Joachim felt like a criminal himself when he boarded the plane and was panicked that they’d stop him again. He was sure that there would be something about him now in the computers. The authorities were aware of his existence now, and his relationship to Javier. Being the identical twin of a man on the No Fly List was not a good thing, and he thought there might be repercussions again, but there weren’t. Everything went smoothly when they checked in and boarded the plane.
Olivia slept most of the way back to Paris. She was exhausted by the trauma of the trip. And seeing her apartment had been sad. She had never realized how dreary her life was there, and how bad her apartment looked. And selling her mother’s apartment was emotional for her. She felt drained.
Joachim dropped her off at her apartment in Paris and went home. His mother was waiting for him, to hear all about the fun he’d had in New York. The minute he came through the door, she could see that something was wrong. He had burst into tears when he got to his hotel room in New York, and he almost did now. The humiliation of the four-and-a-half-hour interrogation had been a nightmare, particularly since he was with Olivia. He told his mother about it and she looked shocked.
“They thought you were Javier?” The whole story sounded awful to her.
Joachim nodded. “Yes, they did. Thank God they finally produced a photograph of him and you could see the mole we both have, on opposite sides, and the birthmark on his shoulder. Otherwise I’d probably be in prison by now, as a drug dealer, and he’d be scot-free.” He had loved being an identical twin as a boy, and they had played tricks on everyone, their teachers, their friends. The only one who could always tell them apart instantly was their mother. But it was not fun being the twin of a criminal like Javier. The federal agent said he had killed several American agents, and probably a number of other people as well. He had become a very dangerous man.
“At least we know he’s still alive,” Joachim said with a sigh, sitting next to his mother on the couch. It felt good to be home. “That’s some small consolation.”
“It’s no consolation at all,” she said with a ravaged look. “He’s no longer the man we knew. The Javier we loved is gone. He might as well be dead,” but she was glad he wasn’t too. He was still her son, no matter how bad he was.
“I should probably quit my job.” He’d been thinking that for two days. “I’m an embarrassment to Olivia. I’m surprised she didn’t fire me in New York.”
“She needs you,” his mother said simply. “And walking out on her and quitting is cowardly. You’re better than that. You embarrassed her, and probably terrified her. Now you have to stick it out until it calms down. You don’t walk away when things get hard,” she admonished him.
“I never have before. But she doesn’t need the headache I represent.”
“No, she doesn’t. But she does need your help. You owe it to her to stick around. If she wants to fire you, she will. Then you can go. Not before.” His mother was very firm about it, and in the end, he promised her he wouldn’t quit for now, and went to bed.
The atmosphere between Joachim and Olivia was still tense the next day, on their first day back. They had returned to real life and were together all the time. And he knew his mother was right. It would take a while to settle down again. He thought Olivia still looked scared and maybe she was. It had terrified him too. He didn’t know how his brother could live like that, always on the wrong side of the law, wanted all over South America, and in the United States, with criminals just like him who wanted to kill him and maybe his family. He was amazed his brother was still alive.
Olivia was as uncomfortable with Joachim as he was with her. She thought she would probably fire him before anything else happened, but she wanted to wait for the results of the criminal investigation to come back. Maybe he was as innocent as a lamb. She wanted to be fair, which was one of the things he liked most about her. He could sense how torn she was, but knew nothing of the investigation she had launched. He just thought she was jumpy. And he didn’t blame her. It had unnerved him too. It was the undiscussed elephant in the room whenever they were together.