Chapter 44: Random Acts

I wanted to call Bob but I couldn't trust his phone, and if the Sandman was as familiar with Rebecca as he seemed to be then he likely knew about Amy and would wonder why we were even talking about her, given her medical status. Calling Rebecca would have been safer; but at the moment I figured she had a lot more important things on her mind. Besides, since she couldn't interact with Amy at all she was likely the last person who may be able to offer insight into what was going on. It was one of those times that my heart truly ached for Shannon; she had always been good at seeing what others missed. It was her special gift and I knew that I would always miss her at times like this when I needed someone to talk to.

Something must have shown on my face because suddenly Allison leaned her head on my shoulder and said, "I miss her too."

I kissed the top of her head and then pulled her down into my lap and hugged her. "So how was school? Wait, wasn't Roxy supposed to come over today?"

She gave me an eye roll, crinkled up her nose and said, "Cramps, she stayed home today. It's only her second period and I guess it's hitting her pretty hard."

"Poor thing," I said sympathetically.

"Tell me about it. What are we going to tell mom and dad?"

"Do you see any benefit to telling them? As far as I can see all it would do would be to stress them out for no reason. If something is going to happen, there isn't much we can do about it, but if they start acting funny all of a sudden..."

"I know; it would attract attention. It was kind of a rhetorical question; I just wanted to see if we were on the same page. C'mon," she said, getting up and pulling on my hand. "We better get dinner started."

It was only Monday and my mother was already having another tough week. She was still looking for someone to ship things to their new owners, plus she had started getting calls from Realtors wanting to list the house. That little development was really pissing her off. She hadn't solicited anyone, they had apparently just seen the obituaries in the paper and taken it upon themselves to call and offer their services. There had also been calls from people offering to take the house 'off our hands' and help us 'avoid the hassles' of selling it. That is, if we were willing to let them have it for about a hundred grand less than it was worth. She really wasn't having a good day.

While I was listening to her I had a thought and decided to make a phone call after dinner.

"Mrs. Parry? Hi, my name is James Matthews, my friend Mark Davis worked for your husband, I was wondering if I may be able to speak to him for a moment?"

"Sure, he's right here, it was so sad what happened to them. I'm sorry for your loss; let me get Ray for you."

"Thank you."

There was silence for a few seconds and then a gruff voice answered, "Hello."

"Good evening Mr. Parry, I'm sorry to bother you at home, my name is James Matthews, Mark Davis was my best friend."

"You have good taste in friends, Matthews, Davis was a good kid. You the one who introduced him to that sissy, Steve Dennis?"

I had to chuckle at that one, "Yes sir, and I can't wait to see the look on his face when I tell him you said that."

He laughed too. "Yeah, I'd like to see that myself. What can I do for you, son?"

"Actually sir, I'm hoping you can help us with a little business problem we're having. My parents are executors for the Davis's estate and we need to ship a bunch of stuff to other members of the family. I was hoping, since you're in the warehouse business, that you might be able to recommend someone for some of the larger items. The little stuff we can send UPS, but some of it is too big."

"Are you thinking of stuff like washers, dryers, refrigerators, that sort of thing?"

"Mostly, yes."

"Thought so," he said knowingly. "My advise is don't waste your time. Appliances are too big and bulky to ship economically. If they're not close enough to haul it in a pickup or rent a truck, then it's going to be cheaper to buy a one new. Packaging and shipping is just too expensive and without the proper packaging they're too easy to damage. If the people getting the stuff can't afford it, then sell the stuff locally and just send them the money to help them out."

"I see, thanks for telling me that, I'll pass it on to my mother. What about things like bed frames and other furniture?"

"Furniture is not really that big a problem; you don't have to worry about dents or damaged circuitry. It's bulky but it doesn't usually require a lot of packaging, just wrap it in plastic to protect the surface and go. I'll have my secretary get you some names and phone numbers. Just call the office tomorrow after school and she'll have them for you."

"I have a meet after school tomorrow; I won't be able to call until Wednesday."

"What kind of meet?"

"I run cross country, sir."

"A runner, eh, you ever think about playing football? Always room for a good runner on a football team. Can you catch?"

"Yes, but I'm not built for football. I'm only about five-eight, maybe one sixty, I think it'd be like a pin ball game with me as the ball."

"Son, you don't have to be big to play football. There have been a lot of great receivers under six feet tall, you just have to work a little harder. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen? Hell, you got plenty of time to grow. Pump a little iron, build up enough muscle to keep from getting hurt and you could do well. You should think about it."

I had to chuckle, "You know, the first thing Mr. Dennis asked Mark when they met was if you had tried to get him to try out. In fact, Mark was supposed to have you call. Did he remember to tell you?"

