A Score & A Decade

Chapter 11

Zoe felt as if all the air in her lungs had been sucked out. She looked at the pictures and couldn't believe what she was seeing - Diana Park was her mother? But how was that possible? 

Her mom's distinct white patch that shone on her face wasn't present on Diana's face. Yet, they looked the same. Looking closer, Zoe realized that the heavy makeup on Diana's face was a poor attempt at covering up the white patch that she originally had.

Her heart sinking, she sank into her chair even further. Still unable to fathom what she had just discovered, she wondered how she hadn't seen the similarities in the first place. Now that she knew that the two women were the same, the similarities were striking. Both had the same shade of blond hair, the same slightly squinted eyes, and the same facial features.

Diana Park's - her mother's - face was oddly flushed in the old picture. Oh. Of course.  A flushed face was a symptom of drunkenness. Her mother had always had an addiction to alcohol; that explained the red face.

She suddenly remembered something an old detective friend had once told her, "I've seen this in a bunch of cases, Zoe. When a person changes their identity, they always change their name into a new name relating to something from their life. It might be the name of their best friend, the name of their favourite TV show character, or simply an anagram of their original name."

She didn't know if her mother had a best friend or a favourite TV show character, but an anagram though...

She quickly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down her mother's name: ANDRA P KAI. Then she tried to rearrange the letters to make the name 'Diana Park'. The letters fit in perfectly. This was all the more proof that her mother and Diana Park were one and the same.

Oh god, her mother was a criminal!

But why? Why would her mom want to kidnap a child? What reason did Andra possibly have to kidnap a four-year-old girl? And most importantly, what did she do with Roselle? 

Zoe was angry, angry beyond reason. Her own mother! She had lied to Zoe her entire life pretending to be an alcoholic. She had watched as her own daughter had grown up to become a Private Investigator while knowing that she herself was a criminal.

But Zoe just didn't understand. What possible motive did she have? She knew she would end up going crazy if she just sat and thought about it, so she decided to call her mother up instead. She picked up the telephone and dialled her mother's number. 

"Hello?" the slightly nasally, slurry, and drunken voice of her mother answered.

"Yeah, hello mom. Or should I say...Diana Park?"