But for now, I have to be grateful for Terry and his work to get closer to Karen. I need to give her a chance, let her have the benefit of the doubt because she may well end up proving me wrong. It might only be a small chance, but she may be a different woman these days, someone much more reliable. Maybe…
“Okay,” I finally breathe out. “So, soon enough, we should have some information on her?”
“If I can keep on track of the surnames she’s using, then yes. But this is a woman who changes her name like some people change their hair. She is a woman who doesn’t want to be found.”
“I know,” I murmur back. “I don’t know if this is going to be pleasant when we do find her. But I need you to keep on going because of Amelia. She deserves to have all of the answers, even if they aren’t the ones she wants.”
If that’s the case, all I can do is be there to pick up the pieces. At least I will have plenty of time to make brace myself for that, to work out how I’m going to handle it. It will be a big one for our family, but we had survived a lot so I was sure that we could live through something else, even if it breaks us a little bit.
“Right, well I will email you everything that I have so you’ve got it too, okay?” I make an agreeable noise to Terry. “Then I will keep on going. Keep chasing this woman down and eventually find her.”
“Thank you, Terry. I appreciate all the work that you’re doing for me. I know that it’s a bit of a bitch…”
“Well, you’re paying me enough for it,” he chuckled back. “But you are very welcome. All PI work has its troubles. People only hire help when they are struggling to find someone themselves. In this day and age with everyone sharing every aspect of themselves online, it’s a challenge to hide, so there is a reason.”
“Hmm, that’s true.” And that’s what makes me so nervous. “Well, I’m grateful to you anyway.”
Me and Terry said our goodbyes and I eventually slumped on to the couch in dismay. Who the hell was Karen? How did I not know the woman who I had a child with? I wasn’t even sure if she had given me her real name when we were together, or if I ever saw any of her true self. I should have known better as well, I was in my late twenties when we met, I was thirty years old when Amelia was born, I had no excuse for falling for her bullshit.
This is just another reason why romance isn’t for me. Because my judgements are shit. Clearly, I can’t pick a good woman for me. I’m sure that even if the woman of my dreams was right under my nose, I wouldn’t be able to see her. That’s why I’m not even looking. It’s for the best.
Chapter 3 – Latesha
“Holy fuck!” As I bolt up in the bed with sweat dripping down my face, panic is careering hard and fast around me. I was dreaming… something was circling through my brain, and I need to get it back. “What was it?”
I run my fingers through my hair, tugging at the knots, desperately trying to get anything back in my head, but it isn’t happening right away. All I can be sure of is the twisting knot of terror spiraling in my stomach isn’t for nothing. I don’t sweat the small stuff; I don’t worry when I don’t need to which means something is happening.
“Oh God, what is it?” My alarm hasn’t even gone off yet, I don’t usually wake up before it, which only convinces me of something terrible. “Fucking hell, what the hell is going on, Latesha?”
There isn’t any point in even trying to get back to sleep because my brain is racing at the speed of light, so I slide out of my bed and head towards the shower. I’m hoping that the hot jets of water will clear the fog in my brain and make me remember whatever I was dreaming about because I’m still convinced that it’s important.
It takes me a while. There is even a point where I start to convince myself that there isn’t anything there and I’m just making a mountain out of a mole hill, creating issues where there aren’t any just because of a bad dream. People have nightmares that they can’t shake off all the time. Just because it hasn’t happened to me before, it doesn’t mean I am immune to that. It’s just one of those fluke things, that’s all…
“Oh shit.” That’s what I convince myself of anyway, right up until the moment that it smacks me in the face hard. The video. The fucking video. I didn’t delete it off of Zack’s PC before I ran out. I got myself all tied up in knots about Emma arriving in the office and wanting to escape her quickly that I forgot all about it. “Crap.”