"I'm coming!" Joe yelled as he descended the stairs. "Bob! Shut up!"
The doorbell rang for the third time as Joe grabbed Bob's collar and yelled, "Hold your damn horses!" Bob yelped as Joe pulled him back from the door. Joe looked through the peephole and saw an unfamiliar blonde haired woman. "Who the hell is this?"
Bob whined as Joe cracked the door and stuck his nose out the crack. Joe pulled him back trying to hang onto Bob and the towel at the same time. "I think you have the wrong house lady."
"Are you Joseph Anthony Morelli?" The woman asked.
"Who are you?" Joe asked as he scanned her from top to bottom. She was dressed in business attire with a skirt that came to her knees. Bob pushed his way in between Joe's legs and the door which came open a few more inches. Bob whined to get to the woman. He could see the business manila envelope in her hand.
"I'm with a delivery service and I need to make sure this envelope is given to Joseph Anthony Morelli. Are you Joseph Anthony Morelli?" She asked.
Bob ducked his head back inside and then pushed the door open further and lunged, Joe yanked the collar on Bob his grip on the towel loosened. The woman looked warily at Bob. "Yes, that's me. Can you come back in ten minutes? As you can see I have my hands full."
"Release the dog and I'll hand you the envelope." The woman said.
"If you say so." Joe released Bob and the towel snagged on Bob's collar and Joe felt as the towel slipped. He grabbed the envelope as her eyes grew wide, Joe's flesh was revealed as he grabbed the envelope and covered his manhood as Bob snuffled the woman in her crotch area.
"Good Lord!" The woman exclaimed. "You've just been served. Get this dog off of me." She tried to push Bob away and Bob reared up and knocked her flat on her bottom.
Joe slammed the door. "Hell no, Bob can have fun." Joe looked at the envelope in his hands. "Serves you right for serving me papers."
He could hear the screams along with Bob baying away. Joe took the steps two at a time upstairs and went to the bedroom tossing the envelope on the bed. Going to his dresser he pulled out briefs and pulled them on, he pulled out some shorts and pulled them on. He went to the bed and picked up the envelope and started back downstairs with it. Bob was scratching at the front door to be let in and Joe opened it. Bob came trotting in with part of a business skirt hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He looked back up at Joe as Joe shut the front door, Bob had a goofy look on his face like he did something worth being proud of.
"Felt the need to have skirt huh?" Joe asked.
Bob found a patch of sun in the living room and circled, then flopped down. Joe shook his head and went to the kitchen. He laid the envelope on the counter and poured a cup of coffee. He leaned up against the counter and picked up the envelope and looked at his name printed on the outside with nothing else to indicate what it would be about. Joe sat his coffee down and opened the legal business size envelope and pulled out the papers. He tossed the envelope on the counter and picked up his coffee and took a drink while he started reading. Coffee spewed out of his mouth as he choked and gagged, he had read the name on the lawsuit Caitlyn Alexandria Ramono, and it was notifying him he had seventy-two hours notice that his parental rights would be terminated if he failed to show in court. He spun around towards the sink and dumped the cup inside it and grabbed the dish towel, he wiped the coffee off the papers.
How on earth? There is no way, no fucking way at all. Joe thought as he flipped paper after paper on the petition and found the one document that stilled his hand. The last piece of paper was the birth certificate. He read her name, her date of birth, and his name as father. Joe calculated her age against his, he would have been seventeen when she was born. Victoria Lacy Ramono, mother, I never slept with her.
Joe had that nagging feeling in the back of his head, the phone rang and Joe reached for it. "Hello." He answered still in shock at what he was seeing.
"Got the results on that DNA."
"Give it to me." Joe said. His heart pounded in his chest.
"Ninety-nine point nine percent certain that they don't match."
"Shit!" Joe stated.
"What, you didn't think they would when I talked with you. Why is that such a bad thing now?" The caller asked.
"I can't talk." Joe hung up the phone. He reached up to the cabinet and grabbed his uncle's homebrew down and took a healthy swig. Document is falsified, it has to be. What is the possibilities of her being mine? Joe thought. He took another swig. Christ! I'd be a father. A father of a teenager.
