Chapter 3

The ride back to Houston was quiet, and the tension was tangible.

You see, in the real world, it is a lot harder to determine whether or not you’re being followed than the movies make it seem. That is, if the person you suspect of following you has at least half a brain cell at their disposal, in which case you will be followed by multiple people. And it will be especially easy for them if the list of probable destinations for your journey is known. In our case, it was not only known, but it was also very short.

Given that we just had my mother released from jail, we would either drive into Austin, towards the lawyer’s office, or take the road to Houston, towards the company offices or my home.

So, whoever is interested in following us can do so with one person watching us at the jail’s gate, while multiple cars wait at different points down the possible routes. Whenever we reach one of those points, the waiting car pulls in behind us, while the car that had been following us so far can simply take a left turn before speeding along an alternative route to get ahead of us and wait at the next checkpoint. This constant change in cars makes it hard to recognize patterns. That’s how we do it ourselves when a client requests us to stay out of sight.

Consequently, Bill, Micheal, and I spent that ride on high alert while memorizing license plates and car models, so we weren’t in the mood for small talk. The lawyer had been asked to drive in his own car, since, honestly, we simply didn’t trust him, so he also couldn’t help lighten the mood in the car. All the while my mother alternated between studying my appearance and watching her fidgeting hands in her lap, not even attempting to initiate a conversation.

By the time we arrived in the company parking lot, we had to admit: Either nobody was following us, or we failed to identify them. Honestly, I would’ve preferred a situation in which we were followed and verified it. At least then we would’ve known for sure and didn’t have to deal with this looming feeling of uncertainty.

I told Mom to stay in the car until we did a quick check of the area. Just when I was opening the car for her after Breston had parked his car as well, Bill spoke up.

“So, how d’you wanna do this?”

“Depends. When’s Tim supposed to be in?” I asked back, and, for some reason, saw the old man smirk at me.

“Usually at four.” I checked my watch and realized that it was still an hour away. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already downstairs. Why?”

“He has copies of all the evidence Breston showed me. I asked him to bring it. Figured we could maybe learn something new if we go over it with her present,” I said while gesturing towards Mom.

Mom, for her part, was following our exchange with great interest while standing rather close behind me ever since she got out of the car, though she was careful to not make actual contact.

“Sounds like a plan,” Bill nodded. “Remember what I told you about this paranoid little...” He stopped as he threw a quick glance at the lawyer. “Well, he had rather specific ideas for the remodeling of the basement. So, it’s probably the most bugproof room in the whole damn building.”

“Oh!” came the astounded comment from Breston, before looking at me somewhat expectantly.

Instead of going into any detail, though, I just opted to lead the way while hoping Tim was already in his office like Bill suspected. While I had found the sudden, and quite unexpected, resolve to protect my mother, I still had no fucking idea how to handle being close to her again. So, the thought of sitting with her in a room for a full hour, while not having anything to do, was ... agitating.

The entire way down into the basement, Mom stayed exactly one step behind me, always matching my pace with her hands folded in front of her, and her head stayed slightly bowed. Even when we stepped into Tim’s office, she maintained that demeanor until we got to a stop. Then, she made sure to also keep her body slightly hidden behind my own. Strangely, it didn’t feel like she was trying to actually hide. It irritated me until I remembered that this was the exact same way she acted whenever the senator was around. Then it irritated me even more.

It was her way of broadcasting that he was the one in charge, and she was his appendage. He was the one that mattered whenever they went anywhere together, so people had to address him even if they wanted something from her. The way she positioned herself was something she learned the hard way, to make sure she didn’t take any attention away from her husband. Needless to say, back when I was still a teenager living with them, seeing this always got my blood boiling.

The big question was, why did she do that same thing with me now!?

“Impressive,” I suddenly heard Breston’s admiring voice, and, upon turning his way, saw his eyes wander around the room.

