The next day as I left my studio I heard and oddly familiar voice behind me. "Adelaide?" I turned to see a frail looking woman who had eyes, nearly the same color as mine. "Yes?" I asked her. "I needed to see you." I was about to respond when the car pulled up and I heard Harry's voice. I turned and smiled at him as he left the car and joined me on the sidewalk. I turned back to resume speaking to the woman. "What are you looking for?" Harry asked me. "There was a lady. She knew my name..." Harry wrapped his arms around me. "I'm sure it was nothing." He told me as he kissed my head and lead towards the car. "Are you ready to go to your parents?" Harry asked once our car was off into the New York City traffic. "My parents?" I replied, not able to shake the image of the woman from my head. "Yeah, your parents, for dinner? They called a family meeting." Harry showed me a look of concern. "Oh, my parents'. Yeah I'm ready." I looked down at my pale pink work skirt and smoothed out all of the wrinkles. "You okay?" Harry questioned as he took my hands in his. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm just tired I guess. It's been a long day." "After dinner we'll come home early okay? Maybe I can give you one of my world famous back massages." He said with a goofy grin which caused me to smile. "That sounds amazing." I said with a sigh, "But first we have to go deal with my mother, she's probably in a mood or something. It's odd that they called a family meeting the day after family dinner." Harry chuckled. "Come on, it will be fine." Scott opened the car door and Harry and I exited the car to walk up the steps to my parents house. Vera opened the door and ushered us into the sitting room. Worry was written across everyone's face. "What's happened?" I asked quickly. My mother quickly excused herself from the room while dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. My father stood and walked towards Harry and I. "There was an...incident today at my office. I received a letter, it said that if I didn't release a large amount of money someone in our family would be hurt, badly. We have no idea who the letter is from or how it got to my office since the security system conveniently was down early this morning before the note was found."
I looked at Harry, he had worry etched into his features. "Well what does this mean? What's going to happen? How were you supposed to give someone money if the note didn't say who it was from?" The questions tumbled out of my mouth one after another.
My father sighed. "The note said to leave the cash in bags in a certain alleyway by ten tomorrow morning. It also said that no one should be there in the morning with the money, or else the family would pay."
"Well you aren't going to do it are you?" I asked. "Of course not." My father replied. "While I would like to give this person the money in hopes of keeping you all safe, chances are if I give in once things like this will continue to happen. So that's why our Hampton's trip is canceled. We will all be staying in the city, and security will be much much more strict for every single one of you. Everyone understand?" Everyone in the room nodded silently. "I have turned the note over to the police and I have my private investigators looking into the situation but it doesn't change the fact that there will be more security. I have a new team coming, with more members. No one goes anywhere at all without at least one guard. Harry that includes you."
It warmed my heart that my father cared deeply enough about Harry to have security for him, but it also worries me that my father thought he might need it.
"Your mother has been really upset by this. She's worried about what else might happen so if you all could just act as normal as possible I think that that would really help her right now." My brothers and I all nodded as we all sat down while my father went to retrieve my mother. Through the meal I kept to myself, I couldn't get that woman's face out of my mind, it was if I knew her from somewhere but I could figure out where. After our meal that was full of awkward silences and worried faces I made my way to my old bedroom, leaving Harry in the sitting room with my family. Shortly later Leo joined me. He found me rummaging through an old box of photographs. "Ads, what are you doing?" He asked me as he stood in the doorway.