What goes around comes around. Joe could hear the voice of his mother resounding in his head.
"Shit! I was wild as a teen. Christ! I just won't answer it. Leave it alone." He said and looked back at the documents. He glared at them again, "Fuck! I need her DNA the legal way." Joe grinned. "I would give up some blood, I don't think she's mine, it'll come back negative that she is mine, but I would have her DNA, legally."
Joe laughed at the documents and sat down the bottle. I need to find out how my name was put on this. How is this possible? Is there anymore with my name like this on them? Christ don't go there. Joe thought.
He picked up the documents and headed upstairs to his home office. He sat them down on his desk and booted up his computer. Turning to the rolodex on his desk he flipped through till he found his lawyers name and dialed the number. If they were lucky, he would be able to get something done today about getting her blood so DNA could be pulled.
What if she is mine? Joe thought. He ran his hands through his hair as his lawyer picked up the phone. "I was just served papers for paternity and I need to know legally if I'm on the birth certificate can I pick up her today?"
"It depends on a number of things." His lawyer said sleepily into the phone.
"Her mother is dead, I'm the only other parent listed." Joe sat back in the chair leaning back scanning the room. His eyes fell on his high school annuals.
"You better bring over the petition and let me read it. I'm due in court on another matter this morning. I could turn this over to my partner and let them advise you."
"I'll be there in the hour, I need things to happen today." Joe said and hung up the phone.
Joe went straight to the bookcase and pulled out his high school annuals. He took them back to his desk and opened them up. In his senior year annual he flipped through the pages looking for Victoria Lacey Ramono, he didn't see her in it at all. Joe couldn't remember if she was in school that year or not. Opening up his junior year annual he searched through it and found her listed, she looked younger with thick glasses. "Didn't sleep with you. Why would you put my name on a child's birth certificate that isn't yours either? What was so special about Alex that you had to have her?" Opening the bottom drawer Joe pulled out a clean pad and started making notes. "I'm going to find out what you did if it is the last thing I do."
At the top of the pad, he wrote out Alex's full name along with the date her birth. He wrote Lacy's name next, then his own adding a question mark beside his own, then possibilities that would match to his name: Forged? Identity Theft? Hospital Records? Revenge? Obsession?
He pushed the pad away. "Who are you little girl?"
Joe checked his watched and scooped up his annuals, the petition, and the pad. He changed and left, he had thirty minutes to meet with the lawyer and find out his options. The clock was ticking, he had seventy-two hours to find out who Alex really was and to make sure she ended up with the right person.
Alex was sitting at the kitchen island in Jose Manoso's house in Connecticut. Her head lay on her left arm as she twirled the fork with the right hand over the small fresco tiles that lined the island. Jose opened the refrigerator, "Juice?"
"No." Alex answered.
Jose closed the refrigerator, "Coffee perhaps?"
"No." Alex droned out.
He shook his head and went around the island and stood behind her, he moved her hair that was covering her face. Jose looked at the bags under her eyes. "You didn't sleep last night did you?"
Alex moved her eyes to look at him and moved them back to the fork that was in her hand and kept twirling over the tiles. "No." Alex said.
"You are going to be a joy at court today." Jose moved away from her.
"Bite me."
Jose gave a bark of laughter, "I'm not into cannibalism thank you."
"No, just raping the minds of people."
A snicker came from the doorway of the kitchen. "On your case again is she?" Lester asked.
"Yes, she's a real joy when she gets no sleep." Jose poured himself a coffee, he looked back at Alex. When Carlos asked me to take her in for a few days along with Lester I thought this was going to be easy. Damn kid is a hard nut to crack, talked me out of more than she's given up to me so far. At least she didn't come into the kitchen about to kill me like she did when she woke up from that drug. Took Lester and I an hour to get her to realize that Scarface wasn't around. Scarface was interesting, Lester told me later his real name, or least the code name he uses. A renegade agent, I knew this kid was on New York's best seller's list the moment Carlos told me about her. Then everything Lester has told me since, this kid is living in a real mystery novel in real life. Jose thought.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" Lester asked as he moved over towards the coffee pot. "You slept at headquarters fine."