He was right. Last year, after Tim graduated from being a freelancer, which he was because his workable hours as a full-fledged employee at the firm would be limited by labor laws over being a minor, he convinced Bill to remodel the server room into an actual office. While it originally was just a bare basement room with a metal fire door containing the server, now it looked like they used the theme of Tim’s apartment but turned it up a notch.

Upon entering the room, the first thing you saw was the server surrounded by metal racks of networking equipment. Everything was connected with neatly organized and unicolored cable work, featuring blinking lights on all of it. And I had no idea what any of that stuff did.

On the right was Tim’s desk, which was adorned with two monitors. A third one was hanging on the wall, displaying four windows with plain white text on black backgrounds for the clients to see. On the left was a little seating area that Bill and Tim used whenever clients came to talk about their camera installations. Every piece of furniture in the room had either shiny white surfaces or used a slightly blue tinted glass, which, weirdly, went along well with the dark gray network equipment and light gray cable work.

In short, this entire room was built to satisfy the expectations TV shows and movies had set for our clients when talking to a highly successful techie, and Tim made no secret of how funny he thought this was whenever the topic came up. Hearing how this whole spectacle worked on Breston as well would, later on, surely be yet another anecdote he’ll use to make fun of such people.

Immediately after I heard Breston’s praise, I heard Tim clear his throat, announcing that Bill was, once again, correct in his assessment. Instead of saying anything, though, he placed a finger over his lips to signal us to stay silent while he moved over to a microwave-like container next to the server racks, opened it up, and placed his phone in it. Then he looked at us expectantly.

While I followed his example immediately, Breston seemed reluctant. Mom only moved to maintain her position behind me. Though, she didn’t have a phone anymore, so the only problem was Breston.

“Is that really necessary?” he asked, causing Tim to roll his eyes and nod. With a final sigh, Breston placed his phone in the box.

“Thank you,” Tim said after closing the box.

“What is this, anyway?” Breston eyed the little container suspiciously as it seemed to release a barely audible buzzing sound ever since Tim had closed it up and pressed a button at the side of the thing. Since it looked somewhat like a microwave, those sounds apparently made him worry about what was happening to his phone.

“It’s basically a soundproof container that also blocks all electrical signals. Originally, it played white noise to ensure any recording devices wouldn’t pick up whatever was talked about. Though, I changed it up a little.”

“Changed it how?” I asked, feeling a smirk form on my face as I had my experiences with Tim’s sense of humor. He was still a teenager, after all.

“It now plays music instead of white noise. A song called ‘Muffin Purper-Gurk’ by Eskimo Callboy,” he deadpanned with a straight face, and, despite how emotionally taxing the day had been so far, I had a hard time containing my laughter.

“Why?” I simply asked in a voice that let everyone know how much I was already used to his antics. By God, that boy had changed since he started working here. And not necessarily for the better.

“I assure you; this is for purely professional reasons!” he proclaimed with a stern nod. “If someone has turned one of these phones into a listening device, some poor schmuck will have to listen to that song over and over again, for as long as this meeting lasts, just to make sure it really didn’t pick up anything interesting. If I just used white noise, that would be a boring task. But with what’s now playing in this box, chances are they’ll give up halfway through.”

He delivered that speech in such a serious tone, I almost believed him.

“I actually wanted to install a radio transceiver that broadcasts static from 900MHz to 2.5GHz,” he continued as he gestured for us to sit at the little table used for client meetings. “That turned out to be illegal, though, so ... That’s the next best thing.”

“Well, it seems your colleagues are well prepared, Paul,” Breston chimed in, still sounding somewhat impressed, albeit a little peeved. “However, I usually use my phone to record conversations myself. It’s been a while since I took handwritten notes, so I’m afraid I don’t have anything like that prepared.”

At least that was an explanation for his reluctance from earlier.

“Sorry about that,” Tim said in an actually apologetic voice as he opened a drawer beneath his desk and pulled out a legal pad and a pen for Breston. Then he moved over to a safe he used for the backup drives and pulled out the box containing all the photos I had left with him for further analysis. After that, he turned towards the door.

