Chapter 23: Scrapbooks

Claire couldn't let herself think too negatively because once that started she was likely to spiral into a panic. She snapped out of it by smacking both of her cheeks and got back to work excavating the photo box.

There wasn't much in it. There didn't seem to be any loose pictures from before Claire was born, which was strange. Her mother had obviously had a life before then; she wasn't born until Stephanie Conway was in her late twenties.

She frowned and looked up at her companion. "Did you find any thick binder-like books up there? I want to see if my mom has anything from before I was born to give us a hint."

Six nodded and a minute later plopped three stacks of scrapbooks down in front of her. "Are these what you want?"

"Yeah, thanks!"

Claire opened each one to see if she could find any that started before she was born. There were about a dozen scrapbooks total and only three of them consisted of pictures of Claire's life. After a while her mom got a digital camera and didn't feel the need to scrapbook anymore.

The remaining ten had to be from her life before! She pounced on what seemed to be the oldest one eagerly, hoping for answers.

Having never known any of her mother's relatives, Claire was surprised to find that she had been the oldest of three children. She had a brother named Michael and a sister named Jennifer.

Why had she never known this before? She had always been under the impression that her mother was an only child whose parents had died before she was born. Were her aunt and uncle still out there somewhere? What about her grandparents; were they actually alive?

The scrapbooks depicted a perfectly normal and happy family of five. Why would her mother want to leave them behind?

"What is it?" Six asked after a while.

Claire realized she had been squinting suspiciously at the scrapbook for a while so he was probably wondering why. Oops.

"I'm confused, that's all. I didn't know my mom had any relatives to speak of," she admitted. "But it looks like everyone here is really close so I don't know why she wouldn't have ever talked about them or taken me to visit them…"

It really didn't make sense to her. Six didn't say anything in response—he was probably just as lost as she was since he didn't understand family dynamics at all—so Claire kept looking.

She found something surprising as she went. Not once was the name Conway mentioned in any of these books. There were pages mentioning family reunions for the Hunt and Rosell families but that was it.

It was difficult to tell which one was her grandfather's family as opposed to her grandmother's but it became clear to her that her mother's last name at birth was not Conway. Her first name was definitely Stephanie though; there were plenty of pictures labeled with that name.

Claire frowned. Had her mother been married before she was born or did she change her last name to hide from someone?

She had seen Stephanie Conway's driver's license before…and all of the mail that came to this house was addressed to that name or 'current occupant.' She must have changed it officially at some point.

At this point she was starting to believe her mother truly was hiding from someone. But who? And why did they now want to kill her daughter?

Her mom definitely hadn't been the victim of a hitman; she died of breast cancer after fighting it for nearly three years. Claire had been left alone all that time so why strike now? Had they known where she was all along or only found out recently?

There were too many unanswerable questions. Her head hurt.

She snapped the scrapbook she was looking at closed and sighed. The information she had been looking for about her father wasn't going to be so easy to find, though she did know more about her mother than she did before.

When she finally remembered Six she noticed that he looked rather bored. She had promised to keep him entertained today after they found something and they had technically done that so she may as well keep the human weapon happy.

"Come on," Claire said with her best attempt at a smile. "Let's go do something fun."

He was on his feet in a flash. "What are we going to do?"

"You'll see!"

Claire shut the door behind them, leaving the mess to be dealt with later. There was still more searching to do but that could happen once she had done her job entertaining Six.

The one thing she had going for her right now was this bizarre person's curiosity. As long as she kept it satiated, her safety should be ensured. She would do that at any cost. She was far too young to die now when she hadn't even properly lived yet!

There was still so much she wanted to do. Her mom wasn't really one for traveling so the farthest place from home she had ever gone was Cape Cod and that was still in Massachusetts. She couldn't die without even leaving the state she had been born in.

Or without falling in love at least once. She was twenty-two and her entire adult life had been spent working to support herself and her cat. That couldn't be all there ever was; it was too pitiful!

Six's life was even more pitiful than hers, which was why he found her lifestyle interesting. Once she ran out of new things to show him, he would probably leave. She did not want that to happen until the danger had passed so even if she had to twist herself into a pretzel coming up with new ways to entertain him, she would do it.

Maybe she should look for ideas on how to avoid boredom on Pinterest. That might make her job a little easier.

Those lists were usually meant for children but Six essentially was a child in terms of normal human experiences, though his intelligence was more developed. If she did a little tweaking, she should still be able to make most of those things work.

CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Mcllorycat

Last chance to vote this week in order to get a mass release! I need 150 in order to be motivated to write that much and am less than 50 short of the goal now ;)

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