Chapter 134: Chapter 134: The Girl Who Was Hunted - Chapter Fifty

CHARLOTTE “I want to know about you,” says Klempner, “and how you make it work with two men.”

What the Hell?

Uncertain, I glance up at Michael. He shrugs. “Your call.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to you.” I say. “If in return, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

Arms folded, face non-committal, “Okay. Shoot.”

“How did you know my mother and father? What were they to you? I know you murdered my father.”

His eyes drop.

“Did I?”

“I’m told by the police that you did. And I believe it.”

“Okay, I killed Frank Conners, yes; if you’re determined to call him your father….”

“Why?”

“He was my friend, or I thought he was. It turned out I was wrong.”

“So why did you think he was?”

“We’d go out together, drinking, chasing women. You know, the things men do.

“What was he like?”

He sniffs. “The reliable type. Solid, dependable….”

“Was he…. a good man?”

His head tilts, eyes narrowing. “What sort of question is that?”

“Did he know you were a trafficker?”

He doesn’t reply, folds his arms, stares me down.

I gulp. “And my mother? What about her?”

“She was a hooker.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He sighs. “Jennifer….

“Charlotte….”

“Charlotte, you don’t want to believe me. But I assure you, she was a hooker, and rather a good one.

She enjoyed what she did; worked at the top end of the market. Charged a lot of money.”

I swallow hard. “You said you ‘ran her’, with a string of other women….”

“Yeah, well, I lied about that. I was running women, but your mother wasn’t one of them. Frank and I were in one of the classier hotel bars downtown. Some of the call girls would hang out there, looking for rich marks. She hit on us there….”

Please let him be lying….

He sees my expression. “You still don’t want to believe me? She was very good at her job. Good enough that, at first, we didn’t realise she was a professional. We thought she was just being….

friendly. And I’ll admit, when I set eyes on her, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen….” He pauses, looking long at me. Michael’s grip on my shoulder tightens. “…. So did Frank. We took a room for the night and…. well, you know the script from there. You’ve had two guys together often enough I’m sure….”

Don’t let him bait you….

“So, what then?”

“She was fun to be with. Not just a good fuck, but actually good company. We both liked her. And she seemed to like us…. Really to like us I mean, rather than just pretend to because that’s part of the job description. In the morning, we took her number, and later, we called her back. It went from there. We’d meet up with her a couple of nights a week. It became regular. And then.…”

Michael’s voice is soft. “And then you realised, that you’d fallen for the woman you thought you’d just bought.”

Klempner looks at him from under hooded eyes. “Which of course, is something you know about….”

Michael shrugs, non-committal, then takes the seat next to me. “So, what happened then?”

“Conners was crazy about her. Never stopped going on about her. Talked about marrying her…. She was a whore…. A high-class prostitute.”

“But a whore you were in love with too….”

Klempner’s face freezes. The arms fold again. The aggression is back. I’m not sure where to go from here. I try another tack.

“So, quid pro quo. What did you want to ask me?”

“I told you. I want to know how you make it work. And why? Two men sharing you? I know all about you up to the point I had you shipped out to that farm, up north. After that, I lost track of you for a while.

When Corby first told me you were testifying, I gave him instructions to find out as much as he could about you from the last few years. He tracked the records; told me about you auctioning yourself, living with two men. I thought at first, you had just grown up into just another whore. But that’s not it, is it?”

How do I answer that?

So, I don’t answer, just wait for more.

“Why did you auction yourself?” he asks. “You’ve grown up looking just like her. You’re beautiful. You could have had men throwing themselves at you; throwing money at you.”

“I didn’t want to be some man’s property. If I did that, I really would be a whore. I wanted to be myself, to go to university, have a life I chose. But I needed to raise money for the fees.”

He frowns, looking bemused. “You sold yourself for a week, no holds barred, just to go to college?

“Just to go to college? I needed the education it takes to get somewhere in my own right. Yes, I’ve got looks, but a woman who relies just on that always ends up as property at some level. And looks fade in the end. What happens later? I want more than that.”

He ponders this. “So, you had your week with them. Then what?”

“I had the money. I started at university.”

“And later? What? You went back? To the man, the men, that bought you?”

“Yes, I did.”

He’s shaking his head, disbelief written large. “Why?”

“They’d been good to me. Better than anything else I’d had up until then…”

Klempner looks sceptical.

I lean forward, as far as I can with the screen separating us. “Remember where I grew up.” I hiss. “You dumped me in that hellhole at Blessingmoors. Two guys being good to me, and paying me well for it, felt like Heaven.”

Michael’s head swivels to me, but he doesn’t speak.

“So, you went back because they were paying you again?” says Klempner, still looking confused.

“No, they weren’t paying me. I went back because I wanted more of it. And later, I realised …. I wanted them.”

“You wanted them? Or you’d fallen in love with them?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes, in different ways.”

“You didn’t choose between them? They didn’t try to make you choose?”

“Choose? Why would I choose? I love them both. They both love me. They get on together. Why should I choose?”

Michael breaks in. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? With you and Conners. You both fell in love with Charlotte’s mother, and you made her choose between you. She chose Conners. And you murdered him for it, and took revenge on her.”

My heart pounding…. Of course, that’s it…. It’s so obvious when someone else sees it first.

My Golden Lover. You see it every time, don’t you….

Klempner’s face is a study in …. what? Regret? Self-loathing? Grief?

He stares at the desktop. “Yes, that’s what happened.”

“Did she know what you were? A trafficker? A slaver?”

“No, of course not. She only learned that later, after….”

“After she’d already rejected you? Chosen Conners? What did you do? Threaten revenge by enslaving her? Like you did with Charlotte? Ship her out to some godforsaken part of the world where she had no hope of rescue, or of anything but a short, miserable life?”

Klempner is silent, his expression sick.

“The two of you paid for her in the first place….” Michael continues, relentlessly. “You knew that you didn’t have to have a conventional relationship with her; that there can be other ways of living. But when it came to it, you forced her to decide between you….”

Klempner gazes down at the table-top. “When she learned what I was, what I did, she said I sickened her. She wouldn’t look at me.”

“Well, most people don’t like the idea of slavery….” Michael's voice drips disgust. “So, for the sake of a convention you didn’t really believe in, you threatened and drove your lover into hiding, murdered your best friend, and have spent the years since trying to convince yourself that you did the right thing…. to the point that you continued your revenge against someone who was completely innocent in all of this…. Charlotte, probably Conners’ child, but possibly yours.”

My gut clutches. I’d tried to convince myself Klempner was lying when he said he could be my father, but if all this is true, then….

Oh, God….

“And your final revenge on her was to steal the child, to force her to grow up into slavery herself…. To fit your idea of….”

Michael is sputtering his words, shaking his head in disbelief. “And when you found she’d grown up to look like her mother, you became obsessed with it again, determined to have the daughter forced into a life that the mother had already told you repelled her….”

Still struggling with his words, looking sick. “Is she alive? Charlotte’s mother?”