“So…” Rae nudges me in the side. “What are we going to do about it?”
“Do?” I reply, horrified. “What do you mean do?”
“We don’t do anything, do we?”
“Of course we do! We know who this baby is, we know all about him, we should tell the world, shouldn’t we? If we don’t, someone else will.”
Who is this woman? Why is she so insistent about this? I can’t do that, even if I think it’s the truth. This isn’t any of our business and it seems like there is a woman’s life at stake here. I just need to find the right way to word this to Rae to calm her down before she does something we both regret.
Chapter Eighteen – Shane
This is so fucked up. I cannot believe that I’m in the middle of this. It might have been four days already, and I still find it weird being in my father’s world. Thankfully, his normal services have been put on hold for the time being because he’s so totally focused on finding my mother, but still it’s very strange.
“Secrets always come back to haunt you,” he tells me with a sorrowful sigh. “I tried to tell the Jones family that in the first place. I knew that this wouldn’t all be able to stay hidden forever. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a secret. Eventually it will come out. And that’s what’s happened here.”
“But it’s only this gang that knows, isn’t it?” I try my hardest to reassure him. “I mean, I know that isn’t great, I don’t like Mom being kidnapped or anything, but it isn’t public knowledge. The media might know about the kidnapping, but they all think that it’s linked to her being wealthy. No one is even looking.”
He gives me a sorrowful stare. “Everyone is looking, and I think they have found out too.”
He slides a laptop closer to him and logs on to the Internet. I’m about to make a scathing remark about resorting to the mine field of the online world until he actually seems to get something.
“Is that a picture of me as a kid?” I demand, feeling a little breathless at the sight. I’m sure that’s me!
“It is. It’s one of mine that I sent to your mom. I always kept her updated. I’m sure she wanted me to, I know that she desperately wanted you. Of course, I don’t know if it ever made it to her, but I tried.”
It’s weird to think that there was all this stuff going on and I didn’t know about it. I just carried on with my life as best as I could with my life, trying to ignore the fact that my childhood was so different to others.
“And that’s not everything.” Dad continues to scroll. “There is a more recent image.”
The next picture that he draws up is one of me now. And when I say now I mean really recently. I look exactly as I do now. It’s an image that I wasn’t aware of, I’m not looking at the camera, but I can be made out as clear as day. Anyone who has ever met me will know that this is me. And if they didn’t, the comment beside it would let them know. ‘This is him, Shane Valentine, the bastard son of Lady Saffron Jones. I wonder what he’s doing in all of this. He seems to have vanished along with his mother. Weird, am I right?’
“Any idea who that could be?” Dad asks, somehow breaking through my shock barrier with his words. “I know you aren’t looking in that picture, but it would help if you had any idea who took it?”
I lean in closer, trying to pick out any details that might help me to identify it. I’m at the bar, that much is obvious from the drink in front of me, but that doesn’t really give me anything. I’m at the bar a lot.
Lime green tie. As soon as I spot it, my heart stops dead in my chest. The last time that I wore that tie, and the first time in a very long time, is the night I met Tia. I don’t know what in particular made me wear that tie on that day, there was nothing special happening, not until I met her. And actually, judging by the angle this photo was taken from, it was on her phone. She snapped this photo… she must have done this to me.
“You look like you have worked it out, Son. Tell me who it is. I can silence them. It might not do much, but even getting this more recent picture removed might help to slow the flow of information down.”
Tia Cooke, my brain screams. Just tell him. He can sort this out. He can make this stop before it gets worse.