The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  "Andrew," Abigail said harshly as she dismissed with her arm her meeting with a fellow employee who quickly gathered his things to exit.

  "I need to see you," she said, turning to Andrew in order to give him her full attention.

  "I need to see you!" Andrew shouted loudly and angrily as the other employee rushed past him and looked happy to be escaping the conference room.

  "I beg your pardon?" Abigail asked in a way that suggested he was being impertinent.

  "I cannot believe that you did such a thing!" Andrew said like he was revolted.

  "Did what? What are you talking about?" Abigail asked, clearly looking flustered.

  "I got a call from my girlfriend in tears. Distraught and upset beyond words! You were keeping her prisoner? Not allowing her to leave while she was being pricked and prodded with all kinds of sharp instruments, like she was some kind of guinea pig or a lab rat?"

  "Well, no, of course not," Abigail began to explain but was interrupted.

  "You arranged for her to be abducted from the street? You paid some... low-class thugs to kidnap her, lock her up in a filthy room, starve her, in some scary neighborhood? They took a sample of her blood and you had it analyzed in the lab for some devious purpose!" Andrew ranted before taking a breath.

  "No, you've got it all wrong," Abigail quickly took the opportunity to explain. "Fiona is confused, obviously. There was a mix up, at the lab. I can explain everything. She's making all kinds of connections that don't exist, Andrew, based on a simple mix up at the lab. Happens all the time, unfortunately. I'm looking into it right now, to see whom is responsible, heads will roll, I'll tell you."

  "There was some kind of a pretend gunfight that your people set up so that you could scare her into cooperating with you? Who does that?" Andrew asked with mock incredulity.

  "No, that was for real, there was no mock gunfight anything. My people tracked her down and saved her life.”

  “For real? For real? That is egregious,” Andrew shouted, “Fiona was present for a real gunfight, after being kidnapped by your thugs.”

  “No, Andrew… that’s not what happened. Listen, the ordeal was obviously very traumatic and confusing to the girl and it has clearly affected her mind and her reasoning. I should have had her looked at by a professional, I know that now. The poor thing was clearly still in shock and I didn't recognize it right away. I hope that she's feeling better now?"

  "She's really shaken, that's for sure," Andrew said with concerned gravitas. "Better than she was when she first called me but still in a state. She was in a terrible place when she called on the phone. You were in that meeting, so I dropped everything and rushed over there to her. My God, Abigail… she’s in a terrible state. It’s shocking."

  "Yes, I can see how that played out," Abigail said in a softer tone. "I probably would have done the same, you mustn't blame yourself."

  Running his hand through his hair like it had been a crazy time, Andrew sighed deeply.

  "You poor thing, I can see how this must have stressed you beyond reason. Why don't you take the rest of the day off? How are we doing with the conclave?"

  "The conclave is looking good," Andrew said like his mind was elsewhere. "All systems go, in fact." He waited as she took that information in.

  "Excellent, then why don't you take some time to yourself and recharge those batteries. We'll need you bright and proper to make this general assembly the success that it needs to be."

  "Yeah, I guess I could use a little downtime. It's been crazy around here this past while," Andrew said wearily. He stared at her and she looked away.

  "We'll take this up tomorrow," Abigail said, dismissing him with thinly masked irritation. "And we'll get to the bottom of everything, clear up all misunderstandings, what do you say?"

  "Sounds good," Andrew said as she turned towards the door. "Sorry if I got a bit heated there although, of course, I expect some answers."

  "Of, course, when I have answers you’ll get them," Abigail said with a wave of her hand. "So, think nothing of it. We all get wound up a bit tight from time to time. Get a good night's rest."

  "You too, Abigail," Andrew said a bit coolly as he exited and closed the door behind him. As he made his way towards the elevator he couldn't help but smile. Simon was indeed a twisted genius.

