AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes,” Ellis answers quickly.
I look into her eyes. “Because I realized I know who your father is.”
Chapter 19 ~ Process Of Elimination
Ellis
My eyes grow wide. Did I hear Rainier right? Did he say my father?
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“Do you remember me talking about that plane crash I was in?”
I nod.
“You remember the guy who saved me?”
“The guy with the brain tumor? James… Mitchell?”
“That guy,” Rainier says.
I wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, my eyebrows furrow.
“Are you saying James was my father?” I ask him.
He nods. “I think so. He said his wife was a woman from a rich family who ran away from home and eventually died in childbirth.”
Okay. That sounds like my mother.
“That’s why he had to give up his daughter.”
“You mean he was so devastated from losing my mother that he decided to lose me, too?”
“I’m not saying what he did was right,” Rainier says. “Actually, he didn’t think so, either. He regretted what he did. That’s why he was looking for you. He wanted to apologize and to tell you that he loved you and wanted you to be happy.”
“But you’re sure he’s my father?” I ask.
“He said his father-in-law had a horse above his bed. A horse named ‘Run Like Hell’.”
Just like the one above Samuel’s bed.
“Also, he said his daughter’s name was Elizabeth,” Rainier says. “And Ellis sounds like it’s short for Elizabeth, doesn’t it?”
My heart stops.
Elizabeth Quinn Northup. That’s what it said on my birth certificate.
“Actually, my name was originally Elizabeth,” I tell Rainier. “But my parents… my adoptive parents named me Ellis.”
Rainier’s eyes grow wide. “So it is you.”
I clasp my hand over my mouth. It is me. I’m James Mitchell’s daughter.
Rainier lets out a whistle. “Fate sure works in mysterious ways.”
Indeed. Who would have thought the very man who inspired Rainier to become a doctor was my father?
“I guess you really are a Northup,” he adds.
“I guess,” I say.
He places his hand over mine. “Which means you’re not safe here.”
I frown. “Shouldn’t that mean the contrary?”
“It should.”
But it doesn’t. The note I received is proof of the danger I’m in.
“Who do you think sent that note?” I ask Rainier.
He said it couldn’t be Gabriel. Then who? Suzannah? Calvin?
“Are you really going to play detective?” he asks me.
“I just want to find out who hates me the most so I can talk to him or her,” I answer.
Rainier frowns. “You really think he or she will listen?”
“At the very least, I’ll know who I have to be wary of,” I say. “Half the battle is knowing who the enemy is. You can’t prescribe a course of treatment unless you know the disease.”
He sighs. “Fine. We’ll find out who it is and then I’ll make sure he or she doesn’t mess with you.”
My eyebrows furrow. “That’s not what – ”
“Since you burned the note and we don’t really have any clues, we’ll just have to investigate all of the suspects and eliminate them one by one,” Rainier says. “We’ll start with the most obvious ones.”
“Okay.”
I guess that sounds reasonable.
“I’ll take Gabriel.”
My eyebrows go up. “But I thought you said it couldn’t have been Gabriel.”
“Well, I’m going to make sure it isn’t,” Rainier tells me. “And you check on Calvin.”
“Calvin?”
I would have thought Suzannah was the more logical choice since I already know she hates me.
“He’s the one plotting to take over the family estate, remember? And right now, you’re the newest and biggest obstacle in his path.”
I guess that makes sense.
I sigh. “Fine.”
Time to put Calvin Beaumont under a microscope.
~
I finally manage to find Calvin alone the next day while he’s playing a guitar in the music room. As he strums the strings with his fingers, the sad melody he’s playing plucks at my heart. I hold my hand over my chest.
Is this really a man who would plot to take everything from his family, who would plot to hurt me?
Well, there’s only one way to find out.
“You’re good,” I tell him as I approach him. “How long have you been playing?”
He stops. “Since I was six. My mother insisted I learn to play at least three musical instruments before I turned ten.”
My eyebrows arch. Apparently Vivian used to be a lot more assertive than she is now.
I sit on a chair. “I haven’t heard that song, though. Did you write it?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “I wrote it for someone.”
“And what did that someone think?” I ask curiously.
“Didn’t get the chance to hear it,” he answers.
My heart sinks. A sad love story. I’d like to hear all about it, but I remember what I’m here for.
“Do you write other things, too?” I ask him.
I say that as a reference to the note I received and as bait to see how Calvin reacts. If he wrote it, he should be a bit perturbed.