“Wait!” I called out as I got up from my seat to stop him. “Tim, sorry, but there’s no way I could explain the photo analysis to...”

My voice trailed off as I noticed that Tim wasn’t looking at me while I spoke. He was looking past me to my right. When I turned to see what he was watching so intently, I found that Mom had gotten up as well. Like the whole time since we arrived here, she was again one step behind me and slightly hidden by my body, with her hands folded in front of herself while watching my every move. When I looked back at Tim, I saw his head had slightly tilted sideways and his eyes had narrowed. Without taking his eyes off her at first, he spoke up.

“If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. But I’m not sure how much help I could be. I’m better with the technical stuff than the actual case work.”

“That’s all I need. Thank you.” I nodded before he took a seat next to Breston.

“I guess, first, we should bring Ms. Anderson up to speed regarding the results of our investigation so far,” Breston said, taking the initiative.

Curiously, this, again, caused Tim to watch my mother’s reaction. Which consisted of her looking at me with big, questioning eyes, though I had no idea what exactly she wanted from me. That is until she spoke.

“Y ... You investigated?” Her voice was almost quivering. And, somehow, the most concerning thing about this was how strange her behavior seemed to me. Everything she did and said, and her demeanor as a whole since we picked her up, was a total mystery to me. I just couldn’t make sense of it.

“Yes,” I confirmed her question. “Breston showed up in my apartment two days ago, asking for my help.”

“I asked him not to.” Now her voice was barely more than a whisper as she stopped looking at me to instead watch her folded hands resting on the table.

“Well, fuck you too, Mom,” I rebuffed her in an admittedly rude tone, causing her to flinch and the lawyer to look at me in shock. I just had a hard time controlling my emotions after how stressful the past two days turned out to be. “I can’t say I’m surprised you’d rather go to prison for a few years than be forced to be in my presence, but your wish went out the window when your lawyer ran out of options. And, as far as we can tell, it’s a real possibility that the Dick you worship so much is about to put a hit out on you. So, I strongly suggest you accept this new situation quickly.”

“I’m afraid he’s right, Ms. Anderson,” Breston jumped in after clearing his throat to regain some composure after my sudden outburst. “One of the major events you don’t know about, yet, is that Mr. Carver was regrettably taken in a house fire two nights ago.”

Now, I’m not entirely sure whether it was my little outburst or Breston’s part that got to her, but she was now visibly shaking while her frightened eyes darted around the three men sitting around the table with her. Though, this made it obvious that she, at the very least, also thought her ex-husband was capable of murder. The intensity of her reaction, however, coupled with her demeanor during her jail release, told me that she possibly even expected him to be responsible for that fire.

After a few seconds of her panicky behavior, she released a shaking breath before going back to studying her hands and nodding.

“What do you need?” she finally asked.

“Well...” Breston started while throwing a side glance at Tim. “Paul’s colleague here took a closer look at the pictures your former husband presented as proof of your affair. And, apparently, he found some inconsistencies that prove they were altered. At least to a degree.”

This caused Mom to suddenly look at Tim before her face slightly contorted for some reason I did not immediately understand. Though, Tim seemed to immediately know what bothered her.

“Yes, I’m old enough to look at them without getting your son and lawyer thrown in jail for sharing them with me,” he smirked.

“I’m sorry,” Mom quickly replied in a sad voice. “It’s just...”

“ ... that I look like the I.T. equivalent of Doogie Howser. I get it,” Tim finished her sentence, and suddenly I heard Breston unsuccessfully try to suppress a snort, while I could see a slight twitch in the corners of my mother’s mouth before Tim continued.

“To get back on topic, we can prove that at least the timestamps on the photos have been artificially placed. The timeline they’re creating doesn’t add up. But, after Paul left, I took a closer look at the timestamps we know are wrong. I couldn’t find any artifacts around the lettering on any of them. Now, I already explained to Paul that it would be hard to find that kind of evidence for digital manipulation on a printed photo, so this is just a gut feeling I have, but I think that the originals didn’t come with timestamps in the first place. They were ALL placed manually on the printed versions, to intentionally create that false timeline.”

