“Okay,” I replied without much hesitancy.
Marcus, who had been silent all this time, also expressed his sentiment. “I’ll go too.”
I paused and turned to Joseph to seek his opinion.
Apparently, it was no issue as Joseph slightly nodded his head, so all of us bundled in and left together.
We saw the sirens roar pass when we turned at the intersection. I guess the police must have been alerted by some passers-by.
…..
Joseph led Marcus and I to an old mansion that appeared to boast a real sense of history behind it.
Anyone with some understanding of real estate would know that the value of heritage sites could not be measured in its modern monetary worth. Only the cream of the crop would be able to reside in places like that.
Inside the living room, Ashton and that Hall woman sat across from each other. The atmosphere appeared somber.
Gregory was fiddling with a tablet in another part of the room, deliberately incognizant to what was happening on this end.
We were ushered to Ashton’s side. “They’re here, Mr. Fuller. Ran into some trouble with some people who tried to abduct them along the way, but my men and I managed to get there in time.”
“Understood,” Ashton replied plainly before he raised his head. His cold eyes swept past Marcus and fell right upon me.
I would consider myself acquainted with Ashton to a certain extent, but not so much with that woman. I regarded her as briefly as I would any stranger that I passed on the street.
Her disquiet did not elude me.
She reacted to me as though she had just seen a ghost. Her eyes were peeled wide open, face white as a sheet. “You… You’re alive?”
After my encounters with Alexander and Emery, this sort of response did not faze me anymore.
It would seem that many thought that I should not still be existent in this world.
How Alexander and Emery straddled joy and sincere relief upon discovering me similarly came across as a surprise.
This woman’s reaction, though, was reminiscent of Rebecca’s.
Be it Rebecca or this wildly expressive socialite before me, I understood the insinuations hidden within their words. You ought to be dead!
I had no impressions of her whatsoever. But judging from the conversation I overheard and her physical resemblance to Ashton, I understood that they were family. Hence, I maintained a basic level of cordiality. “Ms. Hall.”
She clutched at her own chest in a dramatic mixture of astonishment, panic, and disbelief, as though she was suffering a cardiac arrest. “You… You…”
Not a single line was uttered before she got her emotions in check and regarded Ashton calmly. “It’s just someone who looks like her. The real Scarlett’s dead. That has been established even by the police. You’ve been fooled, my dear brother.”
The woman sounded so certain; she did not seem at all worried about flaws in her narrative.
Indeed, everything pertaining to the one who was declared deceased had been destroyed. There was nothing left that could be used to expose her.
As she was his kin, even a fool would know who Ashton would trust between the two of us. The fact that he allowed his own son to take the name of the Hall family was a case-in-point.
Gregory was preoccupied with the screen in his hands and only noticed me when the maid brought him some water. He sprung to life and immediately tried to run toward me with tablet in hand. Unfortunately, he was held back by the maid, who was concerned that he might disturb his own father, who was in the midst of some serious talk.
“I want to play with you, Ms. Stovall!” the boy shouted as he fought to free himself from the maid’s grasp, shattering the silence in the otherwise quiet living room.
The maid grew increasingly anxious, as though the boy’s cry had just gotten her into major trouble. She kept trying to call for restraint from the young master of the house.
I could only speak out comfortingly, “Be a good boy, Greg, and wait there. I’ll come over to you when we’re done here!”
Gregory pursed his lips in reluctance but pliantly lowered his head. “Okay. I’ll stay put. You have to come quickly, Ms. Stovall!”
An obedient and gentle child was especially endearing.
While the living room fell back into silence as soon as Gregory did, the mood had only grown considerably more awkward.
