"Yes, I'll give any additional information I remember to John Sauce."
John Sauce. Wasn't that the investigator who was looking for her?
"My grandmother said an investigator named John Sauce was looking for me," Lisa said out loud when Ricky hung up the phone and handed it back to Troy.
Ricky frowned. "The name is familiar for me too."
"He was your investigator first," Troy said, glancing at Lisa. "We have been looking for Peter Scarlett and his offspring for some time now. Everybody is accounted for except for the girl, Alicia Scarlett."
"And you think I am her?" Lisa’s mouth opened in shock. "Me?"
She finally recovered enough to screech.
"Yes," Troy nodded, "at least Zack thinks so."
"He is sending John Sauce here today to do a DNA test," Ricky finished. "He is asking that you comply."
"Why?" Lisa muttered. "If I am related to this Peter Scarlett guy, it means that my mother cheated on Ezra Barclay?"
"Maybe or maybe not." Ricky shrugged. "It's just a test. Maybe all of this is a coincidence or maybe Lisa B is the key." He winked at her after he said it.
Chapter Sixteen
Lisa's final class session with Eva and Julius was a celebratory affair. They took a final walk down the seaside at Villa Ingles and popped a bottle of champagne.
"To all of you ten," Eva said with enthusiasm, "you have come a long way. We love you all. I think you all are just gawjus."
She sniffed and Lisa found herself tearing up too. She'd miss the classes and Eva's exaggerated ‘gawjus, dahling’ declarations.
"Go out and shoot everything with clarity and be the best version of you." Julius completed the toast in his deep baritone.
"We are quite looking forward to Wednesday night," Julius continued, "when the rest of the world can see just how far you've come. We even have gallery buyers coming, so you never know."
"Cool!" Marlon declared beside her. "Really cool."
Lisa smiled. "Isn't it though?"
She glanced at her watch. "I have to go."
"Why Lisa," Marlon teased, "lover boy waiting for you as usual?"
Lisa didn't bother to reply to his teasing. She didn't know if she would ever see Nathan again.
"See you Wednesday," she said instead. She headed toward the parking lot, feeling quite downtrodden. She knew she was supposed to be keeping things in perspective but she couldn't quite get herself to be upbeat.
She deliberately passed Nathan's place, walking slowly. His car was not in the driveway. The windows were locked up. Nathan didn't close his windows. According to him, a place must have light and air and colors.
She walked up his driveway, crossed his flower hedges and walked around the back to the beach. The house was devoid of any sound. Nathan wasn't around.
She was tempted to call his number just to see if he would pick up, but his look of disgust earlier stopped her. She couldn't take another slam. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not ever. They were really over. Breakups were a part of life; people did it every day.
It hurt, but it would get better; she just had to ride it out.
It felt like the weather was not cooperating with her depression though. It was bright and sunny and windy; a perfect beach day. Perfect day for Sherman's Cove and pictures.
But it was no fun doing it alone.
She wondered if the investigator, John Sauce, had arrived at the villa yet.
No. Ricky would have called. It would be interesting to know the results. Was she or wasn't she a Scarlett? The possibility was mind-boggling.
Nadine Barclay had never indicated that she had ever had anybody else in her life, but what would she know?
She was just seven when her mother died. Her mother would not be having a confessional with her. From what she could remember of her early life, they lived in different apartments in Kingston. They moved fairly often. Her mother had one issue after the other with the various places. Her mother had a job; she taught music at a private prep school, so she had people coming over for classes.
Wherever they lived was always filled with music and books and the scent of lavender potpourri. Her mother had loved to bake too, and she could still remember the taste of her chocolate chip oat bars.
And warm hugs. Sometimes her mom would hug her tight for minutes, smoothing down her hair and rocking her, sometimes to the point of suffocation. And sometimes, she would burst into spontaneous dancing, pulling Lisa with her as they sang along to whatever tune she found addictive.
