Eleven

                                    

                                          
Music: Impossible by Shontelle
                          
'Skylar Reys,' Brian sat across from his PI, Malcom, a rough, somewhat disheveled, bearded African American he'd known since he was a child.
                          
Both Brian and Malcolm had been inseparable as kids, right up until the time Brian had earned a scholarship at fourteen and gone away to boarding school in Vermont where he'd met and bonded with four other boys who, today, we're still his friends and also his business partners. 
                          
Although Brian's going away to school  effectively reduced the contact between the two boys, to his mother's intense relief, as Malcolm, who'd had a knack for poking his nose where it didn't belong and getting into trouble, had pulled Brian into his mess one time too many, it hadn't eliminated it.
                          
They'd stayed in touch during some of the holidays, dabbling in various businesses as they grew, with Brian acting as the brains behind their little start-ups while Malcolm became the face of the duo. 
Eventually, Brian's knack for business, coupled with the various shenanigans the two boys engaged in constantly, earned him the street name Casper.
                          
In the end, nothing had come of their partnership, and both men had taken their amateurish skills and separately developed them into profitable ventures, with Brian becoming a serial entrepreneur and Malcolm, a freelance journalist and investigative reporter.
                          
Malcolm's willingness to get down to the nitty gritty of a case, sometimes putting himself in harms way was what made him great at his job and highly sought after, and Brian oftentimes found himself engaging the services of his friend from time to time for both personal and business dealings.
                          
He received the thick folder Malcolm handed him now, and slowly flipped through it as his friend spouted the information he'd been hired to provide.
                          
'Twenty-four years old, born in Richmond Virginia, moved to New York with her mother when she was still a baby.
                          
Her mother, Helen Reys, was raised by strict parents, she got into a relationship with a local gangster and became pregnant with Skylar at the age of eighteen. 
She was thrown out by her parents and bounced around friends houses until, she moved to New York not long afterwards.
                          
What's interesting, is that Helen's mother, Skylar's grandmother, continued to provide financial help to  her daughter and grandchild until they moved out here and even for a couple months afterwards, which indicates that she may have had no choice in the decision to kick their daughter out.
                          
The payments to her daughters account stopped a couple months after Helen got a job out here working as a waitress, she lived in a rundown one-bedroom apartment and worked at that job for almost four years before she met and married a wealthy lawyer and moved across town, to his home in Kensington
                          
Now that's where the story gets interesting,' Malcolm sat up and leaned forward, resting his arms on the large office desk that separated him and Brian.
                          
'Bear in mind, that up until this time, Helen has had no contact with her family, from the time her mother abruptly stopped the payments...not a word from her father, mother or sister...but other than her estrangement from her family, everything's great, she's in good health, has a steady job, she's raising her kid...and then she meets this wealthy lawyer, has a whirlwind relationship with him that lasts about four months and marries him.
                          
Two months into the marriage, she begins to frequent hospitals...different ones,' he waved his hand towards the file Brian had open in front of him, 'I was able to access information from at least seven of them. 
                          
Medical reports detailing various injuries, some, minor...a black eye here and there, a sprained ankle, a bruised hip, while others were major injuries...broken ribs, dislocated joints, even a fractured skull.'
                          
Brian's eyes narrowed as he again began to thumb through the file he'd previously set aside, 'and no one asked how she happened to acquire these injuries? she had a child, wasn't she required to provide personal information at these hospitals? why did no one raise an eyebrow when a woman with custody of a child, came in time and again sporting suspicious injuries?'
                          
Malcolm gave a short cynical laugh, 'that, my friend, was the reason behind the frequent change in hospitals, only someone who doesn't want any raised eyebrows would change treatment centers as frequently as she did.
                          
She also never cited any form of physical abuse as the cause of her injuries, it was either a fall down a flight of stairs, or a crash into a wall, or injuries she claimed she'd sustained from excercise equipment.
                          
For someone I strongly suspect was being seriously abused, she went out of her way to make it seem like everything was a-okay in paradise.'
                          
Malcolm grimaced, before he continued, 'one thing I did find a little odd...but perhaps not particularly surprising, considering her circumstances, was a medical report detailing a visit she made to a particular hospital she'd never visited before and never returned to afterwards, to get a procedure done.
                          
She had her tubes tied, and paid cash, something she'd never done before. All her previous medical arrangements were billed to her credit card, as well as all treatments she received after the procedure, but that procedure and that hospital, for some reason, she wanted off the books. If I were to take a guess, I'd say...'
                          
'She was hiding it from her husband.' Brian finished.
                          
Malcolm nodded, 'and I think I know why.' 
                          
Brian saw the look in his friends eye harden before he spat out his next words, 'it wasn't just the woman that son of a bitch was subjecting to abuse...it was her little girl too.'
                          
A/N: I know this chapter's short but I decided to put it up anyway because I know a lot of my readers are waiting for updates on this story. 
                          
I split the chapter into two, which means the next update will be the concluding part of this conversation between Brian and Malcolm. 
                          
Things are about to get hairy up in here.