Annabelle

AB was happy, happier perhaps than she'd ever been. She had found her calling in life, the path ahead was clear. Oh sure, the details were still to be worked out, but she could see it ahead of her. She had joined her dad and Sheila; she had proven herself worthy to be part of the team. Daddy would still be her guiding influence, and now she had Sheila too. She would soon be out from under her mother, and she could live her life like her dad had said, for her.

AB brought them all back to the moment, "I think we've put the puzzle together, and now really understand what it is, what our motivations are, and what the plan is for resolution. All we have to do now is wait, bide our time until we are triggered to action by mother's confirmation to the bench. Is there anything you guys want to add?"

"AB, I never wanted any of this for you. I had hoped by enduring your mom's neglect, by being the 'great father and husband' I was doing what was best for you. I didn't want you to have to carry this burden."

"Daddy, don't you see? You've actually given me my freedom. You've made it possible for me to get to the point where I see a way out of this doll house mother has put us in. And you're going to be free too, free to be with Sheila. Maybe you didn't plan or predict this, but you've actually made it all come true regardless."

"Let's go back to how we were before; I'm going to enjoy coasting thru my Senior year, working part time here at the shop. Oh by the way, I'll need your help, to get me into a good Criminal Justice program; it's late August and way too late to try to use regular channels. You're going to have to call in a favor from one of your big wigs in DC to help me out. While we're waiting maybe I will find out if Jeremy is a good kisser after all." AB said this last with a big smile, which helped cut thru the tension. Both Sheila and her dad returned the smile; it was all going to work out. They would flex with the circumstances, as good field agents do.

---

Kate sat in her office basking in the glow of her triumph, the dinner last night celebrating her confirmation to the Bench, her daughter off to Law School, and one last romp with Stephen. That last was bittersweet, Steven had been unique. Not just because of his body, that 9 inches, and the prodigious way he came. But the fun she'd had, those 9 inches had reached places she didn't know she had. Her only complaint was that he was too big for any anal, she'd missed that. But the cum, she'd really enjoyed his fountain when she'd insist he cum on her breasts or belly this last year. But never on her face, she was the top dog after all. Now that she'd let him know they were over, she'd have to consider her next move carefully.

"Miss Morgan, your husband and daughter are here to see you."

Snapped out of her reverie she rose to let Bill and AB in. "What a pleasant surprise, I thought we'd be seeing each other at home. What brings you two to here?"

"Mother we need to talk."

Kate frowned at her daughters tone, very business-like and unemotional. What could be on her mind? She arched an eyebrow at Bill and he just shrugged, indicating that this was AB's show.

"I have some information that I want to give to you, and to make you aware of some decisions I've made as to my future. So let's get that out of the way first. I will not be attending law school this fall, instead I have be getting my BA in Criminal Justice, then work at the shop for a couple of years. Afterwards I expect to get fast tracked and accepted to Quantico, the FBI training academy. After all I'm a legacy of sorts."

"WHAT !! I will not allow this; we have your whole future planned out. How could you think I'd let you throw it away just to be a cop. I've invested a lot of energy in getting you into the best law school and I won't have my plans destroyed by you young lady!" Kate was in full dudgeon, how dare AB spring this on her on this day of days.

AB sat there unperturbed by her mother's ire, she had delivered the first punch and now mother was off balance. Exactly where AB wanted her. "This past summer working for dad at the shop, I have come to realize that my calling is elsewhere, starting off as a field agent and investigator. Once I've established my reputation I'll decide what my next move will be. Practicing law no longer has any appeal to me; I've turned my back on your profession mother. I don't want to grow up to be like you."

Kate sat back in her chair and regarded this changeling in front of her. Had she been so busy with her campaign for judge that she hadn't noticed AB shifting gears? Kate was not used to being on her back foot; she would have to gain the upper hand, and quickly.

