Skye settled back into her chair as she calmed down. "So you will help me
move my money?"
"Among other things, yes."
Skye stiffened at the words 'other things.' "Other things? What other things?"
"Now I realize that you believe that you can handle this on your own, but wouldn't it be better if someone was there, watching your back? Don't get upset with me for changing your game plan, but it seems to me that if you are going to go on the run, then it wouldn't hurt to have someone along who has experience with avoiding shall we say, unfriendly people intent on putting you in a cage."
"Jerry, unlike you, I'm not merely avoiding the authorities in the US for laundering money."
"No, you are running from something a hell of a lot worse. You have an international arms dealer/extortionist dodging your footsteps. The more I hear about what this guy did in Port Charles, apparently to get to you, the more I want to get to know you."
Skye gave a rather sarcastic laugh. "Let me get this straight. I've got a major international criminal who is ready and willing to ruin several people's lives and/or kill to get to me chasing me around the world and this makes you want to get to know me? Are you nuts? Everyone else who hears this either doesn't believe me and recommends that I go see a shrink, or if they do believe me, they run the other direction as fast as possible. With all the things that guy has done over the years to the people around me, there are times that I don't even want to know me anymore."
"The way I see it. You are a beautiful, seemingly intelligent woman. You have managed to get the attention of two men who are willing to turn this world upside down in order to find you. So I figure that there must be something very special about you and I want to find out what it is."
Skye started laughing. "Having a certifiable mad man and an incurable white night chasing me around the world makes me special? Personally, I have had about as much being 'special' as I can take. I would love something in my life to be normal, even perhaps a little boring."
"Sorry, that can not happen. In my experience, once you have been marked as special, you never have another normal moment in your life."
"Special. I hate that word. I've been special since birth. I've never had anything that remotely resembled a normal life."
"That has got to be a bit of an exaggeration."
"No, it isn't."
"You're entire life could not have been this eventful."
"My entire life works in a cycle. I am either in the process of surviving a traumatic event, recovering from said traumatic event, or awaiting the next one to start. I have never had more than a six month wait between events."
"Surely during your childhood?"
"Jerry don't even start on my childhood. That was one long traumatic event."
Jerry looked at her in disbelief. "It was that bad?"
"Let me see. We can start with my grandfather who set the entire process in motion when he sold me on the black market to a crazy woman with lots of money."
"At least you didn't starve."
"Who said I didn't? Althea drank. When she drank she got mean. Most of the servants never stayed for more than a couple of months. They weren't paid for combat duty. I on the other hand was stuck there year round. I had to put up with her temper. I had to fix my own meals if no one was there. That's assuming that there was something in the cupboard that I could fix. The only time that Althea would get groceries was if she ran out of alcohol."
"Where was your father during all of this?"
"That would be Adam, Althea's ex. He never came by. He just paid the bills."
"Surely someone stepped in if things where that bad."
"You think so? You would be surprise how many times people will look the other way when someone with a lot of money breaks the laws. If social workers showed up at the house, she would call some judge friend of hers. He would come by for a few dates and that would be that. If she had to take me to the doctor, she always took me to someone she could pay off in some way. She never took me straight to the emergency room. It didn't matter how badly I needed the medical attention. She didn't really want me, but she was damned if she was going to let anyone else take me. I was hers, bought and paid for."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault that I had a crummy childhood."
"Didn't anyone ever step in? I thought that Jax mentioned a boarding school."
"Oh yes, the boarding school from hell. When I was twelve the teacher gave us this IQ test. I thought it was really stupid. Apparently everyone else thought that it was really hard. The next thing I know they are making this big fuss about how I'm apparently so smart and that I should be sent someplace that helps develop this wonderful intellect of my. You know, that is the first time that anyone called me special. And it is the last time that I thought that word was a good thing."
"What happened at boarding school?"
