Chapter 361 The Newspaper Archives

Chapter 361 The Newspaper Archives
Dominic’s phone pinged with an email.  He smiled as he read it.  The local library in the smaller town in Georgia where Lou grew up gave him access to their archives which, luckily, were all digitized. He immediately pulled up his laptop and logged in. He knew he could’ve just hacked the system, but if he didn’t need to spend the energy to do it, why go through it? 

‘This librarian is only a little bit OCD.’ Dominic thought.  There was a surprising amount of archives for such a small town, but the organization was impressive.  

He pulled up her dad‘s name on the search bar ‘Armonn Harris’.  Over a dozen pages about his quickly rising political career came up where he kissed the babies in order to make the money to grease the palms later on.   Most politicians in small towns started out innocent enough.  It’s when they want to get bigger that the real players come into the picture.  Politicians reach out to Lucian constantly but the answer was always the same ‘I would be happy to support some of your charitable efforts, but I am not a politician. I do not to have any interest in politics.’ It was an easy line for Lucian to draw. 

In a couple of the articles, there were pictures of Armonn with his family. Lou was in a few of them- an announcement of her birth, her with pigtails and bandages over dirty knees, always in a T-shirt and shorts while the rest of her family were dressed up nicely in their Sunday best. She was usually pouting, obviously not wanting to be in the pictures.  As she got older, Lou was in less and less of the pictures. Dominic wasn’t sure if he was happy for her not being forced into them or sad for her because instead of accommodating her personality, they just hid her away.  Probably a mixture of both, if he thought deeply about it. 

Then, a headline caught his eye.  

‘Local Politician's House Broken Into, Two Staff Members Slain.’ 

Dominic started reading it, but the article was pretty cagey on the details.  Now his hacking skills would be needed. He rerouted to a more private search engine and worked his way into the local police records, pulling up the date to coincide with the newspaper article and the address, he started reading witness statements, evidence logs, growing increasingly more agitated as he went. 

He hadn’t even heard Lucian knock on his door. 

“Dominic…Domi…”

Dominic jumped as Lucian waved a hand in front of his face.

“What are you doing, man?  You’ve been holed up in your own office all day.” 

Dominic gestured to his computer screen and Lucian walked around his desk, leaning over Dominic’s shoulder to see what he was looking at.

“I’ve been reading about her background, like Kristin suggested I do.  Look at this, Luc, her dad‘s house got broken into.  This was right around the time when Armonn started making a play for bigger leagues. Lou was about five years old.” 

“What happened?” 

“Two maids were killed.  Which is a tragedy of itself.  But I pulled the police and witness statements and it sounds like the two maids were killed because they were protecting Lou. Evidently the men broke in with a goal to kidnap one of the Harris daughters.  It says the two women threw Lou into a closet and then barricaded the door with their bodies.” 

“So Lou heard them get killed?” 

“Safe to assume, and it wasn’t a quick boom boom, Luc.   Each women had about thirty stab wounds and were both raped.” 

“Holy fuck.” 

“That’s not even the worst part of it.” 

“Fucking hell, Domi, what are you about to tell me?”

“Turns out dad of the year and mommy dearest left Lou in that closet for two hours.  A butler found her in there shaking and covered in the maids’ blood that had come through under the door.”

“You’re fucking kidding.” 

“No, I’m not.”

Dominic ran a hand down his face as his stomach churned.  He saved everything to a file on his desktop that was nameless, just the picture of a dragon as a clue to what information was in there, before searching her name in the library archives. 

“Now, look at this search under her name, three years later she’s in the local newspapers again for winning a bunch of martial arts competitions.  Not just in one discipline.   There’s tae kwon do, jujitsu, and hapkido.”

“Do you think it’s related?” 

“Only Lou has the answer to that.  But, if I was a little kid who went through what she did, I think I’d want to learn how to defend myself.” 

“She’s going to give you a run for your money, Domi.  I can’t wait for you to piss her off so she beats the snot out of you.” 

“No kidding.  Hey, look at this.”

Dominic pointed to his screen at a small snippet of a teenage Lou. 

“Says here she got a full ride from five different schools for soccer.” 

Lucian scratched his chin.

“Kirstin didn’t mention she played soccer at the university here.  Nikki did, but she never mentioned Lou.” 

“Why would she not take her scholarships?  Even coming onto the team so much younger since she started college so much earlier, it still doesn’t make sense.”

Dominic clicked around a few more articles about Lou’s two year high school stand out soccer seasons.  Lucian shook his head.

“I don’t know, but she’s in the newspaper quite a few times as a high school star who goes to college after two years to pursue medicine.” 

“Here’s a quote. ‘Soccer is a great hobby but it’s not a profession.  I’ll be prioritizing my career in medicine and won’t have time for my childhood activities.’ 
That doesn’t sound like a 15-year-old girl in love with her sport, does it?” 

“Sure as shit doesn’t, Domi.   But you don’t get that good at a sport unless you love it.” 

“That’s what I was thinking…” 

Just then, an alarm went off on Dominic’s phone, causing both men to jump. 

“Geez man, you got an alarm set for noon?” 

“Oh, that’s right! I didn’t tell you.  We dream walked last night. It worked. We have a soul mate confirmation.” 

“Shit, Domi!  You’re kidding. Congrats! I can't wait to tell Valerie.” 

“First, pussy whipped but also adorable. And second, I remembered what Kirstin said about Lou not believing me that it was real.” 

“So what are you going to do? What’s the alarm for?” 

Dominic leaned back in his chair, a mischievous smirk on his face.

“At the end of our dream walk last night, I told her that I’ll text her about soccer today at noon.”

“Oh man, this is going to be wild!”

Lucian sat across from Dominic’s desk again, leaning back and smirking at his friend’s genius.

“Sure is!  And that’s not even the best part, Luc.  She told me that if I text her about soccer today, she’s going to cook me her recipe of grits which she evidently doesn’t cook for anybody.” 

“I’m not leaving until this plays out.”

“Order lunch while I figure out what the fuck to text her.”

Lucian nodded as he kicked his feet up onto the edge of Dominic’s desk.