That was Nadine. Easygoing, loving, spontaneous.
And then she had died suddenly while at work. And a sour-faced Miss Vera had come to her and in the coldest way possible had told her that her mother was gone. She would now be living with her.
She had cried.
She remembered how sad she was. How drained. She was yanked from light and laughter and hugs and kisses and tenderness to doom and gloom and raised voices and the cold, stark reality that with her mom gone she didn't have anyone else to love her.
Miss Vera was never going to love her, and Ezra Barclay's family did not want to have anything to do with her either.
It would be ironic if after all this time she had another family.
It would also be a relief to know that she wasn't alone in the world. Miss Vera was not all she had.
She reached the kitchen door and perked up considerably. She was actually looking forward to meeting John Sauce and having that DNA test done. Maybe she would never know why her mom lied about Ezra Barclay being her father, but it would sure be interesting.
Lisa Scarlett. She tried it out as she yanked the kitchen door open. Sounded pretty good to her.
"Lisa, aspirin!" Francine barked as soon as she entered the kitchen. "Lisa, aspirin!"
Francine was at the front. Apparently she had just arrived.
Ricky was sitting around the kitchen nook with the kitchen table piled high with CD's and physical pictures and his laptop.
"Had any memory jogs yet?" she asked Ricky.
"Hardly," Ricky mumbled, "but I did take a break. I am now back at it."
"I said aspirin." Francine appeared at the doorway and leaned on it with a frown on her face.
"I heard you," Lisa said. "I just came in."
"Hello to you too, Mother," Ricky said drolly, looking at his mother. "You look good."
"But I have a headache. And I already said hello to you too. And I know you both heard me calling."
"I did." Ricky grinned. "I wanted you to come and find me."
"Argh," Francine said in reply. "Did you see my speech at ten?"
"No, sorry." Ricky shrugged. "I forgot about that. Did you lie to them glibly and with conviction?"
"No." Francine braced herself in the doorway. She was in a tailored lime green suit, and her hair was neatly coifed behind her left ear in a slightly lopsided style that managed to be both elegant and casual at the same time.
"I told the truth. I called someone on the committee who is also on my payroll, told them to retract my name as the person who got the contract and award it to the other sucker instead."
"How generous of you," Ricky grinned, "to bow out to the next person."
"Aren't I though?" Francine chuckled. "So when I went to the press conference, which was intended to be to my shame, I looked pretty flustered. I said to the press, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as far as I know my company was not offered the contract; Frank Holland's company was.’
"You should have seen the little vultures, scrambling to call their sources or whatever. I gave a brief little speech about my regard for Raybourne Cross, the media's attempt to smear his good name and my regret that I was ever dragged into the mud-slinging.
"It was chaos. I got no questions after that speech. Of course I congratulated Holland and Associates, who got the contract instead of me.
"Holland is right now blustering his way through several denials about bribery. The committee will have a re-bidding process. I will bid this
time without unduly influencing anyone. My source on the committee will ensure I get the votes. Politics is so tiring."
"Well played," Ricky breathed.
"You are so devious," Lisa said under her breath.
"Thank you." Francine snapped her fingers and then winced. "Where is my aspirin? And you are in my top."
Lisa looked down at herself. "Yes. Ricky said I could wear it."
"Aspirin, then I need to bring back some order to this household." Francine headed up the stairs. "No more wearing of my clothes!"
"Are you sure that you used to be scarier than her?" Lisa muttered as she headed through the door.
"No. Not sure." Ricky frowned. "But she is frightening, isn't she?"
Lisa scurried to get Francine's aspirin and carried it to her suite. Francine was sprawled on the bed face down, talking on her phone.
"Uncle Leroy," she raised her hand and indicated for Lisa to come over, "I don't know what you are talking about. I have visited you since Leandra died. Of course I have. Leandra died over twenty years ago. I visited you last month! No, the press conference today was not about St. Peter's hospital. I got them to close down the maternity wing years ago.