“What do you mean by ‘timeline’?” Mom asked carefully, prompting Breston to speak up again.

“According to the photographic evidence presented at court, you ... consummated your affair with Mr. Carver at least twice. We...”

“That’s wrong,” Mom interrupted him with this sudden but quiet statement.

“Yes. According to your son’s findings, the timestamps were manipulated to make the pictures of one of your engagements look like they show two different encounters,” Breston finished his previous statement. Though, Mom just shook her head, signaling that this wasn’t what she meant.

“No. I didn’t have an affair,” she clarified, studying her now fidgeting hands while her eyes were slowly moving in my direction, though they never actually fell onto my face.

“Breston said you admitted to the affair,” I said in an accusing tone that I had not planned on. While it would be another clue for where our investigation should be heading if the whole affair was made up, the thought of her not having an affair upset me somehow.

The fidgeting of her hands intensified, as did her eye movement, as her head sunk even lower. This was clearly uncomfortable for her, so I did the only thing I could think of to lessen her embarrassment: Reduce the amount of people hearing her confession. I motioned toward Tim, who immediately understood and got up.

“Well, my part’s done. I’m gonna go and prepare some coffee for everyone,” he said, followed by a whispered “Text me when it’s safe to come back in” as he walked past me.

“Come on, Mom. Talk to us,” I addressed her again as soon as the door had closed behind Tim, causing her to take a deep breath before answering.

“I admitted to ... to the ... sex.” She carefully avoided making eye contact as she said this. “I never admitted to having an affair.”

“I don’t understand,” Breston remarked, and I felt annoyance well up inside me. Whether about my mother’s behavior or Breston misrepresenting a client’s statement, I couldn’t tell. Though I had to admit, this made even less sense to me. While I had trouble believing she would go behind Dick’s back and have an affair, her doing so for a measly one-night stand was even less likely.

What followed was barely audible mumbling on my mother’s part that caused both Breston and me to move our heads a little closer to her, in an attempt to hear what she was saying. We still had to ask her to speak up, and when she did, it was still barely even a whisper.

“He told me to.”

While Breston still looked confused, I immediately understood what she just admitted and, despite her saying it in a barely audible whisper, it hit me like she had screamed it directly into my ear. I also suddenly understood why the notion of her not having an affair caused my mood to plummet.

She did sleep with Carver. But it wasn’t an affair that could have signaled a decrease in her total obedience to the senator. She had slept with Carver because Senator Dick had told her to do it, proving her still unwavering submission to the asshole.

“You gotta be shittin’ me!” was all I could muster as a reply, ignoring the way she flinched away from me while muttering apologies.

“Now, now, Paul, please stay calm,” Breston scolded me for my loss of control, before turning his attention to my mother who was now silently crying. “Ms. Anderson ... Please excuse me, but I’m afraid we will need you to elaborate on that.”

She kept quiet for about a minute, seemingly contemplating the best way to explain. Or gathering the courage to explain. I couldn’t tell.

“It started around mid-April,” she began her tale, her voice now full of resignation. “I was getting groceries, came out of the store, and the car simply wouldn’t start. It was completely dead, even though it was fine on the way to the store. And, after I had tried a few times, a man knocked on the window, told me he was a car mechanic, and asked me to open the hood.”

“How convenient,” Breston commented drily. “I assume that man was Steven Carver?”

“Y-Yes,” Mom confirmed meekly. “I was reluctant at first, but I knew that waiting for a towing truck would take a lot longer, so ... I opened the hood for him. I barely had enough time to take off the seatbelt before he told me to try starting the car again. When I turned the key, it immediately sprang to life like I was used to. Like nothing was ever wrong with it. I tried to offer him some money in return, but he refused. Instead, he ... asked me out for coffee.”

