They thanked Mr. Evans and left their cards.
Wilson said, “Chad I never knew Amelia saved a man’s life, how come you never mentioned it?”
“Well to hear Amelia tell it, she did nothing, I had to have her tell me the whole story and describe every detail before I realized what she did, she was very humble about it.”
In the afternoon, Chad told Wilson that he was going to take a walk around the college campus. Maybe if she were sitting in on a class, he would find her. He went to every building and either looked in or went into every class that was in session. He almost gasped when the back of one student’s head looked like Amelia’s, when she turned around it wasn’t her.
[ Chapter 47 ]
Even though Darrell had called every construction company in the book, Chad rode around and stopped at every construction site he came upon and asked if there any new employees who started in the last few weeks. He found no one.
Wilson was beginning to get very concerned as well. The longer someone is gone the harder it is to find them. He got a phone call from Buzz at the lab.
“Wilson this is Buzz.”
“Buzz do you have any news for us?”
“Not exactly,” said Buzz, “I’ve been thinking about all of this since you and Chad were here questioning the lab assistants. Doesn’t the military keep DNA on all of its soldiers?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure they do, I could double check with Chad. What do you have in mind Buzz?”
“I would like to try something, and I wonder if you could get Chad’s DNA test results without telling him, I wouldn’t want to give him any false hope.”
“I could if I told them we needed it for identification purposes, what’s this all about Buzz, what do you mean false hope?”
“I hesitate to say. I want to run some tests and maybe I will have something to tell you after that.”
“I’ll put in the request as soon as I get to the office,” said Wilson.
“Do that and try to get the report ASAP, I’ll handle the rest,” replied Buzz.
Wilson was suspicious of why Buzz wanted Chad’s DNA results. He began reflecting on what he knew. One thing was Buzz was not telling them the whole story about Amelia, something in his gut told him Buzz knew more about Amelia that what he told them. He probably knew where she was Wilson would bet on that. In a way that was not so bad because he knew Buzz would make sure she was safe. What could it be? Could it be possible that Amelia befell the same fate as Betty, raped and pregnant? If that were the case maybe, Buzz was trying to see if the baby was Chad’s. Why else would he want Chad’s DNA? I would doubt Amelia was seeing another man, you could tell they were so much in love, all you had to do was see them together. Could it be Lynn told Amelia she was adopted or something? Why would she be so upset and not want to be with Chad? Was it possible Amelia has been diagnosed with some fatal disease? Why would she hide that, or maybe it’s a disease or something she could give to Chad and she is protecting him. I hope this test or whatever it is he plans on doing helps us find her, I’m stumped. One other thing I suspect that lab assistant Philip sure acted bizarre. I will think about that some more maybe he knows more that he is saying also.
It was easy for Buzz to get a sample of Amelia’s DNA. He was going to run the DNA tests again without nosy Philip around. If he found out that Philip had deliberately messed up the test or had anything to do with this, he would fire him on the spot.
Wilson was able to get Chad’s DNA results sent to Buzz. He didn’t tell Chad. It was day 4 since Chad was back and he had probably slept only a few hours since then, he was about worn out. Wilson didn’t want to give him any false hope. Chad constantly walked around the campus and Amelia was on his mind every minute. He and Wilson had looked at Amelia’s cell phone she left behind to see who she called before leaving. There were only calls to the farm and Ida and a few she made to his cell and left messages. He sometimes played the messages over and over to hear her voice. Chad was tense and jumpy.
Several days passed and Buzz, called Wilson.
“Could you come down here this afternoon and bring Chad? I have something important to show you.”
“Is it some news about Amelia?” Asked Wilson.
“Yes, I hope Chad will be pleased,” said Buzz.
Wilson called Chad and told him Buzz wanted them to come back to the lab.
“Chad while we’re there we should question Philip again. Something is not right. I know he lied to us and he knows more than he’s saying. If we catch him off guard maybe he will spill to us. Also Buzz wants to talk with us about something he is doing. Some kind of testing he thinks will help us.” Wilson tried to play this down not wanting to get Chad’s hopes up.
“OK Wilson see you when you get here.”
Chad and Wilson went to the lab, but Philip was not there. Buzz began by explaining that he had performed new DNA tests. He compared Chad’s DNA report from the army with the tests he had performed before.
“I had a bad feeling about all this after I met you Chad, so I went with it.”
“Let me share some test results with you,” Buzz said, “better yet let me put all the test results and place then side by side on the whiteboard together and you’ll see what I mean. The first test I did was test #1AB, which is Amelia and #2CB which is you, Chad. The comparison of those tests resulted in DNA traits that were similar and possibly showed they could be related.
Chad almost turned white, “Buzz why are you comparing our DNA? Is something wrong with Amelia, is she sick or something, does she need a transplant?”
“Chad let me go on and explain the rest to you then I’ll tell you everything.”
