Captured Lies (15 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

“What’s going on? I expected to hear from you a while ago
that this had been resolved.” Geoff straightened his tie as he looked out his
office window. The expanse of the orchards with the leaves gently fluttering in
the wind, reminded him of all that he’d fought for. This was his life, his
legacy. No one would take it away from him, no one.

“Listen, asshole. I did you a
favor twenty-nine years ago. Not the other way around. You came to me. I’m handling
this situation.”

You damned well better be. Or
we all pay.

“I take it you at least know
where she is?” The silence was so long and tense he feared the man on the other
end of the phone might be having a stroke.

“For your information and in case
you want to come and take care of the problem yourself,” there was a long
silent pause, “she’s in Edmonton. You know, the capital of Alberta.”

He ground his teeth but didn’t
respond to the jibe. This man would soon be out of his life forever. The last
link they had to each other was Cassidy. If this man couldn’t do it he’d find
someone who could.

“I’ve got to go.”

The phone went dead. He looked at
the receiver in his hand for a moment, before setting it down. He might need
that someone else anyway.

“You seem stressed, Geoffrey.”

His head snapped up, his eyes
narrowed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, sneaking into my office,
Dorothy?”

“Ah, we’re going to play those
games, are we, Geoffrey. My name is Dorothea. You’re memory seems to be going.
Maybe it’s time I stopped letting you be my right hand person. Hmmm.” She
walked in as though royalty and sat down at his desk in his chair.

The rage rushed through him so
fast he was barely able to stop himself from grabbing her cane and beating the
living day lights out of her. Again. It had been too long since he’d reacted so
strongly to her.

Does she know it’s because of
me that she’s carried that cane around for 40 years?

That did bring a smile to his
face.

“Aahh. I’m glad to see you’re
going to be sensible, Geoffrey. I need to talk to you about some concerns regarding
the contract negotiations for that small winery in Southern California. It
seems we’re paying an exorbitant fee.”

Oh, you have no idea, my bitch
of a sister.
He felt elated and sad almost at the same time. He wished he’d
be there to see the look on her face when she put it all together, when she
found out there was no winery. There was no money. Sighing, he glanced outside.
It was almost sad that this amusement was coming to an end. He’d have to move
on. He took a deep breath, smiled and walked to the straight back leather chair
he kept for guests. He sat down and explained to his sister what made the
fictitious California winery worth every penny they were putting into it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Okay, I didn’t ask any questions all the way here.” Guy sat
up and looked around.

“Huh?” Bailey pulled her
unfocused gaze from the slow moving traffic in front of her.

“Where are we?”

“Edmonton.” They had driven in
silence the whole way. Her mind busy with what she needed to do.

“And we’re here because?”

Frowning, she glanced at him.
What
the hell was he talking about?
“I’m tired. I need some answers. I figured
this was the best place to get them.”

“Oh, what’s here?”

My past.
“A library. One,
that can hopefully show me some old footage of a baby being stolen from a
hospital in Quebec, twenty-nine years ago.” She glanced in her right hand
mirror, then zipped into the other lane. “Right now we’re going to find a
hotel. One that is nice, warm and has no smells.” She arched her eyebrows at
him.

“Hey, I was just trying to find
us an out of the way place. I never thought to ask the guy if they fumigated.”
He slouched down in his seat and crossed his arms.

Ignoring him, she headed
downtown. Once there, she drove into a parking garage, parked and got out.
“Let’s go get a room.” She raised her hands over her head and arched her back,
groaning as she did so. And as she did everything else, when she was ready she
went.

He scrambled out of the truck,
slammed the door, his footsteps echoing in the garage, as he raced to catch up
to her. Glaring at her, he fell into step with her. When they walked into the
lobby of one of the most expensive hotels in the city she wished she’d had a
camera.

“What in the hell are we doing
here?”

“We’re staying here. And you’re
paying for the room.” Walking up to the counter, she smiled at the person eager
to take her information.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I’d like a room with two
double beds.”

“We are not staying here,” Guy
said harshly into her ear.

Tugging her arm out of his grasp,
she smiled at the desk person and whispered out the side of her mouth, “Oh yes
we are. You’ve dragged me all over the place. You’ve uprooted my life. You tell
me someone wants me back after all this time. Well, someone’s gonna pay. And it
ain’t gonna be me.”

“We have two rooms available both
with two queen size beds. One has a Jacuzzi and one doesn’t.”

“Jacuzzi.”

“No Jacuzzi.”

The desk person kept her
professionally tolerant face on while looking at them indulgently.

“Get out your wallet.”

“I’m not…”

Bailey smiled openly at the woman
and winked, like it was a girls’ problem. “Give us a moment.” She grabbed Guy’s
hand and pulled him a few feet away. “You owe me. My life was fine until you
entered it.” She ignored his dismissal of her claim. “You are going to continue
to screw up my life until we figure out what happened when I was a baby.” She
patted his cheek. “So be a good boy and get out your damn credit card. I’m
sleeping here after I soak in the hot tub.”

“Wait. It can’t be in our names.”

“Why not?”

“Because, in case you’ve
forgotten, we have a friend or two following us. Do you want them to find us?”

She knew her cheeks went pasty
white, which must have scared him because he wrapped his arm around her and
escorted her to a plush leather chair. He fanned her face with his hands.

“Then what…”

“Give me five. I have a friend
who can get us in here under assumed names.”

She didn’t even have the energy
to question him or really even care how he was going to do it. She watched as
he walked a short distance away and made a phone call. If his hand ripping
through his hair was a sign of how the call was going, it didn’t look good. He
walked back over to her while clicking off his phone.

“Sit tight for ten minutes and
we’re in.”

She hadn’t moved from her slumped
position. She didn’t have the energy to even give a damn anymore, as to what
was happening. Exhaustion rolled over like a steam truck, leaving her limp and
drained.

