Chapter 5 It'll All Click When the Check Clears
For two months it felt like someone had been watching her every move. Helena found it ironic that it started after she lost the only people she thought ever cared enough to bother worrying about her. She tried to convince herself that it was just her nerves. Notes in blood tended to make people see things that weren't really there. Still, the feeling persisted. Leading her to wonder when the watching and waiting would turn into something more.
Helena wasn't about to worry over a feeling; she had much less abstract worries to distract her. Like making enough money to support herself; deciding what she was going to do with the house that was the only home in her memory; applying to medical school; and a million other decisions that needed to be reached yesterday.
Suffice to say Helena Troy was stressed.
So she did what she always did to unwind. She worked out like a fiend. Helena never quite understood other methods; the only thing that ever made her feel better was controlled physical aggression. Her mother ate large amounts of sweets and her father threw himself into work. Both methods always struck Helena as counterproductive. Her mother's stress came from gaining weight and her father's due to work. Helena remembered they were just as baffled by her chosen stress relief method.
She found it soothing to feel the burn of pushing her muscles to their limit. Her gymnastics training developed her muscles in ways that would make special ops soldiers and supermodels jealous. There was almost no fat to be found on her body and every muscle she possessed was toned from regular use. Despite quitting the team, she still remained in the same shape she was prior because of her constant need to lose herself in physical exertion.
The physical release of tension was only part of joy she found, though. It relaxed her mentally as well. Gymnasts started young so that it would become second nature. So that acrobatic feats that were impossible to the average person were as simple as walking to them. When Helena let go of one bar she didn't trust and hope she'd grasp for the other, she knew. Her fingers knew the exact moment to let go and her hands knew exactly where to be to catch the next bar. She didn't need to think about it.
It was mental freedom. Sometimes she would just let her mind stop, entering a sort of meditative state where only her breathing and flexing of muscles existed. This time though her effortless motions allowed her mind to wonder.
She didn't know what to do with the house. Grip. She could give up her apartment and move into the house full-time, but she may not be able to afford it. Flex. Even though she had been hired as a paid intern for the hospital, she still had school bills to contend with. Stretch. That was why she had a meeting with a financial aid officer in less than an hour. Tighten. Wait, that was a while ago, what time is it? Release.
Shit. She was late.
What a waste. He was a trained killer, yet all he did was watch. He watched the girl go to class. He watched the girl work out. He watched as she ran across campus.
He longed for something beyond watching. He was itching for some action.
Helena paused outside the financial aid office in order to take a breath. She was in excellent shape but sprints across campus do leave a person breathless. She was already late; she didn't want to appear short of breath as well.
When she entered the not-so-natural blonde woman at the front desk looked up.
"I have an appointment with Mr. McGward."
She turned her attention back to her work, pointing a painted red fingernail at a door. "Through there."
Helena entered and was greeted by a portly looking redhead working diligently at his desk. The sound of the door closing behind her startled him. His instant look of recognition and subsequent clumsy attempt to stand and greet her made him seem even more ridiculous to Helena. He took her hand in both of his, shaking furiously. "Miss Troy. I was so sorry to hear about your parents."
Helena wanted to get down to business. She forcefully removed her hand and sat in the leather chair before his desk. "Everybody's sorry about that. I wanted to come down before you called me in."
McGward followed Helena's lead, taking a seat in his own chair. "Why would we be calling you in?"
Helena smoothed down the hooded sweatshirt she'd thrown on before racing over here. She wished she'd dressed up a little for this meeting. Still, she played the part of collected professional. "I know my parents had a trust fund set up to pay for my college but there's no way they had enough to pay for it all. I wanted to discuss other forms of financial aid as I hopefully will be going to med school after this."
He smiled. Then he turned to the computer on his desk, pushing buttons and clicking the mouse, presumably accessing her file. Then he got a look of confusion, turning back to Helena. "Yes, Miss Troy, your tuition was paid through a trust fund, but there was no limit on it."
Now it was Helena's turn to be confused. "What do you mean? My parents weren't that wealthy."
He clicked and typed a few more things. "Well, Miss Troy according to the paperwork the trust fund was set up before your adoption, so I assume your birth parents pay for it."
"My birth parents?" Helena's well-running brain sputtered.
He plowed on, not catching of the hitch in her voice. "Like I said that would be my guess, the account is filled anonymously."
