“Okay, call me as soon as you hear something. You’re not screwing with me are you?” He had to ask one more time.
“No, Manny, our daughter is coming home.”
Liz knew she should call her parents. Maybe she would wait until morning. She needed someone else at the moment.
“Hello, Ms. Rimmer. How are you?”
“Connor, come over,” she spat out.
“Where’s Reese?” Oh, yeah… Reese. She forgot for a second that she didn’t want her daughter to find out that she was screwing her Math teacher.
“Wait until around 10.”
“We have school tomorrow. You never want to see me during the week. What’s going on Liz?” He knew something was up. She was the one that needed to keep their little secret in the dark, not him.
“I’m calling off tomorrow.”
“You can’t call off tomorrow. It’s the last week of school.”
“Mom? Pizza? Doorbell? Money?” Reese said with her hand out.
Was the doorbell ringing?
“I’ll explain later,” she told Connor as she walked to get her purse.
“Explain at 10 tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, that will be fine,” she said, trying to be discrete around Reese.
Liz and Reese sat at the table talking about Shelby as they ate their pizza. Each of them had a million questions, concerns, and fears. Liz had no idea what kind of life she had lived. Was she stable, difficult, demanding? Did she go to school? Did she have any medical problems? The list seemed to grow by the minute. At the rate she was going she was going to need to stock up on inhalers.
“Quill, you need to pack what you want to take with you,” Seri had to coax again.
“I don’t know what I should take. I’m kind of used to just running away and leaving everything behind. I don’t need much. I’m only staying there until I turn 18, and then I am leaving.”
Seri shook her head. “Give it a chance, Quill. Don’t go into this with a negative attitude. Your family loves you very much. Give them a chance.”
“How can they love someone they don’t know?” Aquilla asked, retrieving a big blue duffle bag from her closet. The first thing she placed in it was the purple laptop.
“Why don’t you leave that here? I will buy you one that actually works.”
“I don’t need another one. This one works just fine. My father downloaded stuff on it for me that I want to keep,” Aquilla replied, placing items from her dresser into the bag. She looked up when she heard the noise coming from the room next door. She was in the hall before Seri could stop her.
“What are you doing!?!” she screamed at the two guys, flipping Julius’s room.
“Get her out of here,” Malone demanded.
“Look here, I bet we can find all sorts of evidence on here.” One of the men said as he took the purple laptop from the closet.
“Check this out, Malone,” another guy said as he tried to take the ocean painting from the wall, searching for a safe or anything that might help them locate Julius.
Aquilla watched from the door. She hated them rummaging through Julius’s room and destroying everything that they touched. They didn’t care. They were just tossing all of his belongings, flipping the mattress, and throwing his clothes from the closet to the floor.
“It looks like your little Julius was a bit of a pervert. Did you know he watched you?” Agent Dick Face asked, turning to Aquilla.
“Can I see?” she asked. Was Julius really spying on her?
Agent Malone waved his hand in a cocky manner, giving her permission for him to rub it in.
Aquilla slid the tiny lever on the frame, and sure enough, she had a perfect view of her room. It actually explained a lot, mostly how he would know about things she had talked to her friends about. He had been watching her for four years.
“Come on, Quill,” Seri coaxed her out of the room.
Aquilla went right to the painting in her room. You couldn’t see the little window at all in the waves. She couldn’t believe she had never noticed it before. Hila had to know about it, she was the one who cleaned the two rooms. That’s why the one time she wanted to move her bed to the other side of the room, Hila was so adamant about her not doing it. She had talked her out of it.
“Quill, I have to call your mom. She may ask to talk to you.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Okay, I’m just going to step out into the hall.”
Aquilla nodded. She continued to pack her belongings alone in her room. She didn’t cry. She was a Chavez. Chavez’s didn’t cry. Why the hell did she want to curl up into a fetal position and do just that?
“Hello,” Elizabeth Rimmer cautiously answered the unknown, 819 number.
“Hello, is this Elizabeth Rimmer?”
“Go to your room, Reese,” Liz demanded holding her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Mom! I want to hear too!” she whined.
“Yes, this is her,” Liz answered, pointing upstairs with a stern look and a straight finger.
Reese stomped off, it wasn’t fair. It may be her daughter, but it was HER sister, she had a right to know what was going on.
“I’m Agent Strokes, I’ve been with your daughter for the past couple of days,” she began.
“How is she?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. She’s somewhat of a mess right now. She was never aware that she was taken from her family until this morning. She’s confused, hurt, and sad that her fath__, the man that took her was killed. There are some things that I think you need to know before we arrive.”
“Okay,” Liz beckoned for her to continue.
“Well, for one, she doesn’t want to be called Shelby.”
“There’s no way I am calling her whatever that bastard named her.”
“Ms. Rimmer, you need to understand that she loved that bastard. She grew up thinking that he was her father. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to hate on him around her.”
Wheeze…cough…inhale. This may not be the happy homecoming that she had dreamed of for years. “What did he call her?”
“Aquilla.”
“A what a? What kind of name is that?”
“To her, it is her name. It’s the only one she’s known, Ms. Rimmer.”
“Go on,” she urged. What else did she need to know about the little girl that was raised by a monster?
“I’m not sure of all of the details, but I am pretty sure her and the man’s son were pretty intimate.”
“Wait, wasn’t she raised to believe that he was her brother? How old is he?”
“Yes, he got away. He’s 25. I think she is pretty wounded that he left her. She is planning on finding him when she turns 18.”
“Like hell she is. Is she messed up? Why would she want to find him? He took advantage of her.”
“She doesn’t see it that way.”
“So she has like Stockholm Syndrome?”
“No, Stockholm syndrome is when you fall in love with your abuser. She was never abused, Ms. Rimmer, she was treated like a princess.”
“Did he have sex with her?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.” Of course she was sure of it. She was there. She practically had sex with her daughter.
“I’ve got one of our best psychologists coming to work with her.”
“She needs a shrink?” Liz asked, concerned, very concerned.
“Ms. Rimmer, this is going to be a major adjustment for her. Yes, she is going to need someone to talk to. Monica is one of the best. If anyone can get her talking, it will be her. She’s scheduled to come first thing Tuesday morning. I’m not sure if you were told, but I will also be staying with her for a while.”
“Yes, I was made aware of that. I have an extra room downstairs that you are welcome to use while you are here.”