Deceit. [COMPLETED.]

Chapter 23:

"My brother."
[KIRK ATTWOOD.]

She told me everything. 

'It was just a tease; a bit of fun. I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you. Really I am. As soon as you were chosen as you call it I thought it would be fun to have you followed and so I already knew where you liked to stop.'

She scrunched up her nose.

'Was it really such a terrible waste of resources?'

I shrugged a shoulder. With her money she could do what she wanted.

She then tilted her head and paused for a while before beaming across a beautiful soft smile.

'But you really couldn't take your eyes off me could you? I don't think you knew what to make of it all and I found it quite endearing to be honest.'

She then asked if I had ever done anything so outrageous but no I hadn't.  I had always been such a quiet boy at school. I never amounted to much. I was always the last to do anything outlandish and always the last to be invited to a party. Not that I cared. Running wild was simply not something I had wanted to do.

Max frowned.

'Oh you poor thing.'

But then living out in the country afforded me so many other distractions that most people in the towns and cities could only ever dream of such as wide open fields. I had so many other avenues to explore that I really didn't have time to envy my peers.

'Not one little bit?' asked Max.

'No,' I said, hesitating a little too long.

Except maybe in the romance side, I thought wistfully. My parents had no time to take me to dance halls and it was quite natural I suppose for a young boy like me to wonder all about the opposite sex but I accepted my life.

'But there was always something to do,' I insisted.

I used to run errands by nipping across the nearest fields to our local grocery store especially for one dear old widow who used sit me down afterwards and insist that I join her for a cup of tea and jam sandwiches.

'My knight in shining armour.'

Max squared her back and said how much she admired me.

I turned quizzically. 'Me?'

She huffed.

'Just because I may be a little madam doesn't mean that I don't share in some of your values.'

I looked out of the window. I had no idea where we were going. In just a short space of time we had left the city and were now cruising along a highway. Fields covered most of the landscape. The occasional woodland area flashed by. I was curious as to where we were going but happy all the same just to play along for the time being.

It was at this point that Max started to tell me about her brother and perhaps the real reason for me being here.

He was missing.

'When we were in our teens,' she said turning to look at me, 'we used to talk for hours about what we would do if either one of us was kidnapped or in trouble and he came up with the idea that if either needed the other, then we had to leave a sign. At the time, he couldn't think of what it would be, but a few years ago he brought up the subject again and said we should leave our mobile phones for someone to find. I have never forgotten it and yesterday Daddy received a call from the police to say they had found Adam's phone in a bank in Tokyo. They are sending it home but it's a sign - I know it is.'