"I was adopted?" Helena still couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. She didn't say a word, and the silence stretched on.
The officer squirmed in his chair. "Yes, Miss Troy, when you were about a year old. Didn't you know?"
"No." Now the officer was fidgeting and looking at the walls as well. Helena ignored him. She was adopted. Chet and June lied to her. Her dead parents lied her entire life about who she was and where she came from. She needed to get out of here.
"Miss Troy, are you alright?"
No. No she was not all right. She ignored the financial aid officer, pushing back her chair and running out the door. No, she definitely was not all right.
This girl was a maniac. He nearly died three times trying to follow that whizzing bike through traffic. She seemed upset leaving the main building, but he didn't think this was a safe or healthy method of unwinding. And his way often included a run in with Batwoma.
Horns blared as he cut off another cab as she took a sharp left turn. She screeched to a stop in front of a familiar house. He wondered why she would return to this place. He unbuckled his safety belt. He would have to follow and investigate this new turn of events.
Even with her parents gone, every time Helena entered their house by force of habit she would remove her shoes. Today she did not. Besides they weren't really her parents, now were they?
She tore up the stairs. She would not let herself cry. She wanted proof. Cold solid evidence one way or the other. Her father's office door was always kept looked when her father wasn't working since within its walls a lot of valuable information was contained.
Helena usually respected her father's privacy and rarely even went in the room. Today she kicked the door off its hinges to get inside.
She first went over to the family photo albums. She often questioned why they were kept in this room. Her mother always claimed they were a little over protective of such priceless artifacts since the fire destroyed their first photo albums. It was why no pictures of Helena as a baby existed.
She nearly ripped out pages of albums as she searched them, desperate for anything. She threw them on the floor as each album showed only useless happy memory after useless happy memory. When she ran out of albums she threw down the shelf they had rested on as well for good measure.
Helena ran her hands over her pulled hair resting them on her ponytail. Somewhere in this room was what she was looking for. She knew it. She went over to her father's desk. She opened drawers and gave his client books the same treatment as the photo albums. The pages ripped easier and soon she all she was left with was torn bits of paper between covers and an overwhelming desire to cry.
She looked over to where the safe was hidden. Her father never told her where he hid the key for it. Neither parent ever let her see its contents. She always wondered why, but her curiosity was never strong enough to actually attempt a break in.
Helena searched her father's desk again, looking for a pen. She took it apart easily, and walked over to the safe.
A few summers back she taught herself how to pick locks out of boredom. She was always curious and actually possessed an uncanny natural ability for it. Her parents' safe was fairly high-end but it only took her a manner of minutes to break inside.
The first set of documents consisted of her parents' marriage license, family records and sensitive forms of identifications. The next set was her parents' 401K plans. Then insurance polices. The next thing she pulled out made her heart stop.
It was her parents' wedding album. The one that was supposed to have been destroyed in that fire so long ago. She looked through this one carefully, not believing its existence to be true. She turned each page as if she were an archaeologist handling a papyrus copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
There were several other photo albums stored away beneath that one as well. Helena looked through them all. She saw her parents' early days of marriage, grandparents she never met, and family friends still in their youth. It was proof positive that her parents had lied to her. She laid each photo album in a circle around her, surrounding herself.
The last thing in the safe was a folder. She picked it up carefully, for the first time in her memory she felt the cold steel of fear piercing through her. She opened it, a picture fluttered to the ground.
She looked down at the picture, closing the unseen folder once again. The picture landed face down and she bent over to retrieve it. She kept it face down until she righted herself again. She flipped it over and took a good look. She gasped and fell to the floor.
The contents of the folder only confirmed it. Chet and June Troy adopted the dark-haired baby in the pink blanket a little over a year after her day of birth. The birth parents wished to have their names withheld, though they would provide for the best education money could buy through an anonymous trust fund. They only requested that the baby be called Helena.
Helena sat in the middle of the destroyed room, her parents' lies surrounding her. She would not allow herself to cry. The message "I know who you are" echoed in her mind. She just wished she knew herself.
He returned to the car and dug under the passenger seat. He found his prize, and flipped open the issued cell phone to make the only call he was permitted. Someone picked up on the second ring but did not utter a word. He simply said, "She knows."
"Good. Phase one is complete. Report back immediately."