Alex lifted her head and looked at him, "Who said I slept at headquarters?"
Lester looked at Jose as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
"Answer the question Alex." Jose said.
Lester turned and leaned up against the counter, "You answer the question, and I'll make sure you don't have to wear that dress that your lawyer wants you to wear today."
"Won't work, she'll have a dress for me to change into when I get there if I don't show up in one. Been there done that." Alex said.
Lester laughed, Jose and Lester had taken Alex shopping for a dress yesterday, and she didn't own one. Lester and Jose had a time getting her to try any on. They had finally talked her into a summer dress with matching sandals. Lester had gotten a shock when he had seen the tattoos on her arms. She had two on her biceps that wrapped all the way around. Her left arm had a dragon, her right a white tiger, both had vines interweaving all the way around with the words Guardians of Paradise under both of the animals.
Jose pushed off from the counter, "Pancakes?" Jose asked Lester.
"Yes." Lester moved over and took a seat on the stool next to Alex. "Give grumpy some too."
Jose opened cabinets and pulled down what he needed to start making breakfast. "Hey grumpy, you won't tell us why you won't sleep. Then let's talk about what we were talking about last night. You said James brought the demo team to your elementary school on health day. Tell me about why they impressed you so much."
Alex laid the fork down and turned her head on her arm to her other arm and looked at Lester. "I'm not grumpy, I'm tired."
"Sure you are grouchy." Lester said taking a sip of coffee. "Answer Jose."
"No, he still hasn't told me how he got the scar on his right big toe." Alex said.
Jose groaned, "Fine. Brat!" Jose started mixing the batter. "I was ten, Richard Ortega had a new bike, all of us were dying to ride it. He wouldn't let anyone, but he was giving rides. When it came to my turn. I got on back, I didn't have any shoes on. My mother was always on me about putting on my shoes. I hated wearing shoes. Anyway, Richard was giving me a ride, he hit a pot hole in the road, when he did, my right foot went up inside the crank which the chain sits on and where you peddle. We came to a stop and both of us went falling off. My toe was caught between the spokes and blood was squirting everywhere. He tried to move the peddles backwards but it wouldn't budge, he had peddle brakes, so my toe was caught real good. Richard's father came out of the house when he heard the screaming of the girls and he took the back wheel off after someone had already tried cutting the chain which only made things worse. When Richard's father took the wheel off my toe was released. I had ten stitches in my toe. I wear my shoes to this day anytime I go outside. Your turn."
"I never knew that." Lester said.
"Because you never asked." Alex said. Alex picked up her head and looked at Jose as he started pouring the pancakes onto a flat grill he had warming next to the stove. "I liked the gis they had on. It had their names embossed on the back in silver thread, and the dragon was wicked as hell."
Jose turned to look at her. "Why did you like the dragon so much?"
"I don't know."
"Nope, not an answer. That's a child's answer, you have a reason. I gave you more with my toe story, spill it." Jose turned back to the pancakes and flipped them.
"It was cool with the way purple and the green scales melded together. And the silver running the edges of the scales making it shimmer. It was like it was breathing, like it looked real, like it could fly right off of the gi. It was magical, it wanted to fly, fly back to its layer to protect its treasure." Alex lay her head back on her arms.
Jose took out plates and separated the cooked pancakes. He placed a plate in front of Lester, then one in front of an empty spot, next to Alex and he looked at her. "Sit up." He commanded her, when she did he put her plate in front of her. "And you got your gi, you have that gi don't you?"
"Yes." Alex replied as she poured syrup on her pancakes.
"But it didn't help did it." Jose said thoughtfully.
"No."
"That's not the dragon you're looking for Alex." Jose said.
Lester looked over Alex's head at Jose. What the hell is he talking about? What dragon? Lester thought.
"I'm not looking for anything but my freedom." Alex said as she started eating the pancakes.
"Nope. You had it right with the dragon, a real father to you has always been something that was unattainable, elusive. You're the treasure Alex. You even boast it on your arms. Trying to bring that elusive dragon to protect your paradise." Jose took a drink of his coffee. He'd let her chew on that awhile.