Seventh Chapter: There is more to it.

"I...want to...go...home.."

"You are home, Clark."

"...isn't....home..."

"I'm here, Clark. You're already home."

"...'s..n't...wher's...D..."

"He is waiting for you. He's already home, he's just waiting for you to accept you're home now."

"No..."

"Yes, he is."

"....."

Music paused. "Another time, then."

"...N-no!"

Lights off. Door locked.

------

I lick my lips, browsing to the entry where the first attachment in the journal is. It was the thirteenth entry, with a photo of an office with a lot of documents on the table and a safe opened, a box and documents, again, inside of it.

Entry 13

September 12, 2009

A normal busy day with the family is the perfect time to search for more information.

Lauren and Flor are busy, Papa and Mama are both having a business trip followed by a short vacation in Milan. Aaron will visit tomorrow but also busy. I still have things to do with the company...but that can wait.

Ending with the useless effort of reading the reports, I immediately search for answers, for proofs of what I had found.

Xenon lamp was the first thing I noticed. Did Mama have reasons for having it? Then I noticed a safe.

Enigma, as I always remember Mama forbidding me to touch it, I tried to remember the possible code to open the safe.

I remembered a four number code that Mama always wrote in one of her old notes. I tried it, and I was right, it was the right code.

Nightmares, things I always have suspicions of but would deny believing, became reality as evidence was presented in my very own eyes.

~ clg

My eyes narrowed in confusion, rereading the entry again after reading it for Kristen and Simon. Then I look at Simon in question, who shook his head, indicating that he has no idea as well.

"What's up with xenon lamps?" Kristen asked, breaking the silence. "His mother always has it, as long as I remember."

"Suspicions too," I interjected. "Why take a picture of having the safe and documents when there is no photo of its contents? He never mentioned what even is his suspicions."

Simon hummed. "So, there's more with his parents. I don't know how but it could be a reason why would he ran away and left with him."

"Did he ran away?" Kristen sarcastically asked. "Sure, the letter said it all, but what that FBI agent said was possible too." She momentarily paused, contemplating, before continuing, "And running away because of whatever secrets his parents kept? That was out of his character. If it was really one of his reasons, then their secrets must be too severe."

"I don't even know there were secrets except to those we knew and the experiment we experienced in that kidnapping years ago," Simon commented. "The Gutierrez family has always been a public family, as they are well-known. Secrets were kept, sure, but as long as I know, his parents' lives had always been publicly known."

My eyes widened, realizing the loopholes of the Gutierrez' couple' public images. "It was known publicly that Aunt Lene lost her family before she graduated from college and met people that helped her reach the person she is now. She only specified Aaron as one of those people, reasoning that she didn't want to disrespect their wishes to have a private life. She even never mentioned the names of her dead family, or which cemetery they were buried. Renz never mentioned visiting relatives on his mother's side, as we always believed she is an orphan."

Simon looks at me seriously. "Are you saying that there is more to Aunt Lene's past? That she being an orphan might have been a lie?"

"Or a lie necessary for whatever reason," I clarified, ideas going into overdrive on all the possibilities. "Uncle Liam never specified too how he managed to save the company, always telling he just did his best and unexpectedly the results became better than he thought. Maybe there were more to it."

"But do these secrets really related to his disappearance?" Kristen reasoned out. "He disappeared, left a note with a cryptic message, which ended up with our deduction that whoever this wicked clown is the one behind it."

"You said it, a deduction." I agreed. "But we never knew his real reason. What if he left because that man blackmailed him with whatever secrets he found out? Or maybe he offered Renz a chance to find more information about their past? We still don't have enough evidence to say that our deduction is really the truth. We need whatever leads, and this may be a far-fetched lead, but it is better than nothing. We cannot go after Renz because we all know we will just make him go away, will make him farther as he always is when cornered. We should at least understand his reasons so that we can convince him to go back and leave that man."

"Wait, wait," Simon said, stopping our argument. That's when I noticed him rereading the entry. "I want to know why would he wrote a xenon lamp. There must be something about it. His entries are like he is telling a story, yet not telling us everything. He might have written his entries with hidden meanings. We should read between the lines."

"Renz always does something with a reason," I said unconsciously, remembering Renz's interest in codes and puzzles, even stories with deeper meaning than what it may seem. "He always likes solving codes and puzzles when we were in high school, right? He always has a chess game with Vice way back then in the student council's office."

Their eyes widened, getting the meaning of what I just said. Simon reread the entry, looking at it in the new light.

"I think he purposefully coded the entries easily, as the first letter of each paragraph formed a word in this particular entry," Simon said, eyebrows scrunching in concentration. "But it doesn't make sense to me. It can be a name or anything, though. I don't even know if this is really the hidden message."

"What word did you formed?" Kristen asked.

"ALEXEIN."