“Sounds good, I work best when I can concentrate.”
“Okay, shout if you find anything.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” She sat down at the table and opened her laptop, waving him off with her hand.
He’d been at it long enough to get a headache by the time Sarah called him into the kitchen. “Mike, get in here, I think I’ve found something.”
Gratefully putting a pile of papers down on the coffee table he joined her in the kitchen. “What?”
“This. Look,” she pointed at the screen. “It’s an article about Samantha.”
He started to read over her shoulder as she explained. “It’s odd, it took me ages to find it even though it was a story printed in a major newspaper, almost like it had been deliberately hidden.”
“It says here that she was reported missing, what, three years ago now?”
Sarah nodded. “Yep, but that’s not the interesting part, keep reading.”
He did, and his eyes widened when he realized she wasn’t kidding. “So she’s missing for nearly two years and then she just suddenly turns up again?”
“Exactly.”
Michael’s eyes scanned the rest of the article. “It doesn’t say anything here about why she was missing or what’s happened to her since.”
“No, and I can’t find anything else online. Except this.” She handed him a piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Her address. Well, at least it’s her parent’s address. There’s a chance she might still be there.” She looked up at him. “We have to go and talk to her Michael.”
He nodded. She was right, they had to.
***
“It’s just up here on the left.”
Michael turned the wheel down the dirt track that Sarah had pointed out to him. They were about five miles out of town, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Those that didn’t live in the town mostly lived in places like these, isolated and remote.
They travelled down the track for about a mile before Mike saw the outline of a farmhouse take shape in the distance. It took another few minutes before they pulled up outside. “Looks like someone’s home.” He nodded at the pickup parked out front.
“Hang on a second, Michael.” Sarah stopped him as he was about to walk up the steps to the porch.
He turned back and faced her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just not sure how we handle this. We haven’t talked about it.” She had a worried look on her face as she looked at the house. “I mean, we can’t just go in there and start demanding that she tell us about what may well have been a terrible thing that happened to her, can we?”
He’d been so focused on getting some answers that he hadn’t even stopped to consider how they were going to do it. “You’re right, we can’t.” A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. “Looks like we’re going to need to decide fast.”
“Can I help you folks?”
They both looked toward the house where a man now stood with a shotgun firmly pointed in their direction.
“Whoa!” Mike raised his hands. “Any chance you can point that somewhere else?”
Sarah let out a little squeal and ducked behind him.
“Who are you and what are you doing on my property?”
Mike stood stock still, not taking any chances. The man may have been older than he was, in his late sixties at least, but it was clear that those years had not been spent sat on the couch. There wasn’t a spare bit of flesh on him and the arms that held up the shotgun were strong and firm.
“I’m Michael and this,” he pointed over his shoulder, “is Sarah. “We went to high school with Samantha.” Okay that wasn’t strictly the truth, the implication being that they’d been in the same classes, but it wasn’t a lie either.
The man’s face scrunched up, as if trying to find a lost memory. “I don’t remember you.”
“It was a long time ago, sir.”
He sighed and lowered the gun. “That’s true enough. Well, you’d better come in.” He turned and walked into the house leaving them to follow.
Up close everything about the house looked in need of repair. The steps up to the porch looked like they would give way at any minute and the front door itself was splintered with old age. Once inside things didn’t improve and they exchanged a glance as they took in the cluttered interior and all the dusty surfaces.
“Come in,” the old man called from the kitchen. “Sorry about the mess.” He cleared piles of junk off a couple of chairs and waved at them to sit. “Since my wife died and Samantha ... well since Samantha left, I’m on my own and there doesn’t seem much point in keeping it clean and tidy.”
“So Samantha’s not here?” Michael asked, taking one of the empty seats.
“Can I get you both a drink?” he asked, ignoring the question.
“Thank you, Mr Hathaway, that would be great,” Sarah shot Michael a warning glance, telling him to take it slow.
“Call me Frank, please.” He smiled as he bustled around the kitchen making them coffee.
“I’m so sorry about your wife, Frank.”
Frank shrugged as he brought three mugs of coffee over to the table and cleared himself a seat. “It’s a while ago now.” He stared into his coffee mug, not looking at them. “When Samantha went missing, well it killed her you see. Not straightaway like, but when she didn’t come home and no one knew what had happened to her, she died inside. She stopped wanting to live.”
Mike was surprised to see that Sarah had tears in her eyes as she looked at the old man.
“But Samantha did come home, didn’t she?” Mike asked, gently this time.
Frank nodded. “Yes, she did.” he looked up with a sad smile. “Two months after her mother had passed.”
“I’m sorry, that must have been awful.” Mike could only imagine how hard that had been. “But at least she came home.”
“Yes.” he smiled at them. “Thank the Lord for that.”
“So, did she not stay here with you then?”
