Chapter 673 - Darla Hamler (Katherine)

~ Los Angeles, Cliffside villa ~

Later in the evening, Sarah and Aiden are in their study room, looking at the files and video that Sophia sent about lady buying a slushie, who Sophia identified as Katherine lookalike.

"And we got ourselves a zombie!", Sarah exclaimed while looking at the results of matching facial markers that Eve completed. The lady who passed six years ago, known as Katherine, is a 99.8% match with a slushie buying woman.

Aiden was not sure if he should laugh or cry. "You are too much into this."

Sarah's eyes were sparkling. "Don't you think it's cool to go zombie hunting? All the games I played so far are coming in handy! We need shotguns… aim for the head. For close range, use axe, aim for the neck… Don't let them come too close, if they bite…"

Aiden sealed her lips with a kiss.

He used the fact that Sarah was stunned for a moment to cut off her wild imagination. "Or maybe she faked her death. And how about identical twins?"

Sarah pouted. "None of those are exciting as having a real zombie."

He laughed and pinched her nose. "Let's do serious work. We know that this is either the same woman who was falsely proclaimed dead six years ago, or her twin sister. Even if we find someone who can perform exhumation and check dead body to confirm if that is the same woman, records say that she was cremated, so that is not an option. We need to go back to the video, find out who she is and if she had a twin sister or not to begin with…"

"Mood killer…", Sarah mumbled.

"What?"

Sarah fake coughed. "We can use timestamp on the video and look at surrounding cameras starting from there. Let's see where she is going. She used cash to pay for a slushie, but with any luck, she will use a credit card or something else from where we can get the name."

Aiden approved Sarah's plan. "I know you like idea of zombies, but let's focus, finish this and then we can have fun."

Sarah looked at him, frozen.

He smiled mischievously and whispered in her ear: "Did I say something wrong?"

She tilted her head and rubbed her cheek on his while whispering back: "How can I focus when you are distracting me like that? Now I can't help it but to think about that fun…"

Sarah squealed at the unexpected movement: Aiden lifted her from the chair and carried her to the sofa.

"I thought we are going to finish that…" Sarah closed her eyes and enjoyed feeling of his hands under her top.

"We can have some fun first... !!!" Aiden froze for a moment when he felt that she pulled his pants down in one swift move. He didn't realize when did she manage to unbutton his jeans… but it doesn't matter. His goddess is getting bolder, and he likes it.

…

Some time later, they were back to work… but from the bed with their laptops. Well, Sarah was back to work, Aiden was holding onto Sarah and his laptop was closed on the side table.

She is sitting between his legs, and he leaned his chest on her back while watching her work over her shoulder.

"Got her!", Sarah exclaimed. "She bought chips, flip-flops and two t-shirts in a store five blocks away from the slushie stand… total of $27.21 and she paid with credit card on name… Darla Hamler."

"Nice." He kissed her shoulder.

"Now to see who this Darla person is…"

"Get Eve to do it." Aiden interrupted her.

Sarah smiled while typing swiftly on the keyboard. She spoke: "Eve, find everything you can about this person."

Aiden reached out, closed Sarah's laptop and placed it on the side table, on top of his laptop.

"I see you want to have more fun…", Sarah stated the obvious.

"The fun has just begun…"

…

Sarah opened her eyes and realized that it's morning. She looked at the side and saw that her Greek God is sleeping peacefully next to her.

She exhaled thinking about previous night and how she can't do any work when he is around. But she does not mind.

Sarah snuggled next to Aiden and enjoyed his scent and feeling of his body next to hers. There is no better 'good morning' than that. She was not sure if he woke up or not, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. After few seconds she glanced up and saw that he is still sleeping (or he slept off again). Thinking that he did that in his sleep, made her happy. It's nice to know that even in his sleep, subconsciously, he wants to be closer to her.

It was nice, and cozy, and relaxing… and she drifted off to sleep again.

She felt some shifting next to her and opened her eyes.

"Sorry… I woke you up." Aiden apologized.

"It's OK. I was awake earlier and dozed off again… to give you company in your dreams."

He kissed her forehead. "I like that."

After few minutes of morning cuddles, Sarah remembered that previous night they left Eve to look into Katherine (or Darla) person. She got her laptop and checked results. "Eve finished…"

Aiden leaned closer to see the screen.

He kissed Sarah's upper arm occasionally while listening to her summarizing the results: "If Darla is a made up person, someone did an elaborate job because it has a lot of information… birth certificate… she has younger brother, Karl… no sisters… and definitely no twins. So, it's either a strange case of a doppelganger, or it's the same person…" Sarah continued looking through the data. "Oho! Look at this… she went to drama school… and she is an actress…"

"Do you think someone hired her to act that out?"

Sarah thought about his question. "To act that she slept with Mark, got pregnant and killed herself? Maybe… but why? I know that after that, Mark didn't have any problems with the law, otherwise he would not be director of legal department in Orion Enterprise. So, it's not like she did that to frame him with her death."

"Maybe she tried blackmailing him and failed." Aiden continued guessing.

Sarah shook her head. "The 'why' part is missing."

Aiden thought for a second before asking: "What happened because of her act?"

"Other than Mark and Sophia breaking up, nothing much…"

Aiden got an idea. "What do we know? She is an actress who schemed with pregnancy against a rich guy and left without any money. Even without blackmail, she would be able to get alimony for the child. And she left all those possibilities by faking her death? We should look who hired her for this."

Sarah lit up hearing his words. "We can look into her bank accounts for payments."

He continued her thoughts. "For pregnancy and suicide, and even faking a funeral it will be a big sum."

Sarah smiled. She loves when they think as one. "And then we can trace that back and see who paid and hired her."

His smile reflected hers. "And when we find out 'who' , it will be easy to find out 'why' ."

Sarah hugged him and buried her face in his chest. "You know I love working with you, right?"

Aiden hugged her back and took a deep breath, enjoying the moment.