Three

CHAPTER THREE

Adrianne looked into the distance. "My father left when I was fourteen. He didn't leave leave, he was just not there for us. I guess it was partly because of the awkwardness of the teenage girl and he couldn't handle that. My mom tried, but she was not just a housewife, she had work too. I guess my dislike for him started then. By the time I was eighteen I wasn't sure I could call him "Dad" anymore.

My sister, Lisa had graduated from college by then. I was just entering. As a girl with a few Daddy issues , well you can guess how rebellious I got. I was thrown out when I was only a sophomore. I guess I was pinning for Dad's attention. It didn't work. He just didn't seem to care. My mom on the other hand cared too much. She was flipping out. I wanted to stop but I guess I was just too mad at my Dad.  Then one day, on my twenty first birthday, my mom passed away. And I saw grief on my father's face for the first time in years.

I went ballistic. Yelled and screamed at him telling him it was all his fault. But somewhere deep inside I felt it was mine. If I hadn't given her such a hard time. My dad had been distant from her as well. She had been through a lot. My sister Lisa didn't come for my funeral.

When my father called to speak to me in private, I found out why. My father, Altemair, had died when I was fourteen. The man I had known since then, for one-third of my life was someone else. The guilt he felt every time he saw us made him unable to connect with us, he said.

"So who are you?" I asked him "and why the need for such deception?" The story he told me made me question my sanity. He was my father's double. And he presented me with a list, a list of people who would want my father dead. When I asked him why, he looked into my eyes and said, "Because he's a businessman".

The answers he gave me weren't satisfactory. I went into investigations for a year. Along the way I met Farleigh. We got married when I was twenty three. A year later he was trying to kill me. I found out that he had been one of them all along. He'd been sent just to take me off the trail. And it worked. For awhile I put aside my father's past, thinking I could forget about it and be happy. But after that, I realised, that humans cannot forget the past. Because it always comes back to haunt you if you do.

I tried reaching out to Lisa. She probably knew about Dad a long time ago but I was unable to reach her. Then it dawned on me that if my sister was gone, they might be after me next. So I went into hiding, investigating until I was sure. Now I am".

She looked into Ryan's face. He recoiled. "I just needed someone to help me with my revenge plot. When I heard about you from an acquaintance, the same guy did both our passports, I was skeptical. But now I realise how insightful he was."

Ryan was silent. She hadn't exactly told him why her father was killed and who did it. So he was waiting to hear that side of the story. But she remained silent. She probably doesn't think it's necessary yet, Ryan thought. But he would ask anyway.

"So who was it? Who would want to wipe your family off the map?" His mind raced as he asked the question. She'd said it had been a member of the Lestrade family. Her father was dead, she was standing here. Her sister was missing. It couldn't have been her sister anyway. She was too young and inexperienced to have carried this out.

"Haven't you figured it out yet? I thought you were supposed to be a genius".

"Well, when it comes to people I'm a bit handicapped. But how could it be? Your mother? I thought she was?"

"Clueless? I thought so too. I confronted her. Told her I was going to report her to the police."

"Go ahead", she said. "But I'm only telling you this because I love you. You won't make it to the Police Station. You will be taken by any means necessary, dead or alive. That's what happened to your sister".

"If your sister went missing, how come no one's filed a complaint?"

"My mother knew that two consecutive deaths would be inconvenient. So she 'staged' my sister going to Africa, the wildest parts of Africa, where there are no phones or internet or anything. Her friends thought she was crazy and so did I. But now, mother made her do it".

"So she's still alive. You just can't find her".

"Exacto".

"Why did your mother kill your father?"

"I told you I had the gift of empathy? Well, my mother's like me, in a sense that she's different. She's empty inside. She's able to mimic emotion whenever she wants"-"I wouldn't say she's empty inside. The fact that she warned you of the repercussions of your actions showed that she cares for you."

"What about my sister?"

"Get it together, Adrianne. There's more to this than you realise. I've dealt with corporate types. Even if it's because your mother thought she could handle the business better than your father...she wouldn't have had to kill him. Maybe she's also being manipulated by someone higher".

"Grandfather?" Adrianne asked.

Ryan knew about the Lestrades. The name was Adrianne's mother's family name. Both grandparents were still alive. Adrianne's father, Altemair was a partner of the firm but an orphan. When he got married, the grandparents suggested he take up their name and they would be one family. Altemair hadn't objected.

"Why not?" Ryan said.

Adrianne buried her face in her palms. "Of course. Grandfather could be partly to blame. But my diagnosis of my mother, Lucia, isn't wrong either. "

"Your sister is still alive", Ryan said.

Adrianne shook her head. "If my mother was able to fool our family, friends and business partners, and the whole world about such an icon as my father, a little lawyer in a law firm isn't hard, especially when we only hear from her and never see her."

"So what's the plan?" Ryan asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me", Adrianne answered, her eyes radiating with excitement.

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[Nana]

Their plan better be good. It might save their lives