Chapter 17 Amelia Ridley
Amelia Ridley
Amelia had a talent for breaking up chaos, unlike Kavita, who thrived in it.
Amelia had a way with not only words but also certain acts of service that she knew all her siblings would love.
That was simply getting away from everyone and anything.
Adesua found her pleasure in painting, while Diego played a game of chess with Henrik, and Amelia and her older brothers bonded over something they couldn’t resist: flying.
“Let’s go out on the planes with Uncle Fred. It has been some time,” she said eagerly.
The boys pepped up as if that were the best thing they had heard all week.
“You know, for a moment, sister, I thought we had lost you to the gazillion balls you girls attend,” Wei said mockingly. “I shall ring Uncle Fred this instant.”
“Well, I will go for moral support. You know I am not too fond of heights, Mellie.” Adesua chuckled, lightening up the tense air.
Amelia entered the car with her siblings and adjusted her leather jacket as they drove down the road. When they arrived, Uncle Fred slapped the front of Wei’s car.
“Oh, am I happy to see you all,” he chirped.
“Uncle Fred, where have you been?” Amelia exclaimed eagerly.
He wasn’t their real uncle from either Mother’s or Father’s side, but was instead Father’s old friend who’d helped him start the Ridley Line. He had since left the company and was now primarily focusing on his nefarious hobbies, staying far away from the Ridleys.
“You know I don’t care about all these damn events your father and mother are throwing. I want to see the sunrise and sunset over the water every day, that’s all. You kids be careful now. They are all set and ready for ya. Mellie, you should take the hot seat today.” He winked at her.
Omar laughed. “Well, maybe Mellie can be like Amelia Earhart. They already have the same name!”
Diego chimed in, “You know what, Omar? You may have a point there.”
Amelia waved them off as she and Wei got in the back seat and Omar took the front as the pilot.
She adjusted her goggles, feeling the nervousness in her chest. Omar, Diego, or Wei would almost always be the pilot.
She occasionally did it, but enjoyed taking in the clouds.
The feeling was so far away from it all, from everything she detested.
That felt like power to her. Solitude was what she wished to have most. She thought deeply of those things; after all, weren’t they all born alone in this world?
She and her brothers didn’t have to put on a show anymore.
She hoped that those feelings would stay as Omar descended, getting closer to the ground . . . closer to the truth.
“Oh, what a ride, sister. It was beautiful up there. What a great idea today, Mellie. We needed that,” Omar said.
She was certain they needed a lot of things; surely Father would cover anything up, but Henrik’s thoughts did nag her. Why did he feel like one of them would be so reckless as to kill Dale and take the file?
Amelia’s face melted into straight lines, her expression as serious as ever.
The heat swelled up her back and her cheeks, making them rosy.
She was ready to get off the plane as it made a smooth landing, a soft jolt for the most part.
Amelia paced around the plane while the boys joined Adesua and Kavita to eat a small snack.
She marched over to the wooden picnic table where they scarfed down their apples and sunflower seeds.
“Now that these issues have been brought to our attention, it’s time for us to get serious about what really happened that night,” Amelia said.
She shot piercing looks at her siblings, noticing that Henrik and Diego had instantly dropped their food.
Why were they so quick to react? God, they all had such guilty looks.
Amelia was surprised the police had even let them alone.
The thoughts that buzzed around in her head were that her brothers must have conversed among themselves to keep things from her and their sisters so they wouldn’t leak their precious secrets to the public.
Surely nothing that she, Kavita, and Adesua had done was as bad as what the boys had done.
Omar, peacemaker that he was, stood up next to Amelia, grabbing the sides of her shoulders.
“Amelia, I may have been too brash in scolding everyone—”
The tears had already started to fall as her heart raced, and she yelled into the abyss of the field.
“One of us had to kill Dale! Are you happy now? That’s what I am thinking!”
Amelia didn’t know what was taking her over.
Maybe the fear that they could all soon be in jail as accessories to murder, or simply the fact they had some secrets so sinister that even the people of New York would turn their backs on them.
Father had worked hard for them to live a life like this.
It would be his downfall if one of them had murdered Dale and it was leaked to the world.
Adesua and Kavita turned their backs to Amelia, rolling their eyes, brushing off the accusations.
Amelia seethed as she watched Adesua continue to paint like this was a calm afternoon, without a care in the world.
This one time, they couldn’t ignore what was coming for them.
Wei stood up, now taking control of the conversation.
“I have been sure of a lot of things in my life, but I would never kill. I know you and Henrik live in the fantasy worlds of books, Mellie, but this is the real world. There is no damn murder mystery here. Dale died on our property, with no evidence of who or what murdered him. And if this person wants to put our family in harm’s way, so help me, God, I will get rid of them myself by any means necessary. ”
Maybe her siblings had nothing to do with it, but one of them knew more than they were saying.
She knew Wei and Omar would do anything to protect their family, but imagining them killing someone was out of line for her.
She had to stop feeding into the frenzy of panic.
Amelia knew precisely how she and her family were depicted in the gossip columns.
Everything was fabricated to a certain degree so they would appear better to the masses.
One white lie turned into three, three lies turned into ten, and they were ignored—well, she thought, until now.
Petty dating and opinions were mere folly, but murder was, and would always be, murder.
At this point, everyone had started to pack up their belongings. What she originally thought was going to be a peaceful conversation had turned into caged emotions being set free. She was tired of perfectly controlling her reactions. This was real.
After they got home, she didn’t feel better about the situation, so she went to the garden where Dale’s body had been found and sat there.
Her eyes felt hot as they turned a sharp red with tears from the emotions she harbored in her chest as she put her hand on her neck, trying to feel the pain Dale had felt in his last moments.
Amelia felt empty as she squeezed the thorn on a rose she didn’t even realize she had grabbed.
The small trickling of blood from her palm didn’t faze her in the slightest. Blood had fallen, and so had her family.
Amelia paced back and forth; her silk, feather-trimmed robe followed her.
Father was hiding something. If he had been able to conceal that he was her biological father this whole time, he was capable of hiding more.
A pain hit her as she thought about her maman.
Amelia looked at her reflection in her silver oval mirror.
She stared at the small brown beauty mark on the side of her face.
She couldn’t remember much about her maman, but she knew she had the same mark. Oh, how she wished she were here.
Amelia was resolute. She decided to wait until the late hours of the night, nearing morning, when everyone was asleep, to go to her father’s office.
They were forbidden to enter his office without him there.
All her siblings had a silent fear of their father, so they never even attempted to go into his office.
But all that was going to change today. She peered down the hallway both ways, listening and looking for any movement or signs of lights in the other rooms. It was as quiet as the breath she was waiting to exhale the moment she got into his office.
She hesitated for a moment, considering taking the elevator, but decided on the stairs, hoping it would make less noise.
Amelia crept down, almost losing her footing.
She knew she should have left her slippers in her room.
She knelt, taking them off. As she pressed her feet down on the final step, she gasped as the pressure made a noisy creak that traveled down the hallway.
Amelia slapped her forehead. How could she have forgotten about that step?
She paused for a moment, waiting for Mrs. Darla or Mr. Jenkins to approach, but to her amazement, she heard nothing except her heart beating through her chest.
Father had no locks on the downstairs office door, which had always surprised her, but he would often tell her there was really nothing of importance in there except lousy business paperwork.
She assumed the workers thought this as well, because no man with secrets would leave their office unlocked to the world.
Or would he? As she stepped in, she left her slippers on the chair.
She needed every finger she had to go through the world of papers and boxes her father had accumulated over the years.
She didn’t even go near the desk, because she knew her father would never keep anything of importance there.