"Sure did, we're having Steve and his wife over next weekend. We're looking forward to seeing old 'Dennis the Menace' again. It's been a long time. That's another reason to go out son, the kind of friends you make on a football field are the kind you keep all your life. You should think about it? What's cross country going to teach you? How to run away? Football is about meeting your problems head on and finding a way through them. Those are the kinds of lessons that get you ahead in life."

I had to smile, "I'll think about it, sir."

"You do that. Tell you what, you call me back tomorrow night and I'll have that list for you. How'd you get my number anyway?"

I had to lie a little bit about that one, "Mark had your number in his cell phone." That part was true enough, but it wasn't where I'd gotten the number.

"Mark was a good kid and a hard worker; we really miss him around the warehouse. You wouldn't be looking for a job would you?"

Like I had spare time... "No sir, not at the moment, but if I run into anyone at school who is, I'll have them call you, at the office that is. Thank you for your time Mr. Parry."

Mom was thrilled that I had solved her shipping problem. What Parry had said about the bigger appliances caught her attention as well. She made a couple phone calls to the grandmothers and confirmed that the kids who had requested the washer, dryer, and fridge; a younger cousin of Karen's and her husband, had only been married for about six months and were still relying on the laundromat. The refrigerator they had they had bought used and it had already broken on them once, but with her pregnant and off work they couldn't afford to buy a new one. Mom and dad talked about it and decided to just donate the Davis's appliances and then arrange to have new ones delivered to the newlyweds as a late wedding gift from Tom and Karen. The estate could certainly afford it.

Then it was homework and finally I could crawl into bed. Allison and I helped each other work off the last of the nervous energy and stress, and then we headed off to see what the night had in store.

Rebecca wasn't likely to show up for quite some time so we looked for other endeavors. It didn't take long to find them, as we quickly found ourselves in an all too familiar closet waiting for the all too familiar tread of work boots on hardwood. We didn't have to wait long.

"God, what I would like to do to that asshole," Jamie said.

"Hi, where have you been? I don't think I've heard from you since we ran into those morons in the hall at school."

"We'll talk about them later. Don't forget you need to stay and finish this to see if there is anything we've been missing by leaving early. After all, it has changed in other ways."

"Gee, thanks for reminding me."

It turned out she was right and there was more, but that doesn't mean I was happy to stay. After the usual stuff ran out the scene changed; suddenly the girl was several years older, no longer a stick figure, she was taller, and had actual curves in all the right places. As with most girls, her breasts were the most noticeable change. She had gone from nothing to at least a C-cup in the intervening time. Her father, step-father, whoever this jerk was had grown as well, fatter that is. He had also apparently decided to share his perversions. The girl was now kneeling in front of three men, alternately sucking them all and jerking off the ones not currently in her mouth. Eventually they all came within moments of each other, all doing their best to shoot their spendings into her open mouth. They were not very good shots. She never even slowed down but immediately began working to restore their flagging members. I wouldn't have thought it possible but all three of them were fully erect within moments. The next round included them taking turns with her other openings. Apparently they had a special treat in store for her today. Judging from the tears and the way she bit her lip I guessed this was her first experience with anal sex. Preparation had never been dear old dad's strong point and today was no different as they made no attempt to get her ready for such an intrusion. Heck I'd never even done it myself, but I knew you didn't just line it up and slam it in.

My only experience had been watching Tim and Cindy at the hotel on prom night and it had taken them a good ten minutes to get her ready. They had started with one, then two fingers in her to stretch and relax the muscles before he had finally pressed himself into her, not to mention of lot of the lube that she had brought just for the occasion, and even then Tim had gone really slow at first. These assholes just drove in and started hammering away like they'd hit oil and want to pump it out before it evaporated. After the first one at least it wasn't as painful but she certainly wasn't having a good time.

Finally it was over and we could leave.

"Well, that was downright depressing to watch," Allison said once we got to the beach.

"No kidding. All we learned was that the abuse continued for several years at least. There was still nothing to point to who any of them were."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that we're actually seeing his dreams instead of hers?" She asked.

"What?"

"You know, maybe all this time you've had it wrong, maybe it's him having the dreams over and over out of guilt for what he did to her all those years?"

Something about that struck a nerve. "What do you mean all those years?" I held up my hand to stop her from answering too soon. "No, take a minute and think about it, are you saying that based just on what we saw tonight or is there some other reason?"

She paused and thought about what I had asked for a moment before finally saying, "Huh! That's so weird; I hadn't even thought about it but you're right. I just have this feeling that it went on for a long time, and I had it even before tonight."

"Me too," I said. "But it didn't occur to me until you said it. Weird."

"Yeah very, so what now? Do we work on Vegas; wait for Rebecca to show up; go talk to Kurtz about what he thinks his killer self is going to do when he finds out he's been ripped off?"

"I've been thinking a lot about what Bob said, about going to the Atkins woman in Washington, this might be a good time to look into it? What do you think?"

