A Funny Thing Happened in Texas

Chapter 17

Brian walked in the house and was promptly greeted by his cats. He knelt down and rubbed on them for a few minutes. When they were tired of his attention he took his suitcase to the bedroom and started unpacking. The flight back to Texas was long and lonely. Now that he was safe in his house he let himself break down. He sat on his bed and weeped. He hadn't heard anything from Gennie and the last time he tried caring her phone he got a disconnection notice. She certainly hadn't been kidding about going off the grid.

He finally started to put his clothes in the dresser. He opened the drawer that Gennie's lingerie resided in and saw an envelope with his name on it. He crossed the room and say on his bed again. He pulled the pages from the envelope, all in Gennie's handwriting.

"Dear Brian, if you're reading this then something happened while we were in New York. I don't know how much you know about my past so I'll start at the beginning. My grandfather was Al Fitzpatrick, a second generation in the Irish mob family. He had three sons and a daughter. His daughter was named Eliza and she fell in love with a man named Jonathan Kellerman. Jonathan was an assistant D.A. so the Fitzpatrick family found this to be a good union, assuming that Eliza would turn him. But he turned her. They had one daughter in the spring of 1987, her name was Erica Kellerman. She spent a lot of time with both of her parents. She learned how to ride horses, shoot skeet, fence, drive manual cars, and even how to speak three languages.

She attended Columbia University and graduated magna cum laude. She had grown interested in law enforcement, but her strength in weaponry and language guided her to a career with the FBI. She trained as a field agent, and even received special espionage training at The Farm, with CIA operatives."

The letter continued and talked about her involvement with the Fitzpatrick family, which she had already told him.

"I knew before you asked that you had planned on taking me with you to New York. I talked to my handler and I knew the risks. He had us under surveillance from the moment we stepped off the plane. If you're reading this then please know that leaving you will have been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I will try everything I can to come back to you. I love you so much, Brian Quinn."

"I love you, Gennie." He let the paper fall from his hands as he wept.