Painful seduction

The pieces of broken glasses on the floor were enough to tell the ladies that something was going on .

Rhea moved forward avoiding the pieces of broken glasses that scattered the floor as she sat down on the next coach close to the woman. Cindy followed suite.

‘ How can I help…you,’ she stammered with a cracked voice.

‘ We want information about something.’ Rhea said politely.

‘ I have no information. It’s not like I am some newscaster.’ she spat but quickly apologized.

‘ What do you want to know?’ she asked.

Cathy cleared her throat before answering,

‘ Here used to be an orphanage right?’

The woman smiled broadly before instructing her son to bring drinks and snacks for them.

‘ You’re neither wrong nor right. This was used to raise you, not really an orphanage.’ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

‘ I don’t understand what you mean.’

The woman adjusted closer as she began telling them what happened about 8 years ago.

A man who she called Mr. Anderson was the one who came to her, he pleaded with her that he wanted her home to be used to take care of a girl. Since she was going to travel for a long time and needed enough money to take care of herself, she agreed with his decision.

‘So who took care of me while I was here?’ she asked after the woman ended her story.

‘ Your aunt of course. She brought you here with Mr. Anderson.’ she explained.

Silence followed after, all what the lady said were just not making sense at all.

Why didn’t she remember anything about her?

‘ Do you know my name?’ she asked.

It was unbelievable but she had to ask, maybe this lady could give her a clue on who she was.

‘ No my dear, they never mentioned your name but without doubts I knew you were from a rich home.’ she explained.

The next second, a young girl about 16 brought a tray filled with 3 glasses of juice and cupcakes.

She placed it on the table before leaving, Cindy assumed it was her daughter.

‘ You were about my daughter’s age and height when you came here for the first time.’

‘ You mean the one that just left?’ She was holding a glass.

‘ Yes, don’t you remember?’ the woman asked with a weird smile making Rhea feel suspicious.

‘ You are mistaken, I was 8 when I came here.’ she answered.

The woman looked at her confused and then turned to Rhea who also was looking dumbfounded.

‘ You were 15 my dear, they must have told you the wrong thing.’ she answered in a whisper.

Rhea stared hard at her before looking at the woman.

‘ Are you sure about this?’

‘ Am really sure, I will go through my things and check for a picture but if you want more information then you have to see Mr. Anderson.’

********

She held the card as she read it again for the seventh time.

‘ You haven’t said anything Cindy, you just keep staring at the complementary card.’ Rhea said.

They just left the woman’s house after she promised to call them when she found the pictures she had wanted to show them. They left but not without the complementary card of the man she claimed to be Mr. Anderson.

‘ This card has the same name as the one Axl works with.’ she spoke after five minutes of silence.

‘ Then that solves the issue, all we need to do is ask him and our problems are solved’ she answered.

‘ I know but don’t you think it looks rather suspicious?’ she asked with a hard stare.

‘ Everything looks suspicious until we find the real truth but how come you don’t know you were 15 when you were sent there?’

‘ Rhea, I am just so confused here.’ she sighed then breathed.

‘ Everything will be fine, I will ask Dementrio about Axl first. Maybe he can give us some information.’ she offered .

They hugged each other before Cindy turned on the ignition allowing the car to zoom off with piles of dust left behind.

*********

Her ride home was the worst ride, she tried to keep her eye on the wheels and at the same time watch Nelly cry her hearts out.

They had just left the hospital and were heading back home before Nelly commited a crime of killing a doctor.

She didn’t blame her at all, how could the doctor allow an outsider to enter the hospital to hurt a patient? There was no point in blaming anyone, her only aunt was now dead.

At home, she led Nelly to the room she had woken up as she consoled the weeping child.

After about 15 minutes of crying , Nelly fell asleep which made Cathy grateful. She gently lay her in the correct manner as she removed her shoes.

She thought of eating something since she was hungry and probably sleep too because she was still feeling weak.

She found some pizza in the kitchen and decided to have it, since she knew nothing about cooking she had to eat the pizza cold.

It made her feel like throwing up so she stopped eating, maybe she could order something.

She rushed to go upstairs to get her phone but then her eyes met a door, it looked suspicious and it made her really curious.

She moved forward to check the room.

Nelly won’t mind, she thought.

The door creaked open as she turned the knob, it was a bedroom.

It was dusty like no one had been there for years, she looked to one side and noticed the same portrait of her mum which was downstairs.

She saw another protrait of a man and and a woman. She recognized the woman as Nelly’s mum

This was probably her room, she thought.

The wardrobe at the end of the room was dusty. She got closer to the bookshelf that stood adjacent to it, it had finger marks which meant it was opened recently.

Whoever entered the room didn’t bother to clean it at all.

Curiosity took control of her as she opened the door of the bookshelf, the first thing that caught her attention were the pictures piled up at one end.

She took it without bothering it was dusty and might make her hands dirty.

The first six photos were the same picture of Nelly’s mum and a man which she guessed was her husband.

The next was Nelly’s mum and her own mother, the same picture Nelly had shown her on their first meeting.

She touched the picture as she kept it aside, she could borrow this picture.

The next picture made her heart throb.

It was a picture of her mum. She wasn’t alone but she was with two girls of about ten years

It was her twin sister, they looked alike.

You could think she was duplicated but no, she wasn’t.

She smiled as tears rolled down her eyes, her face didn’t change at all.

Her twin sister looked exactly like her, she brought the picture closer to her chest and kissed it not minding the dust in it.

The next 3 pictures were just she and her twin sister alone, they wore the same outfits in all photographs.

With smiles and joy she kept the photographs of her sister aside as she gathered the remaining ones to keep them where she had collected them .

As she dropped the photographs her eyes caught a dairy which had her aunt’s picture on it.

She observed it for a while before collecting it.

‘1978’ was written in the diary.

1978? That was the same year her parents had the accident, she thought.

She opened it, the first pages were already torn out and the only available pages were filled with boring shopping items .

Disappointed she closed it but that was when she noticed the back had the same logo she had seen in a bag across the room.

She looked around and saw the bag immediately, it was a red bag, the type used for going on long vacations.

She opened the bag immediately, it was filled with clothes which were the size of a girl about 15. It didn’t bother her as she searched more.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking for but she knew something was hidden there.

After a few minutes, she found the same diary that she saw in the cupboard, only that no pages of this one had been tampered with.

She opened it curiously, Caroline Chester was written boldly on the first page.

Who was Caroline Chester? She asked to no one in particular.

The second page was filled with shopping items which made no sense to her.

At least the third page was better, it had different accounts numbers with all the Banks in Los Angeles.

All the accounts looked unfamiliar to her, well, except one. She recognized it as the company’s account but why were there so many accounts under the company’s name and why was she only aware of only one?

Those questions couldn’t be answered at that point, she flipped to the next page only to find the most shocking revelation of her life.