Plausibility

Chapter 8

“Reese! Answer the door,” Elizabeth Rimmer called to her daughter as she stirred the pasta sauce. She didn’t answer.

Liz grumbled at the loud music spilling downstairs as she walked to the front door. She opened it puzzled when she saw the two black suited men standing on her doorstep.

“Can I help you?” she asked, drying her hands on the dish towel.

“Are you Elizabeth Rimmer?”

“Yes,” she cautiously spoke, wondering why the government vehicle was parked in her driveway.

They both flashed badges. “I’m Lieutenant Carter, and this is my partner Wayne Slater.”

“What can I do for you?” she asked with an inquiring expression.

“Can we come in Ms. Rimmer?”

“Um, can I ask what this is about?”

“It’s about your daughter.”

Elizabeth turned and looked upstairs toward the music and her daughter’s room. “My daughter? You do realize she is only 15, right?”

“Not that daughter, Ms. Rimmer. This is about Shelby.”

Oh, God. She was always afraid of this day. She had always known she would be. Where did they find her? She was silently praying that they hadn’t dug her little body up in the backyard or under the concrete of some pervert’s basement. Should they bury her remains? She already had a plot with her name on the stone. They buried a small white casket with tiny pink roses filled with her favorite things two years after she was taken.

“Ms. Rimmer?” the sophisticated looking man called, breaking her from her psychotic episode.

“Uh?”

“May we come in?”

“Sure,” she replied, waving the dishtowel toward the sofa.

Both men sat on the couch while she sat across from them. She wished they would just tell her and stop dallying around about it. Or was she the one doing that?

“We’ve found your daughter, Ms. Rimmer.”

“Okay, did you find whoever took her too?” That was the important question. She didn’t need to hear about how they found her. She couldn’t handle the news about how they found her wrapped naked in a trash bag. The sudden chills up her back caused her to quiver, thinking about it.

“Yes, he was shot and killed yesterday.”

She gasped. They really did find him? She wasn’t expecting to feel the emotions flood through her the way that they were. It had been so many years. Shelby would have turned 17, a couple of weeks ago.

“Where is her body?” She felt the tears burn as she tried to keep them intact.

“Ms. Rimmer, Shelby is alive. She will be on a plane coming home to you, tomorrow.”

Elizabeth dropped back in the chair. She was going to faint. What did he say?

The lieutenant took his phone from his pocket. He opened up his text messages and retrieved the one from Agent Strokes.

“Ms. Rimmer?” he spoke, handing her his phone. “The agent in charge of Shelby took this picture of her just this morning.”

Liz sat up and took the phone. “Oh God,” she said, covering her mouth as the floodgates holding the tears broke. She couldn’t breathe. She sucked in air that wasn’t there.

Both the agents had seen some pretty shocked faces during their careers, but this was different. They exchanged a worried look while Liz tried to catch her breath.

“Ms. Rimmer?” the agent spoke, coming to her side.

She coughed and wheezed as she pulled in every breath she could pull. “My…wheeze…cough….wheeze….my purse,” she pointed to the purse hanging on the hook behind the door.

He grabbed her purse and she rummaged through it, finally finding her life line. She took a long draw on the inhaler, slowed her breathing and did it again.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized as her breathing regulated. She wanted to ask if this was for real. She didn’t have to. She knew the picture she was holding in her hand was her daughter. Without a doubt, she knew that it was Shelby.

“Did he hurt her?” she asked the dreaded question that had haunted her for years.

“No, ma’am. Shelby has had a good life with him. He treated her well.”

“Why did he do this?” she asked, still looking at the photo in awe.

“I really can’t answer that Ms. Rimmer. Agent Strokes is coming with her. Do you have room for a stowaway?”

“I could make room, sure, but I’m not sure how I feel about some strange man staying in my house.”

He smiled. “Agent Strokes is Sarah Strokes. It seems that Shelby has taken up with her, she won’t talk to anyone but her.” She would talk. From what he heard she told them to fuck off just fine. He wasn’t going to relay that. “Agent Strokes knows more about it than I do. I’m sure she’ll be able to answer more of your questions.”

“Did somebody die?”

“Reese, go back upstairs, please. I’ll explain in little bit,” Liz said, turning to her daughter standing at the bottom of the stairs with a worried look.

“Why?”

“Reese!” Liz scolded.

Reese unwillingly walked back upstairs.