“Smooth,” I commented in a voice just as dry as Breston’s earlier, before looking at him. “If the car really was completely dead, and he managed to fix it within seconds without any tools ... I’d say he disconnected her battery while she was in the store, and then waited out of sight to show up and play the hero.”

“Wouldn’t it draw some unwanted attention if he played around with a car in broad daylight?” Breston asked with a doubting look.

“No,” I shook my head. “If Dick is behind all this, he probably provided him with a spare key to her car. And most people are not exactly eager to offer help unless it’s a woman or child needing it. Trust me, I installed enough GPS trackers on cars to be sure about that. If they see some dude get out of a car before tinkering with the hood, they actively avoid noticing him so they don’t get asked for help,” I explain before turning my attention back to Mom. “So, how did you react to his coffee offer?”

“I told him that I was married and tried to refuse,” she stated firmly before her tone turned insecure again. “But he ... He looked so lost when I did. He apologized for giving off a false impression and told me that he really just wanted a coffee. He had spent the last few years taking care of his mother, who suffered from dementia, and basically lost all his friends during that time. Now, after she passed away, he moved to Austin to start over and just wanted to get to know people.”

“And so, you felt pity and agreed?” I asked calmly, trying hard to suppress any feelings I may have had regarding that whole charade.

“No! Not without...” she started before lowering her head in apparent shame again. “Not without Richard’s permission.”

I had to admit, while that part fell in line with how I remembered her from the day I left their house, and I knew now that she hadn’t changed, it still kinda hurt when she made comments like that.

“However ... I did accept his number,” she added ruefully as if she had read my mind and now wanted to downplay her subservience to Dick. “Over the next few weeks, Richard seemed less and less interested in me and what I did. I kept asking what he wanted me to do, but ... he just didn’t care. When I learned that he had to attend a fundraiser, I made sure I was presentable.”

I had to suppress a growl from escaping my throat upon hearing the way she phrased that. I remembered the word ‘presentable’ as Dick’s favorite way to tell her she did a good job in dolling herself up, without actually praising her for doing something right. He didn’t see much need for using the carrot in addition to the stick.

“But as he opened the front door,” she continued, “he suddenly told me that I wasn’t needed, suggested I call a friend to spend time with instead, and left me standing in the hallway as he just walked out by himself.”

“Has he ever done that before?” I asked, unable to recall a single instance of him giving her any form of freedom.

“No,” she confirmed my thoughts.

“So, that’s when you called Carver?”

“I ... don’t have any friends,” she admitted meekly. “Steven’s number was the only one I had.”

I could only shake my head as I gritted my teeth and felt all the old anger I harbored for them resurface. It was a mystery to me how a fully developed human being could put themselves into a position like that.

“So, how did your relationship with Carver play out?” Breston asked, now fully back to his calm and professional mannerism.

“The first time we met, we just talked,” she said in a defensive tone while raising her hands in an equally defensive gesture. “We discovered that we have all the same interests. I told him that I like modern art, to which he started talking about his visit to the MoMA in New York. I told him about liking Jazz, to which he suddenly pulled out his phone and showed me an ad for a street fair the following week, and their main act would be a Jazz Band. When I told him about liking movies, he immediately suggested we visit the cinema together, listing off all the classics and genres I also love.”

After the revelation of how far she was truly gone, I had trouble even looking at the woman. Though, at this point, I actually couldn’t help rolling my eyes at how obviously planned and coordinated everything about her encounters and conversations with Carver sounded. And, when my eyes then did come to rest on her face, I noticed the trails of tears now openly running down her cheeks.

Was she just pitying herself? Was this the result of some form of embarrassment because she had to tell us about all of this? Or did she actually enjoy her time with Carver, and was now also realizing how she got played?

“It ... it was nice,” she continued. “Just having someone to talk with. But when I came home, Richard was still gone. He only came back the next morning.”

The way she said that last part sounded weird and, going by Breston’s expression, he had picked up on that as well.

“Are you implying something?” he asked, to which Mom kept quiet for a few seconds before answering.