  Reacquainting herself with her old bedroom, Fiona cleaned up the mess of guy clothes and other stuff that Andrew had left lying around the place. So very happy to be back home, but especially to be reunited with Andrew, she practically floated on air and had a smile plastered on her face the whole time that she tidied the room. Playing her happy music loudly she didn't hear when her father rapped on the open door to try and get her attention.

  It wasn't until he rapped more loudly and she looked up that she finally spied her father standing in the doorway and turned her music down. "Hi, dad," she said, happy to see him.

  "Got a minute?" he asked with a smile, delighted to have her back.

  "Sure, what's up?" she asked as she matched up a pair of Andrew's clean socks.

  "Want to show you something," he said with an air of mystery. "In the screening room."

  Following her dad down the stairs, Fiona wasn't sure if she wanted to spend her time watching some movie that her father wished to see. Although she liked the idea that he was including her in his new attempt at spending quality time together, she doubted that they shared the same taste in entertainment. "You want to watch a movie?" she inquired casually.

  "I want to share some home movies with you," he answered as he held the door of the screening room open and waited for her to catch up.

  "You have home movies?" she asked with a perplexed expression. "Since when?"

  "Since always," he answered as he closed the door to the darkened room. "I just never had occasion to screen them before."

  "Home movies of who? Where?"

  "You'll see," he said as he pressed play on the remote control that he held in his hand.

  Fiona gave him the benefit of the doubt as she sat in a center seat and watched as a dated video of a huge ship stood docked in a foreign harbor. Panning the immensity of the ship, the footage ran for several minutes. "This is a home movie of a ship?" she asked with mild puzzlement.

  "That's the Queen Elizabeth the second or the QE2 as she was once known," Simon explained with obvious admiration. "One of the last great transatlantic ocean liners."

  "Cool," Fiona said, respecting his adoration for the impressive ship. "Oh, who's that?" she then asked as she saw a familiar face come into view.

  "That's yours truly," Simon answered as his on-screen smiling presence filled the frame. "I obviously had more hair back then. I was also a bit slimmer back then, obviously."

  "No kidding," Fiona said, secretly remarking to herself about the current size of his mid-rift. "Who's that?" she asked excitedly as a beautiful woman walked into the film frame and embraced Simon, then turned to face the camera with a killer smile.

  "That's your mum," Simon said, his eyes also glued to the screen. "Pretty, wasn't she?"

  "OMG… she's gorgeous!" Fiona exclaimed as she sat forward in her seat, her eyes practically bulging out of her head. "That's really my mom?"

  "Sure is," Simon answered, tears welling up in his eyes.

  "Wow, you were such an awesome couple!" she said as they mugged on the deck of the ocean liner in front of the camera. "Who's that?" she asked as a woman in her twenties joined them.

  "That's your aunt Thelma. She wasn't making the journey but she came to send us off. Abigail is working the camera but she's going to switch with Thelma in a few moments."

  Right on cue, the footage blacked out and once back on it showed a young Abigail as she joined the young couple.

  "That's Abigail?" Fiona asked, barely recognizing her. "She looks so different! What kind of a hairstyle is that? It looks ridiculous."

  "I don't know what it was called but it was very popular in the nineties. Might look crazy now but back then her ha
irstyle would have been considered the height of fashion."

  "And that big long coat?" Fiona scoffed. "Hideous."

  "Again, living in a cold climate, those coats were quite fashionable for the time and place."

  Even though very little was happening on screen except three people smiling, waving good-bye, and mugging into the camera, Fiona took in everything that the film on screen offered. "Wow, this is awesome, dad," she said smiling. "Where was this?"

  "We sailed from Southampton, just south of London. The cruise was Abigail's idea. She always wished to travel in style."

  "Wow, my mom looks so beautiful," Fiona said, unable to take her eyes from her.

  "Yes, she most certainly was," Simon agreed as the screen went dark.

  "Is that it?" Fiona asked with shocked disappointment.

  "For now," Simon answered, clearly shaken from just the little coverage of his ex-wife that he had shown. "I have some other footage somewhere but I'll have to go look and dig it out."