“She looks a lot like Shelby,” Agent Carter acknowledged.

“Oh my God. Is this for real? Is this really happening?” Liz asked in panic mode. She felt the wheeze in her chest and slowed her breathing.

“Your daughter will be home with you tomorrow, I assure you, it’s real.”

“I have to call her dad. I have to get her room ready. My parents, I’ve got to call them.” She was panicking again.

“There is one more thing that you should probably prepare yourself for, Ms. Rimmer,” Agent Carter explained. He seemed to be the one to do all the talking. The other one just sat there. She wondered if he was his boss. And then wondered why she was even thinking about that. Because she was freaking out, that’s why. She didn’t know what to think. Why did he keep calling her Ms. Rimmer? Breathe Liz, Breathe.

She didn’t reply. She could only stare at him with wide eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Once the press gets wind of this, they will be on your doorstep. I’m sure of it. Is there somewhere you can go if it gets too bad? It’ll die down. It always does, but I’m sure they’re going to want to talk to you.”

“This is the last week of school, well I have next week, but we have a summer house that we go to. We could go there.”

“That might be perfect.”

Both agents stood. “Here’s my card. If there is anything you need, you let me know.”

“I will. Thank you so much,” Liz said, standing. She hugged the man. What the hell did she do that for? She was having a meltdown. She couldn’t do this alone.

“May I have my phone back?” the agent who had just gotten hugged asked.

“Oh, sorry. Could you send that picture to my phone?”

He smiled. “Yes, what’s your number?”

Liz closed the door behind the two men, the two men who had just tilted her whole world. She wondered if Shelby would remember her at all. How much does a three year old remember? Could she remember when she was three? She lived by the lake where their cabin was. No, she didn’t remember that. She just knew it to be fact. She needed to call Manny. She needed to go tell Reese.

“Mom?” Reese said from the stairs with a puzzled look. That snapped Liz out of her internal rant for the time being

“Reese, sit down. I need to talk to you about something.”

“You’re the one that looks like you need to sit down. What’s going on?”

Liz took another short puff from her inhaler. Why was she having such hard time breathing? That was the third dose in twenty minutes.

Liz pulled the ottoman over and sat in front of Reese. She held her phone up, showing Reese the photo of her big sister. “Reese, do you have any idea who this is?”

“Um, no, should I?”

“This is Shelby. This is your sister, Reese.”

“What do you mean?” Reese asked. She may need that inhaler. She couldn’t breathe all of a sudden either.

“She was found yesterday. She is coming home tomorrow.”

Reese had the exact same reaction as her mother. She plopped back in the chair. Was this real? “I think this is some sort of sick joke. I don’t think this is real.”

“It’s real Reese. She’s coming home. Oh, my God. She’s coming home,” she stated again as it kept hitting her over and over. “We have to get her room ready.”

“What room?”

“We’ll put her in grandma and grandpa’s room, that’s a nice room for her, isn’t it? You have your old black comforter with the red lips. We’ll put that on there. She’ll like that. Wont she?” She wasn’t really asking. She was just trying to make sense of the craziness. It was crazy. This doesn’t happen. “No, no, we’ll wait and let her pick out her own things. We’ll take her shopping, Reese.”

“Mom, you’re freaking me out here,” Reese assured her, watching her mother as she rattled on and on.

“I have to call your dad.”

“Something’s burning?” Reese decided, smelling something scorched.

“Shit, my spaghetti sauce,” Liz said, running to the kitchen. Yup, it was burnt. The whole kitchen filled with smoke, setting off the first smoke alarm and then the other four. Liz removed the smoking pan and opened the back door. She turned the exhaust fan on and waved the dishtowel over the alarm until it stopped. Of course, the smoke had to set off the asthma again.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” Reese asked from the door.

Liz smiled a motherly warm smile. “Who wouldn’t love you? I’m sure she will adore you. We are going to have to be extra nice to her, Reese. This is going to be quite an adjustment for her.”

“It’s going to be quite an adjustment for all of us,” Reese assured her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. I mean, she was happy that they found her and glad that she was okay, she just didn’t know how she felt about it yet. She was going to have a sister, and not one that she had grown up with. This one was seventeen, and she was just all of a sudden coming home.

“Yes, it is. Go finish your homework. I have to call your dad.”

“I wasn’t doing my homework. I was downloading music.”

“Well, stop downloading music and do your homework.”

“I’m hungry.”