“When he came home the next morning, he was in the middle of a phone call. He walked right past me, not even acknowledging me when I offered him his morning coffee, and ... spoke about how much he enjoyed her...” Mom’s voice dropped to another whisper, as she closed her eyes in shame. “ ... her lips on him.”

“Was that unusual?” I asked calmly. While Breston looked like this was some kind of big deal, it wasn’t exactly surprising for me to hear that Dick wasn’t big on honoring vows. And, again, it took Mom a few seconds before she answered.

“It was never... that obvious. If that’s what he wanted, it wasn’t my place to tell him otherwise. But, usually, he was more discreet.”

I quietly groaned upon hearing that. For three reasons, actually.

First, because she used the term ‘usually’. Second, because of her belief that it was her husband’s right to have extramarital fun while she had to get his permission just to have coffee with a friend. And, third, because, as she told us that part, she actually sounded like a child defending an opinion it knows is wrong, but is too stubborn to admit it.

“So,” Breston started after deflating a little. “Even if you had been included in the divorce hearing, and had a chance to inform the judge of all this ... legally speaking, he had your consent for his extramarital affairs, so you couldn’t have counter filed under adultery yourself.”

“And if she tried,” I added, “she wouldn’t have any proof beyond her word, while he has pictures. So, we can’t even challenge the ruling with the information that he told her to sleep with Carver.”

There was a moment of silence as Breston started crossing out some of his notes and the collective mood of the assembled people in the room dropped even more. Trying to get this over with, I turned my attention back to Mom.

“So ... what then? How did it get to you sharing a sleazy car salesman’s bed?” I asked and saw her bottom lip quiver slightly before she gathered herself to answer my question. Despite the pause she took, her voice still held a barely noticeable trembling.

“Richard no longer wanted me to accompany him to any events. Every time he left the house, he again told me to call a friend to spend the evening with them instead. So ... I did. Steven was still the only other personal contact on my phone besides Richard, and we had become good friends over the five months since that day he helped me with my car. Then, one day ... Richard brought that woman home with him.”

“Did you recognize her?” I threw in, though Mom just shook her head before she continued with her tale.

“I only saw her in passing, but I’m still sure it wasn’t someone I know,” she said while shaking her head. “Like usual, Richard didn’t acknowledge my presence as he led her directly into our bedroom. But, before he went in after her, he told me to wait for him in the hallway. Then he left the door a crack open, so I could hear what they were doing.”

Throwing a side glance at Breston, I could see a look of ... let’s call it ‘strong disapproval’ on his face. It was bordering on disgust. However, I have to admit that I also felt a mixture of emotions after learning that part of my mother’s story.

A part of me felt empathy for her since it was obvious that, despite her defending Dick’s actions after allowing it all to happen in the first place, it still hurt her. A lot, actually. The sounds of sobbing accompanying her shaking shoulders made that rather obvious. Another part of me was pitying her for what she was. After all, she was my loving and caring mother once upon a time, at least for the first ten years of my life before she took a backseat to my abuse. Maybe that was the reason why the biggest part of my emotional landscape was filled with a murderous desire, as I allowed myself to indulge in violent fantasies featuring my former stepfather in the main role.

“When they were done,” Mom continued, barely able to control her voice. “He came out of the bedroom, not even bothering to put some clothes on, led me to the kitchen, and told me to prepare drinks for him and his girlfriend. And, while I did as he asked me, he told me how much better she was compared to me.” By now, she had lost the battle to control her voice, and I noticed she could barely contain herself. “When I apologized, he suddenly got very angry with me. He started shouting that he deserved someone who knew what they were doing, someone who was skilled at pleasuring their husband. After he calmed down some, he made me look him in the eyes, and told me to call Steven.”

Hearing that, I perked up.

“He told me to spend a night with him,” she continued. “Maybe then I’d learn how good I had it during all those years we were married, and maybe learn how to properly please a man. So ... that’s what I did.”