"Well AB this really does come as a surprise, I had no idea that you had moved in this direction. Maybe if you give me a bit to mull this over we can discuss this further. I would hate to see you rush into something without careful consideration"

So far the two women had seemingly ignored the man sitting with them. But Bill was not oblivious, he was biding his time. His turn would come.

"No mother, their won't be any discussion. My mind is made up, the plans are made, and I'll be leaving for college on time, just not law school. And in order to eliminate anything you think you might try to pull I'd like you to open this dossier and take a quick look."

AB slid a folder across the desk to her mother; still with that poker face AB didn't telegraph what this was all about. But opening the folder Kate got a shock, the table of contents was enough to stop her heart - Mistress, AB Parentage, Simpel Murder, Boyfriends, Nomination. Sweat started to form on Kate's upper lip; she chose the Parentage section to look at first. DNA reports - three of them, one comparing AB to Bill, no match. Another comparing AB and Kate, mother daughter. And lastly comparing AB to Leonard Simpel, father daughter.

Kate had purposely never checked AB's parentage, she had hoped that she was Bill's but knew that she and Len had probably made another baby with all their couplings. Anger flashed across Kate's face and she started to raise her gaze, to look her daughter in the eyes, thinking to dominate her, to gain the upper hand. Instead she was confronted with a blast furnace of rage from AB.

"You fucking bitch!! You cucked my father for years! First with Simpel, then with your boy toys! And all he ever did was love and support you! He stood by you through all those years of neglect, taking care of the house, raising me practically on his own. And how to repay him!? With loyalty and love? No, you betrayed my father and mocked him behind his back. You disgust me mother."

"That stuff in that folder is just a copy of what I have safely hidden away. I'm going to blackmail you mother, this is how I buy my freedom from you. It's not just working towards Quantico; I want you out of my life forever. Someday I might be able to stomach being in the same room as you, but it will be a long time coming! I hate you so much for what you've done to daddy, you cold hearted cunt. If you try to derail my plans for the FBI I'll make sure the contents of that folder go public. How would it be for a Superior Court Judge to be exposed as a serial adulteress and totally lacking in morals."

Kate looked once more at Bill but he sat as he'd just heard the weather report. How could he be so calm when all her indiscretions had been exposed? Could it be that he already knew, that must be it? AB must have already shown Bill the contents of the folder, so he must know. At that thought came a tear, she really had loved him, still loved him. She had tried to protect him, shelter him from all this ugliness. And there he sat seemingly unaffected.

"I see you give me no choice AB, what do you want me to do?" Kate had a catch in her throat as she got those words out. Never had she been so thoroughly outmatched.

"That's the beauty of it mother, you don't have to do a thing. In fact, you can carry on just as you have for all I care. All I'm buying here today is your absence from my life. You can go to hell." With that AB rose and stomped out of the room leaving the two adults alone in her wake.

---

Kate came back to her senses as she felt Bill's hand on her shoulder. "Here sip this." She hadn't seen him get up and pour each of them a snifter from the sideboard in her office.

Taking more than a sip she choked out "Oh my god Bill, how you must hate me. I've tried to protect you, to keep all this from you - Len, the others, all of it. You must have been so hurt when AB showed you her evidence."

There was that shrug again "Actually Kate, I've known all along. Since Ab was about two. You got careless and made me suspicious; from there it was short work to figure out what you were up to with Len. "

"But, but, you've always been there for me! You never let on, you could have stopped me, you could have made me stop, or divorced me."

"No Kate, you've been too far gone for some time. I thought after Len was dead you'd straighten yourself out and commit to me and AB, but that only lasted about a year. After that you were back on the path Len had mapped out for you - with all that came with it."

"Who are you? Where is the quiet family man that I married, you seem so calm and cold about all this. I can't believe you're not ranting and throwing things."

"No Kate I'm not really like any of that - quiet, unassuming, how was it you put it 'not very exciting'."

How had he known about that phrase, she had only uttered it with her most trusted friends?

