" the older woman asked. "It's a marvel what you can discover about oneself."

  "No, no, I can't say that I have. I've heard of people finding out their ancestry that way, pretty interesting," Fiona answered, looking blankly at the complex machinery before her.

  "Here," Abigail commanded the girl’s attention as she picked out a cotton-tipped swab from a nearby depository and held it up to Fiona's mouth. Surprised that Abigail had already placed a lab glove on her hand, Fiona took hold of the swab from the center. "Rub this around the inside of your mouth and we'll see what the machine has to say about you."

  Fiona did as her aunt instructed but, when Abigail turned to pick up a plastic tube, for the girl to place the swab into, Fiona sneakily switched the swab with her DNA on it for a blank one. Abigail held up the tube and Fiona dropped the clean swab into it.

  "Won't it be exciting to see the results?" Abigail asked as she put the top onto the tube and wrote Fiona's name on the tube label.

  "Very exciting," Fiona answered as she secretly placed the real DNA swab sample into her trouser pocket. She wasn't sure why she had refused to place her DNA in the tube as her Aunt Abigail so fervently desired. Her intuition perhaps? Or was her aunt being too controlling, and Fiona found herself instinctively rebelling? Maybe, just maybe, she was afraid to learn about her human potential or lack thereof. Fiona frowned, to think about how upset she would be to discover that she was just an ordinary girl, after all.

  "Now, we have one other trip to make before we can get home and… maybe stream a movie on the flat screen TV, how does that sound?" Abigail asked enthusiastically.

  "That sounds terrific," Fiona answered, already tired from the day’s adventures but not wanting to spoil Abigail's fun. "Where to?"

  "You'll see," Abigail responded enigmatically.

  Even if Fiona felt that Abigail could be a bit overbearing at times, Fiona really was enjoying her company. She had never met any of her father's family and, up to this point in time, she had never really considered it that odd. Her father had been born six thousand miles away and, despite the fact that he had never visited his own country since her birth, none of his family members had made the journey over to visit him in California, either.

  In retrospect, Fiona now considered it peculiar that her family members never cared for each other enough to cross the Atlantic and visit with each other. Now that she had discovered the rift between her father and Abigail, however, she was getting a picture of how dysfunctional her father's family was turning out to be. Her father had never spoken about his family and Fiona had probably subconsciously learned from an early age not to ask personal questions of her dad.

  "Did you ever meet my mom?" Fiona asked Abigail. The two of them sat comfortably in the back seat of the town car on their way to their destination in Westwood.

  "Why, yes. I did," Abigail answered in a tone that suggested fondness for the deceased lady. "She was born not far from myself and your father, as a matter of fact. We were a very incestuous bunch, back then, I've come to realize. She was a very active member of our little fraternity, and it was quite a little organization… back in those days."

  "What was she like?"

  "A lovely lady," Abigail responded glowingly. "A true champion of the underclass and a devoted advocate to the cause. She wanted nothing more than to devote her life to the betterment of humanity, God bless her heart. A true loss to mankind, I can tell you."

  "Wow," Fiona said, feeling a mixture of sadness and excitement. "She sounds amazing, very… spiritual, and, well, driven."

  "Oh, very driven! A Renaissance woman, actually. Your mother was very much ahead of her time. Every one of us had a hard time keeping up with her pace, I'll tell you that. She could get more accomplished in one day than the rest of us could in a week. She was a bright flame, a light unto this dark world, rest her soul in peace."

  With so many different questions to ask, Fiona almost suffered a brain freeze. "Was she pretty?" Fiona asked even though she squirmed at her own superficial curiosity.

  "She was a knockout," Abigail answered immediately. "You haven't pictures of her?" she then asked.

  "Dad never talks about her," Fiona answered sadly. "Once I asked if he had any pictures but he said that he didn't keep any. I got the impression that maybe he burned them or something. He never really recovered, you know. He'd always get upset when I asked anything about her. He got so depressed one time I thought he was going to stay in bed for, like, forever."

  "You poor dear," Abigail said sympathetically. "They were so in love. I can tell you that. So very much in love, bot
h of them."

  "Yeah," Fiona said as she looked ahead into the busy traffic. "I get that." It wasn't until the driver drove herself and Abigail into an underground parking lot that Fiona became curious about their new destination. "Are we there?" she asked, hoping that Abigail would finally reveal where she was taking them. Although she liked that Abigail had a strong will, and obviously loved to be in control most of the time, Fiona thought to herself that she would surely tire of such a one-sided dynamic over time. There was a thin line between assertiveness and domination.

  Then again, maybe Abigail was playing the parent in their relationship and didn't really consider Fiona to be a friend or equal peer. If the older woman didn’t consider them to be peers, then her British auntie was treating her as she believed a niece or other young person should be treated.

  "We have arrived," Abigail exclaimed as they parked.

  Fiona had already seen a sign directing visitors to the Museum of Tolerance parking, so she had already figured out their ultimate destination. "The Museum of Tolerance?" she asked as they swung their respective car doors shut.

  "Have you been here before?" Abigail asked in a tone that suggested that she was looking forward to their afternoon.

  "Can't say that I have," Fiona answered, totally sure that she hadn't. Although she didn't know much about the place, she was of the opinion that the only visitors that the museum ever entertained were tour groups of school kids who were never given a choice. Quite frankly, with Universal Studios and Disneyland as the top local attractions, who would volunteer to go see a museum that boasted authentic artifacts recovered from the concentration camp at Auschwitz?

  "This is LA's best kept secret, if you ask me," Abigail enthused. "I'm always surprised that most Los Angeles natives who I have asked have never even heard of the place, much less visited."

  "Yeah, we don't do misery quite like the Europeans," Fiona joked.