He shook his head. “No, she couldn’t. We tried for a while but she’d come back a different person from the woman who left. She was a mess.” he shook his head, as if it was somehow his fault. “She’d only been back a week before she tried to kill herself the first time. After that, she tried it nearly every week.” He had tears in his eyes now. “She used to sit up in her room screaming and talking to herself. I tried,” he looked at them, a pleading look in his eyes. “I really did. But it got so as I couldn’t leave her alone for five minutes.”
“So where is she now?” Michael asked though he had an idea he already knew the answer to that question.
“She’s in the state mental hospital. I go up and see her as often as I can but most times she doesn’t even recognize me.”
“Is it helping her?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know is the answer to that. She never seems any different when I go up there, that’s for damn sure.”
Sarah stood up and collected the empty cups, squeezing Frank’s shoulder as she passed.
“Did you ever find out where she’d been all that time?”
“No. I asked her once and she flew at me in a rage, scratched my face up good. I know she didn’t mean it, though,” he gave a small laugh. “The police thought they could get it out of her, do what her own father couldn’t, but after they’d tried a couple of times they gave up too.”
“I don’t know what to say, Frank,” Sarah looked at Mike and shook her head. Enough questions. “You’ve been through so much. Thank you so very much for talking to us.”
“You never did tell me what you wanted with her?”
“We just wanted to catch up on the old days, see how she was doing.” Michael lied.
He nodded. “Well it’s nice to know that her old friends haven’t forgotten about her. Maybe you could go up and see her sometime? Who knows, it might help.”
“I think we just might do that.” Mike stood and held
out his hand. “Thank you. And be careful you don’t go shooting anyone with that gun.” He smiled.
“I’ll try not to and you come back anytime, okay? It’s nice to have some visitors.”
“We will,” Sarah promised as they left the house.
Neither of them spoke until they got into the car where Sarah promptly burst into tears.
“That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard, that poor man!”
“Yeah, to go through all that ... I don’t know how he hasn’t turned that gun on himself to be honest.”
“Michael!” Sarah looked at him, shocked.
“What?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that if you were in his shoes you wouldn’t consider doing exactly that.”
She didn’t reply and instead stared out the window.
“So now what?” she asked once they were back on the main road.
“Now we go and see Samantha, of course.” As awful as what happened to her must have been, she could hold the key to bringing Jennifer home and he intended to find it.
Sixteen
“We have a problem.”
He didn’t need to ask who was calling, very few people had the number to this particular cell phone. “I can’t talk now, I’m due in court. How urgent is this problem?”
“Very.”
“In that case we’d better meet. Come to my house at 8.” He didn’t wait for an answer, knowing that even if the person at the other end of the phone had plans, they would be rearranged. Sliding his phone into his pocket he reached for his robe, slipping it on over his charcoal grey suit.
There was a brief knock at the door before it opened and a clerk popped his head in. “They’re ready for you now, judge.”
“I’ll be right there.”
***
The house was completely silent save for the ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the hallway as he waited for his guest’s arrival. He heard the car come up the drive before the headlights briefly lit the interior of his study as the car pulled to a stop in front of the house. He didn’t wait for the doorbell and opened the door just as the visitor was about to press it.
“Come in, James.” He stood back allowing him to enter. “I must admit, your call made it very difficult to concentrate on the prosecution’s case today.”
James slipped out of his cashmere overcoat and hung it on the rack in the hall. “I’m sorry, Daniel, but I felt it was important enough for you to know straight away.”
Both men walked into the study and Daniel poured two Scotch on the rocks, handing one to James. “Talk to me.”
“It’s the website, there’s been a security breach.” James took a sip of the Scotch, smiling appreciatively. “Last night someone hacked in.”
Daniel frowned. “How? I was told that the site was impenetrable.”
“Whoever it was, they were good. They got round every security measure we had in place.”
Daniel felt himself getting angry. He never wanted the website in the first place, seeing it as a potentially dangerous security issue, but he’d been outvoted by the other members who’d insisted it would bring in a lot of revenue, which none of them needed. “I knew that site was a bad idea. Do we have any idea who is behind it?”
“At first, no. Whoever it was took steps to make sure that we couldn’t track them, but then this afternoon, they went back on the website. I’ve no idea why, but this time they weren’t so careful.” James reached in to the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “We managed to track their IP address. We have a name.”
Daniel took the piece of paper. The name meant nothing to him. “What do we know about this person?” They needed to know whether this was just someone working alone or whether the authorities were behind it.
“Well, we can’t find any connection between her and the police but it doesn’t look like a random act. She is the sister of our latest guest, the woman you insisted on.”
Daniel hadn’t expected that and for a minute he didn’t know how to respond.
“How do you want us to deal with it?”