"I made my peace about you a long time ago, Len understood there at the end and I've slept well ever since then."

"What do you mean at the end, did you confront him!? Did you and he argue and fight over me!?"

"Actually no, it was all over in seconds. When he recognized it was me standing on his porch, he straightened up and looked me right in the eye and nodded. He understood completely, and he took it like a man. He earned my grudging respect in that instant, but I don't regret what happened next."

Kate came around about a minute later as Bill was applying a damp cloth to her forehead.

"You killed Len, that can't be. What about the druggie they found with the gun and the watch. You're such a quiet gentle man. I can't believe it."

"All a ruse to get the trail to go cold. And your phone call to make the whole thing go away helped tremendously. With a little help the case did get closed and the crime scene evidence all boxed up and into the police archives. Which by the way is now just an empty box, everything was destroyed so even if you wanted to open all that up again based on what I just told you, there would be nothing to go on."

"Oh my god, what happens next? To me, to us?" Kate was starting to swoon again. It was all too much, first AB and now this revelation from Bill.

"Here you go, take another sip, we're almost done here."

Kate's brain was overloaded, she couldn't take much more. One moment she was at the pinnacle of her achievements, and now sitting on her couch trying to stay conscious.

"What more is there, are you going to blackmail me too?"

"Actually no, I'm here to set you free. That speech from AB was her gaining her freedom, paying you back for the way you treated her and me. But don't worry too much about her, she's young and will bounce back. I'm sure in no time at all you'll be back together working on your relationship. It'll be hard at first but she is your daughter, and Len's. I've tried hard to see that his ruthlessness didn't blossom in her, but it's still under there. I'm afraid you just saw a bit of that just now. She's going to be formidable as she matures."

"Plus what she's about to learn with her studies, at the Academy, and later in the field will put all this drama in perspective. She'll see what real crime and villainy are and it will soften her towards you."

"But now to your freedom, I've got three presents for you. First this little device." Bill produced a small oblong thing with a flashing green light on top, no bigger than a key fob. "As long as this device is blinking green, the room you're in does not have any bugs or listening devices in it. So you can feel safe. If it is red, then you are being recorded.

All the bugs in your house, car, your purses and bags have been removed. And your little hideaway at the hotel downtown has been swept, plus as you can see this office. You are no longer being recorded or under any surveillance."

"How long have I been under scrutiny, how long have you been spying on me?"

"Since Len died. I needed to make sure no more interventions would be needed. But you didn't take a page out of Len's playbook; you didn't take on a steady long term boyfriend. You were consistent with only keeping your boyfriends around for a year or so before trading them in."

"Which is the second of my freedom gifts to you. All of your boyfriends have been visited by me personally and will never say a harsh word about you, or reveal your secrets. None of them want to ever see me again, so that alone guarantee's their discretion. No scandal will befall you from that direction, and I'll make sure AB's evidence disappears too. I would never let her carry out her threat to expose you. Also, the two senators you bedded to get the nomination, they'll keep quiet too."

Again Kate wondered at the man sitting in front of her, he looked like her Bill, but instead was some superspy mastermind. And instead of throwing her to the wolves he was making it so that none of her past sins would come back to haunt her tenure as a judge.

"And now the final gift of freedom." Bill reached into his briefcase, she hadn't even noticed it until now, and placed a large folder on her desk and then a hard drive on top of that. It was labelled 10TB, so there must be a lot of information stored on it. There was also a hand written label, 'KF archive'.

"Unlike AB, this is your original file. No copies exist of the papers or the data on this drive. I'm giving it to you as a parting gift. In the file are all the receipts from the hotel, airline tickets from your trysts away from home, and surveillance photos. The drive contains electronic copies of recorded conversations and even some video. I suggest you review it all and then douse it with gasoline, burn it and then stir the ashes. No one will ever be able to make a credible accusation about you ever again. This is all the evidence about your activities that exists. We have been very thorough. And unlike AB's file, this one contains the evidence about those two senators."