"Military school had nothing over this place. Everything was scheduled down to the last minute. We were woken up at six in the morning. We were put in bed at ten at night. We ate the exact same things every week. The food never changed. While the rest of the world went to sports practice, dated, or just sat around in front of the TV, we were in class. I couldn't even flunk out. How was it that they put it? Oh yes, everyone at this school is extremely intelligent and fully capable of getting straight A's in the conventional school system. We don't want you to just get A's. We want you to excel beyond that. And believe me, we were pushed."
"What did you do?"
"I ran away and took my High School Equivalency test. A couple of months later, one of my father's detectives caught up with me and deposited me into a finishing school until I turned 18. I was 15. Actually now that I think about it, those three years were about the closest thing I had to normal." Skye looked at Jerry. "You know more about me than any of my ex- husbands, well with maybe the exception of my first husband."
Jerry looked at Skye in surprise. "You and Jax never talked about your childhood?"
"Jax told me a long time ago that he was tired of dealing with my insecurities. That was a glossed over version of the first eighteen years of my life. It doesn't even begin to cover the last 12 years that I have had to deal with Alcazar. You can not not talk about my insecurities when you talk about my past."
"You have known Alcazar for 12 years! Why the hell didn't you say anything when he first arrived in Port Charles?"
"I didn't see him right away. Everyone was calling his Luis Alcazar. It was the first time that I had ever heard that name."
Jerry looked surprised.
"What? You don't honestly believe that he was born Luis Alcazar do you? I have a different name for him for every place that I have run in to him. You don't have a clue how many aliases that man really has. The first time that I was able to place that name to his face was after Jax had already been shot. Maybe if the Jerk hadn't been lying to me and spent a little time bringing me in on what was really happening instead of isolating me at that damn lake house, I might have seen him and been able to tell Jax what had happened. But no, Jax kept his secrets so I kept mine. Besides, by that time I knew what Alcazar was doing."
"Just wait. You knew!"
"Not that Brenda was an impostor, but that does explain why the test results were negative. Did you know that the date of that test in that clinic in Switzerland was just a few days before they arrived in Port Charles? He brought her there because he wanted to show me that Jax didn't really love me. That given an incentive, he would leave me for his so called first love."
"Why the hell didn't you tell anyone what was really going on?"
"Because I wanted to know too. Alcazar may have set the scene, but that didn't mean that Jax had to play into his hand. He came home from the hospital with me. He told me that I was the one that he wanted to be with. For a little bit there, I let myself hope that this time it was for real. That this time Jax meant it. Then he turned around and walked out the door without a backward glance."
"Ouch. That story almost makes me want to leave Jax in the dark about where you are."
Skye stiffened. "You are NOT going to tell Jax anything."
"Skye he's my brother. He is turning the globe over looking for you."
"And he is being followed by Alcazar. Not only that, Alcazar has people around him at all times. You tell Jax something and it is just like telling Alcazar."
"Relax. I will just call him and make sure that he is alone and warn him to say nothing to no one."
"His phone is tapped."
"Fine. I will send him an email."
"His assistant has access to his email accounts."
"So?"
"He works for Alcazar."
"Shit!"
"Wait. Jax is working with a private detective."
"Don't even think about it."
"You can't expect me to keep my brother in the dark."
"I thought you loved your brother."
"I do. What has that got to do with anything?"
"If Jax finds out where I am, he will come here, correct?"
"Probably."
"Alcazar will follow Jax. Once he finds me, Alcazar will kill Jax."
"Why? He didn't kill him last time."
"His goal wasn't to kill him last time. He was trying to get my attention to the fact that Jax was seeing Brenda behind my back in a way that I couldn't overlook and Jax couldn't lie his way out of. Alcazar doesn't normally follow me around the world like this. When I need my breathing space badly enough that I would run away, he usually gives me some room. Alcazar has raised the stakes. If Jax gets near me, he is a dead man."
"What do you mean he has raised the stakes? What's going on?"
"I'm not sure that you really want to know. But what the hell, maybe it will give you an incentive not to do anything stupid, like call your brother." Skye looked straight into Jerry's eyes and said. "Congratulations Jerry, you are going to be an uncle."
