only to find Julie sound asleep. I sat at the window and watched ships moving out on the ocean. Even though the ocean looked black, the reflection of all the lights was beautiful. I watched and watched all the ships, wondering what was on each one. At some point I went to sleep in the chair. That is where Julie found me.
On Sunday morning, Julie and I were both useless when the kids woke up. We wanted to sleep and they wanted to go back to the ocean, so to the ocean we went. Julie got in the water, but I could tell that she didn’t feel that good. We didn’t stay long in the water, then we dried off and went up to our room. Julie went to sleep and I took the kids down and fed them lunch. When we got back, Julie woke up and ate the lunch that I had brought her. We took her to her apartment, and the kids and I went to the airport.
I took the kids and flew back home.
Home life in Dallas was much slower-paced than in San Diego; at least it was until Tuesday afternoon. I got a phone call. A female voice asked, “Were you serious?”
I looked at my phone, then said, “Jacky, I was serious as a heart attack. Why do you ask?” I wasn’t at all certain about what she was talking about.
She put it out there for me. “I thought you might want to meet me somewhere.”
I smiled. “Jacky, I don’t travel much, and don’t know when I could ever meet you.” I was getting the big head. “I have my kids and no one to watch them.”
She sighed out loud. “When your wife is here doing a movie, I could come visit you.”
I decided to get brave. “Jacky why do you want to see me?”
She said, “Brandon, I am rarely interested in a man, but there is something about you that excites me. If you don’t want to do it, just say so. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. “Jacky, how would it work?”
She said, “I will set Julie up with a very special film. She will want to do it. You encourage her, and when she leaves, I come stay in a hotel and you come visit me when you can.”
I said, “That doesn’t sound fair for you.”
She said, “I will do some shopping and go places. Don’t worry about me, I will be fine.”
I asked, “What happens if Larry finds out about it?”
She laughed. “It will just be you and me. If you don’t tell, no one will know. I can keep a secret.”
I thought about it for a minute. Me and Jacky Lawrence. She was like Marilyn Monroe, one of a kind. I said, “Okay, Jacky, I am in. You set it up and let me know when.”
Tuesday night I called Julie, not certain what I was going to say. I never mentioned Jacky’s name. We talked about everything under the sun, especially our new house.
I called Julie every night until she came home.
On Friday, when Julie came home, I was so full of guilt and I hadn’t done anything yet.
Julie finally said, “Honey, they have another movie for me. I might win an Academy Award!”
I smiled. “Honey, I will support you in whatever you want to do.” I only felt a twinge of guilt as I lied to my wife. This was not like me; I usually prided myself on my honesty. I felt like a heel.
She smiled back at me. “We could see each other every other weekend, unless you want to move to San Diego.”
I shook my head. “No, I like my life here in Dallas.”
On Saturday morning, we went out and looked at the house that the contractor was building for us. It was going to be a monstrosity. The house, pool, garage and grounds all stood on two acres of land. The other eight acres would just be fenced pasture. We could get horses or animals that grazed, maybe some cows. Even partially built, I could tell that it was going to be something special. Large bay windows were on each side of the house. It would have a brick exterior, a circular drive with a small fish pond in the center area of the drive. It would be well lit at night, and have a state of the art security system.
It was going to be six months before Julie left for San Diego. We played and played and my guilt eased up. I kept telling myself that I had nothing to be guilty for. But in my heart, I knew that I was doing wrong. Julie was going to have the baby in just over two months.
On the following Tuesday I was at work, recreating some of the files that had been stolen in the secret documents. Two FBI Special Agents walked in my office and plopped down in my two extra chairs. They both held up their badges and gave me their names.
The bigger of the two men stared at me. “Mr. Thompson, you willing to take a lie detector test?”
I smarted off, “What for? I am the victim here.”
He chuckled. “Victim, huh? You could prove that to us real easy; just take a polygraph test.”
I smarted off again, “Sir, I have no desire to take a test, and you can’t make me.”
