THE BROWN ENVELOPE

Rosaline was very scared, but she did her best to appear calm. She circled around two or three cars before she stood in front of the silver Mercedes. She tried to open the doors, but they were locked; just as she had expected them to be. She left the basement and went to look for the driver who had driven Kiara.

"Sir, can I have the car keys? I need to check the car; I think ma'am dropped her precious hair pin in the car." She said with a smile.

"OK I will give you in ten minutes. I don't have the keys with me here. May you excuse me I really need to finish up my weekly report for sir Garth," the driver explained.

As soon as Rosaline left, the driver called Gareth, "Sir, she asked for the car keys."

"That means there is something in the car. Before leaving the car, did you check for anything suspicious?" Gareth asked.

"No, I did not." The driver responded.

"You're a fool for not checking. Anyway, find a way of checking before Rosaline does that. Go and see what is in that car, and let me know. And she must not see you."

"I'm on it." The driver went to check in the car.

It did not need much effort to spot the brown envelope. He pulled it out suspiciously, looked around to make sure that no one was watching him, and then he called Gareth again to inform him.

"Bring the envelope to me," Gareth ordered.

The driver ran with the envelope and showed Gareth. The man carefully opened it, because he intended to reseal it after checking it. He opened it to reveal a diary. Without wasting any time, Gareth scanned the entire diary, and handed it over back to the driver, giving him the instruction to go and place it back exactly where he found it.

The driver did as instructed, and then he went to the control room, from which he called Rosaline.

"Come get the car keys," he said.

Rosaline came in, took the keys and disappeared outside. She ran, very anxious about what her boss had asked her to do. Once she unlocked the car, she checked under the seat and saw the brown envelope. Rosaline was wearing a jacket; which she wore specifically for the task, so she slid the envelope inside her jacket, and started walking away.

"Did you find the hair pin?" the driver asked while he took back the keys.

"No; I did not find it, unfortunately," she gave a tiny little smile.

She walked back to Kiara and handed the diary over to her. Very grateful to Rosaline, Kiara locked herself in her room, and opened the envelope. The very familiar diary was right in front of her, and she burst into tears.

"I knew it! I knew it! Jeremy! I knew that you were going to leave this for me! Oh Jeremy my love….Jeremy, I will forever treasure this book, and wherever I am, it shall be there too. This is the only thing connecting me to you, and it is the most precious gift ever, in my life."

She cried so much that if anyone had seen her, they would have thought that she was receiving the news of Jeremy's death for the very first time. She tightly hugged the book to her chest, the tears flowing.

After a long while, Kiara began to calm down, and she opened the diary.

She read the first page, and she came to the part which said:

'How do I even start? …Should I start by…something like my name is Jeremy Richard Rain. I'm the younger of two boys …..wait, this sounds so wrong. Why does it feel like I am introducing myself at some funny interview? Do I even have to introduce myself?'

"Come on Jeremy," Kiara laughed and cried at the same time.

She read through the first letter. The crying began afresh the moment she read the part which said:

'I wish we were little birds. We could fly and meet in a secret place, and we both would fly very high up in the sky, away from anything and anyone.'

Kiara brought the book up to her face and wept bitterly into it.

"Did you have to leave me, Jeremy? Did you have to die? You should have waited for me. I told you that I was going to come back to you. You should have waited, Jeremy!" she continued to cry; her tears falling on top of the open pages.

"I love you Jeremy, I love you with my everything; but you chose to leave me! I thought love was all about waiting for each other. Was I wrong? Was I wrong, Jeremy, to think that you were going to wait for me?"

She closed the book and held it to her chest again, mourning for the love of her life.

"Did it have to be this soon, Jeremy? Did it really have to be this soon? We had our whole lives ahead of us. You could have just left the country and waited for me. That was all I asked of you. I asked you to leave for a moment; yet you chose to leave forever!"

She took her phone; she had recently been given a phone again, and she used it to take a picture of the closed diary. She sent it to Aletha, without writing anything. Aletha already knew what that meant. They did not want to say a lot over the phone and in messages; in case someone was tracking their phones.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Kiara quickly wiped off her tears. Her heart was broken into pieces, but she needed to pretend that al laws well.

Her face was already swollen anyway, but she told herself that she was going to act brave. She swiftly tucked the diary under her pillow, wiped her face once more, and walked towards the door. The knock came again.

"I'm coming," she did her best to steady her voice.

She opened the door and saw a teary Rosaline standing at the door, with a bag in her hands.

"Rosaline!" she greeted her.

