Finding Her Joy

Late-Night Caller

*A/N- I'm having so much fun just with writing this. Even if I'm not great at it, it's just enjoyable for me. I hope it is for you guys, too. Happy reading! Enjoy!

(MIA POV)
I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone knocking on my hotel suite door. Checking the time, I saw it was 3 am. "What the- is there a fire or something?" I whispered to myself as I got out of bed. Before going to the door, I fixed my hair in the mirror.

The knocking got louder the longer I kept them waiting. "Alright, I'm coming!" I yelled, getting irritated by the incessant pounding on the door and the fact I hadn't been asleep very long. I opened the door quickly, "What do you-You?" My tone changed from anger to massive levels of confusion.

Stood in front of me wasn't one of the hotel staff or a random drunk at the wrong door. It was the P.I. I'd hired. How did he even know where I was? Nevermind. Dumb question. It was literally his job to find people.

"Finally. We need to talk." His tone was serious, and his voice was low. I moved aside to let him come in, and he didn't hesitate to enter. "You were pretty easy to find."

"Well," I said, crossing my arms, "I wasn't really hiding now, was I?" I sit down on the sofa and point for him to sit on the chair across from me. "Didn't I call you off during our last chat? Why are you here?"

He sat and pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. "All you said was don't go with you. You never said our business was finished. Plus, I think you're really going to want to see what I've found." He sat the envelope on the table and slid it over to me.

I laughed, "Look at you finding a loophole. Such a smart boy." I reached down to grab it, and he put his hand over it quickly. "What is it now? I'm too tired for games, mister... wait, what exactly am I supposed to call you? I just realized I gave you my name, but you didn't give me yours." I asked, no doubt looking confused.

"Call me Peter. And before you open this I think you should prepare yourself. Based on what you told me, you're not expecting what's in here." He was very serious.

"Okay, Pete," I said sarcastically, and he glared at me. "Fine. Peter." He removed his hand, and I grabbed what was on the table. I was nervous but trying to hide it. I didn't know what I wanted to be in there. "Are you just going to sit there and watch me open it?" I asked him.

"Guess not. I'll leave. I'll call when I have something else." He quickly left, and I followed after him to lock the door.

I sat back down on the sofa, still half asleep. "Let's get this over with so I can go back to bed." I said to myself, tearing into the envelope.

Inside was a stack of papers with medical jargon on it. Most of it was from emergency visits to the hospital. Things like broken noses, concussions, a few doctors' notes on broken bones. I was expecting it to be reports from Reece and Autumn's younger years, but when I checked the name, it wasn't theirs I saw.

It was their mum's.

"Oh, wow." Looking through everything and seeing how awful her marriage to Roger was, I understood why she left. It made sense to leave him and go into hiding, but I still couldn't understand why she would leave her children. I was torn between feeling sorry for her and wanting to knock her lights out.

I was angrily flipped through the rest of the papers, wondering why Peter felt the need to show me all this, when one of the sheets of paper caught my eye. I turned on an extra lamp beside me to wake me up more and help me focus on what I was reading.

It was a birth certificate. My first thought was that it belonged to their mum or my dad, but upon further inspection, I noticed a different birth year. Doing the math quickly, I figured out that the person would be in their late 20s by now, meaning it couldn't be Autumn or Reece.