"Among other things, yes."
Skye stiffened at the words 'other things.' "Other things? What other things?"
"Now I realize that you believe that you can handle this on your own, but wouldn't it be better if someone was there, watching your back? Don't get upset with me for changing your game plan, but it seems to me that if you are going to go on the run, then it wouldn't hurt to have someone along who has experience with avoiding shall we say, unfriendly people intent on putting you in a cage."
"Jerry, unlike you, I'm not merely avoiding the authorities in the US for laundering money."
"No, you are running from something a hell of a lot worse. You have an international arms dealer/extortionist dodging your footsteps. The more I hear about what this guy did in Port Charles, apparently to get to you, the more I want to get to know you."
Skye gave a rather sarcastic laugh. "Let me get this straight. I've got a major international criminal who is ready and willing to ruin several people's lives and/or kill to get to me chasing me around the world and this makes you want to get to know me? Are you nuts? Everyone else who hears this either doesn't believe me and recommends that I go see a shrink, or if they do believe me, they run the other direction as fast as possible. With all the things that guy has done over the years to the people around me, there are times that I don't even want to know me anymore."
"The way I see it. You are a beautiful, seemingly intelligent woman. You have managed to get the attention of two men who are willing to turn this world upside down in order to find you. So I figure that there must be something very special about you and I want to find out what it is."
Skye started laughing. "Having a certifiable mad man and an incurable white night chasing me around the world makes me special? Personally, I have had about as much being 'special' as I can take. I would love something in my life to be normal, even perhaps a little boring."
"Sorry, that can not happen. In my experience, once you have been marked as special, you never have another normal moment in your life."
"Special. I hate that word. I've been special since birth. I've never had anything that remotely resembled a normal life."
"That has got to be a bit of an exaggeration."
"No, it isn't."
"You're entire life could not have been this eventful."
"My entire life works in a cycle. I am either in the process of surviving a traumatic event, recovering from said traumatic event, or awaiting the next one to start. I have never had more than a six month wait between events."
"Surely during your childhood?"
"Jerry don't even start on my childhood. That was one long traumatic event."
Jerry looked at her in disbelief. "It was that bad?"
"Let me see. We can start with my grandfather who set the entire process in motion when he sold me on the black market to a crazy woman with lots of money."
"At least you didn't starve."
"Who said I didn't? Althea drank. When she drank she got mean. Most of the servants never stayed for more than a couple of months. They weren't paid for combat duty. I on the other hand was stuck there year round. I had to put up with her temper. I had to fix my own meals if no one was there. That's assuming that there was something in the cupboard that I could fix. The only time that Althea would get groceries was if she ran out of alcohol."
"Where was your father during all of this?"
"That would be Adam, Althea's ex. He never came by. He just paid the bills."
"Surely someone stepped in if things where that bad."
"You think so? You would be surprise how many times people will look the other way when someone with a lot of money breaks the laws. If social workers showed up at the house, she would call some judge friend of hers. He would come by for a few dates and that would be that. If she had to take me to the doctor, she always took me to someone she could pay off in some way. She never took me straight to the emergency room. It didn't matter how badly I needed the medical attention. She didn't really want me, but she was damned if she was going to let anyone else take me. I was hers, bought and paid for."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault that I had a crummy childhood."
"Didn't anyone ever step in? I thought that Jax mentioned a boarding school."
"Oh yes, the boarding school from hell. When I was twelve the teacher gave us this IQ test. I thought it was really stupid. Apparently everyone else thought that it was really hard. The next thing I know they are making this big fuss about how I'm apparently so smart and that I should be sent someplace that helps develop this wonderful intellect of my. You know, that is the first time that anyone called me special. And it is the last time that I thought that word was a good thing."
"What happened at boarding school?"
