After dropping her girlfriend off at the station, Joey rushed home, had a quick shower and change of clothes, before heading to the club. She arrived there just as Alf was opening up.
"Morning Alf."
"Good morning Joey," Alf practically sang out.
Joey couldn't help but smile at the robust greeting and huge grin on Alf's face.
"You're certainly in a good mood today."
"Now that Martha is awake and out of danger, it feels like everything is right with the world," he explained. "I realise Martha and Georgie still have a long road ahead of them with Martha's recovery, but the worst is over and they can only move forward from here."
"Charlie and I will be happy to continue to help out in any way we can, if it will make things easier for them."
"Thanks Joey and I'd really like to thank you for the wonderful support you've been to my family and for the way you helped Romeo pick up the slack here," Alf told her. He looked around the club. "I know this is just a building, but Martha loves it and it helped a great deal to know it was being well looked after while the family was at the hospital."
"Romeo was the one who did most of the work," Joey said. "He's been great and even made sure I wasn't overdoing things."
"He's a good boy, that Romeo," agreed Alf. "And it's probably time we gave him more responsibility."
"He's more than up for it."
Alf nodded. "When Martha is stronger, I'll have a word to her about him."
"So, what's on the agenda today then?"
"I need to go over the books if you want to start setting up the place."
"Done."
Graves and Robertson were still discussing things, but Charlie wasn't really listening because she was preoccupied; for some reason, she found that she couldn't stop staring at the photo and the more she looked at it, the more she realised that there was just something about it that was bothering her, she just couldn't put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was just the shock of finding out she was still alive after all but convincing herself Bianca was dead, she wasn't sure, but something just didn't feel right. Perhaps if the photo had been a lot clearer instead of the typical graininess you tended to get from security cameras, she could be more certain as to what was bothering her.
"Staring at that photo isn't going to help us find her," Robertson pointed out.
"Sorry," muttered Charlie and she flipped the photo face down on the desk.
Robertson sat back in his chair and studied Charlie for a moment, watching the way her eyes kept glancing back to where she had placed the photo. "What is it about that photo that you find so interesting?"
Charlie shrugged.
"Charlie, whatever it is, just spit it out."
"I don't know what it is."
"Obviously it must be something for you to be this distracted."
"Can I see the video footage the photo came from?" Charlie asked suddenly.
"Why?"
"It might help me figure out what it is that is bothering me about the photo."
Robertson nodded to Graves, who flipped her laptop open and swivelled it around for Charlie to see.
The moment she saw the woman approaching the counter, Charlie knew what had been bothering her.
"That's not Bianca," she confidently stated.
"Excuse me?" Robertson said with some disbelief.
"It's not her," Charlie said. "The woman doesn't carry herself like Bianca does and that," she flipped the photo over again, "Was what was bothering me in this photo. Bianca would never slouch like that."
"It's hardly a slouch."
"For Bianca, it's a slouch."
"Miss Scott was injured though, so maybe that affected the way she moved," he said, though Charlie could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.
"I'm telling you, that is not Bianca."
"And you're 100% certain of that?"
"Maybe not 100%, but I know Bianca better than anyone in this room and I'm telling you, that woman does not move like Bianca." Charlie hated feeling so confident about this, because if she was right about it not being Bianca, then that could mean Bianca was most likely dead after all.
Robertson glanced at Graves, his brow raised in question. "We should check with the CCTV footage from the bank she withdrew the ten grand from to see if it has a clearer image of her and we should also have her signature analysed," Graves suggested, "Just to be sure."
He looked back at Charlie, as if weighing things up. "Let's just say Charlie is right, then someone arranged for this woman to pose as Miss Scott, which, along with the dubious medical records and sudden departure of Dr Dick Head, makes for one hell of a cover up."
"Cover ups can be an expensive undertaking," Graves said. "Even more so in the timeframe they would have had."
"We've already started to run a forensic audit on Angelo to try to link him to payments to the doctor from the clinic, but we're having difficulties getting a warrant to check his parent's finances," Robertson said.
"Yeah, no judge is going to grant one for the parents unless we have something more conclusive than theories and an ex-lover cop telling us a woman in grainy video footage doesn't move right," Graves said, "Which is why we need to find something more conclusive, because there is no way Angelo did this alone and his parents would have been in a better position than Angelo to arrange all of this."
"This had to have been a rush job," Robertson said, "And with any luck, in their haste, mistakes were made and if so, we'll find those mistakes and see where they lead us."
Charlie hoped he was right about mistakes being made. "It would help if we could find the doctor who supposedly saw Bianca," Charlie said. "And track down this doppelganger."
"We're still trying to trace the payments to the doctor and his location and I'll have the officers who found the pharmacy start back tracking the woman's movements from there," Robertson said. He played the video again and watched it from Charlie's perspective, ie. as someone with a more intimate knowledge of a woman she had once dated. "I suppose they only needed someone with a passing resemblance to Miss Scott to fool any security footage we might get of her and now that I look at it again, it almost does appear like she is posing for the camera or at least, making sure she is seen." He turned away from the footage. "We could have spent hundreds of man hours and a lot of money chasing after a ghost before the case went cold and word from above came to put it in the too hard basket," Robertson said. He grinned suddenly, "It's too bad who ever set this up didn't count on the keen eyes of an ex-lover watching this." And that was exactly why he had wanted Charlie's input on the case, even if her involvement had to remain unofficial.
