Page 74 of Touch in the Dark

“This guy?” Arch frowns and looks at it again. “He looks like her uncle or something, you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I sit back and put my hands behind my head. I don’t know why I said, I think. I know perfectly well the guy in the picture is my father. “I did some research the night you were here with your brothers, then some more this morning. That is Derrick Atwater, he’s listed on my birth certificate,” I dig it out and pass it to him. “Turns out he was married with kids of his own when he knocked up my mom. And he decided to go back to his family.”

“The fuck?” Arch says in a low voice as he stares from the photo in his hand to the certificate in front of him. “Doris has had this all these years?”

“You know she never wanted to tell me the truth. I can see why now.”

“He alive?” Arch sets the picture down, his jaw is tense. He looks pissed on my behalf.

I nod slowly and sit forward. “He’s a multi-millionaire who lives in Beverley Hills.”

“Damn,” he stares over at me, but I just look at the notes in my pad. “Do you think he knew about you? That your mom was pregnant?”

“The only thing Doris ever told me about him was he chose to walk away. So, I gotta figure yes, he not only knew but he made a choice not to care.”

“So, all this,” he indicates the paperwork. “What are you gonna do?”

I explain how much I did using the internet myself but I wanted to get a more in-depth search into the guy before I made any decisions. Arch agrees that is a good idea, and also reiterates about the privacy of any investigation.

“At least you know he won’t lie about everything to get to your money,” Arch finishes his orange juice, giving me a sympathetic look. “You gotta wonder if he knows about you being in the band?”

“He never gave us a penny. No contact. He walked away from my mom and didn’t look back. I doubt he cares if I’m even still alive.”

I glance at the photograph of my mom. He definitely didn’t give two shits about her and whether she is alive.

“What do you intend to do with the information the PI gets?” Arch asks what has been running around in my head for so long.

“Guess I’ll decide once I have some kind of report. I mean, it would be good to walk up to him, tell him he’s an asshole and I grew up better off without him. But at the same time, a part of me wants to know why,” I add quietly.

“Whatever his reasons, he’s a fucking bastard, you can tell him that from me, from all of us. Fucking prick, walking out on you guys like that. Although it’ll be good to hit him where it hurts, right in the wallet. Get yourself insinuated in his will or some shit.”

“I don’t want any of his money,” I say, straightening up the papers.

“He may not be able to give you the answers you need,” Arch says after a moment. I can’t argue with that. “Well, whatever you need dude, you only gotta ask. Happy to keep this between us or help in any way I can. You gonna call one of these PI guys?”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna ask Janie to reach out.”

“Is that a good idea? I mean if you want to keep it private, best not to include too many people.”

“I trust Janie, plus she signed an NDA at the start of her employment with me. I thought about going straight to a lawyer, they have client confidentiality. PI’s probably have some binding contract, but I doubt it’s something that will hold up if they want to be assholes. I just need someone to look into him a bit deeper than I can, find out what I can’t. Janie can do that for me without having to explain who I am or why I’m doing it.”

“Fair enough. We’ve got a couple of weeks before Christmas. Is Janie back home?” When I nod, he thinks for a few moments. “Why don’t you go to L.A.? Speak to her, get her all the info she needs to pass on to whoever you hire, that way you’re there if anything comes up. Hell, I’ll come with if you want, I need to check in on mi casa anyway, we can catch up with some people while we’re out there?”

“Yeah, actually that sounds like a good idea,” I close the notepad on the PI names. I want to speak to Jenna before I go anywhere though. Despite having this hanging over me, I’m not going to forget the promise I made to Elsa this morning. “I have some stuff to do this weekend, Monday?”

“Yep,” Arch gets up and rubs his hands together. “I’ll sort out the trip, we can use the jet. Wonder if Derrick the Prick Atwater has his own jet at his beck and call.”

I laugh at that, then frown. “He probably does.”

“Bet ours is bigger.”

I thank him before this descends into more name calling and head off for a shower. Despite the solidarity over my supposed father, I’m not in the mood to sit here calling the guy names. I feel a lot better about things since talking to Archer though. He didn’t really do much but in his own way, he’s shown he’s there for me and I appreciate the hell out of that.

Jenna flicks through the photographs again, a huge smile on her face. Louis sent me through some of the images they want to use for the ad, more as a courtesy than for input. I kept them from the guys but know Jenna will get a kick out of this. She and Adam got home on Saturday morning, but I left them to settle back in. It’s Sunday afternoon now. Arch has got the jet ready for us tomorrow at midday to head to L.A., and I’ve already filled Janie in on what is going on and sent her the list, she already got started on reaching out to the top three PI’s to find out what their terms are. I wanted to grab some time with Jenna before we leave.

“Oh Nick, these are so good. it’s like every fantasy I have when I’m reading a book stepped off the page and into these pictures. Elsa is stunning,” she shakes her head in disbelief.

“Yeah,” I agree, taking a sip of my coffee. I’d spent a lot of time just staring at her in those images when Louis sent them through. Most of the time with my jaw clenched, every image where one of those models had their hand on her was driving me insane. We’re in a coffee shop near Jenna and Adam’s place, one we frequent often, and Adam is happy that it is safe enough here for Jenna. Stone is with us though, but neither Jenna nor I are paying him any attention. He’s good at blending into the background, despite his size. And we’re so used to him just being there, it’s like he’s not. I’m still wearing a cap to try and hide my identity a little.

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