Dave looked around his new office. It was twice as big as the old one, with space for a table and four chairs, a corner couch and a TV mounted on the wall opposite the couch. He was able to fit Izzy’s pen in it and a small shelf for books. His office doubled as a play ground for the kids when he took a break from work. Paula said the large oak desk centred the room well, he thought it was an excuse to give him more work. Michael loved the seat, he said it spun twice as fast as his old one, and Izzy loved the new hiding places. He also had a private bathroom that was pretty useful with his long hours. It was a home away from home which he was growing to resent.
But he didn’t feel that when he first moved in. It was an exciting day for him professionally and personally. It was one more change in his life, a big one, another step in the right direction, and the memory of it made him smile.
He grabbed Paula by the hand and led her to his new couch.
“What’s this all about?” She had asked, suspicious of him.
The last time Dave felt that nervous was his first solo trial. He looked her in the eyes, “I want you and Miguel to move in with us.”
“Why, my place is just fine?” her voice, a little shaky.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t, I just want a place Izzy is familiar with.” He spoke decisively, pretending he hadn’t heard the insecurity in her voice.
“She’s a baby, everywhere looks the same to her.”
“Well I want a place familiar for her, and a place I know.”
“We don’t live in a hole or a cardboard box Dave.” Maria said with a laugh, finally figuring out why he was so persistent.
“I didn’t say you did,” He looked up, his face serious. It was his turn to be insecure, “I just want to know where you guys are every minute of the day.”
Maria looked at him with a creased eyebrow, her lips still curved in a smile, “Mistrust, or has your paranoia climbed a step higher?”
Dave stood up and dug his hands in his pants pockets, “Precaution, and I do trust you.”
Maria moved closer, “Why give her to me if you are feeling… precautious?”
“Who else is there?” He walked around the desk, “Definitely not Amy, Carol is working and as much as she likes Izzy, she wouldn’t give her the attention she requires and I don’t think she’d enjoy herself in the day care much, now that Miguel is about to start school.”
Maria stared down at her feet, “About that…”
“We can argue about Miguel after we are done with Izzy.” Dave said, cutting her off.
He had personally registered Michael in school. He had known the principal for a while and had managed to convince him to register Michael under an alias using the excuse that he was under protection and no one, but himself or his mother, were to pick him up from school. The problems with private schools are that they do a full check on a potential student like they were doing a credit check.
Maria looked up at Dave for a moment. He had placed Michael in a school which she couldn’t afford. They did fight about that, but she had no choice to take a back seat on it. When he insisted on doing something there was no way of stopping him, and she had tried a few times. She didn’t have much of a chance winning with Michael practically joined to Dave’s hip.
“Okay, your place is much closer to Miguel’s school anyway. But I have to tell you something before he starts…”
Dave was sure she was about to tell him a little of the truth about herself before Todd crashed into his office interrupting their ‘family conference’ as he so often called it.
Todd flashed a smile at Paula, then looked at Dave, “Oh, sorry but my dad wants to see you.” His interruption put a long pause to that conversation. But Dave was patient, he would wait until she felt ready. He loved her more than enough to wait.
***
The last couple of weeks were busier than he had anticipated. Fixing Todd’s mistake proved to be harder and more expensive than he had thought. He was left with no other choice but to tell McKenzie about his son’s mess up, and even though they all thought that it was Todd’s final strike, he got off with a slap on the wrist and all his clients divided amongst other lawyers. Dave receiving the heavy load of course, after his long awaited promotion, and what was worse, Todd was his tail until he learned enough to reach Dave’s standards. It was a cruel and unjustified punishment for Dave, and he felt depressed that he barely got to see his daughter. He thought with the new promotion he would be able to see Izzy more often, but the only person who got that accolade was Paula.
He smiled to himself, the image of her captivating green eyes peeking up at him, through her thick jet black hair that barely hid her flushed pink cheeks, which matched the sweet smile, curved by her thin pink lips.
Each time she looked at him like that, he felt like a giddy high school kid.
He loved that feeling.
“I love her.” He whispered softly, a flutter in his belly as his lips pulled into a wider smile.
Carol walked into his office with a black file in her hand. She stood at his desk with a puzzled look on her face, “Who is Maria Diana Martinez? And why does she look so much like Paula?”
“You shouldn’t read documents you aren’t supposed to.” Dave stood up and pulled the file from her hand. He didn’t want anyone else finding out about Paula/Maria until he knew all the facts and how dangerous the man she was running from was.
“Her picture fell out.” She said, still puzzled.
“And you couldn’t help yourself.”
Dave opened the file and looked through it. He finally had Paula Michaels past in his hands, Maria Martinez. It wasn’t hard once he got the private investigator to look for an Edna Michaels. He overheard Maria on the phone with Edna and shamelessly had the operator give him the last number dialled on the pay phone. It wasn’t very clever of Maria to use her mother’s maiden name, it was a mistake that a lot of women on the run made, and most of them ended up dead.
“I pick up a lot from you. Is that Paula?” she asked, pointing to the file.
“Yes.”
“I knew she was too perfect to be true. She was too beautiful and motherly, she must be psychotic. Where is Izzy?”
He pulled a page out and handed it to her, “She is not psychotic, just on the run.”
She took it and scanned it quietly. Her hand rose covering her neck, her face creased in disgust as she got to the bottom of the page, “There are two pages of this?” she whispered. She put it down on his desk, “I can’t read anymore.”
Dave picked it up and went through it again. It was a medical report from Jacksonville County hospital, listing all the injuries she had been treated for. The treatments for sickness were on another piece of paper, but the one he had in his hand was exclusive to body injuries. The doctor’s comments were general, from falling down the staircase, to getting hit by a car, but Dave knew better and he was sure the doctor did too.
“Why didn’t anyone help her, she was just a kid?” He placed the report down and picked up the file, again looking through more details of her life.
“How old is she?”
“She’ll turn twenty-three next February. Michael’s fifth birthday is in a couple of weeks.”
“That guy broke close to every bone in her body, like he was reconstructing her, according to that, she should have more scars on her body than Frankenstein.” Carol commented lowering herself into the seat.
“I haven’t seen any, but she has different shades on her skin. I knew there was something wrong immediately, I saw how scared she was with Michael. There was something about her that didn’t feel right.”
“You don’t miss a thing do you? Either way, she has perfect skin or she wouldn’t have healed so well. I hope you find that monster and put him behind bars, better yet, have one of your friends in low places deal with him.”
Dave sat down, his lips pulled up at the corner and dropped the file on his desk, “I don’t have to, he’s dead. The sheriff suspects he was burnt to death in a fire.”
Carol leaned forward, “He is? Then why is she running?”
“Probably because she set the fire, but it was ruled as an accident.” Dave was glad he was dead, but he could still feel there was a piece of the puzzle missing, he just couldn’t see what it was.
Carol stood up and straightened her blue pencil skirt, “Dave, something else is going on and you need to find out what.”
Dave smiled up at her, “You have picked up a lot from me.”