"Let me talk to your nurse, Uncle Leroy." Francine swallowed the pill, drank some water and then hung up the phone. She closed her eyes. "The old man saw me on television today and thought it was twenty-one years ago."
Lisa took the glass from her and watched as she pulled her hair from its style and then settled down on the bed.
"St. Peter's hospital is where I was born." Lisa murmured soothingly.
Francine opened bloodshot eyes and looked at Lisa. "Why are you still here?"
"I guess I wanted to apologize," Lisa said, "for calling you devious."
"But I am, in a way. Apology unnecessary. My feelings are not easily hurt. Now scoot. "
John Sauce arrived in the late evening. He was a jerky young man who called Ricky dude. He laughed and snorted and didn't seem at all like a real investigator.
"I've been looking for you," he sing-songed when he saw Lisa. "I have traversed all the prostitute places I could find looking for you."
"Why?"
"Because I thought you were a prostitute," John said as if she were slow. "But obviously you were here all along. And by the way, your grandmother sucks! She's the one who suggested that you were a prostitute, by the way."
"I know, she sucks," Lisa snorted.
She sat at the kitchen table with Ricky and John.
John took her DNA sample and then put it away in a bag he had slung around his shoulders.
"It's good to see you, dude." He turned to Ricky. "Last time I saw you, you were, er, very angry."
"I heard," Ricky said. "My brain was fried. I can't even remember why I was angry."
"Yeah," John grinned. "I think it's for the best."
"Yes." Ricky drummed his fingers on the table. "Doesn't do a soul any good to be angry anyway."
"My thoughts exactly." John rubbed his chin. "Say, you don't remember anything about the whole St. Peter's thing you had me looking into, do you?"
"No." Ricky shook his head. "What was that about?"
John cleared his throat. "Well, it was about your dead aunt's missing baby. St. Peter's was a mess, man, but at least we came up with the working theory that the baby couldn't have died. The attending doctor said your aunt delivered a healthy baby girl."
"Oh." Ricky snapped his fingers. "That's why I had that article at the back of the revenge book."
"Revenge book." John laughed.
"Long story." Ricky had it on the table under a pile of pictures. He took out the article pinned to the book and showed it to John, who read it out loud.
Francine Mills had single-handedly shut down the Maternity Unit at St. Peter's because of events that happened on her birthday. Nearly twenty-one years ago.
"Weird," Lisa said when John finished reading. "That date is my birthday."
Both John and Ricky looked at her.
"Which date?" Ricky asked quickly.
"The date when the baby switch and all of that happened. It was my birthday. I was born at St. Peter's on that day as well."
"And so were three other female children and a male child," John said, getting excited. "You could be one of the girls. Ricky had me trying to find them, but you could be one!"
"Okay then." Lisa laughed.
John had sprung up from the table and was pacing rapidly. "You could be her!"
"Who?" Francine's voice broke his frenzied excitement. He stopped pacing and looked at her in fright.
"It's the lady lion!"
"Grrr," Francine said, stepping in the kitchen. She had changed into a white caftan and her hair was out.
John jumped out of the way as she headed in his direction.
She stepped past him and to the head of the table. "Now John Sauce, Ricky's little project. What are you going on about?"
"Er..." John stammered, "Ricky, er...asked me to search for his, er...your sister's, er..."
Francine looked at Ricky. "I don't want another headache. Explain before he triggers another one."
Ricky chuckled. "I like it when you are intimidating."
Francine rolled her eyes.
"Apparently, I asked him to look into the snafu at St. Peter's. He discovered that on the date that Aunt Leandra had her baby, there were four other children born, three of them girls. So I had him searching for the other three girls."
"Ah," Francine drummed her fingers on the table. "I hate talking about Leandra with strangers." She looked at Lisa and John significantly.
"But she is not a stranger; she is not..." John was jerky and excited again. "She was one of them. One of the girls born that day!"