This time he leaned forward toward me. “Mr. Thompson, we can do anything that we want to, and we want this real bad!” He must have had acne as a teenager; his face was rough, giving him the look of an intimidator.
I smiled. “Okay, you run the questions by me first, then I will take the test.”
They looked at each other and smiled. “Done. We will be back tomorrow with our equipment and our doctor.”
I felt queasy. “Why do you need a doctor?”
The big guy said, “He is just a PhD in psychology, nothing special. By the way, here are the questions.” I looked over the questions, then he reached over and took the piece of paper back. I did not really have time to look at them, but I saw nothing that concerned me. I went home that night totally unaware of what was about to happen to me.
Wednesday morning, the two agents were back, each carrying a large suitcase. There was a short little man with them, who had an oversized mustache. My boss came down to watch.
I was hooked up to the machine and the little man told me to relax, and he began to ask questions, like what was my full name and so on. Then he stunned me.
“Do you know Mrs. Jacky Lawrence?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes!”
Are you having an affair with Mrs. Lawrence?”
I shook my head. “No!”
The little doctor asked, “Want to try again?”
I shook my head. “No!” I didn’t like the way things were going. They had tricked me.
He went on, “Did you have any inside information that the documents were going to be stolen?”
I shook my head. “No!”
The questions went on slowly for twenty minutes. I steadied my breath for the final question.
“Do you know what happened to the documents?”
I nodded. “Yes!”
Both Special Agents came out of their chairs. I said, “They were burned up!” I stood up and started taking the monitor off my arm and peeled the ones off my chest and head. I said, “This test is over.”
Very softly, the smaller of the two agents asked, “How do you know that?”
I smiled. “They never left U.S. soil. They were burned up and destroyed. I killed the two men who stole them.”
Both agents were staring at each other. I had just admitted to a serious crime, so I left the room, went to the bathroom, and sat in a stall for a good thirty minutes.
When I came back out, they were gone. The problem that I had was. how did they know about Jacky? Were Jacky or I being spied on?
Julie was staying at home mostly. She was doing a lot of shopping, but always answered her phone when I called her. She was picking up my kids and dropping them off for daycare, school and any other activities that they might have. I was feeling even more guilty. Julie was becoming the perfect mother. She had gotten an attorney and filed to adopt my two children. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that, but I went ahead and encouraged her. I knew that Marilyn’s parents would have a fit, but I didn’t care. They were my kids, and I wanted Julie to be their mom!
I was at work when Julie went into labor. She was all alone. She called me and I ran out the company’s
front door and jumped in my car and sped to our house. When I got there, her contractions were close together. I decided to call an ambulance. It arrived and took Julie to Methodist Hospital. I went and picked up the kids and took them with me.
Franklin Andrew Thompson was born at six p.m., Wednesday, September twenty-first. We would call him Frank, or Franky. He was a healthy dark-haired little boy weighing nearly seven pounds. Julie began breast-feeding him fairly quickly, and she had more milk than he could take. Her breasts were swollen three times their normal size.
When we took Franky and Julie home, it was a big deal at our house. Almost immediately, Julie began working at getting in shape for the movie that she was going to star in. I knew that she wanted to be in it, but I had no idea that she wanted it that bad.
She was going to switch Franky to formula at five months. Sure enough, at five months she stopped breast-feeding cold turkey. She wouldn’t let me touch her. She was in horrific pain. She couldn’t wear a bra. Most of the time she just went around the house topless.
I had hired a nanny to take care of the baby, and Julie was getting ready for the movie. She was really in high gear. She had lost all the weight that she had put on. Her hair was long again. She looked good. Her breasts were still swollen; she had to wear a corset to get them down to their correct size.
It was Sunday night when she left to go to San Diego. She was staying in one of the Lawrence apartments. She was getting a special rate, and there was room for us to stay when we came to visit. The apartment stood on the beach, overlooking the