Hunting For Love ~ Book 6 ~ The Royal Blood Collection

Chapter 15

I couldn't let go of the thought that there was more to this than what we could see. Someone wanted Henley and his father dead. It might even extend to his mother. After all, she was gone. What if Henley was supposed to die at that point in time too but somehow managed to slip through the cracks undetected?

If I was to figure out what this meant then I had to gather information. Asa was being extremely helpful by organizing the information about Henley's father from the police. It wouldn't be easy but if the royal family requested it then they had to hand over every single note, picture or file they had. A staff member had been sent to collect the boxes of information; a security team joined him to ensure his safety.

Sifting through the death certificates was not an easy task but at least we had a date and a location. The only issue that I had was that where Henley's mother died, she could have been sent to one of five hospitals that conducted autopsies. The alternative was she could have been declared dead at the scene and sent directly to a funeral home of which there was a hundred.

The ideal starting point was the hospital because Henley said that they were not well off so that would mean no funeral home. There was a high chance that she would have been sent to the hospital to be legally declared dead and then given a pauper's funeral. The government funded funeral was a cremation and the ashes given to the family to do with as they pleased.

There was no burial, not when land was at a premium. It was even rare for a service to be offered. If the family wanted to mourn or celebrate the life then they had to do it on their own, elsewhere. This was the budget service that was kept simple and as cost effective as the government could manage. Henley was never given ashes but that was probably because child services were moving him to the orphanage.

With the belief that Erica would have been cremated and then dumped in the trash, I began the tedious search through the five hospitals in the days after her death. It didn't take me long, finding her in the second hospital I searched.

It also didn't take me long to start frowning, unable to comprehend the information.

"Asa," I said softly. "Close the door please."

"Of course, your highness. Should I be on the other side of it as well?"

"No. I just need to ensure that we are not heard."

He nodded, quietly scampering to the door and closing it.

"Henley said that his mother's name is Erica Davenport, right?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"This is the death certificate for her but it says that she never had children."

"Perhaps they were mistaken. Without a family or children to be seen, the coroner might have assumed."

"But that's not all. This said that she was twenty-one when she died. Did she have Henley when she was eleven?"

"Then this is clearly the wrong woman."

"But the post mortem picture matches the family photos. Look, this is what Henley gave me, this is his mother."

Asa looked at the two pictures that were clearly the same woman.

"How did she die?"

"Take a guess, you get one chance."

"Gunshot wound to the back of the head?"

"Bingo."

He nodded, looking at the family picture of Henley and Erica.

"I have a theory. Perhaps someone knew the truth and paid the coroner off. Declare her as a twenty-one year old woman that has never had a child. Any thought of a son would be lost. Henley's taken to an orphanage and all but forgotten until he turns up again. He knows his name because what ten year old wouldn't? Maybe the mother moved to the halfways to get away from someone in the vampire city. We know the past, your highness. It is entirely possible that Henley's parents were a part of the wrong crowd. Maybe she hoped for a better life for her son."

"Yeah, maybe."

My murmur trailed off as I began to search again. There was something niggling, something that refused to go away. I had to know who or what she was running away from. Maybe if I found that out, I'd have the answer to Henley's current issue.

Searching through the records, I found the marriage certificate which dated his mother as being twenty when she married Henley Senior, a whole three years before the birth of their only child. So, the death certificate was definitely a sham.

The thought that Erica's death certificate was a fake made me wonder if Henley sent her and their son away for their safety. Maybe he believed that hiding in the halfways would be for the best rather than out here among the vampires or whoever it was that wanted them dead. Was splitting up better considering that Erica was dead after a few years of being in there?

Intrigued even more, I began searching for their birth certificates. Erica's was rather ordinary but the father, he was a new mystery. My heart thumped hard as I stared at the computer screen. Reaching out, I pulled on the sleeve of Asa's jacket. He leaned over and looked at the name.

"Who is Henlese Dalievinpo?"

"That is the real name of Henley Senior."

I searched the internet, wondering what we'd find. Did I think that I'd find something that would shock me? You bet I did. No one changed their name and hid without good reason. No one ended up murdered, only to have the death covered up with sheer stupidity.

The name got a lot of hits on the internet. I hoped that this would not cause issues because I feared that it would. There was no issue of attack in this place, my mother ensured that her home was a fortress, especially after coming so close to losing it against Alaric.

"Okay," I whispered, glancing at Asa. "Here goes."

I clicked on the link and opened the website dedicated to this mystery man.