“This isn't a good situation, Paul, not in anyway." His calm was annoying, but it was making it easier for me to be as well, part of me had been expecting some type of fight with him.

“But we can work it out by not lying or keeping anything from each other anymore."

“You're right." He agreed, “But I guess we both had good reasons for not saying anything and it was a matter of time. I think maybe I was hoping you'd find out."

“I was hoping you never knew." I said sadly, "Now I find out you knew about me before I even went back. I feel even worse than I did before."

“Do you want me to tell you, about it?"

“No, but yes." I answered honestly, I knew it would be upsetting, but now I had to know why John would tell Paul, something wasn't right, even for this mess.

“okay," Paul began, “It was a few days after my graduation, you had gone to the beach for the day with a couple of the girls from work and dad had roped me into helping him clean out his office for the new furniture he'd ordered."

“Hey Paul, I'm going to go run out real quick and grab us some lunch, pizza or burgers?"

I looked up from the box of old books I was packing and grinned, “Mom's not here to complain about the smell so how about a white pizza with garlic?"

“Oh, I like how you think!" Dad laughed, "Tell you what, my job is getting the pizza yours is to remember to light some damn candles before she gets home so the house doesn't stink."

“Deal. I told him, “You want me to start on your old desk?"

“Sure. Just put everything in a couple of small boxes so I can go through it later, I want to get that old thing into the garage today."

“Got it." I stood up and looking around the shambles of the office, found a small box to start with.

Dad had turned to leave, but then stopped, “Just don't go opening any boxes or anything, I have some client info in there."

"Yeah, because I'm going to steal their identities." “Just do what I asked, okay, smart ass?" I rolled my eyes.

“Yes sir." I gave him a mock salute.

I went over to his desk and starting with the middle drawer began tossing the contents into the box. I found a small ring of keys and shoved them in my pocket so they wouldn't get lost and after finishing that drawer began going through the larger drawers on each side.

I sat on the floor while I worked and finding a small brown box, went to stack it neatly with the other stuff, but wondered if dad was hiding something cool in his desk. He'd had a gun mom had made him get rid of and maybe he still had it.

I opened the box and was disappointed to find nothing but a bunch of folders with people's names on them. I put the box with the rest of the stuff then went to the next drawer. This one was full of old books and more files, but after I cleaned it all out, I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the corner of the drawer.

I tugged on it expecting it to come out, but instead as I pulled in it, it resisted and I heard something thump under the drawer. I reached under it and felt around, but there was nothing there.

I tugged harder on the paper and this time it ripped, but the corner of the bottom of the drawer lifted a couple of inches. I looked at the piece of paper in my hand saw some print on it; the corner of a book or magazine.

Intrigued, I grabbed the letter opener I'd found in there, and slipped it into the corner of the drawer. I popped the bottom out and laughed when I picked up the small copy of penthouse letters.

“Oh, you dog." I said aloud, looking at the cover which featured a smoking hot red head in a pair of panties covering her tits with her hands.

“Librarians do it quietly," I read the blurbs on the cover, “Why choose when you can have both sisters? Do porn stars really like their work? Molly Minx tells us yes

“Jeez, what a bunch of crap." I muttered, but beneath the book was a metal box that looked interesting. Maybe it was the gun?