“The second time I did the tests here is what it showed, #3AB which is Amelia and #4 Army CB which is Chad are very different and have no similarities. If you look at slide #2CB which is the one for Chad that was prepared here the first time, you see that it is very different from the results the army had. That means someone tampered with the tests. As further proof, out of habit I always prepare two slides. I took the second original slide I prepared it matches perfectly with the army’s. Then when I looked at the first original Chad slide and compared it with the Army slide, they didn’t match. This tells me that you Chad and Amelia are nowhere near being similar.”
“Chad, Wilson, I think we have a case of maliciousness here, of resentment and jealous behavior on the part of my assistant Philip, for Amelia. He is the only one who could have tampered with the tests, because Barbara was on vacation. The first comparison was falsified, and Amelia doesn’t know that, we must correct that at once.”
“What does all this mean, Buzz? Chad almost screamed.”
“It means that your wife’s brother, Jerry told her that you and she were brother and sister and were living incestuously and her mother confirmed it. That she was having an affair with your father Chad and got pregnant.”
“Jesus! God! That rotten bastard, I’m shocked! My poor baby no wonder why she went crazy and ran away. She thought we couldn’t be together, incest! My God! Chad, in tears now, choked out, “I must find her now, as quickly as possible she must be in such pain. I can’t believe all this it’s so incredible they would want to hurt her so badly. I’m going to have to kill Jerry if I find him maybe Lynn too.”
“I’m going to come clean gentlemen. I hope you forgive me for lying Chad, I did it for Amelia. When she came back from her trip to the farm, she was visibly shaken. She was in so much distress. Amelia broke down crying and told me the whole story. She only told me because she had nowhere else to go and was so distraught. I offered to help her. I asked what evidence they showed her. She told me they had none only her mother’s word.”
Buzz said, “I convinced Amelia we should compare both your DNAs and then we would have scientific evidence. She agreed. You can see that there is no truth at all, to any of the allegations her brothe
r and mother told her. The first tests we did in this lab we know now were altered, I didn’t know that then, and I had to tell her that there was a possibility that it was true you could be related. Now I see that was totally incorrect. I suspect my lab assistant Philip, who was extremely jealous of Amelia contaminated the specimens to make it seem there was a possibility you and Amelia would have the same blood line. I’ll fire him immediately. I think he did it to try and get rid of her working here. When I told Amelia, the test showed it was possible she was devastated, she almost fainted. She didn’t think she could face you or her friends, she felt humiliated. She felt she had to disappear until she found a way to tell you, Chad, a way that would give you the least amount of pain.”
“Wow Buzz this is so good to hear,” Wilson intoned letting out a nervous breath.
“Chad was pacing up and down I’m going to find him and kill him,” he said to Wilson. “Buzz do you have any idea where she is so I could go to her, I must find her and let her know it’s all a lie.”
“Chad please don’t be upset with me I know exactly where she is. If you agree here’s what I think we must do first. You know she believes in scientific proof. I want Amelia to be 100 percent sure that this is all correct. I want Amelia to get her confidence back and not think there was ever any foundation for the lie. I want to call her now and tell her she must come to the lab and see these tests for herself. You can wait in my office and I’ll tell her you are there. After she sees the test results you can see her. If you go to her and say this is all a lie, you’ll have no proof and she would be almost as miserable if there were any doubts in her mind. Do you agree?”
“Where is she?” Asked Chad and is she safe.”
“She on the other side of town working in my sister’s flower shop she has been staying with us and could probably be here within 20 minutes.”
“As long as she’s safe I agree.” But please don’t make me wait too long, it’s killing me,” said Chad.
“One favor I need, from you, Chad, I’m going out here to fire that weasel Philip, I sent him on a bogus errand so he wouldn’t be here when I talked with you both. He should be back any moment and I need you to escort him out.”
“That job is right up my alley,” said Chad, “I’m happy to do it, please call Amelia first.”
When Philip arrived, Buzz told Philip he was fired for falsifying the test.
Philip was angry and began to shout, “you old Bastard, you made me do it, you gave her all the breaks and did nothing for me. I have slaved here for you for two years and you don’t even acknowledge how much I have contributed to this lab.”
“That’s enough,” Chad said and took him by the arm, you are acknowledged this time boy, it’s time you found another job. Chad escorted him out and came back with bruised knuckles.
“What happened?” asked Buzz.
“He tripped on the way-out Buzz. Feel down several steps and might feel poorly tomorrow. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him for almost making me lose my wife.”
[ Chapter 48 ]
Amelia arrived in 30 minutes. “What the matter Buzz? You said you had an emergency.”
“I want to show you something,” Buzz said, “remember the DNA tests we did, well I repeated them, and wanted you to see the results. She looked at him.
“Why did you do that? And is that really an emergency?” Asked Amelia.
“Please for now for me just look at the tests than I’ll explain,” Buzz pleaded.
After examining the slides Amelia asked, “How can this be,” these slides are very different from the tests we did. Why did you repeat them?”
