The Monroe Legacy G.2. Chapter 21 - Ugly Love

This chapter is rated PG-13 for both language and content. 

-------------------------------- 

'Carson?' Cai asked, his face blank even as Hallie's mouth dropped open. 'Who the hell is Carson?!'

Lola shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. 'Carson was my high-school boyfriend and  we later discovered he was also my cousin.' She shuddered. 'We ended things the second we found out but I don't think it was ever really over for him. I'll admit struggled with it for years, you can't turn off feelings, even in that situation.'

Cai's mind was working in overdrive. 'Let me get this straight. Your mom was half-sisters with Marilyn Monroe, she never knew her and when she found the link Marilyn died. Except she didn't, she faked her death to cover her pregnancy. Eventually your mother and she reconnected with dire consequences and somewhere in the middle Lola started dating her son with nobody having any idea who he really was?'

Hallie nodded, it bordered on the ridiculous but it was true.

Cai flopped in the armchair and raked his hands through his hair. 'Jesus Hallie, this would make a great mystery novel' he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Lola groaned.

'That's how he knew there was a journal,' she exclaimed. 'I'm so stupid. I made a similar joke back when we were corresponding at university. I mentioned mom writing a journal and said it would be priceless to a publisher. That was before...' She trailed off.

'Before he turned up at our door and declared his undying love and proposed?' Hallie offered, a hint of a smirk in her tone . Lola looked at her reproachfully,

'It really isn't funny Hal' she objected. 'I know we all used to joke about it years ago but things are different now

Hallie shrugged, 'I'm sure Jeffery doesn't care, but if it makes you uncomfortable then I'll stop'.

Lola hauled herself back on to the sofa, blushing deeply and looking uncomfortable. 'It's not Jeff,' she began, 'this is equal parts alarming and humiliating, I tried to keep it secret from everyone except Jeffrey.

About five years ago I received a letter from Carson, apologising for the proposal and asking if we could be friends. He told me that his step-dad had died and that Norma - that's what we all knew her as Cai - was sick. He said I was the only one he could talk to who knew everything.

I felt bad for him. He was my first love and I wanted to help so we started writing again. At first it was fine but then I started getting gifts. At first it was just flowers and chocolates and little things. Then it was jewellery and bigger stuff. It was always anonymous but the gestures, however misguided, had Carson written all over them. 

I had to tell Jeff when a new car was delivered to our drive, he was angry but got over it and made me promise to stop writing. I did, telling Carson I thought he needed a clean break to move on. A couple weeks later Jeff noticed a car parked across from the house that never moved or belong to any of the neighbours. We saw it again when we were out shopping and at Zander's speech day.

One day Jeff went over and slammed the driver's door open. Carson had been living in his car, following us around. I confronted him and he broke down, he said his mother was dead and that I was all he had. He had every letter I'd ever written in the car with him, along with the ring I wouldn't accept all those years ago. It was both heartbreaking and terrifying and I had to stop Jeff from kicking his ass.

I called in a few favours from my doctor friends and we got him in to a great counselling and therapy programme across the country. After a lot of thought I took out a restraining order, I wrote one last letter to explain why we couldn't be in each other's lives and encouraging him to get on with his.

That was almost two years ago and I haven't heard from him since. I hoped he had found a way to cope and made a life for himself, maybe found himself someone to love. But he must be back. I just wish I knew what he was planning.'

Seeming exhausted by her confession Lola collapsed back on the sofa and Hallie rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. It seemed they had all been more affected by their family's past than they'd been letting on.

'If he's violated his restraining order we can have him locked up' Cai realised. 'This can all be over!'

'But he knows too much, especially with the journal as proof!' Hallie objected. 'I want this done as much as you do but based on what Lola has said he's got nothing left to lose by telling the world. I'm not sure we can manage five children and the attention of the whole world when the story breaks.'

Cai looked defeated as Lola agreed, the only thing more dangerous than Carson right now was what Carson might do if he figured out they were on to him.

Lola needed to get home and tell Jeffery what had happened and finally tell him the full story of Carson's link to her family.  Hallie and Cai needed to get the triplets up from their nap. They arranged to meet the next day and come up with a plan of action.

For the rest of the day Hallie and Cai went through the motions. Cai was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he forgot to let Violet beat him at hopscotch and Hallie put both of Sienna's legs through the same hole in her romper three times before she realised what was going wrong.

They slept fitfully, imagining dark figures in the corners of their beautiful home.

The next morning Lola arrived with Jeffery and a plan. It wasn't perfect but it was their best hope of ending things quietly and with no damage to anyone.