Oh, yeah. She still needed to feed her. “Order a pizza.”

Liz sunk to the chair at the kitchen table. Where was her inhaler? She was going to need it…again. She dialed her ex-husband’s cell number. He didn’t answer. She looked at the clock. It was after five. He was probably out of the office by now. No, no, he was probably right there at his desk where he would be until nine or ten o’clock. She dialed his office and his secretary answered.

“Rimmer and Moore Links. This is Karen, how I may I help you?”

“Hi, Karen. It’s Liz. Is Emmanuel still there?”

“Yes, but I’m not supposed to interrupt him unless it’s emergency. They have a big account due in a couple of days. How are you?”

“I’m well, but this is an emergency.”

“Oh no, is Reese okay?”

“Reese is fine. Could you please just connect me to him?” She didn’t mean to be rude or short with Karen. She had always liked her. She just didn’t want to small talk with her. She needed to talk to her ex.

“Hey, Liz. Can you give me like twenty minutes and I’ll call you back?” Emmanuel asked, looking at his watch. He was just about finished for the night. He just needed to go through the presentation one more time.

“Yeah, sure, Manny. You go take care of your WORK. This is something that can wait around for you to finish.” Always the same ole’ Manny, work first, and family later.

“Can you give me five minutes?” he asked his partner. “Okay, okay, Elizabeth. What is it that is so important that I can’t finish this advertising deal that will ensure you get a check next month?” He asked as soon as his partner closed the door.

Really? He was going to do this now? Why the hell was her asthma acting up so much tonight? She shook the little container and inhaled once again.

“I wish you were here, Manny. I hate telling you this over the phone.”

That piqued his interest. “What Liz? Is Reese okay?”

“Reese is fine. It’s our other daughter that has me so distraught.”

“Shelby? What do you mean?”

“Shelby is coming home tomorrow, Manny. She was found yesterday.”

“You mean they are sending her remains home?”

“No, Manny. I mean, she is coming home, alive and well.”

“Liz, I think someone is playing some sort of sick joke on you. This isn’t possible.”

“I thought the same thing. I have a picture of her on my phone. It’s no doubt her, Manny.”

“What? How? I don’t understand. Where was she?” He was the one that needed to sit down now.

“I don’t have a lot of details yet, but from what I have gathered, she was accidently found. They raided a big time drug smuggler, and he had Shelby.”

“Did he hurt her?”

“I don’t think so. The agents that came to tell me said that he raised her like his own daughter and was very good to her.”

“How noble of the son of bitch. I hope I get the chance to see him face to face.”

“You won’t. They killed him.”

“Is this real, Liz?” he asked again, feeling like he too suddenly had asthma.

Liz blew out a puff of air. “I think it is, Manny.”

Emmanuel sat up straight. “Okay, I need to get this project finished and hand it over to Cody. I’ll head out first thing in the morning. What time will she arrive?”

“I’m not sure yet. Someone is supposed to call me later with the details.”

“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.”

“Is that close to Aquilla’s room?”

Her name is not Aquilla!!!! “It’s downstairs from where her room will be.”

“Maybe I can have a cot brought in or something. I need to stay with her.”

“Are you afraid she’ll run away?”

“I am afraid of that.”

Liz didn’t want her to share a room with Shelby. She wanted to bunk with her. She wanted to talk for hours into the night about mother daughter things. Her happy reunion was turning into something frightening.

Seri sat in a corner chair, staring out to the ocean. Aquilla sat on her bed, staring blankly at nothing. Where was Julius? How could he just leave her to deal with this on her own?

“Seri?” she spoke.

“Hmm?” she responded, turning to her.

“I need to go into my father’s office.”

“They kind of have it as a crime scene, Quill. We can’t disturb anything in there.”

“Who’s here?”

“Just Agent Dick Face now, everyone else left for the night.”

Aquilla smiled as much as she could.

“They won’t know. There’s something that I really would like to have from there.”

Seri took a deep breath. “Come on, but no funny business.”

“I promise.”

The two girls quietly made their way down the stairs, careful not to let Malone hear them. Aquilla opened the door and Seri closed it behind them. Seri watched as she moved the filing cabinet, shushing her as it screeched across the hardwood floor.

She lifted the vent and pushed a hidden button. Seri shook her head. Not one of the guys would have been able to locate that. Aquilla moved to the corner of the room where a small door on the floor had just been revealed.

