The Truth Behind It All

Chapter 5

                                                                                                                                                        April 8, 2007

            “Hi, Adam,” Ana Marie said startling him as he walked out of his room, and tried to sneak into Jefferson’s main office. “How do you like Jorge’s bed and breakfast?”

            “It’s a . . . homey place,” he replied referring to the size. It was too small for his six feet long body.

            Ana Marie smiles, and keeps drinking coffee. By the look of her, she had that day off. She wasn’t wearing her scrubs, but jeans instead, and her hair was down in a messy look. It was eight o’clock in the morning and he felt like pouring himself some tea, but not before questioning Ana Marie first. 

            “So, are you off to work today?” he asked even though he knew the answer.

            “Not today, I would go to school but it’s spring break.”

            “What are you going to school for?” he asked almost too fast.

            “I am finishing my bachelor’s degree in Nursing. Hopefully I’ll be on my way of getting my master’s degree,” she replied peacefully. She sips on her cup. “How about you? Are you just a private detective?”

            She remembered, he noted. “Yes, I am. I got a degree in criminal justice and in criminal profiling.”

            “Impressive. That makes you, what . . . twenty six?”

            That took him by surprise, she wanted to know his age? What for? But he didn’t dwell too much on it. He decided he was done with pleasantries, he went ahead and asked, “So Mr. Jefferson is your uncle?” Even though he knew the answer to that.

            “No. My mother and he are good friends. He is more like a father to me, than an uncle though.”           

            “What about your real father?” he asked not caring if it was too forward. He could tell she was taken aback.

            “I don’t know him, I mean, I do but not really.” Adam nodded but he thought there was a better way to explain that. She continues, “I grew up without him, and my mother only told me the basics about him. But I could care less.”

            Basics, he repeated in his mind. “What sort of things did she tell you about him?”

            “Uh, you know, he is a good, hardworking, handsome man who is in Europe trying to make a good living in order for him to come back for us, blah, blah, blah.”

            “You sound like you are very fond of him.”

            Ana Marie laughed. “I was, growing up anyway. But he came back four years ago with gifts for a five year old girl, I guess he had forgotten I was eighteen,” she said in disappointment. “Anyway, I thought he came back so he could, I don’t know, take charge of the wife, well not wife because they never got married, his woman and daughter, and lo and behold, he came because he had some business to attend here. He just came by because it was down the same way.”

            “What kind of business?”

            She shrugged. “No one knows. My mother used to tell me that he was a scientist that helped developed injections for the sick people, but I am pretty sure she was sugar coating it for me.”