"In a way, I hope I'm wrong and that it is Bianca in the footage," Charlie said.
Robertson sighed and nodded in agreement. "For a cover up like this to work though, they'd need to be sure nothing could blow it out of the water, which does imply a certain level of confidence on their part that the real Miss Scott wouldn't just turn up out of the blue and we'd go on assuming she's done a runner. Still, we can't be absolutely certain just yet that the woman in the footage isn't Miss Scott, so we follow both leads until we know one way or the other; that she is alive and in hiding or she is dead and this is an elaborate cover up."
"Which do you think is most likely?" Charlie asked him.
"From your confidence that the woman is not her and from what you've told me about how unlikely it is that Miss Scott would just abandon her sister, to the lack of blood in Angelo's car, even though we know she sustained a head wound, along with his confidence in naming her as the driver, then I'm afraid that I'm leaning toward Miss Scott being dead."
Joey smiled and hummed softly as she cut the sandwiches she'd prepared for lunch with Charlie.
"Are all meals here made with such love?" a woman's voice asked and Joey looked up and found herself looking into the dark eyes of a dark haired woman. "Because I'll have a couple of sandwiches if they're made the same way."
Joey grinned. "Sorry, these are special sandwiches."
"For a special man?"
"Woman," replied Joey.
"Lucky woman."
"I like to think so," she said. More so, because not even she could mess up a sandwich like she still did at times when it came to cooking hot meals. "What can I get you, besides these sandwiches?"
"I'll start with a nice glass of chardonnay while I decide."
"Coming right up."
The woman sat at the bar while Joey poured her glass and passed it to her.
"I'm Suzi, by the way," she said, taking a sip of her drink.
"Joey."
"It's a great little town you have here, Joey."
"Yeah it is."
"Can you recommend some good sites for me to see while I'm here?"
"You'd probably be better asking a local about that, than me."
"You're not a local?"
"Nah, I've only been here a short time," though with everything that had happened, it felt like so much longer. "What about you?"
"Visiting an old school friend who has just moved into the area," she said. "I'm supposed to be meeting her here today, but she called to say she was held up at work, so it looks like I'm eating alone." She eyed Joey up and down. "Unless you'd care to join me?"
"I have that special woman waiting for me, remember?"
"Ah, damn," she murmured with a heavy sigh that had Joey smiling in amusement at her less than subtle attempt at flirting. "I guess I really will be all alone then."
"I'd be happy to keep you company," Hugo said from behind her. "I'm Hugo and I can be very nice company."
Suzi turned around and appraised him in much the same way she had just done with Joey. "Sorry Hugo, but you're not really my type."
"I can be any type you want me to be."
"Tell you what, here is my number," she said and wrote it down on a napkin, before handing it to him. "And when you have had a sex change, you can give me a call."
Joey quietly sniggered from behind the bar.
"Joey, I'll come back and order when I've decided what I'd like," Suzi said and she walked over to one of the empty tables.
"Fucking dyke," muttered Hugo in his humiliation at her knock back, though he never stopped admiring the woman's figure as she moved away from him.
"Everything ok here?" Alf asked as he joined Joey behind the bar.
"All fine," she said. "I'm just about to head off on my lunch break."
"Would you be able to drop this off at the hospital before you come back here?" he asked.
"Sure," Joey said and took the basket from him.
"Tell Martha I said hi," Hugo said to her. "I would have been in there earlier, but no one had bothered to tell me she was awake," he said. "I had to hear about it in the diner from Colleen."
"Martha's immediate family and close friends were notified," Alf told him, making it obvious he considered Hugo to be neither.
"Whatever you may think of me Alf, I care for Martha."
"Then accept that Martha loves Georgie and is fully committed to her and leave her alone."
"I still don't get why you approve of that woman," argued Hugo. "She's an average cop who'll be lucky to get past her current rank and has a dubious past, while I'm a successful businessman who can provide a good life to Martha and Jackson and give her more children."
"Georgie provides Martha with everything she wants and needs, including love and respect."
"I respect Martha," Hugo bit back.
"If you did, then you'd accept her choices and be happy for her."
"I can't be happy for her, because she's making a huge mistake."
"Hugo, you need to get over Martha and your irrational dislike for your stepsister and stop making a fool of yourself."
He ground his teeth to keep from saying something. He was still pissed with his family for keeping John's real relationship to that bitch from him and it just made her being with the woman he loved so much harder to deal with. "Alf, one day you will see Martha is the one making a fool of herself by being with that woman and when I'm there to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart, then you'll change your mind."
"I doubt it," Alf said to Hugo's retreating back.
"Is he always so full of himself?" Joey asked.
Alf nodded. "There's only one thing you need to know about Hugo and that's that he never seems to change."
"Well, I should be going to lunch now."
"Take a little more time since you're going to the hospital."
"Thanks Alf."