She hesitated for a few seconds before answering. "It scares me. I know it has strong possibilities for keeping you safe, but I just don't like the idea of anyone else knowing what you can do, especially someone in the government."

"Yeah, no joke, but..."

Jamie interrupted before I could finish the thought, "You guys are looking at this wrong."

"Really? Hold on a second."

"Hi, Jamie," Allison said. "Obviously you have an opinion or Jimmy wouldn't have stopped in the middle of a sentence like that. Why don't you come out and discuss it with us? It will make it a lot easier, and besides, I haven't seen you all day and I miss you."

I scooted over to make room and she slipped out to sit between us. The first thing she did was to lean over and kiss Allison on the cheek.

"You are so sweet," she said.

"It's the company I keep," Allison said with a smile, leaning her head on Jamie's shoulder. "I really do miss you, you know. I'm not just saying that."

Jamie put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. "I know."

As I sat there thinking about how nice it was to have another sister a thought jumped out at me. I rolled it around in my head, debating whether or not to even bring it up. I really felt like I needed to, but would it be better to talk to them about it individually or just throw it out there? Both options had their up and down sides, I wished for a fleeting moment that it had never occurred to me, but I knew that now that it had, I had to deal with it.

"I don't mean to change the subject, but something just occurred to me. Jamie, this is a very unfair question to ask -- I thought about not even bringing it up, even about talking to Bob and Allison about it when you weren't around, but I don't think that would be right either. I even thought about discussing it with you privately but it concerns Allison almost as much as it does me and you."

By now they were both looking at me expectantly and I suddenly found it difficult to make eye contact with either of them. "Jamie, I want you to think about this before you answer, it's something that we can talk about if you want but ultimately the decision has to be yours, and I want you to know that no matter what you decide, I will support your decision. Allison, this is a lot like not being able to discuss Amber with you without her permission. Kind of a secret, Jamie's secret, so it has to be up to her what to do with it. It's something you need and deserve to know about, but you have to decide now, before I bring it up, that you will abide by her decision or I can't tell you."

Allison was already shaking her head about halfway through my little speech.

"You mean whether or not she wants to meet mom and dad?"

"What?" I said. "You mean I've been beating myself up about how to bring it up and you already thought of it?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't tell you for the same reason. I wanted to talk to her about it first, before I approached you with it, let her decide. If she said yes, then it was a question of which one of us asked you; if she said no, then I wouldn't have brought it up at all. You're right, it's her decision, her secret, even though she's been our secret so far, and whatever she decides is how it will be. You're concerned how mom will react, aren't you? Not really dad, but mom."

"Yeah, but we can talk about that later. Jamie, I know it's kind of sudden, but what do you think? Do you want to meet your parents?" I turned to look at her as I asked the question and suddenly she was gone. The last impression I had was of her hands moving up toward her face.

"Jamie?" I called, jumping to my feet. "Jamie, what's wrong?" I glanced at Allison and saw the tears forming in her eyes.

"What happened?" I asked.

Suddenly Lizzy's voice came out of nowhere, "It's okay, she's with me. I'll get back to you when I've calmed her down a bit and figured out what is going on."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't..."

She cut me off, "No, don't try to explain, I'd rather hear it from her directly, but you should know she's not mad or hurt or anything, and she's not upset with either of you. She'll be okay; she just needed someone to talk to. I'll get back to you."

"She's with Lizzy." I said.

"I heard," Allison said.

"You heard her? That's weird, you've never been able to hear when she did that before."

"Maybe she didn't want me to hear before. Or maybe she can only make you hear most of the time but since Jamie is there she can do more. I don't want to go into why that may be; I don't really think it matters. Do you have any idea what Jamie was going to say to us before everything fell apart?"

"No, not a clue.," I said. "I probably should have kept my mouth shut until after we had finished but..."

"But you suddenly were faced with a moral question that had to be dealt with and, being who you are, it immediately became your number one concern and you were more worried about Jamie's feelings than anything as trivial as your own safety if you outed yourself to another person in the government."

"It sounds so stupid when you say it like that," I said.

"Well, on the one hand, it is -- it could have waited and we could have dealt with it later, but on the other hand I'm so proud of you, and I love you so much for being that kind of guy. That you don't even think twice about it, you just automatically do the right thing. Now sit back down and stop feeling guilty for hurting her feelings. You heard Lizzy; you didn't hurt her feelings and she's not mad at either of us. Right now we just need to leave her alone for a while and she'll come to us when she's ready. So what are we going to do while we wait?"

"I don't know, but I need to do something or I'll go nuts sitting around wondering, let's go poke around Vegas, there is always plenty of work to do there."

"Do you feel like you're ready to go after Hightower yet?"

Before I could answer my phone rang. It was Bob.

"Hey coach, what's up?"