Sink or Swim

Chapter 8 - The Plot Thickens

Aaron sat at his desk overlooking the Los Angeles skyline. In the weeks since the earthquake The McIntrye Building had been fixed up. He had just received the interview edit from the producers of the 'Life Stories' show. As he watched he was taken aback by something Leanne said. 'Did I hear that right?' he said to himself, rewinding the video to replay the section of interview.

"Well Piers it's really hard to say what both my parents would say about the fame. My mother is exceptionally busy and I have never known my father." Leanne said candidly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." replied Piers Morgan sympathetically, the camera zoomed to show Leanne reaching out to hold hands with Abi next to her. "Are you looking for you father? Perhaps you have a message for him if he is listening?"

Leanne appealed, "If you are listening, I would really love to get in touch with you, I've really missed not having a dad for 18 years. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to come to L.A. and I've met some wonderful people and one of them has said they will help me find you. I love you and I don't hold anything against you."

"Isn't that wonderful?" Piers said, trying to generate sympathy from the watching audience. The video cut to Morgan carrying out a voiceover to show what was coming up after a scheduled commercial break.

"Well I'll be damned!" Aaron muttered, pouring himself a glass of bourbon on the rocks. He took a sip and rewound the video a second time and replayed it, sitting back in his chair and resting his feet on the desk. "She's been here right under my nose the whole god damn time!" He shook his head and reached for the phone.

"Mr MacIntrye? I'm sorry for calling so late sir. You are not going to believe this..."

Back in Honolulu Juliette had also received a call on the yacht Sat-Phone.

"Hey! Jules baby, howya doin'?" Thomas Berretta an associate of Juliette had called with some information he had been looking into for her. "I think I tracked the father of that girl for you. Hey, and you know what, you simply will not believe who this guy is..."

"Give it to me straight Thomas, who is it?" Juliette simply wanted the information.

"Well hun, you already know the guy!"

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Leanne got up early despite the late night party. She dressed in a sports bra and sweat pants and decided she should take a early morning run. As she made her way to the gangplank to shore Leanne was met by an equally early-bird in Juliette, "Good morning, I really wasn't expecting to see anyone else up at this time. You girls were all enjoying the party and was expecting you to all be hung-over and late up today."

"The party did finish late, didn't you stay to the end?" Leanne asked.

"No, I had somethings to attend to and it was really quite fortunate I came back as I have some news on a potential lead in tracking down your father." Juliette replied, "Do you want to find someplace private to talk about it?"

"No, its ok, I see your dressed for a run too. We can talk and jog at same time." Leanne suggested.

The pair left the 'The Blue Sea' and started their run around the marina and up towards Waikiki beach and the scene of last nights party.

Juliette discussed what she had heard from Thomas Berretta, the private investigator whom she had tasked with finding out information about Leanne's father. "Really we need some positive proof though before we do anything more. Ideally it would good if we could get a DNA test carried out but we would need to obtain some DNA for that." she said. "I do have an idea about this though leave it with me."