Francine's mouth opened in a surprised expression. "You were born at St. Peter’s on July 12, 1992?"
"Seems so." Lisa nodded. "What I'd like to know is what you think happened. If your aunt gave birth to a healthy baby, where is she?"
"Leandra died in childbirth," John said. "The doctor who delivered her baby said that baby was placed in the crèche with the other babies until the next of kin could be contacted. That would be the lady lion, who was in Germany with her billionaire lover."
"My name is Francine Mills," Francine snapped. "Stop calling me lady lion!"
John jumped.
"Calm down, John," Ricky said soothingly. "Come and sit down. I can't believe I was privy to all of this information and did nothing."
"Oh, but you did." John said. "That's how we met. I had just set up shop on the Internet and I must have advertised that I get results from the impossible, so you called me.
"You had me searching for the hospital records, which were sealed, and unfortunately most of it lost in a fire. There was a fire on that wing like less than a year after Lady Lion had it shut down. There was a rumor that it was a doctor who set it to destroy any evidence because they were being sued left, right and center."
Lisa rubbed her temples slowly. "When my grandmother was kicking me out, she said that the doctor said that Nadine's baby was dead and that she had postpartum depression because of it but then Nadine left hospital the day after with a live baby. I didn't believe her. It sounded so farfetched. What hospital would have someone leave with another baby? How could that happen?"
"Easy." Francine snorted. "The way that St Peter's was run, anything could have happened. The doctors didn't care. They were overworked and St. Peter's was understaffed. They had one midwife and they only used student nurses. It was the norm for all sorts of things to happen there and just be swept under the carpet.
“And if your grandmother suspected that your mother's baby was dead, why didn't she say something? Why cover it up? Her daughter casually stripped a family of their child!"
Lisa rebutted, "If you were so rich and had a billionaire boyfriend, why did you allow your sister to have her baby at St. Peter's? Why wasn't she in some fancy clinic?"
Francine slapped the table. “Because Leandr
a was willful and stubborn and she had cut off communication with me. I didn't even know she was pregnant until I heard she was dead! Don't judge me."
There was silence after the blow-up and the four people absorbed the ramifications of what was just said.
John was first to speak. "It would sort of make sense that Leandra had a baby for Peter Scarlett. She was secretive about it. They both grew up in the same neighborhood. They had that in common."
"Peter Scarlett? Why are we talking about him?" Francine asked.
"I am here to do a DNA test on Lisa on behalf of the Scarlett family," John said.
Francine closed her eyes. "Right! The obvious red hair and hazel eyes. I didn't readily make the connection. I have had too much on my mind lately."
"I could collect samples from you, lady lion, and have it compared with Lisa's, as well."
"Sure. Yes." Francine nodded. "You now have me anxious to know the outcome."
Lisa cupped her head in her hands. "This is crazy. Too many things to process today."
Chapter Seventeen
Tuesday was busy enough for Lisa to not dwell on the major things happening in her world. She was tempted to call Nathan but she resisted doing so.
His place was still locked up, his car not in the driveway.
She checked twice on her way to and from the hotel where she carried her photo to be displayed in the lobby with the other students' work. The photos were already receiving some attention from visitors and staff.
She was feeling apprehensive after seeing the exibits from the other photographers. She had the sneaky suspicion that her simple boat picture wasn't good enough.
Oh, how she wished Nathan was around. He would give his honest opinion. He was never one to mince words. She walked into the kitchen, feeling out of sorts. Francine was in there, just sitting and staring through the window. She was cradling a drink in her hand with a still-intact piece of fruit to its side.
Ricky was on the phone in the living room.
"Hello," Lisa said. She had still not quite gotten over the fact that she might be related to Francine Mills. She still didn't know what to make of it. She looked at Francine now; they had nothing in common. They couldn't be family. She wasn't the girl, Leandra's missing child.
Scarlett Promise (The Scarletts Page 14