"May I come in, ma'am?" Rosaline asked, and without waiting for a response, she gave Kiara a nudge. In response, Kiara moved out of the doorway, and Rosaline walked inside the room.

"Why do you look so sad?" Kiara could not help but ask.

Before saying anything, Rosaline closed the door and moved towards Kiara's bed. "I'm leaving the Pinkerton mansion today, ma'am. Now."

"Where are you going? What happened?" Kiara was more than shocked to hear what the maid was saying.

"I cannot possibly tell you anything, but I have to leave, ma'am."

"But I need an explanation, Rosaline. What happened? Did someone see you collecting the brown envelope?"

"It's worse than that, ma'am." Rosaline wiped off her tears before they began to run.

"What happened? You're scaring me now. Just tell me!" Kiara almost screamed due to apprehension.

"Ok, ma'am Kiara. I am leaving the mansion today. I will never come back here again. I will go back to my home town, to my parents."

"What happened?" Kiara herself was able to hear the desperation in her voice.

"Ok, I am telling you everything. When you asked me to go and get the envelope, I went and asked the driver. He was busy so he asked me to return later. After a few minutes I saw him again, and he gave me the keys. I took the keys. And I gave back the keys to him, ma'am."

"Yes? And? What happened after that?" Curiosity was killing Kiara.

"When I was already going out, I met the head of security, and he informed me that he was looking for sir Gareth. And since he was on his way to attend to something urgent, he asked me to pass by Gareth's rooms and inform him that the security meeting was already ongoing. And…"

"Just tell me!" Kiara screamed. "Why are you going in circles? Just say it already!"

"I am getting to it, ma'am. I have to give you a background so that what I will tell you will make sense." Rosaline did her best to justify herself.

"Say it!" Kiara shrieked in frustration.

"Ok, so I went by sir Gareth's rooms, and just as I was about to knock, I heard the young master Vine's voice. He was saying 'what did you find?' And I heard sir Gareth responding, saying, 'I asked the driver and a number of security guards to watch both ma'am Kiara and Rosaline.'"

"What?" Kiara gasped.

"Yes ma'am, that's what I heard; and that's not all. When I heard them mentioning my name, I became very scared, so I listened to hear more."

"And what did you hear?" Kiara asked.

"I heard the young master saying, 'just tell me what you found, Gareth.' And then sir Gareth said, 'there was a brown envelope in the car. A diary was inside. I scanned it and I am about to print all of its pages so that you and I can go through it.'"

"No. You're not telling me the truth," Kiara was about to cry.

"I'm telling you the truth, ma'am. And I heard the young master telling Gareth to be fast with the printing. And in fear I tiptoed, leaving the place."

"What did they say they will do to us?" Kiara asked; not necessarily addressing Rosaline, but rather wondering to herself.

"I have no idea, ma'am. I am leaving the mansion now. Goodbye. We might never meet again. All the best ma'am."

With that, Rosaline left the room. Kiara did not try to stop her. Instead, left alone in her room, she took a small travelling bag and started packing her staff. At the very bottom she placed the two diaries: his and hers. And then she threw in a pack of diapers for Vincent Lisandro. She took some clothes, most of them for the child, and a few of her own dresses. She packed all her important items, and slid the bag under the table in her room. The table was covered by a cloth, so Kiara draped it over, making sure that it was covering the bag which was underneath.

She knelt down on the floor and started praying; asking God to help preserve her life.

"I cannot die now, my dear Lord." She prayed. She made a very long prayer, and when she felt she had emptied her heart to God, she stood up and sat on the bed.

She still needed to go and get Vincent Lisandro; and she needed to get out of the place. Without wasting any more time, Kiara pulled the bag and started going down the stairs. In the process she did her best to evade the cameras in the mansion, and when she arrived at the ground floor, the young lady heaved a sigh of relief. After looking around to check that no one was watching, Kiara lifted up her bag and walked towards the garden, where she carefully lifted the bag and threw it over the wall. The plan was to pick it from outside later on. She looked around again and leisurely strolled back to the house.

At that very same moment, Gareth was making a call to one of the bodyguards in Vine's personal team. They called him Dream; that was his nickname..

"Are you still watching them?" Gareth asked Dream/.

"Yes. The maid seems to be attempting to escape, but the madam is happily at home. She is strolling in the garden," Dream said.

He said so truthfully; for when Kiara went to leave her bag, Dream had not seen her. He only saw her when she was coming back from leaving the bag, and he, thinking that Kiara was simply taking a walk in the garden, thought that all was still well.