Chapter 13: Enemies Revealed

As soon as they had left the bank's parking area, Rachel began to quiz Cole about the Gosh Awful. "How did you ever choose such a weird name for yourself?"

Cole thought she seemed to put him down with the question. However, he ignored the slur and got a smug look as he told her, "Aw, it kind of got chosen for me by some wannabe who went to college and couldn't break my code, even with the big IBM and its fancy super crypto-program." Cole laughed at the memory.

"He told me he thought it was just gosh awful of me to try to ghost him. Nobody says 'gosh awful except for some sissy college student trying to look better than a young guy.

"I told him that's why I was the Gosh Awful and the name stuck. Those college guys are so dumb because they think they're so smart." Cole laughed and then added, "But they're not." His self-satisfied smirk left no doubt whom Cole thought was the smartest. "You don't realize it, Mom, but I'm good.

Mark cut in, "Rachel, I'm pretty good with computers, but..." He thought hard for a moment and told her, "compared to Cole? He makes me look like I..." Mark had trouble to find the right words.

After a moment, Mark continued, "Cole is a genius; I never met anyone any better where computers are concerned. I want to access the files and records of that bunch that has taken over Hunter Wood and is trying to steal the company."

"No!" Rachel exclaimed. "Cole is a fourteen year old in..."

"Rachel, stop trying to baby Cole. Where you see a disabled young son who needs coddling and cuddling, I see a brilliant kid. Because he has been physically cheated in life, he hasn't been permitted to grow up even a little, except where he did it on his own."

The anger on Marks face caused Rachel to recoil, as if she were afraid he was about to hit her. "Where that damned Claire left me alone to look out for myself, Cole is getting the opposite treatment. Give him a chance to grow up and just continue to love him. Cole needs a little room to grow on his own."

Mark looked at Cole and gave him a sad smile. "My pal here doesn't know how lucky he is to have someone like you for a mom."

Then Mark hiccupped a sob as he tried to hide his emotions. In a rush of insight, Rachel realized where Mark's anger and hurt were directed. Then she saw something she had not been fully aware of before, the extent that Mark had begun to bond with Cole. Mark looked on Cole as his own flesh and blood, and saw him as the kid brother he never had. No, Cole and Mark were bonded already.

"Thank you, Mark," she told him.

She reached over the front seat and patted Mark's face. "Thank you for being just you. Maybe I'll be able to help you grow up as well. I can't have a young kid for my lover now, can I?"

"I love you," she whispered so low only he could hear her. He patted her hand on his cheek. He pulled her hand across his lips and kissed it. She let out an tiny whimper when he licked her fingers.

Cole looked over at Mark and smiled to himself. "Yes!" he whispered.

The driver steered up into the driveway and parked in front of the garage. Just as Rachel opened her door and stepped out, Claire rushed toward them from the bushes at the back of the pool house. She was scratched, bruised and hysterical. One of the guards helped Mark out of the van.

"Oh god, please hide me!" she begged and fell to her knees.

Rachel motioned the other guard not to interfere and helped Claire to her feet. She led the hysterical woman toward the back door. One bodyguard hurried ahead to unlock the door. The other bodyguard released Cole's wheelchair from its restraints.

The moment his wheelchair touched the concrete of the driveway, Cole worked the joystick and aimed for the ramp that led into the house. "Don't you worry, Mark. I'm not going to let that woman hurt you. I'll run over her ugly ass."

Cole's willingness to run interference for Mark caused him to laugh. "Hold on there, Cole, please let me talk to my mother a little bit first. Then maybe I'll let you run over her, if I don't like what she has to say."

"Cole Jones, I want you to watch your language. I will not permit you to talk like some of the trash like we had for neighbors."

Mark felt tired, as he walked through the back door. He knew that flu, or whatever it was, had done more damage to his body. "I need to go lie down," He told Rachel and shuffled toward the downstairs master bedroom. Rachel didn't hear him.

He eased himself down onto the bed. "Oh man," he sighed and closed his eyes. "Oh man, what's the matter with me now?"

Minutes later Rachel interrupted his nap. "Mark, get in here right now. We have problems," she called loud enough for him to hear through the closed door.

He got up and shuffled into the living room. He found Claire and Rachel in the den she had converted into a home office. "Okay, what's the problem? Does my mother need another get out of jail free card?" Claire flinched at his dismissive attitude.