Hallie would wait for Carson to make contact again but this time she wouldn't be alone when she met him. Lola would go and try and draw him out and Cai and Jeffery would be waiting, hidden to support them, Jeffery with his gun license and Cai with a video recorder.

None of them liked it but with the sustained public interest on the family and the secret they were hiding their options were limited. Even a private security firm might decide that their story was more valuable than their fee.

With the plan decided Hallie and Cai tried to pretend that nothing had changed to avoid raising suspicion if they were being watched. Weeks went by with no contact and they began to stop playing at living and started actually living again.

Cai was taking a break between books to spend more time with his family and you could feel the change. Violet's grades improved as she finished up her last year in middle school and Gray could read short words all on his own!

The triplets were happy children, growing up with distinct personalities. Jet was laid back, spending hours with his Rocky doll and taking his time to walk and talk. Hallie could tell she would have her hands full trying to keep him focused at school when the time came.

Sienna was a joy to be around, she loved nothing more than cuddles and following around her parents and siblings. She was a friend to everyone but where she was a sweet-natured little thing Saffron was a drama queen!

Saffron's first word was NO! And she used it regularly. Whether she was making a fuss about her outfit or crying for the toy her brother had just picked up after she threw it away she lived to make a scene. She was either sunshine or thunder, singing and dancing or screaming mad. Hallie had always though Violet was a handful but Saffron was fast taking the crown.

Gray's birthday crept up on them and they kept the celebration in the family. As much as they hoped that Carson had taken the money and gone they were still afraid of exposing their kids to the public, he had never shown any violent urge but you couldn't be too careful.

Gray grew into a handsome little boy who was anxious to please. He was desperate to start school and kept offering to do Violet's homework, much to Hallie's horror! Violet was bad enough without encouragement from her little workaholic brother.

Life had almost returned to the golden days where Hallie and Cai could only just keep their hands off each other for as long as the kids were in the room when the next note arrived.

They opened it together with a grim determination to end this now. It was short and to the point.

The same again, I know you can afford it. Friday, 5am, leave it under the plaque in the old bridge down at Hudson's Creek. Don't be an idiot and tell.

A phone call to Lola confirmed their timings and two days later Cai hugged Hallie goodbye in their room and watched her drive away, Lola lying concealed on the back seat.

From his vantage point he saw a dirty sedan pull out a few houses down and follow Hallie's car towards the creek. Taking a steadying breath he left through the back door and walked round the block to where Jeffery was waiting  a loaded revolver on his hip.

As Hallie pulled off the road and onto the bumpy track which would take them up to the old ruined bridge she wondered how Carson would respond. She still had no idea what he wanted from them, whether there was some greater motive to it all.

She cut the engine and could have sworn she heard another vehicle shutting down off in the woods. Poker faced she stepped out of the car and swung the bag, stuffed with sheets of blank paper, over her shoulder. Ducking under the branches of the trees on the bank she quickly located the plaque and stuffed the bag behind its plinth and out of sight.

Returning to the car she started it up and made as if to pull away, turning and driving twenty feet towards the road. Then as quickly as she could she stopped and got back out, Lola joining her as they sprinted back up the track.

A rustling near the bridge confirmed that they were not alone and for a second Hallie panicked that it might be someone else, someone more dangerous than her sister's crazy ex.

But a broken voice called out from the thick shade.

'Lola! Is it really you?'

As Hallie grasped her sister's hand as Lola tensed. Footsteps approached and a man looking much older than 47 but with a resemblance to the Carson she had known as a child emerged from the bushes. Dropping the rucksack he had just picked up he rushed to them, a huge grin on his withered face.

 'Lola I knew you hadn't forgotten me' he exclaimed, and before anyone could react he crushed her to him and kissed her. Too horrified to move for a moment Lola soon pushed him off throwing a panicked look at the bushes where Hallie could hear a scuffle that she was pretty sure was Cai trying to stop Jeffery rushing in and ruining it all.

By some miracle Carson was oblivious, devouring Lola's face with his gaze even as she shrank from him.

In a shaking voice she said,

'Carson I want the diary pages back. They're precious to me.'

Eager to please he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a dirty wad of pages and held it out to her.

'Anything for you sweetheart!' He enthused, Hallie could see the sickness of his mind in his actions. It was like she wasn't even there even as she took the pages from Lola and put them in her own pocket. Carson was totally obsessed with her sister, Hallie wondered how Lola could stand there looking so calm! She would have run like hell and she was always supposed to be the brave one.

 With barely a tremor in her voice Lola asked the question they had all wanted answered. 'Carson, why are you here? Why are you blackmailing my family?'

