Act One, Scene Eight
Carlos Merrero, Count Heavyhand, tried to be a good father. He’d spend the mornings on breakfast and exercise; the afternoons for running his county, and the evenings were for his friends. But at the start of every night, he’d go over to that otherwise-unused computer that kept an eye on all the traffic through the manor’s wireless network and take a look as to what his sons had been up to.
He brushed through the wave of spam. Not much for Alex, who watched what he signed up for, but James had the usual mess of online bills; he seemed immune to any attempt to force economy on him.
Then there was the E-mail from James to Alex Merrero. Not from Alex’s usual address, but from one of these new online hosting things. A response.
Alejandro,
Forget about it. Even I have standards, you know. Don’t tell Dad and I’ll forget it ever happened.
James
Heavyhand’s eyes narrowed. What could that be connected to? Alex might have been erratic recently, but what could he say that would make Jay sound like that? He hadn’t deleted the original message from the response.
James,
He’s gone mad. Just straight outright round the bend. The man who raised me and the man who raised you would never have done it. Whta he said about Jackie was just sick, and you know he’s not going to get better, and every time one of us does something he doesn’t like he’s just going to crack down again, and we’ll never be free. What he says, what he does - that’s it. I can’t stand it any more.
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You’re the one who knows people, Jay . I’ll give you anything. Call it a wedding gift, and then once we’re free we can move on with our lives.
Alejandro
The keyboard shattered, keys bouncing off the wall. The desk cracked as Heavyhand pushed off it, storming his way down the stairs, pulling out the tiny phone that watched the house’s monitors and stabbing at the buttons with blunt fingers.
Alejandro was no more in his wing of the manor than he had been for the past six months, but when Heavyhand burst into James’s home estate he was waiting there, tapping away at a computer keyboard, eyes haggard and face bedraggled but dressed as well as ever.
“James! Explain yourself!”
Jay tilted his head towards his father, eyes dark.
“What about, sir? Is there some new charge I must account for?”
“Your last talk with your brother.”
James froze.
“Tell me, boy, exactly what you said.”
“I haven’t spoken to my brother in weeks.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy.”
“Someone got ahold of his account and sent me a message. I didn’t think it was him!”
“You responded.”
“Sir, I received a message from an account he used to use. I assumed someone had hacked it.”
“You responded to it.”
“Only to step on it,” said Jay. “My brother loves and respects you, father. He’d never mean anything like that.”
But he said it, whether he meant it or not. “That girl -” Heavyhand snarled.
“Yes, I know, she’s terrible for him. But - how about this. I know he didn’t do anything, but if you like I can talk to him, try to get him to come back. Find him at a party and mention that I shared his last message with you and you wanted to talk. He’ll think it’s about scotch, and be embarrassed and that’ll be that.”
“And if he runs?”
“He won’t run! Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him. Everything will be fine.”
Heavyhand’s eyes narrowed, and he turned on his heel and stormed off.
Alone in his room, Jay leaned back and smiled.