"Parting gift? You're divorcing me, leaving me. You can't, you've always been my rock, my anchor that I could count on! I can't live without you!"

"Kate, you haven't needed me in a long time. Not the way a wife should need her husband.' Me and you against the world'. No you have made your own world and the rest of us just get to live out the roles you've assigned to us. We'll today we've broken free of you, and in return we've set you free too. I don't say this the same way AB did, but you're now free to do anything you want, be the person you want to be. No need to hide anything or think about anybody else's feelings or opinion. You're Superior Court Judge Morgan now. You know I do have a small confession; it has always bothered me that you didn't take my name. You were never Kathy Ford, wife of Bill. You were and are the mighty Kathrine Morgan."

Kate winced at that, perhaps more than anything else that stabbed right at her heart. She had treated Bill as less, not a partner, not a real husband. She had reserved parts of herself, and given parts to others.

"I can change Bill; you've wiped the slate clean. You and I can make a fresh start." That sounded lame even to her as she was saying it.

"It's too late for that Kate, too late for a long time. All my stuff has been moved out of your house by now and into my new place; AB's too. As to a divorce, I leave that entirely up to you. Do it quietly or not at all, sell the house or keep it. Nothing there means anything to me anymore. After all who would notice if we got divorced, there is no Kathy Ford for anybody to miss?"

"Where will you go, will I ever see you again?"

"Of course we'll see each other from time to time. There will milestones in our lives, and for AB. Once you get your new life established and your career on the bench rolling, I'm sure they'll be opportunities to run into each other. We won't be living together nor sharing a bed, ever again. That part is for sure. I promised my lady I'd be exclusively hers after today."

"Your lady! Your lady! You hypocrite! You've been cheating on me too. Who is the slut you've been fucking behind my back. Hah! Mr. high and mighty!"

"Actually there is no fucking, never has been. And never can be. You see Sheila was violently raped in the Army and the best surgeons couldn't put her back together. Most days in the last few years she's been too distracted by what we're building to remember all the hurt, and what can never be."

"My advice to you Kate is to review all this stuff before you burn it. Take the time to reflect on what it represents. You may have been Len's protégé, and followed in his footsteps, but you can always choose a different path now. Become the judge you want to be, be good at it and do good."

Bill got up from where he'd been sitting and walked over to the bookcase, and before Kate could protest took Len's watch from its glass box. He turned it over in his hand and read the inscription out loud, 'From Kathrine and Annabelle your loving ladies.' "I'm taking this; it should have been mine all along." And with that Bill walked out of Kate's office leaving her feeling as if she'd been hit by a very big truck. Her gaze stuck on the now empty glass box highlighted by the little spotlight.

---

EPILOG:

Annabelle Ford's name was called to come up and receive her diploma. Bill and Sheila jumped up and cheered as loud as any of the other proud parents. And later in the scrum of graduates and students trying to find their folks there was much hugging and squeals of joy.

Judge Morgan walked up to the happy trio. "Hello Bill, Sheila. Thanks for making sure I got invited to this happy day. AB I'm so proud of you, please let me hug you." And with that AB did embrace her mother, it was like two versions of the same woman hugging, AB so resembled Kate. Kate had not seen her daughter more than a handful of times in the last four years.

Turning to the adults AB said "I'm going to go now to celebrate with my friends- daddy, Sheila I'll come by your place tomorrow and we can talk about what my assignments will be at the shop." AB was all business, but went into Bill's arms for a last hug before she went off with her buds. "Thank you daddy, I love you so very, very much." AB grabbed both Sheila's hands in hers and squeezed the big woman's as she looked warmly into her eyes, they both just nodded to each other.

With that she turned to Kate and stepping up to her, looked her straight in the eye using her ice queen persona, and said "mother, do you think we could have lunch next week? We have so much to talk about."