Page 48 of Like An Animal
I make my way through Arnold’s dark house and walk into his office, where he sits behind his desk, typing away at his keyboard.
“You got something for me, Arny?” I ask. He texted me a few hours ago when I was on the plane to say he needed to show me something. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not.
“Yeah, boss. Come on.”
He nods to his screen and I walk over, looking down at the screen.
“I found your girl. She’s operating under a fake identity out of Kentucky. Winnie Parker. She must’ve had some talented people covering her tracks.”
“Covering her tracks? How?” I press and he nods.
“When I ran her photo through the database, it popped up with two identities–Winnie Parker and Bronwyn Durst. Bronwyn went off the grid five years ago. Although the identity of Winnie Parker was created five years ago, it wasn’t used until almost a year after that. When the documentation was falsified, it was used to start a bank account that had forty-five million dollars deposited in it by a woman named Cheryl Parker.” He pulls up footage on his computer of a middle aged woman walking into a bank and Arnold clicks on his mouse, pausing the feed. It zooms in on the woman’s face.
“She looks vaguely familiar,” I admit, unsure of how or why.
“She should. She’s Bronwyn Durst’s only living relative. Bronwyn’s mother, Charlotte, was Cheryl Parker’s identical twin.”
It’s so strange that Bron never told me that she had family outside of David. She made it sound like she had nowhere else to go, but that’s not true.
Why didn’t she ever move in with her aunt when shit got bad with David?
“Is she with Cheryl?”
“Negative. Cheryl was reported missing shortly after Winnie Parker popped up in Kentucky. I checked. Cheryl isn’t there with her.”
“Then, who is?” I ask, getting the sense that he’s not telling me anything.
“Based on the public records, she has a four year old daughter named after her mother, Charlotte Parker, and she got married four years ago.”
It’s not the kid part that throws me off. No, no, no.
She.
Got.
Married.
We were supposed to get married.
Us!
Not her and some fucking random schmuck in Kentucky. Rage boils in my blood as my eyebrow twitches.
I was supposed to be her husband, the only one she ever fucking had. I’m going to have to correct that and after I do, I’m going to remind her why ever marrying anyone else was a bad fucking idea.
I never thought it was possible for my little ghost to incur my wrath, but she just did it.
“Is the husband also the child’s father?” I ask, barely managing to not grind my teeth.
Arnold slowly shakes his head. “Impossible. I looked into him. They never crossed paths before she went to Kentucky andshe already had the child when she arrived. He’s just a small town accountant.”
That barely makes things better for the fucker. He’s still going to die because he took something very vital from me, but that also means I’ll have to track down whoever knocked her up and kill them.
No.
One.
Touches.
