Chapter 6 Chapter 6
Still, doubt nagged at him. The Lawsons were powerful people with connections throughout the country. If someone in their organisation had wanted the baby to disappear permanently...
He closed his laptop with more force than necessary. This kind of thinking was absurd. He was letting his imagination run wild because he was attracted to Iris, creating a fairy tale in which she turned out to be an heiress so his mother would approve.
"Get a grip, Kennedy," he muttered to himself.
His phone buzzed again.
Iris_M: Sorry for the random clipping. Just wanted to show you why it's impossible, I'm connected to the Lawsons. On the other side of the country, different circumstances. Can we drop this topic now?
Tony felt a flash of guilt. He'd clearly made her uncomfortable with his questions about her birth parents. The last thing he wanted was to push her away when they were just starting to connect.
Antony_K: Absolutely. Consider it dropped. How's the final design coming?
Across campus, Iris set her phone down with relief. She hadn't expected Tony to respect her boundaries so readily. Most people pushed, pried, and insisted on knowing more once she mentioned being adopted. Their curiosity always seemed to override her comfort.
She turned her attention back to her designs, but found her concentration broken. The newspaper clipping lay on her desk, yellowed with age. Her adoptive mother had saved it for her, along with the small silver iris pin she'd been found with, her only connection to whoever had given birth to her.
Iris picked up the pin, running her finger along its delicate petals. She rarely looked at it anymore; it only raised questions she couldn't answer. Who had chosen this pin? Had they selected her name as well, or had that been the decision of the social workers who found her?
She put the pin back in its small velvet box and returned to her sketches. The past was irrelevant. Only the thing that mattered was that whoever gave her up allowed her to find a loving home with her adoptive parents, Leo and Carol Maxwell, and the two sets of twins her parents adopted: Buck and Finn first, and then Jakob and Nickolaus later.
Buck and Finn were always deeply competitive, so even though they still had four years, they would even be going to college, which is what mattered most, giving those boys the best life they could have. Her biggest fans, along with Jakob and Nicolaus, though, would want a new video game; she had no doubt. The thought of her brothers made her smile.
She messaged Tony back.
Iris_M: Just finishing touches. The rest are in the portfolio.
Tony stared at his phone, a strange mix of relief and disappointment washing over him. He had been hoping for more, more conversation, more connection, but Iris had effectively closed the door on further discussion. He understood her boundaries, respected them even, but something about the newspaper clipping nagged at him.
"This is insane," he muttered, pacing his apartment. "You're creating a mystery where there isn't one."
Yet he couldn't help himself from opening his laptop again, typing "Lawson heiress disappearance" into the search bar. Dozens of articles appeared, most from around twenty years ago, with a few retrospectives published on significant anniversaries. Tony clicked on one from a reputable news source, scanning the details he already knew.
Roxanne Elizabeth Lawson, infant daughter of shipping magnates Richard and Elaine Lawson, had vanished from her nursery in their Manhattan penthouse on January 24th, 2000, the night of her birth. The nanny checked on her at 10 PM and found her sleeping peacefully. By midnight, when Elaine Lawson went to feed her newborn, the crib was empty. No signs of forced entry. No ransom demands. The perfect, impossible crime.
What Tony hadn't known was buried in the seventh paragraph: "Sources close to the investigation revealed that a private jet registered to Lawson Industries departed from a small airfield in New Jersey at 10:47 PM that night, destination undisclosed. Representatives for the Lawson family stated the flight was carrying executives for an emergency business meeting in Chicago, unrelated to the disappearance."
Tony frowned, leaning closer to the screen. A private jet, the night of the kidnapping. If someone had taken the baby on that plane, they could have been anywhere in the country within hours—including near the Canadian border, where Iris was found.
"Stop it," he told himself firmly, closing the browser. "You're not a detective. You're just a business student with a crush."
Across campus, Iris had finally finished her designs for the Lawson competition. The collection was her best work yet, a seamless blend of innovative clothing and jewellery that told a cohesive story. She carefully photographed each sketch from multiple angles, ensuring the detailed work was visible, then began uploading them to the competition portal.
As she completed the submission form, she hesitated at the personal information section. Date of birth: 01/24/2000. The same day as the missing heiress. The same day, the competition results would be announced.
"It's just a coincidence," she whispered, echoing Tony's words from earlier. "Just a strange coincidence."
She clicked submit before she could overthink it further. The confirmation screen appeared, congratulating her on her entry and reminding her that finalists would be notified on January 24th. Iris closed her laptop with a sigh, suddenly exhausted. The past few weeks had been a blur of work, classes, and design, with a cute guy trying to get to know her.
‘Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen, he's a rich kid, probably some heir to something, his parents probably have his bride picked out for him. Don’t be silly Iris his being nice because you everything that the heiress aren’t, and his parents would never allow it.’ Iris thought to herself.
Tony struggled to sleep that night, his thoughts circling back to Iris and the strange coincidences surrounding her birth. He knew he should let it go, she'd made it clear she wasn't interested in digging into her past, but something about the timing nagged at him.
Around three in the morning, he gave up on sleep entirely and pulled out his laptop. If he could find definitive proof that Iris couldn't be the Lawson heiress, perhaps this bizarre fixation would fade. He opened a secure browser and logged into a database his father's company used for background checks, a resource he rarely accessed, knowing the ethical boundaries it crossed.