“What do you mean she’s Joann’s, why would she lie?”
“Why should I tell you anything, what’s in it for me?”
“Your life, if you tell me what I want to know without anymore bullshit lies and theatrics I won’t break your fucking neck and bury you out back.”
She looked around the room as if seeking a defender but no one was buying.
“You wouldn’t dare, Delia are you going to let him treat me like that?”
“I….”
“Not another word Delia.” I kept my eyes on my prey because sure as shit I would break her neck no problem, I’d had enough of the bullshit between her and lying ass apparently slut of a mother.
“You don’t talk to her, you talk to me, she doesn’t exist for you anymore, your days of using her and your family fucking with her are long gone, now start talking my patience is wearing thin.”
She huffed and tried to play it off, but either the high was wearing off and she needed another fix, or she realized that I wouldn’t think twice about ending her pathetic life, or at the very least maiming her ass.
“Whatever, it’s like he said.” She flung her hand in Vito’s direction. “We never met.”
“Why would your father go along with such a lie if it weren’t true?”
“Because he doesn’t know.” She smirked again and came to within an inch of getting gut punched.
“Come again, how’s that possible?”
“Because he wasn’t here, he was away in the army, desert something.” She scrunched up her face as if giving it some thought.
“And……..”
“And Joann went bar hopping and ended up with some guy that knocked her up. When she realized that there was no way to pass the thing off as my dad’s she concocted this scheme to pass it off as mine.” She shrugged her shoulders like it was nothing.
“You call her a thing one more time, or say anything derogatory about her and I’ll get the information another way, how far do you want to try and push me to see if I would really break your fucking pathetic neck?”
She took a step back from my advance.
“Why did you go along with it?”
“It got me my freedom, dad was a freaking nightmare, you can’t do this you can’t do that, but with Joann in my pocket I had my get out of jail free card.”
“And your treatment of Delia?”
“Joann hates her because of the simple fact that she exist, I think the only reason she didn’t get rid of it……I mean her.”
She corrected herself when I made to reach for her neck.
“Go on….”
“I think by the time she found out she was pregnant it was too late to get an abortion, so she had to have her.”
“How did she pass her off as yours?”
“That was easy, she took me out of school, the story was that I was too distraught by my father’s deployment so I was to be homeschooled. Joann wore baggy clothes and shit, did most of her food shopping in the next town over, we pulled it off. Then when it was time to give birth we went to this midwife out in the boondocks, and voila, I became the proud mother of a bouncing baby girl.”
“And Carl never suspected.”
“By the time he came home she was already three months old, Joann never breast fed, she’d gotten her body back in shape, so there was no need for him to suspect anything, he was sure pissed though but Joann kept him off my back.”
“Where did the story of Mr. Escalante raping you come in?”
“Oh, that was all Joann, she figured that if dad thought I was raped he wouldn’t blame me, and she chose him because he’s the one who knocked her up, she didn’t think he would remember her since he was some type of player back then, and besides she begged dad not to pursue it, not to bring shame and scrutiny to the family. She said since they were so wealthy they would use their wealth and influence to paint me as the guilty party, that I somehow duped him.”
“Are we done, because I really need to go.” She was rubbing her arms up and down as if she were cold.
“The story checks out partially so far, she was out of school for thirteen months, Carl was in Kuwait….”Drew was busy on his computer, I didn’t even want to know how he had access to this sort of information.
“What about the birth certificate?”
“Joann signed it, I think she told dad she did it to keep the stigma off of me, she made him believe that it was me who gave birth in the old hut and that she took me to the hospital later and had me sign her name.” Another shrug.
I was only interested in one thing.
I went over to Delia and knelt down in front of her. Drawing her close, I whispered so only she could hear.