She looked down at the floor, "No, Jail would probably be a safer place for me. I barely escaped from them. They were waiting for me when we were bailed out. They grabbed me, along with that weak idiot Claude. Someone who works in the county jail notified the Hunter Wood bunch when we were released.

She thought of Claude again and added, "What I ever saw in him I'll never know." Tears began to form and she added, "God, I don't know why, but I still love him for some reason."

Claire looked Mark in the eye and continued. "When they picked Claude and me up, they actually kidnapped us. We were kept locked away in a basement in some house in south Chula Vista, maybe in San Ysidro, I don't know.

"I escaped when they started to transfer me to some place they have up on the eastern edge of National City near Lemon Grove. I escaped when we were stalled in traffic. I traded my wrist watch for cab fare." She shook her head in disgust. "My three thousand dollar Omega for a thirty dollar cab ride."

For the first time in his life, Mark saw his mother as a defeated woman and a human being, rather than the domineering hag who had made his life hell for all those years. "You've changed," he told her.

Rachel cut in, "I want you to tell Mark what you just told me about their plans to kill him."

Claire sighed and began to cry, "I imagine Claude is probably dead by now. They lied to us!" she half yelled in a strangled voice. "Louis Jiggs bragged that Claude was just another loosed end."

"Jiggs and that bunch from Hunter and the bank lied to us and we believed them." Claire stared hard at the floor, as the memories replayed her own mind and she began to sob.

Mark forgot his fatigue in an instant. "Lied?" he asked. "How were you lied to and about what? What are you talking about?"

"Louis Jiggs is the chief financial officer for the Cheswick Bank and COO for Hunter Wood Productions Associates. That's a new company they started to take over your grandfather's holdings in Hunter Wood. It's a shell game they played with the Hunter name. Then they ran into a snag when they found Mike's estate, everything had been willed to you and placed in trust."

"Right now I wish that damned company would just disappear," Mark muttered to himself.

"Well, you got your wish." Claire's voice jarred him back to reality.

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

Claire began to re-explain, "According to the brags Jiggs made, your stock was retired, folded into the new company and the bank bought up all the new issue. On paper the bank owns Hunter Wood and right now it's nothing more than an empty shell covered with tax liens and other debt liabilities. All the money was transferred to the Hunter Products Company."

Mark began to understand how the estate had been almost stolen from him. "Oh hell! That's why I've never been able to find the missing accountants and records. The bank had everything under its control and this Jiggs character pulled the strings from behind the scenes.

"When they started this scam, they were trying to grab hold of Mike's estate after they murdered him."

Claire stifled a sob and continued, "Mike was too cagey and had his property and your grandfather's estate separated. There was no commingling of anything anywhere.

"Then they were actually trying to kill Mark and he survived, when that cop did all those horrible things to him, but he survived."

Rachel paled, "Oh no! They actually planned to murder Mark. I ... It seems so unbelievable."

"Yes," Claire whispered. "They planned, that after Mark was dead, I would inherit his estate. After a short wait, I was supposed to sign everything over to Jiggs. After that, they planned to kill me."

"What do you mean, they planned to kill you?" Mark looked at his mother and doubted everything she said.

"Jiggs threatened me. He said that the only way I could stay alive was to have something they wanted. I realized that I'd have nothing else they wanted, once I had turned Mark's estate over to them."

"What a damned mess," Mark muttered to himself.

Claire had a sudden attack of conscience. "Mark, I've been a terrible mother." Claire's ragged voice caught Mark's attention.

The bitterness in Mark's voice was plain and undisguised. "Tell me something I don't know,"

Claire flinched at the bitterness he showed her. "I deserved that and more."

Her pleading look made Mark turn his head away from her. Claire tried again. "Oh Mark, please try to understand that I was a young girl in her mid teens when you were born. I had you when I was barely fourteen and Mike was the big, older guy in his twenties. He seemed so exciting to a chauffeur's daughter that never got much attention from her own father. I was so young when he seduced me and I let him, and I couldn't get enough of him after that first time.

"Then Mike and I fought over some childish thing and he took off before anyone knew I was pregnant. When they found out I was pregnant with Mike's child, his father took me over and forced me to marry his queer older son. Then, after you were born, I became your grandfather's sex toy. When he got tired of me, he handled everything and set us up in this house. You know the rest."