Vicki turned around and left. I unhooked Tracy’s arms from around my neck and pushed her back a little too hard. Her back hit the wall on the other side of the room. “You’re fired,” I said. “You have exactly two minutes to get off my property before I call security and the police.” I followed Vicki then. She was fast. By the time I got up the basement stairs she was gone. I ran into Karen on the ground floor and said, “Did you see Vicki?”
“Yeah, I was holding Michael and she took him from me and went out the front door.”
Damn! I took off through the front door after them just in time to see Vicki climbing in the driver’s seat of the SUV I’d bought for her. “Vicki stop!” She ignored me and closed the door. As she turned the ignition I made it to the window, I could see Michael in the back in his car seat, sleeping peacefully. “Turn the car off.”
“No Alex, get out of my way.”
“Vicki! Turn it off!”
“No!”
I reached in through the window and turned it off and took the keys. She looked scared and like she was about to cry. It wasn’t my intention to scare her but she needed to hear me out before she took off half-cocked with our baby. “Listen to me, okay?”
“What is there to say, Alex? I’m so stupid. This is why you pushed to hire her… Oh God! That’s where you take them all, isn’t it? There was nothing special about me, just another eager staff girl that you can take down to the basement and…”
“Don’t say it! That never happened with Tracy and it was never going to. She threw herself on me.” She rolled her eyes. “Vicki, listen to me! Have I given you any reason not to trust me up to this point?” I could see the wheels turning in her head. “I promise you, baby. I love you. You are the only woman that I want to be with. I didn’t plan anything that happened between us but I wouldn’t change it either. I didn’t invite that girl to the basement… you were right about her and I should have listened but nothing happened!”
“I just… when I saw her kissing you…”
“Vicki, think about it again, okay? Picture it in your head… was I touching her? Were my arms around her? Was I even really facing her? The answer is no! She trapped me against the pool table and I took a step to get away from her… that’s why I was standing
sideways when you walked in.”
She started crying harder then and suddenly said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions! Now I feel like an idiot!”
I opened the door and pulled her out into my arms. Petting her pretty blonde hair I said, “Shh! Don’t ever feel like an idiot, baby. You're so far from that. You were right; she was bad news. I’m the idiot for not listening to you. She’s working for Cassandra, she says Cassie has a tape of us that day in the basement.”
She pulled her head up and looked at me. The poor thing… her eyes were all swollen and red. “A video?”
“No, at least I don’t think so. She just said “tape” and she quoted something I said, so I think it’s true.”
“What’s she going to do with it? I mean, Michael is already proof that we were together.”
“I don’t know. Tracy said something about Cassie wanting her to be here… to be close to Michael.”
“Michael! What does she want with Michael?”
“Shh baby, it’s okay. She’s gone and Michael is safe.”
“For now! Obviously she has plans for him. Would she kidnap him, Alex? Oh my God! I never even thought about the ramifications of having a baby that’s worth billions. I feel sick.”
“No baby, please don’t make yourself sick. Cassandra’s a nasty human being, but she’s not a kidnapper. She’s not poor or broke, even without my money. There would be no way that she would be that desperate.”
“You don’t know that for sure though. Did you suspect her of taping your basement? Even a chance that she would consider it would be too much. Do you want to know what I think about that? She put a recorder… video or otherwise in your basement. That wasn’t about you and me at all, that was about you being down there every day having parties and being with different women…” She suddenly realized what she was saying and said, “I’m not trying to say anything to hurt you, baby. I’m sorry. I know you were hurting and going through a rough time.”
I smiled at her. “It’s okay. The fact is that I lost it for a while. I did a lot of things during that time that I’m ashamed of. You’re probably right; Cassie probably plans on using the tapes to blackmail me and some of the others on the tape. But baby, please don’t worry about her trying to take Michael. He’s never out of our sight or Mrs. Yost’s. I’ll have security around the house increased even more.”
She looked into the car at Michael. I could see on her face that she was trying to believe me. Changing the subject a bit she said, “How would she know who the voices belong to, are you sure she doesn’t have video footage?”
“I don’t know, she might. I’m sorry baby, I’m not sure of anything at this point.”
CHAPTER SIX
VICTORIA
After a couple of weeks of peace of mind, Alex was back on the phone with his lawyers once again.
“I really want to call Cassie,” he said. “I want to give her a piece of my mind. She’s obviously lost hers.”
“Do you think that would make things worse?”
“Yeah, I do actually. I’m not going to call her. I’ll call Noel instead and maybe we can waylay her before she gets to use those tapes for whatever she planned on using them for.”
While he was on the phone, I sat on the sun porch with Michael. We’d gone shopping with Liz this morning, but he had an upset tummy so instead of having lunch, I’d brought him home. I’m not sure if it was better that I’d come in and walked in on Tracy kissing Alex or not. I believed him when he said she kissed him and he was trying to pull away, but I