For the first time a flicker of doubt muddied Carson's expression, he seemed genuinely confused.

'For you Lola. She's only your half sister and we both know that that doesn't count for much, just look at our mothers! They might as well not have been related and if they weren't we'd never have broken up at all. And I needed to be near you, I couldn't get a job, how could I work and not be near to you but I needed money since my inheritance is all gone.

I saw in the paper that she was rolling in it' with this he gestured violently to Hallie, 'and I knew that she wouldn't want her secret leaked. It was easy really.'

Lola's expression was full of sorrow and pity.

'Oh Carson, can't you hear how sick you are. I'm married, I love my husband, I have a 16 year old daughter  and two sons with him. You and I have been over for more than 25 years and you still really truly believe, after everything you've done, that I would want to be with you?'

With every word she uttered a change began to sweep Carson's features and ugly blackness entered his eyes, his pupils dilated and his breathing got faster. As his lip curled he pulled back his arm, his had balked in a fist and screaming 'You bitch' he lunged at Lola.

Hallie tugged her sister out of reach as Carson's momentum carried him past them and to the ground.  Cai and Jeffrey came rushing from the shadows, Cai with a  camera capturing the whole scene and as Carson struggle to regain his footing Jeffery trained the gun on him at point blank ranged and clicked off the safety.

'If you ever come near my wife again I swear I will kill you' he said in a voice so even and deadly that it sent a chill through Hallie.

Carson glowered, his face a distorted mask of hate.

'She's not who I thought she was' he spat in Lola's direction. 'She promised we'd love each other forever and she lied. She's a whore and she's spoiled. You can have her now.'

Lola's strong exterior was crumbling under the tirade of cruelty from a man she had once loved and an almost imperceptible signal passed between Jeffery and Cai.

Cai shut of the camera and moved in closer as Jeffery holstered his gun and pounced on Carson, twisting his arm behind him until the older man shouted out in pain.

Cai quickly searched the incapacitated man for weapons before making a reluctant Jeffery let go. Turning to Carson as he crawled away and began to rub his shoulder Cai's face set in a mask that Hallie hadn't seen since the night he had seen Brian drag her from the party in college.

It was an expression of deadly, hardened calm and the voice which accompanied it was low but threatening, without hesitation or sympathy.

'Listen to me you pathetic piece of shit. You have done your damage here. You came damn close to ruining my marriage, you've harassed my wife's family and now you've tried to blackmail me.

I have your evidence, I have a video of you threatening us and trying to assault my sister-in-law. I also have a very large bank balance and a string of ruthless attorneys, contacts at the police department and I will have no problem destroying you if you continue to interfere.

All you have is a fake identity and a history of mental health issues including being institutionalised.  Without a shred of evidence do you really think your little story is going to be believed?

You have no power here. We've given you more chances than you deserve but here's one last one, for your mother's sake.

Leave state. Hell, leave the country, I'll even give you cash for a plane ticket. But if I ever hear of you again, if so much as a sticky note finds its way to anyone in my family again I will find you and I will see you put away for the rest of your life.

 Do you understand me?'

Carson had started crying halfway through Cai's threat, his shoulder shaking at the mention of his mom and his gaze fixed on the place where his knees hit the mud.

 Without looking up he nodded once.

Not wanting it drawn out any longer Hallie took Lola's hand and led her back to the car, Jeffery waiting until they were safely inside before stepping away from the husk of a man sitting on the floor. Even Cai's heart, flooded as it was with hatred couldn't help but pity Carson as he threw a roll of money at his feet and went back to the car.

As they drove away Hallie looked in the rear view mirror and saw that Carson still hadn't moved, he stayed down as the dust from the car erased him for their view and, she hoped, their lives.

----------------------------

This chapter ended up being epically long - I kept trying to cut it back and missing important bits so if you're reading this - thanks for sticking with me! I appreciate it more than you'll ever know :)


Read the next chapter - Ch. 22 After The Storm now!

Author's note - A few people had expressed surprise that Carson was behind all this - I'll admit I was pretty surprised too and I would have started hinting sooner if I'd known. When he hit YA he developed the Mean-Spirited trait and when Lola dumped him they became nemesis-es (nemesi?nemeses? anyone!?). I left him in neighborhood as I'd always had a soft spot and he would turn up at verious parties, at first just mooching about until at the trips toddler birthday he started a fight with both Cai and Jeffery. Then he was horrid to Lola and insulted Hallie. After I'd kicked him out it emerged that he might be the person with nothing to lose and everything to gain from abusing what he knew and the Monroe's protective instincts. It's a funny old game we play eh?