Losing Francesca Read Online Free PDF Page A

how he's doing."
    I let out a long breath. "Is it really her?"
    He drops the hardass attitude as soon as I do. That's typically how it is with Sean and me. We play this game and eventually we move on or get over it and decide to be normal.
    "She says she's not, she insists she's not. She has no memories of us, so she says."
    "So, can you do a DNA test or something?"
    "Frank is not our father, you know that, right?"
    I did know that. Everyone knows she was adopted. They reported on it endlessly at the time of the… kidnapping or whatever it was. But Sean doesn't wait for an answer.
    "But she is Fiona. We're almost one hundred percent sure because of the eyes."
    I picture her eyes again, staring down at me from that tree last night. "So, she's what? Got amnesia?"
    "No," Sean laughs. "She's lying. Failed four polygraphs over the last two months. Just flat-out lying. She had three different passports on her when she was taken."
    "But why? It makes no sense."
    He shrugs as his gaze wanders over to the window. "She's lying about everything, Brody. Her name, her father's name, where she comes from. No one's ever heard of her. There's no record of Francesca Sabatini in the town she claims as her home in Italy. There's no record of her here in the US."
    I just stand there with my mouth hanging open, looking pretty stupid.
    "The FBI went through all her stuff and found an Italian passport that says she's Francesca Sabatini and lists a father and mother who never lived at an address that never existed. She had an Italian driver's license, fake, some receipts from Australia, and one carry-on with two outfits in it. That's it. She bounced into L.A. off a sixteen-hour flight from Brisbane, got a facial recognition scan at customs, and was flagged for review."
    He blows out a long breath of air and starts to look like he's tired of talking so I urge him on with a hand gesture.
    "They put her aside, held her for suspicion, and started checking out her story. The customs card she filled out on the airplane said her destination was Washington D.C. but she had no connecting flight to get there and she listed a hotel she was not booked for. By this time they figured she was a drug trafficker or something and threw her in jail until the facial recognition came back as Fiona Sullivan. We had the database updated about six months ago. My dad hired an artist to recreate her face with age progression." He shrugs. "We both thought it was pointless, but I guess you just never know."
    I turn around and scratch my chin. I need a shave, I absently think. "She's Fiona?" is all I can manage to say.
    "She's definitely Fiona. I'm just not sure what to make of things right now and I know you have this obsession with her and you probably want to know everything, but that's all I have. Frank is not being very forthcoming about his talks with the FBI. He's not even telling Angela."
    "I'm not obsessed, by the way. We were friends, that's all."
    "Brody, you were seven years old when she disappeared. You looked for her out in the woods until you were eleven. And they went missing in Italy when we were on vacation, so how that even made sense to you, I just don't know."
    I shrug. It was disturbing. One day you're thinking about how you'll be able to give your first-grade girlfriend a Fruit Roll-Up to show her you care on the morning bus ride to school, and then she's just gone. "Did they find your mom?"
    He shakes his head. I probably shouldn't have asked that, but sometimes my mouth gets ahead of me. I know I wouldn't want anyone asking about my parents. "Can I see her?"
    "No." He doesn't even think about it. "Please, just leave her alone. If she wants to talk to you, she'll find you. She's not talking to any of us, refuses to speak English, in fact. She's a mess."
    "Well, maybe she just needs to trust someone?"
    "And you're the guy she should trust? Not me or my dad, but you?"
    I shrug and turn away, raking my fingers through my hair.
    And then a customer comes in,