Daniel held up his hand silencing him. “I’m thinking.” He walked over to the fireplace and stared at the cold ash, sipping at his whiskey.
The Kings had been his brainchild, born out of necessity. A group of like-minded men in positions of influence who, like him, had a dark side. A dark side that if left unchecked, could ruin them. The idea was simple. A steady stream of women, kept in a single location, that the men could use in any way they liked to satisfy their urges. Urges that would otherwise see them facing life sentences if they were caught.
He had wanted to keep it to their small group, and the others had initially agreed. But their greed had got the better of them. And now we’re paying the price.
“The security breach. Explain it to me in terms I’ll understand. Does this mean they know who we are? Where we are?” He couldn’t make a decision without the facts.
“No, it simply means that someone unauthorised has found the website.” James explained. “Usually a person is invited and told how to get to the site. Once there they have a series of passwords to input that we have given them. All very secure.”
“Obviously not secure enough.” Daniel snapped, not turning to look at him.
“No. Well, it appears that this person has found a way in through the back door. But they still know nothing about us.”
“So what threat is it exactly?” Daniel turned this time and looked at him.
James shrugged. “Well, other than the fact that they know of our existence, none. They can’t find us. Getting into the website is one thing, tracing its origin is another altogether.”
“In that case, we do nothing.”
“Nothing?” James sounded surprised.
“Yes, nothing. Think about it, if we really want the police looking for us I can’t think of a better way to raise their suspicions than to have two sisters suddenly die. Can you?”
James didn’t reply.
“Keep an eye on it and if there’s any sign that they’re onto us, let me know. For now though, I think the safest option is to just watch and wait.”
“Okay, Daniel. What about the surveillance on Mike? Do you want that to continue?”
“Yes, absolutely.” He put his empty glass down on the table. “Now if there’s nothing else, I have to get ready. I have guests for dinner.”
Seventeen
Michael threw off his sheet and climbed out of bed. It was past midnight but was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting Sarah was asleep before going downstairs. He hadn’t been able to get the box or its contents out of his mind and he wanted to be able to examine them when no one else was around.
Creeping out of his bedroom he started down the stairs, pausing and listening for any movement when one of the floorboards let out a loud groan. Satisfied that the noise hadn’t woken her, he carried on down the stairs and into the living room. It was a clear night and the moon shining through the window lit the room as he walked over to the desk. Once there, he flicked on the small desk lamp, and opened the secret drawer, retrieving the little wooden box.
His stomach was in a knot as he lifted the lid and withdrew the letter he’d been reading when Sarah arrived that afternoon. Though not dated, it was clearly old. The once white paper now had a tinge of beige, and the blue ink of the flowing script was faded.
As promised, an account has been set up for you and the boy and you will receive monthly payments until he is eighteen years old.
I will be true to my word and you will not hear from me again during your lifetime.
The words were just as shocking on their second reading and the implication hit him hard. His mom had lied when she’d told him she didn’t know anything about his father. This letter couldn’t be from anyone else. But why lie about it?
Putting the letter to one side he once again reached into the box. There was one more letter, a piece of paper with details of a bank account and a business card. T
he name on the card read ‘Patrick Brady’. Is that my father? He turned the card over in his hand, noticing that there was a number written on the back. A telephone number. Was there any chance that it would work after all this time?
Slipping the card into the pocket of his robe, he pulled the second letter from the box. This one was different. It was still in an envelope and had his name on the front. He ran his finger over the words, wondering when his mom had written them. It had to have been a long time ago as the pale blue of the ink told him that this too was old. Carefully he opened the envelope and slid out the single sheet of paper.
My dearest Michael, it began. The words brought a lump to his throat. He could almost hear her voice speaking them and the pain of his loss washed over him.
If you are reading this letter, then I have gone. I have only ever done what I thought was best for you. I have loved you from the very moment I found out that I was carrying you, and will continue to love you long after I am gone. Whatever happens, please remember that.
Your father’s name is Patrick Brady. I’m so sorry that I lied to you but it was easier than explaining the truth. As you got older, you stopped asking and I felt it was better to leave the past behind.
Now though I am gone and it is time for you to find out where you come from.
Your ever loving mom.
Tears were sliding down his face now and blurring the words and he had to wipe his hand across his face so that he could keep reading.
A loud creak of a floorboard above his head startled him. Quickly he put everything back in the box and slipped it back into the hidden draw.
“Mike, is that you?” Sarah called down from the top of the stairs.
“Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to bed.”
“Everything okay?”
“Just getting a drink,” he called up, going into the kitchen and getting a glass of water.
“Okay, goodnight,” she called and he heard her go back to her room.
Leaving the unwanted glass of water on the counter he went back upstairs to bed, knowing full well that he was not going to be able to sleep. Patrick Brady. My father.
True Deceit (Blindsided Book 1) Page 6
