Chapter Seventeen

Nobody said anything for a couple of seconds. Three of them were confused. None of them had any explanation for what they just saw, because the woman they saw standing inside Emiiy's parents house was her mother's was a spitting image of her mother. It was not just her mother's look-alike.

Sophia glared at the phone again for three solid minutes. “So my mother is alive.” Emiiy muttered with mixed feelings. “Are you certain that she is your mother?” Sophia responded as her expression changed.

“Do you think I would be confused about my own mother? The woman who gave birth to me, nurtured me for several years.” “Come on, I might be naive, but I am not a fool.” Emiiy said as her hands began to tremble. Emiiy's mother and father passed twenty years ago, she even attended their funeral. The mystery here is why does the woman in that picture look so much like her mother? 

“Emily’s mother was the person I saw, I recognized her from old family pictures because I was still young when the news of her death came.” Ryan assured them as he laid on his bed. Sophia took the phone and urged them not to touch any other thing. She said that they needed to keep the picture safe. Emiiy was so sure that the woman in the picture is her mother she knows it with everything in her. She thought of the possibility of seeing her mother once again in real life. Just as she reminisced how priceless that moment would be, her phone buzzed. She checked who it was and saw it was Damian. She picked up the phone right away.

“I got a call from my security team about an attack, what happened?” Damian asked immediately without pleasantries. Emiiy immediately described the attack and everything that went down.

After Emiiy finished explaining, there was a brief moment of silence. 

“Let me see the picture.” Immediately, Emily sent him the picture. Damian looked at the picture and examined it carefully. After thorough examination, he said “Emiiy, hear me out. Cancel any plan you have of visiting that house.” Emiiy insisted on going. She needed to see if the woman she saw there was truly her mother. “Listen, Emily. The woman in that picture is not your mother. Someone else is waiting for you inside that house.” 

As soon as he said those words, Emily and Sophia caught each other's gaze.

“You are going to need additional protection. I will put it in place.” He added. Emiiy asked about the woman with uncanny resemblance as her mother. Damian was not sure who she was but he promised to find out. For the first time, Damian let his guard down. “Ryan, you admitted that your Mom was the one that transferred Emily's trust money.” She said, pointing directly to him.

Ryan said,”yes.” “Do you know why she transferred them?” Ryan said “no.” Sophia urged him to tell them everything he discovered but Ryan hesitated. “My mom was not working by herself, she was definitely working with somebody.” He said, staring at the door. “Who was she working with?” They both asked at the same time. “I don't have the person's me yet. I just uncovered financial trails of the money from Emily's trust being moved to an organization named Northstar Properties.” He said.

Suddenly, Sophia brought out her phone and googled the company.

“Margaret is an evil woman. How can someone who calls herself my mother-in-law do this to me?” Emily said as she looked at Ryan. Her phone buzzed, another text message came in. No words, only a picture. When Emiiy opened it, she saw an old family portrait of theirs. It was not just her parents and her in the picture. There were two other persons with them. A man and a woman she had never met before. The woman slightly looked like her mother. When Damian took her phone to see who the man was, he was astonished because he knew the man. “Who is this man,” Emily asked. “His name is Thomas Reed, he used to head my father's security team. He vanished just before the death of your parents.” He told them, as he glared at the picture. “Do you recognize this woman?” He looked again be unfortunately he didn't recognize her. 

Her phone vibrated again. It was yet another picture. A picture of the exact woman standing next to Emily's Mom on their front porch. They all took turns to look at the image. They all wondered who the woman was and why she looked exactly like Emily's mother. Just as they were glaring at the picture and wondering, another message came in. It says “Do not look for Thomas Reed.” It was when Ryan took a look at the picture for one final time. Then he suddenly remembered. The woman he saw was not completely a stranger. He vaguely remembered her. “I think that is Elena Reed. Thomas Reed's sister.” Immediately her phone beeped again. A final message came in.  I KNOW YOU FOUND MY PICTURE.