His phone rang almost exactly ten
minutes later. He didn’t answer or look at it, he just tapped the screen and
that stopped it from making noise. He reached out his hand. She shifted her
coat to her left arm and let him pull her up. Within minutes they were being
escorted to the elevator. Bailey wondered if they did this for all their guests
or if they were getting special treatment because they had no luggage or
because all of a sudden they had a reservation, which they’d forgotten they’d
made. Acting had been something she’d been very good at over the years. To try
and make some semblance of normalcy to the woman she’d whispered to her that
she couldn’t tell her husband that she’d booked a Jacuzzi room, he’d never have
gone for it. But by embarrassing him he couldn’t back out of paying for it. The
woman behind the counter had bought it but still looked at them strange. It
hadn’t really dawned on her until that point how they must look. Then Guy told
the woman they had no bags. The fact that she gave them a list of all the shops
downtown and even a few coupons for discounts, hinted to Bailey that maybe they
weren’t looking their best. Bailey let her believe it was on purpose, so he’d
have to buy her new clothes.

The woman’s mouth was sure to be
chatting about this strange couple for a long time. Bailey just hoped she’d
never have to see her again, which was probably mutual.

Once they entered the luxurious
room they both went to the window to look out at the view – from twenty floors
up they could see some of the river valley and the Hotel McDonald.

“Okay, shower and get out.”

Guy turned to look at her and
spluttered, “W-what?”

“I’m getting in that hot tub.” At
his look of interest, she qualified, “Alone. You’ll go shopping for some
clothes and then I’ll go. Hmmm. I guess you’ll have to come along since you’ll
be paying for those too. Now go.” She made a pinching motion at the end of her
nose.

“Are you suggesting I smell?”

Her eyelids opened and closed as
she twisted her head away as though there was a horrid stench.

He tossed a pillow at her. “I
wouldn’t be talking too loud there, missy. Phew, Phew, Phew.”

She chucked the pillow back at
him. “Go, dammit.”

“Bossy woman. I happen to be
paying for this place,” he grumbled but headed into the bathroom.

She waited for him to get in the
shower before she put a few inches of water in the hot tub. Stripping off her
shirt, she washed quickly, aware that at any moment he could come out.
Finishing up, she drained the tub and sat on the bed flipping through TV
stations. She was watching the shopping channel when he came out twenty minutes
later.

He was rubbing his hair with a
towel. He eyed the show with disgust. “How long do I have to be gone?”

“An hour and a half. Two, if you
want to be a gentleman.” He pulled on his t-shirt grimacing as he did. She
tried not to notice how it stretched taught over his well muscled, slightly
hairy chest. She stared hard at the television.

“I’ll meet you right here.
Right?”

“Of course.” She shoved him out
of the room, leaving him in the hallway. She checked her watch and waited five
minutes then opened the door and peeked out, checking both directions. No one
was there. She quickly made her way to the elevator. Once on the ground, her
steps quickened as she left the hotel, keeping an eye out for where Guy might
have gone. Running across the street, she entered the building that should hold
some answers for her.

The library was large and spread
out. What she needed was situated in the far back corner. Sitting down at a
computer, she glanced around before plugging in the flash drive. Sorting
through folders, she had no idea what she was looking for and she knew her time
was limited. Associates - she clicked on it. All the files were listed by
initials. It didn’t look right so she got out of there. Aperture – no idea what
that even meant. Cabin - opening that file, she glanced at all the subfolders.
None of the initials made sense. Choosing at random, she started to open them.
It wasn’t until she noticed that there were two folders that were similar – D.
Z. and Do. Z. that she got a funny feeling. Clicking on D.Z., she started
opening files.

Doug Zajic

– Paying $12,000.00 per month –
cabin fees.

That was all it said, except for
the number 345 in the top right corner. Not having a clue what any of it meant,
she closed it and opened the other file – Do. Z.

Donna Zajic

– Pay out $8,000.00 per month –
cabin fees

There was nothing else.
People
renting the place? A little pricey.
Closing out those files, she saw one
labeled, My Legacy. She clicked on it. There were several subfolders in there.
All listed with initials. She clicked on the D. Z. file – it came up as weird
letters and shapes. She tried the Do. Z. file – same thing. It looked like they
were ruined or something. She wondered if carrying them around in her pocket
had done that.
Crap!

She clicked on other files at
random, most opened up with weird shapes or had one line she could read that
had an amount and a cabin fee. Lund had done well off with that little place in
northern B.C. But it was all very confusing.
Why did I need to get this,
Mom? Is this one of our tail chases?

At the age of twelve, that’s what
she’d dubbed their sudden moves - tail chases. There had never seemed any rhyme
or reason to when or why they’d relocated. They just up and left, sometimes ending
back where they’d started, like a dog chasing his tail, going round and round
but not really going anywhere.

Banging on the desk as she found
another scrambled file, she flopped forward in the chair.

Her fingers dug into the sides of
her head as she tried to make sense of it all.

A cabin, where her mom had hid a
picture and her favorite stuffed toy. Was that the only reason she had needed
to go there. It just kept playing over and over in her head, that she might not
be who she thought she was all those years. That she may not have even belonged
to the woman who raised her. That somewhere she may have relatives. People who
were looking for her, wanted her.

Her nostrils flared as she
struggled to stop the sob that threatened to rip through her chest. Closing her
eyes tightly, squeezing her ribs firmly with her arms and taking several deep
breaths was enough to stop the flood this time. She felt like she was being
split in two.
When will it make sense?

Frustrated at not finding what
she wanted, she closed all the files and folders. Maybe the internet would give
her some answers. Having no idea how to find what she was looking for, she
typed into the search engine – newspapers from twenty-nine years ago.