“What’s in there, Quill?” Seri whispered.

“Mostly pictures of me growing up. I always had them taken, but my father would never put them out. He didn’t want them to get messed up,” she smiled a crooked grin, knowing her father was afraid of someone recognizing her.

Aquilla picked up the thick book of portraits, a manila folder and the envelope full of cash.

“I need to see that, Quill,” Seri couldn’t help it. She didn’t trust her.

Aquilla handed her the book, but held the folder in her hand. It only took her a second when Seri placed the book on the desk to stuff the money in the back of her shorts.

Seri flipped through the album with a smile. He did take many pictures of her. “Your mother would love to see these.”

“She can have them,” Aquilla assured her. It wasn’t the pictures she was after.

“What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the folder.

“My milestone record.”

“UH?”

“You know, a record of everything I have ever done in my life. First lost tooth, first day with no training wheels, first report card, first skinned knee, just stuff like that.”

“Are you done in here? We need to get out of here.”

Aquilla sadly looked at the brown leather desk chair. She would never see her father sitting there again, ever. He was dead. They killed him. “Yeah,” she offered with a deep breath.

“I have a king sized bed. You don’t have to sleep in the chair,” Aquilla offered, pulling down her covers for the very last time.

“Promise me you’ll keep your hands to yourself?” she teased.

“Yeah, I promise,” she chuckled. “Do you want something more comfortable to sleep in?”

“No, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I haven’t had a shower in two days.”

“Yuck, go take a shower. I’ll get you some clothes.”

“I’m not about to go in that bathroom and shower while you escape into the night.”

“Where would I escape to, Seri? We’re on a 32 mile island. How far do you think I am going to go?”

“A shower does sound awesome.”

Aquilla got up and opened her drawer. She tossed her a pair of neon green thongs that her and her friends had ordered from Victoria Secret, unbeknownst to her father, of course.

“Really Quill?”

She laughed a little. “I figured that was what you were used to,” she teased, tossing her a pair that would cover her ass. “Do you want pajama pants or a sexy nighty?”

“You’re asking for it, pajama pants, and you’re coming with me.”

“In the shower?”

“In the bathroom.”

Aquilla sat on the toilet, flipping through the photo album while Seri showered.

“Still there?” she called for the fifth time from the running water.

“Shut the hell up you’re getting on my nerves.”

“As long as your nerves didn’t run away, I’m good with that.”

Aquilla had to close the album. She couldn’t stand the nostalgia. She missed her father and Julius. Why did the stupid FBI have to go and mess everything up? She wanted to hate Seri, but she really couldn’t. She knew that it would have happened whether she was involved or not, and she kind of felt like she needed Seri right now. It was probably stupid, but she felt like Seri understood her.

“Are you married, Seri?” Aquilla asked in the dark, lying on the other side of her bed.

“No, I hate men.”

“So you are a lesbian,” she stated the fact more than asked.

“No, I am not a lesbian. I like sex with men, I just don’t like them enough to marry them.”

“I’m going to marry Julius.”

“You’re not marrying Julius, Quill. You’re going home to the states and going to find a man that loves you and gets up and goes to work like a normal human being, not one that trains women and runs drugs for a living.”

“Julius does love me. He’ll find me, you watch. I know he will.”

Seri didn’t reply. Julius was not going to find her. Julius was going to hide out like a coward.

“How long are you going to stay with me?”

“I don’t know, until the psychologist tells me I am free to go, I guess.”

“That’s so stupid. I’m not talking to some stupid bitch psychologist. She will get pretty bored wasting her hour staring at my pissed off face.”

“Be open about it, Quill. You’ll love Monica, she’s a good friend of mine. Let her help you.”

“I don’t need help. There’s nothing wrong with me. Did you lick Monica’s pussy too?”

“That’s it,” Seri sat up and snapped on the lamp. “You’re not allowed to ever mention that again. Do you understand me?”

Aquilla laughed. She couldn’t help it. She needed to laugh. She laughed until she didn’t know why she was laughing and her hysteria turned to tears.

Fuck. “Okay, you can mention it one more time, but that’s it,” Seri teased, trying to calm her sobs.

She did laugh between sobs…a little.

“You’re going to be okay, Quill. I promise,” Seri assured her, rubbing her heaving back. She knew she shouldn’t be making promises she wasn’t sure were even possible. She was worried about her. She may as well be going to another planet. It wasn’t going to be any different for her.