  "What happened?" Fiona asked.

  "What happened?"

  "With my mom," Fiona said softly. "Did she die in childbirth because you insisted on my special birth? Is that what happened?" she asked, a question which she had so longed to ask and whose answer she suspected.

  "No," Simon answered as he sat in the seat next to his daughter. "Your special birth was your mom's idea."

  "It was?" Fiona asked with surprise, her speculations shattered. "But I thought that you were with the serpent group and—"

  "We were all members of the order, sweetheart, that's how we met. At the time I was a somewhat a reluctant member, issues with Abigail and my father that I won't go into, but your mum was, how shall I say?" he said and paused, looking for the right word. "Fervent in her membership and belief. More fanatical than maybe even Abigail, if you can imagine."

  "Oh," Fiona said thoughtfully. "I thought that you were the one..."

  "After we got married, and began to talk of starting a family, your mum insisted that we try to bring a special soul into the world, a little miracle child, she used to call it, call you. She said that it was our duty, as a spiritually evolved couple, to bring all of the light into the world that we possibly could. For months, even prior to our consummation, she prepared herself for what she was calling your miracle conception and birth. She studied ancient books that spoke of such things; she especially studied the rituals and beliefs of the Essenes, a sect of Jews whom she believed Mary, the mother of Jesus, belonged to. She read the Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts which spoke of the purification and other rituals that Mary purportedly engaged in. Then she created her own regimen of rituals in order to purify herself and prepare her body for your conception and birth," Simon said and the intense sorrow was evident in his voice.

  "Wow," Fiona said as she took it all in, finally getting know the spirit of her mother after all that time since her birth.

  "She was a woman on a mission and she would not be deterred," Simon continued, the past becoming more his present the more he remembered. "I told her that she may have been overdoing the dieting and the fasting, especially, that she was losing so much weight and making herself ill with that and the cleansing, long hours spent in prayer and meditation, but she wouldn't listen to me. She kept telling me that she was fine, that she had everything under control, that it had to be this way, that she needed to be pure and so on," he said and paused as if he felt a pain in his gut.

  Taking his hand into hers, Fiona gave him her strength and support. "I think I understand more clearly now," she said gently. "It wasn't your fault," she said as she noticed him on the verge of tears. "It wasn't your fault."

  "I should have gone with my instincts," he said as his tears then freely flowed, his body shaking with sobs. "I should have insisted. She was in no shape, physically. She had depleted her body so much… it couldn't take the strain."

  "It's okay," Fiona said soothingly as she hugged him closer to her own body. "It was mom's decision and not your fault. You did what you could."

  "It was all a big secret and she swore me to secrecy; I could tell no one. No one knows what happened that day and I've even kept you secret, ever since, like nothing ever happened," he continued as he cried out all his pent up sorrow and guilt, his shame and anger. "Like nothing ever happened," he repeated as his body sobbed more robustly and tears streamed down his face.

  Holding her father as tightly and supportively as she could, she could see and understand now why he had previously been unable to share the film of her mother, the stories, and other information, any of it, with her. She wiped away her father’s tears as the tears streamed down his swollen face and she finally understood everything. Fiona hugged her father tightly and found herself loving him more deeply than she ever thought possible.

  Arriving back at the Pacific Palisades house, and feeling on a tremendous emotional high, Andrew found Fiona sitting expectantly at the kitchen table as Simon cooked up a storm at the stove. Jumping up and running into her boyfriend’s arms, Andrew scooped Fiona up and swung her around like she was as light as a feather. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" she said excitedly.

  "I'm so excited to see you too!" Andrew said as he twirled her around.

  "Daddy, Andrew is back!" Fiona exclaimed once her feet was back on the ground, holding onto him as if she were afraid that he might vanish from her grasp.

  "I see that," Simon said dryly. "Ask him if he's hungry."

  "Are you hungry, kind sir?" Fiona asked in a voice meant to imitate her dad.

