Featured image by DarkmoonArt_de from Pixabay

“Once this gets past a certain size law makers will start looking into it” answered Bobby. “They will find the code you’ve injected in my games and most every other app you distribute. It will lead back to you and they will come knocking. You aren’t Google.”

“I’m bigger than Google” Gina spat without thinking. “I know more about the people who would come after us than Google and Facebook ever will and I’ve got deeper pockets.”

Janet was stunned but Bobby was less surprised. “I’ve known about some of the off-shore accounts and businesses for a while. I was hoping to ask for your help in setting some of my own up. You do well in your personal brokerage account but the few fuzzy off-shore ones I know about make that look like tip money on a bar bill and we both know I know a lot about bar bills.”

That did bring some chuckles and laughter. Enough laughter that Gina let her guard down further. “If only we knew about the pool boy.”

“What?” the other two said in unison.

“Oh come on! Our parents joked for years they worked in sleep therapy so it could become the new birth control. I was the result of a stressful week and you were the result of the first snow fall this part of the country had in over a hundred years.”

Janet bust out laughing at that. Yes, thought Gina. Nobody could be around this girl for five minutes and believe she was anything other than a devoted Volvo driving soccer mom. Who would believe she was willingly stepping into the role of matriarch of our little crime family?

“Ah, family humor. That’s what I meant on the phone when I said real conversation had been sorely lacking in this house” offered Janet. “Please, tell us more about the pool boy.”

“I couldn’t ask mom now, given her condition. I always planned to. After dad died and she had plenty of time to recover from mourning I was going to get around to it” responded Gina.

“Mind filling me in sis?”

“Oh come on!” Now it was Janet’s turn. “I didn’t know your dad well, but I’ve seen the pictures. He was not Robert Redford yet you’re his better looking brother. I’ve wondered if you weren’t the result of a wild party, much like the ones you used to have here, where things got out of hand and everyone took an unspoken vow of silence. Given your parents were both scientists I’ve even wondered if you weren’t genetically engineered long before the world found out about CRISPR.”

Bobby could be a shy little boy when the situation was right. He blushed, looked down and muttered “We can never ask her.”

“You don’t want to know?” both women asked in unison.

“No. I have unplanned offspring from such situations. At some point in the not distant enough future I will have to deal with that. Explaining it to them I mean. Janet is a great help there. Most of the kids have been here a few times and things are better with their mothers. One I will soon have to adopt once her psycho mom finishes her downward spiral and legal action can be taken.”

“You really have dug into that haven’t you?” asked Gina.

“Regular updates from my lawyers and private investigators” he sighed. “My biggest fear is that she will inherit some psycho gene from her mom and the daughter I adopt will follow the same psychotic path.”

“We’ll get her while she is still too young to think that life is normal” counseled Janet. “If she grows up in a loving home which teaches her the right way to live she will turn out fine. Maybe not as smart as her genius father but I can instill in her the virtues of family and having a good heart. We just need to make sure all of the kids are well protected.” Turning to look Gina directly in they eyes “for that we need you.”

A bewildered look stared back at her. Was this woman already running things and nobody bothered to inform Gina, the woman who built it all?

<Previous-Post Next-Post>