“Your husband and Wilson were here looking for you just as we predicted, Buzz told Amelia. When I met Chad, I didn’t see one similarity in any of his physical characteristics that I could compare to yours. That aroused my academic brain. I decided to run the DNA tests again because as you know I always keep an extra slide. The evidence points to the fact that someone contaminated Chad’s test sample. That made me very angry. I got the DNA results the army keeps on its personnel and as you see they are as far apart as they can be, from the first test, they are in fact worlds apart.” To be positive Amelia, look at the second slide I made on Chad, the one Philip didn’t know I had, the first time we did the test, and compare it to the army’s.”
“My God! They are exactly the same,” said Amelia, “so none of what Jerry and my mother said is true?” Amelia shrieked.
“That’s correct, and you see it’s the scientific proof we were hoping to get,” I felt so badly about the first test results and that I had to give you the bad news. I decided I needed to double check and I’m so glad I did.”
“Oh Buzz, you mean that?”
“Yes, I mean that you and Chad are nowhere near being related, your brother and mother lied to you.”
“Thank you, Lord, thank you Lord, My God, thank you Buzz for running the tests again,” she said jumping up and hugging Buzz, “my prayers were answered. I prayed this was somehow a mix up or a lie Jerry told me, to make me do what he wanted. I must go to Chad; he is probably so worried.”
“He is that, once Chad knew the truth and that you were coming here, he wouldn’t leave, he’s not far away, and he’s in my office.”
“She ran to Buzz’s office and threw open the door and ran into his arms. They both cried and kissed and hugged and he wouldn’t let her go.”
“I want to explain, honey I’m so sorry I didn’t know how I would tell you, I, I.”
“Kiss me for now,” Chad said, “I was so out of my mind looking for you. I don’t care about anything only that I found you, you still love me, and you are in my arms.
“Let’s go home and be together and you can tell me everything later,” Amelia said through her tears.
“Wilson drove them home Amelia sat as close to Chad as she could and had to have her hand touching him. She told them about Jerry and Lynn telling her Chad was her brother. Lynn told me she was having an affair with your father. I thought our lives were ruined, but I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t give you up. I couldn’t take my wedding ring off, it hurt so much to think we couldn’t be together. Honey, what would we have done if it were true?”
“I don’t know about you, I could never stand being without you, I would have had a vasectomy, and we could have adopted kids.”
“But it would be against the law for us to be married.”
“Only if we knew it from the start, and we would move to someplace where it isn’t against the law, and there are a lot of states and countries where it’s not a crime.
“That thought never crossed my mind, I was so overcome with shame, guilt, and worry, I thought I ruined your life and you would be disappointed if we couldn’t have kids.
“Honey, I do want us to have a family. If you were having a baby and the doctor told me I had to make the choice between you and the baby’s life I would choose you. Not that I wouldn’t love the baby, but there are no other Amelia’s in this world.”
Wilson told them how happy he was for them, he hugged both of them and wished them a good evening Chad couldn’t thank him enough.
That got into the apartment.
“Babe, what are we going to tell your mom?”
“I don’t see any reason to worry her, we need a white lie. Let’s say we were busy adjusting to beginning our lives together, we got our wires crossed, and we got mixed up on the days I was coming home. She will understand that.”
“Now on the other hand Roger might want to find Jerry and beat him up again.”
“What do you mean again?”
“I called the farm and talked to Roger to see when he saw you last, he told me he gave Jerry the beaten of his life because Deana saw his going through their private things in their bedroom, he kicked both of them out. If he knew all of this, I’m sure he would feel like I do and want to do it agai
n,” Chad said. “I could easily kill him for giving us all this pain and trying to keep us apart.”
They got back to the apartment and called the farm.
“Hi Roger,” said Amelia.
“Sis, God are you OK, it’s so good to hear your voice is everything alright? Is Chad with you? He’s worried sick.”
“He’s right here, I’m sitting on his lap he won’t leave my side. We only got together a few hours ago. I’m going to put the phone on speaker.”
“Chad,” Roger said, “I knew you would find her. I can’t thank you enough for it, and can I ask what happened to spook you Amelia?”
“Roger, Jerry told me that mom and Chad’s father were having an affair and Chad and I were sister and brother, and mom backed him up. I was so freaked out I didn’t know what to do. We just came from the lab and saw scientific DNA proof that it was all a lie,” said Amelia.
“Amelia, Chad, I’m ashamed to say he’s my brother. How low can someone go? He almost ruined your lives. Chad if you ever find him, and I know you are going to try, call me and I will come help you do, what we might have to do to him to get this family rid of him, and have some peace.”
“I will that’s a promise, Roger, Wilson and I have already started the process to find him, when we do, I will let you know,” Chad promised.
Next, they called Ida, they told her Amelia was at a friend’s and her computer went down and everything is OK.
Wilson emailed the others and told them that they found Amelia and promised to tell all the details later.
After they settled down, Amelia said, “I want to give something back to you. Grab my purse off the coffee table.” She opened up her purse, took out the rock, and handed it to him.
He looked at her with a question on his face, you know I like rocks Babe but, “What’s this for honey?”
Secrets of Amelia Page 30