  "Starving," Andrew answered, now noticing that Simon was actually cooking something on the stove and that there were several different foodstuffs in pots and pans all cooking at once. "Are you cooking?" he asked like there must be some miracle about to happen.

  "Can't a man cook in his own home?" Simon asked, pretending to be annoyed.

  "If this was his house, I could see no problem with that," Andrew answered cheekily. "Continue on, you have my permission," he said when Simon turned to face him, meat clever in hand and he grinned wickedly.

  "Come sit with me," Fiona pulled Andrew to a kitchen chair. "Tell me about your day?" she asked as if he was the only thing in her world.

  "Holy crap, it worked," Andrew said excitedly as if he just remembered what he wanted to tell everybody. “You’re a genius, Simon.”

  Simon smiled and turned back to face the stove.

  "What worked?" Fiona asked, a smile of anticipation on her face.

  "You should have seen her expression when I went on the attack," Andrew said, looking towards Simon. "Friggin' priceless."

  "You accused her of—" Fiona asked but was interrupted.

  "Everything," Andrew said, finishing her sentence. "The abduction, the shootout, the DNA test, everything!"

  "What shootout?" Simon asked and turned back toward them with interest.

  "Tell you later, dad," Fiona said, like it was nothing much. "Then what?" she asked Andrew excitedly. Simon began taking completed hot dishes off of the stove.

  "Then she apologized for everything, said that it was all a mix up, and that you were confused about everything, after all that you’d been through, and needed professional help."

  "What a tramp!" Fiona exclaimed.

  "Then she gave me the rest of the day off, such as it is, and told me to concentrate on organizing the conclave. Wild," Andrew said like he came out the winner.

  "Fantabulous!" Fiona said, like she was totally enamored. "You are my hero. You are both my heroes," she then said in order not to exclude her father.

  "Well done, lad. We should turn our thoughts to the conclave," Simon said as he dished up some of the hot food. "Don't wait on ceremony, folks. Just dive in wherever," he said as he placed some of the dishes on the table.

  "What about the conclave?" Andrew asked as he served himself some mixed veggies.

  "It's our opportunity for that one-two punch we had talked about," Simon answered as he placed the remaining food on the table.

&nb
sp; "Are we going to take her down?" Fiona asked enthusiastically. "Abigail?"

  "Yes, we are, sweetie," her father answered calmly.

  "Sweet," Fiona said as she piled her plate with salad.

  "Is that even possible?" Andrew asked, looking uncertain.

  "Of course it is," Fiona answered with certainty. "Isn't it?" she then asked her dad.

  "What are your concerns, Andrew?" Simon asked.

  "Well, as far as I can tell, the way that the organization is structured allows for the bottom to fall out but the top to remain intact."

  "In other words, the workers on the bottom can't take down the management at the top," Simon added.

  "Exactly. No one knows who is even working at the top or what their true goals might be. As long as everyone focuses on the task at hand, doesn't question orders or ask any questions about the managers above them, which they highly discourage, then pretty much everyone at the bottom is working in the dark. They have to trust what they are being told by those at the top," Andrew explained.

  "Sounds like you're serving in the army or something," Fiona said with a look of distaste. "Yes, sir. No, sir. Just do what you're told, sir."

  "Allied to that…" Simon said as he served himself some seafood and pasta, "the organization is deliberately shaped like an octopus."

  "Like an octopus?" Fiona asked, finding the idea funny.

  "It has many tentacles but only one head. Each of the tentacles is unaware of the other tentacles. If one tentacle is taken down… the others are untouched… as is the head, which continues to control everything."

  "So, best we can do is take down a tentacle?" Andrew asked with a look of frustration.

  "Better than nothing at all and no small feat. In fact, something like this has never been undertaken before, at least to my knowledge. Besides, taking down this arm of their operation means that we all get out of jail free cards and won't be bothered by them for quite some time. For them to successfully rebuild could take years and years… it could event take decades for them to recover."

  "Yay!" Fiona added with a broad smile.