Chapter 11
Sylvia was now at the Hoover building trying to help the FBI track down her father and make him pay. So far they hadn't gotten any real solid leads.
"I know there was a man, um, Grucko who came to visit a couple times." Sylvia told them.
"Grucko's a black market arms dealer." Myles said. "You didn't know that?"
"Lay off Myles." Jack said, turning to the other man. Myles was extremely sarcastic and seemed to like to be degrading. Sylvia bit her lip. Myles saw this and looked apologetic.
"I'm sorry." He said, "But I really want to catch this guy."
"It's ok." Sylvia answered quietly. "I didn't get in my fathers business, he didn't get in mine. Sometimes we'd go for weeks without seeing each other even though we lived in the same house."
"Is there anything else?" Dimitrius asked. Sylvia shook her head. Dimitrius sighed and Sylvia hung her head. It surprised her when he put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You've helped a lot."
"Thanks." She murmured. It had been harder than she had thought to come out of her apartment. She didn't want to be out here with the rest of the world. It seemed like such a dark and dreary place now. Nothing like the bright and happy place it had been before. She just wanted to scream at people for having the guts to be so cheerful. They had no right to be. She figured that if she had to be destroyed, they should at least have to know what it feels like. It's obvious that none of them have ever lost their world. At least they haven't lost their world like she lost hers. She was mad at them because she knew that most of them would never know the pain and loss that she knew. It was as if someone had torn her heart from her chest, never to replace it. It left a hole and chilled her from the inside out with a cold that was neither tangible nor removable. She would be forever cold and gray. The sun would never shine on her again. Now that she was out here she wanted to crawl back into her hole where it didn't matter that the world lacked color or cheer. There was no one to point this out to her there. It was her cold and lonely home, but that was the way it was meant to be. She was just about to go home when Myles entered the room with a folder in his hand.
"Hennesey figures that the murder of Donavin's wife was committed by Donavin himself. They've found evidence that the army knife in the dresser was the one used on her." Myles announced so that all of them could hear. Sylvia was in shock. Why hadn't anybody told her this before? She was confused. She was trying to puzzle it out when she realized that Myles was getting yelled at. She didn't care to sort out who was doing the yelling.
"Stop!" She shouted, causing them all to look at her like she had grown two heads and a tail. "I had to find out sometime. Though I want to know why I wasn't told that my mother was murdered earlier."
"The supervisors had figured that you were too young and that adding the fact that she was murdered on to the loss of your mom would be too much." Tara explained while the guys still stared at her weird.
"It would have answered a lot of questions and disposed of those gnawing doubts that everything wasn't as it looked." Sylvia told them. "Thank you for telling me Myles." Myles gave her a surprised nod. Somehow she knew in her heart that he had killed her mother. That's why he always blamed her. So he didn't have to admit his guilt. He was happy living in his world of falseness and pretend. She felt numb. The others were talking around her. There really wasn't anything else she could tell them, anything else she knew. She tried to focus on anything but her own pain, to make the numbness go away, but it wouldn't. She knew it would wear off pretty soon and then she would feel it all again. The pain, anger, sorrow and loss. It was like a wound that had just started to heal and was now ripped open again, wider than ever. Better now than never She thought, reflecting on what Myles had said. It all makes sense. I should have figured it out for myself. That "accident," as I was told, always seemed a little too convenient.
"Are you alright?" Sue asked her, concerned.
"For now." She answered, and then she looked at her watch. "I should be going now." Sylvia left in a trance. She drove home, the radio blaring. She was looking for a song to use to define her father. Then she found it.
Perfect by nature
Icons of self indulgence
Just what we all need
More lies about a world that
Never was and never will be
Have you no shame don't you see me
You know you've got everybody fooled
Look here she comes now
Bow down and stare in wonder
Oh how we love you
No flaws when you're pretending
But now I know she
Never was and never will be
You don't know how you've betrayed me
And somehow you've got everybody fooled
Without the mask where will you hide
Can't find yourself lost in your lie
I know the truth now
I know who you are
And I don't love you anymore
It never was and never will be
You're not real and you can't save me
Somehow now you're everybody's fool (Everybody's Fool)
After locking the door, she leaned her head against the wall and let the tears come. Her father had taken her mother, and now her lover. There was no way that she was going to sit her and let him stay free. She began calling all the people she knew that knew her father. She had to find him. Show him her world. Destroy him before he could destroy anyone else in the way he had destroyed her.