Chapter 15: Sean's Investigation

Sean went back to the office in a good mood. Fate had certainly intervened at the right time when he and Grace bumped into each other earlier. Once in his office, he changed himself into one of the many spare shirts he had in his office closet and he then asked his secretary Rachel to arrange for his stained shirt to be dry cleaned. Even though his shirt was custom made for him and was worth $5,000 per shirt, even if the stains could not be removed, he would not care.  To Sean, bumping into Grace and the subsequent coffee date he had now set up with her, meant more to him than his shirt. His staff noticed his good mood and were relieved because it meant that they would be getting out of the office on time today.

“Mr Harper, the investigation you asked me to carry out regarding Grace Messi has been completed, here is the paperwork.  I’ve read through it and something just doesn’t add up”, Lep told Sean with a worried look on his face.  “What do you mean by that Leo”, Sean asked him.  Leo had read the file that he had put together from his investigations on Grace, he didn’t know what, but something was amiss. “I’m not sure exactly, but once you read it, you may get the same feeling”, Leo replied to him.  Sean wanted to get right into the file and start reading it, but he really had to go through his case files to review some evidence for an upcoming trial. “Very well, I’ll review the evidence for the Smithers court case and then I’ll review this file”.  Leo nodded, “I‘ll leave it with you Mr Harper and by the way, I’ve emailed you a soft copy of the file as well to make it easier to read”, Leo said as he handed the file to Sean and left to get on with his own work. 

A number of hours later, Sean had completed reviewing the evidence for the Smithers case. He then looked at the file on Grace that Leo had compiled and left behind for Sean.  Rather than going through the hard copy, Sean opened the soft copy that Leo had sent him. At the top there was a beautiful photo of Grace. He put his hand on the photo that was on his laptop and just stared at it for a while. Sean then commenced reading the file. He read through it a few times, marking off some items of interest.  It seemed that the first instance of her was when she just popped up in Greece just before she turned 16 years old. Before that, there was no record of any ‘Grace Messi’.  She only stayed in Greece for two weeks and then headed to Italy for a few weeks, although exact location in Italy once she landed, was not traceable.  After that she headed to California and by that time she was already 16 years old.  In California, she not only purchased a run-down hotel, renovated it, sold it for triple what she bought it for, but she took university entrance exams at Stanford University.  Her grades were exceptional, so when she sat for her entrance exam, she topped all the students that had sat for the exam by earning full marks.

She took on a 3-year business degree which she completed in 2 years.  For the first year of the business degree, she attended classes on campus full-time whilst working on her hotels she was renovating and building with any spare time she had.

After the first year of her degree, she headed off to Sicily in Italy, but her exact whereabouts again was unknown.  Whilst in Sicily, she continued her second year of her Business Degree online whilst occasionally flying back to California to attend Stanford University every few months for a week at a time for essential face to face classes.  During her year in Sicily where she undertook most of her second and final year business degree mostly online, it was not known where she stayed or with whom she communicated with.

After completing her one year stay in Sicily, Grace returned to California where she not only completed her 3-year degree in 2 years, but she graduated top of her course and this was all against other students that were from anywhere 2-3 years older than her. She moved around and lived in different cities around Europe for a few months at a time and eventually landing in Boston 18 months ago where she set up an office and then making her way to Straco City just a few months ago. 

There was no indication in the file of her family, where she was born, where she went to school before landing in Greece when she was nearly 16 years old.  There were a few friends, work colleagues and interesting enough, there was a boyfriend by the name of Myles Lake in Boston, but that relationship seemed to have only lasted less than 4 months.  “Miss Messi, you really are a mystery, what are you hiding?  Why can’t we find anything on you before you were 16? Why suddenly pop up in Straco City when you had just started a new business in Boston 18 months earlier? What’s the secrecy in Italy that as soon as you land there each time, there is no trace of you? There’s nothing here about your family either”, he whispered to himself.   There were too many unanswered questions.

Her Australian accent was a dead give-away that she was either born in Australia or at least spent most of her childhood and teen years in Australia, but nothing else was known. Re-reading the part about her topping her course, made Sean’s face beam at the fact that she was a high achiever. Sean then pondered on some of the points he had marked on his screen. There were certainly things that were amiss just like Leo had said. Sean knew she had secrets but how many and what they were he hoped that he would find out soon as every time he saw her, he felt that he wanted to spend more and more time with her. ‘Grace, I may not know all your secrets right now, but rest assured, I will find them out’, he thought to himself.