Chapter 55: Opportunity

Chapter 55: Opportunity As Abigail headed to her bedroom after dinner, she couldn’t help wondering who Genevieve’s guest was. And who was the Jamal she mentioned? Was the guest related or connected to Dawn? Or was it Genevieve’s own person? Now she wanted to know everyone Genevieve knew by virtue of being Dawn since she knew that whoever was connected to Dawn, was connected to her. Abigail exhaled as she sat on her bed and picked up her laptop from the top of her nightstand. With a few swift keystrokes, she navigated to a hidden folder buried beneath layers of other l files. This was where she had been documenting everything she knew so far— every cryptic message, every strange occurrence, every fragment of memory that had started returning. Her last entry was her mother’s name— Kimberly Moore. Days ago it had occurred to her that she wasn’t getting answers because she going about it all the wrong way. If Genevieve was pretending to be Dawn, then she had more than half the answers. All she needed to do was find out who Kimberly’s supposed mom and biological father was. So, if the name of Genevieve’s supposed mother was Kimberly Moore, then that meant Kimberly Moore was the name of her mother since she was the real Dawn. She had tried to look into the Moore family and the only surviving relative she could have asked— her mother’s uncle— had died years ago before she began to regain her memory. And from what she remembered, he had been close to Genevieve. She had not stopped wondering how he could have believed that Genevieve was his niece’s daughter. Did he not know what the real Dawn looked like? She couldn’t believe that someone as smart as she was had a not so smart relative. Each time he visited in the past she had been made to stay away. Now that she thought about it she should have suspected it all from the beginning. While she was made to wear other colors of wigs and lenses, Genevieve always wore wigs and lenses of her natural color. She should have always known that Genevieve was living her life. But then again, how could she have known that she was living with a monster who had the guts to claim he was her father? Abigail typed on her laptop: [Is Genevieve a friend or a foe? Is she a victim or a villain? Is she keeping me away and treating me the way she does because she feels guilty or is it because she doesn’t want to give up the life she’s been living? Who is her guest? Who is Jamal?] She paused, her fingers suspended over the keyboard. Jamal. The name made her heart flutter. Was it a coincidence that she had met Jamal on the plane to Westend and now Genevieve had a guest called Jamal? Or was Jamal different from the guest? She picked up her phone to see if she had any messages from her Jamal, and then she pouted when she saw he had not sent any messages after the last one she sent him. She quickly typed a text. [Hey! Do you live in Westend? Or are you visiting?] Abigail sighed inwardly when she waited for some time and didn’t get a response because he seemed not to be active. She scrolled through her list of questions on her tablet and she sighed again. She had a lot of questions. She wanted to know how Ryan had successfully passed Genevieve to the world as Dawn. She wanted to know why he had done that. And more importantly— had her memory loss truly been caused by the accident, or had it been something Ryan did? If she hadn’t lost her voice and her memories, what would his plan have been? Would he have gotten rid of her? A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. She had no proof, but she had a feeling that losing her voice and memory might have saved her life. Or maybe not since it all depended on the reason he was doing what he was doing and why he was keeping her alive. She needed answers but she couldn’t afford to take risks. Asking the wrong person could cost her. That was the reason she felt even more frustrated that the one person who seemed like she could give her answers had disappointed her. Her mind drifted to her mother as it had done so often in these past years. Why couldn’t she find any private information on her mother on the internet or anywhere apart from her achievements and the likes? There were no pictures of her anywhere in the house. Ryan had claimed they had taken them down to heal because the pain had been too much. But knowing what she knew now, she could see the lie for what it was. Ryan had done it to keep her from remembering. Just like he had sent a therapist who kept giving her drugs she didn’t need in order to block her memory. Did her mother not have any close friends? If so, where were they? She needed someone to tell her about her paternal family so she could try to find and reach out to her biological father since Ryan wasn’t her biological father. She exhaled shakily and ran her fingers through her hair. Her head was messed up with so many questions that were looping together and tangling up. She felt like she was going crazy and her head was going to explode with all the questions swirling inside her. She shook her head, not wanting to think about it anymore because her head was beginning to throb from all the questions and she was yet to get any rest after the very long flight. She needed to call it a night now. Tomorrow was another day to figure out some more puzzles. She rose from the bed, deciding to go check on Josh before going to bed. As she stood outside Josh’s bedroom door, she heard Ryan reading Josh a bedtime story. She felt angry and sad at the same time. Angry that Ryan was playing such a perfect fatherly role for her son, and sad that even if she wanted to read her son a bedtime stories herself, she couldn’t do so. At least not yet. She was still bidding her time. She couldn’t let Josh hear her talking yet. He was a kid and could let it slip, and that would cause a lot of problems for them. She wondered what Ryan would do if he knew she was no longer mute. She didn’t want to find out. Hopefully she’d have found out all she wanted to know and taken back all that was hers that he was withholding from her, before he would find out she had regained her memories and could talk. From her findings she had discovered that the company, HM Corp, was a merged company. As the sole heiress of the Moore family, Dawn had inherited all of the Moore’s wealth and being her father and guardian, Ryan had merged Moore Enterprise with the Harris Corporation and that was how it became HM Corp. That meant she owned at least half of the company. She didn’t have a problem working as Genevieve’s assistant in a company that was going to be hers. It was an opportunity to craftily take back what was rightfully hers. And she would take the rest of it as her interest or compensation or whatever. It was an opportunity she was going to make them regret giving her. With a soft sigh she returned to her room to sleep. As she pulled the blanket over herself she thought about what her father had said about sharing the car with Genevieve. Ryan had mentioned that the driver was new? Perhaps she could befriend him too like she had befriended all the other staff in the house. She had long realized that it was very beneficial to be close to the domestic staff. It was easier to get information and to get them to do her bidding. Not to mention the delicious treats she always got from the kitchen staff, Abigail thought with a wide grin. How could she use Genevieve’s new driver? Perhaps she could get very close to him and have him report Genevieve’s movement to her? And maybe she could also find out who this Jamal was from the driver? She bit her lip as she considered if it was a risk worth taking. Was the driver close to Genevieve or Ryan? The last thing she wanted was to get herself in trouble. She sighed deeply and decided to stop by the staff quarters to see the driver in the morning. Maybe if she took breakfast to him and did her pitifully mute girl routine with him, he would take an interest in her like all the others and he would be on her side. She was going to slowly win over every single person in the house so that when the time was right for her to revolt, Ryan would have no one to save him from her.