4

The next morning Claire walked into the kitchen with a headache from a more or less sleepless night. Everybody else had already gone out to do what needed to be done that day. Claire found her breakfast waiting in the oven and sat down to eat it although she was not really hungry. The shock of her discovery yesterday was too deep to be really hungry.

Claire knew she had to find Alex as soon as possible. The problem was nobody knew where he was! Since the truth had come out about Alex's father nobody had seen him, it was like he never existed. But somebody had to know! And Claire had to find him before he did anything stupid.

So she decided to make a few phone calls when she had finished her breakfast. Sorting the rest of the papers could wait, finding Alex was now priority number 1. And since she would have been in the study all day anyway nobody on Drovers would notice she hoped.

The first person Claire called was Nick, Alex's younger brother. She had talked to him about Alex and his disappearance before and Nick had told her he didn't know where Alex was but she could still give it a try. Maybe he could give Claire a hint who else she could call.

"Wilgul, Nick speaking"

"Hi Nick, it's Claire…"

"Claire, what can I do for you?"

"Umm, it's about Alex again. You haven't by any chance heard of him lately?"

"No, nothing, why?

"I need to talk to him, Nick. It's really important!"

"I'm sorry Claire, last I heard he took the money from his trust fund and left the next day. I haven't heard of him since and neither have Mum or Dad."

"Harry signed the papers for the trust fund?"

"No he didn't, Mum did. Alex wasn't happy but he took the money…"

"Umm, do you know where I could find your mother? Maybe she knows more…I really need to find him!"

"Claire, what's up? Is everything all right?"

"No Nick but I can't tell you, I need to talk to Alex first."
"Sorry I couldn't help you Claire. I'll give you Mum's phone number, she's still in Fisher right now but will leave for Melbourne next week. You gotta hurry if you want to talk to her."
"Thanks Nick…"

Nick gave Claire Liz's phone number and address in Fisher and Claire tried to call her right away but it looked like Liz wasn't home. So Claire made a decision. If Liz knew anything she would have to drive to Fisher anyway, so why not drive now and see if she could catch her. She still couldn't forgive Liz what she had done to Alex and Harry but right now she seemed to be the best source of information.

Since it was already close to lunch time and the drive to Fisher was long Claire decided she might as well stay there over night. So she went up to her bedroom and packed a little bag with a few necessary things plus the never sent off annulment papers. She didn't want to take the risk of anybody finding them.

Claire new Tess wouldn't be happy about her decision to drive all the way to Fisher or staying there over night so she simply left a note on the kitchen table that she would be back tomorrow morning. Then she jumped in the Merc and drove off to find Liz in Fisher…

5

10 years earlier…

"Alex, we need to talk…"

"Why Claire? What's up?"

"I can't go through with it, it was just not right…"

"But I thought that was what we both wanted?"

Alex was really confused. What did Claire want?

"Alex, I want you to sign this…" She handed him a paper. He read it and looked at Claire even more confused.

"Why are you doing this Claire? We both wanted to get married and now you're saying you don't want to be my wife anymore?"

"Alex please, it's not that easy…"

"Then explain it to me!"

"I can't…it was a mistake…they wouldn't let us be together anyway…I don't know, I just can't do it…" Claire had started crying. She didn't know why she wanted to annul their marriage she just had the feeling that they shouldn't have done it in the first place.

"That's not god enough! If we stick together they can't separate us…Claire…"

"Alex, please, sign the papers…"

"Claire, I love you! I don't want this to end! We'll get through this together!"

"Alex, it was over before it began because we did it all in secret! You never really loved me and I don't really love you so sign those stupid papers and let's be friends again…" Claire knew she was lying and looked down so Alex couldn't see her face. Tears were still rolling down her cheeks.

"What did you just say? Claire?" But he never got an answer. "Right then, maybe you're right and we were never in love. Here, I'll sign the papers!" Alex searched his pockets for a pen and when he found one he put the papers on the roof of his car and signed everything that needed to be signed.

Without a word he handed them over to Claire and got in his car. Before he drove off he said "You will NEVER see me again!" Then he left with spinning wheels leaving Claire in a dust cloud…

6

A few hours after Claire had left for Fisher Tess walked into the homestead to look for her sister.

"Claire?" She went right into the study but only found it empty. "Maybe she's having a nap…" Claire's bedroom was empty as well but when Tess saw the open drawers it dawned on her that she would not find her sister anywhere near the house. "Damn it! Claire! What's up with you?" She yelled as she walked back down into the kitchen.

In the meantime the rest of the Drovers staff – Meg, Jodi and Becky – had come in and unlike Tess had found Claire's note on the kitchen table.

"Tess, we found this on the table…" Becky said and handed Tess the note.

Tess,

Making a trip to Fisher to do some shopping. Will stay over night so don't wait for me.

Claire

"Shopping?" Tess looked at the paper in disbelieve. Since when was Claire into shopping? And why the hell did she take off alone being 8 months pregnant? What if something happened to her, what if she went into labour at the side of the road? Claire was so bloody pigheaded! But what could she do? They had heaps of work to do especially now that Claire couldn't help so she couldn't possibly go after her.

"Girls, let's get moving and get the work done. Guess we won't see Claire again till tomorrow. I could kill her…"

When Claire finally arrived in Fisher she was exhausted. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all to drive all the way alone. But she was here now and first thing she had to do was look for a hotel room. Claire found a nice little hotel a little outside of town and when she had settled in to her room tried to call Liz one more time but again with no luck. 'I guess it can't hurt to take a nap…' she thought and made herself comfortable on the bed. The drive had worn her out more than she had thought and the baby had been very active all day long but had finally calmed down so she drifted off to sleep…

When Claire woke up again it was completely dark in the room and she could hear her stomach growling. With a look at the alarm clock next to her bed she realized it was already close to 10 pm and far too late to call Liz now. "Damn it!" Claire shouted and got up. She needed to find something to eat. And she wanted to find out where exactly Liz lived so she could head over there first thing in the morning. So she got herself fixed a bit and left the hotel to go and find a restaurant so she could do something about her growling stomach. The hotel restaurant was still open so she decided to give the food a go and was quite surprise how good it was.

After dinner Claire got back out to her car to try and find Liz's place. The girl at the front-desk had given her a fairly good description and it didn't take Claire long to find the place. It was a nice little house not far from her hotel and Claire was surprised to see the lights still burning inside the house. 'Can I still knock at that time of day?' she thought to herself but then decided to just take a chance. Who knew if Liz would be home in the morning so maybe this was her only chance to talk to her…

Claire parked the car and walked slowly towards the house. At the door she hesitated one more time. God, why was she here in the middle of the night wanting to talk to Liz Ryan? But then the thought of Alex came into her mind and she knew she had to do it. So she knocked on the door and waited.