"Military school had nothing over this place. Everything was scheduled down to the last minute. We were woken up at six in the morning. We were put in bed at ten at night. We ate the exact same things every week. The food never changed. While the rest of the world went to sports practice, dated, or just sat around in front of the TV, we were in class. I couldn't even flunk out. How was it that they put it? Oh yes, everyone at this school is extremely intelligent and fully capable of getting straight A's in the conventional school system. We don't want you to just get A's. We want you to excel beyond that. And believe me, we were pushed."
"What did you do?"
"I ran away and took my High School Equivalency test. A couple of months later, one of my father's detectives caught up with me and deposited me into a finishing school until I turned 18. I was 15. Actually now that I think about it, those three years were about the closest thing I had to normal." Skye looked at Jerry. "You know more about me than any of my ex- husbands, well with maybe the exception of my first husband."
Jerry looked at Skye in surprise. "You and Jax never talked about your childhood?"
"Jax told me a long time ago that he was tired of dealing with my insecurities. That was a glossed over version of the first eighteen years of my life. It doesn't even begin to cover the last 12 years that I have had to deal with Alcazar. You can not not talk about my insecurities when you talk about my past."
"You have known Alcazar for 12 years! Why the hell didn't you say anything when he first arrived in Port Charles?"
"I didn't see him right away. Everyone was calling his Luis Alcazar. It was the first time that I had ever heard that name."
Jerry looked surprised.
"What? You don't honestly believe that he was born Luis Alcazar do you? I have a different name for him for every place that I have run in to him. You don't have a clue how many aliases that man really has. The first time that I was able to place that name to his face was after Jax had already been shot. Maybe if the Jerk hadn't been lying to me and spent a little time bringing me in on what was really happening instead of isolating me at that damn lake house, I might have seen him and been able to tell Jax what had happened. But no, Jax kept his secrets so I kept mine. Besides, by that time I knew what Alcazar was doing."
"Just wait. You knew!"
"Not that Brenda was an impostor, but that does explain why the test results were negative. Did you know that the date of that test in that clinic in Switzerland was just a few days before they arrived in Port Charles? He brought her there because he wanted to show me that Jax didn't really love me. That given an incentive, he would leave me for his so called first love."
"Why the hell didn't you tell anyone what was really going on?"
"Because I wanted to know too. Alcazar may have set the scene, but that didn't mean that Jax had to play into his hand. He came home from the hospital with me. He told me that I was the one that he wanted to be with. For a little bit there, I let myself hope that this time it was for real. That this time Jax meant it. Then he turned around and walked out the door without a backward glance."
"Ouch. That story almost makes me want to leave Jax in the dark about where you are."
Skye stiffened. "You are NOT going to tell Jax anything."
"Skye he's my brother. He is turning the globe over looking for you."
"And he is being followed by Alcazar. Not only that, Alcazar has people around him at all times. You tell Jax something and it is just like telling Alcazar."
"Relax. I will just call him and make sure that he is alone and warn him to say nothing to no one."
"His phone is tapped."
"Fine. I will send him an email."
"His assistant has access to his email accounts."
"So?"
"He works for Alcazar."
"Shit!"
"Wait. Jax is working with a private detective."
"Don't even think about it."
"You can't expect me to keep my brother in the dark."
"I thought you loved your brother."
"I do. What has that got to do with anything?"
"If Jax finds out where I am, he will come here, correct?"
"Probably."
"Alcazar will follow Jax. Once he finds me, Alcazar will kill Jax."
"Why? He didn't kill him last time."
"His goal wasn't to kill him last time. He was trying to get my attention to the fact that Jax was seeing Brenda behind my back in a way that I couldn't overlook and Jax couldn't lie his way out of. Alcazar doesn't normally follow me around the world like this. When I need my breathing space badly enough that I would run away, he usually gives me some room. Alcazar has raised the stakes. If Jax gets near me, he is a dead man."
"What do you mean he has raised the stakes? What's going on?"
"I'm not sure that you really want to know. But what the hell, maybe it will give you an incentive not to do anything stupid, like call your brother." Skye looked straight into Jerry's eyes and said. "Congratulations Jerry, you are going to be an uncle."