My Husband Is An International Idol

Rain poured heavily over Aurelia City. The rhythmic sound against the windows echoed throughout the quiet office of Reyes Investigative Services.

Stacks of documents covered every desk. Photographs, old newspapers, immigration records, school yearbooks and financial reports were organized in every corner of the room.

For three months, Victor Reyes and Sarah Clifford had chased a ghost. Because every answer only created more questions.

Sarah rubbed her tired eyes as she closed another folder.

"This doesn’t make sense."

Victor looked up from his laptop.

"What?"

She pointed toward the timeline pinned to the whiteboard.

"Carl entered St. Claire Entertainment only recently."

Victor nodded.

"But?"

"But according to everything we’ve gathered..."

She folded her arms.

"...he isn’t behaving like an obsessed fan."

Victor leaned back.

"I’ve been thinking the same thing."

Sarah walked toward the board.

"If he became obsessed because Liliana became famous..."

She pointed toward the earliest dates.

"...then why has he been appearing around Sterling Village years before she entered entertainment?"

Victor quietly stared at the photographs.

One showed a man standing across the street from the Sterling ancestral house.

Another...

A blurry figure watching Liliana while she bought groceries.

Another...

A person hidden beneath an umbrella near the countryside market. All taken before the Gucci campaign and before Prada. Before Liliana became known.

Sarah continued.

"He wasn’t following a celebrity."

"He was following..."

Victor finished her sentence.

"...Liliana herself."

Silence filled the office.

The realization felt much heavier than before.

"This started long before fame."

Victor immediately stood and walked toward another cabinet.

"If we’re right..."

He murmured.

"...then the answer isn’t inside St. Claire Entertainment."

"It’s somewhere much older."

Sarah looked at him curiously.

"What are you thinking?"

Victor smiled faintly.

"When I was investigating Chris and Liliana’s relationship, I collected almost everything."

He began opening dusty archive boxes.

"I have school records, newspapers, photos, and graduation albums. Anything connected to them."

Sarah immediately joined him.

Boxes quickly filled the floor.

Elementary.

Junior high.

Senior high.

Kindergarten.

Victor suddenly stopped.

"...Wait."

He slowly pulled out a faded class photograph. The edges had already turned yellow with age.

The words beneath it read:

Aurelia Academy Kindergarten Class

He carefully wiped away the dust.

Tiny children smiled brightly toward the camera. Some looked nervous..Some laughed.

Victor immediately recognized a familiar face.

A tiny girl with brown pigtails and oversized glasses. It was Liliana Sterling.

Sarah smiled.

"She was adorable."

Victor nodded.

Then his expression slowly changed.

"Who’s..."

He pointed toward another child standing only one row behind Liliana.

A chubby little boy with round glasses. His black hair was neatly combed. He wasn’t smiling and his eyes were looking somewhere else. Not at the camera. At Liliana.

Sarah leaned closer.

"You know him?"

Victor narrowed his eyes.

"I’ve seen this face."

He immediately opened another folder.

Elementary school.

Another class picture. The same boy and still behind Liliana.

Another in Grade Three. He was still there.

Another was in Grade Six. Again, he was always near her.

Sarah quietly whispered,

"...That’s impossible."

Victor grabbed the junior high yearbook.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

"There."

Again.

The same student but older now. Still wearing glasses and still slightly overweight. Still appearing somewhere close to Liliana in almost every class photograph.

Again, in Senior High. He was there.

Sarah slowly sat down.

"He stayed in the same class for thirteen years."

Victor nodded.

"Kindergarten, elementary, junior high and senior high. He grew up with them."

He immediately searched the student directory. His finger slowly traced the names.

Christopher St. Claire.

Liliana Sterling.

Aaron...

Samantha...

Ivan...

Then, he stopped.

"There."

Sarah leaned closer.

The printed name read:

Harry Finn

Both investigators froze.

"Harry..."

Victor repeated quietly.

Sarah immediately opened Carl’s employee file. She looked at every document, identification, the fake address and every forged signature.

She suddenly turned her head up.

"Victor."

"What?"

She turned the profile toward him.

"The fake identity... Carl De Vera..."

Victor understood immediately.

"It never existed."

Sarah nodded slowly.

"It was manufactured."

Victor looked back toward the class photograph.

The little boy behind Liliana, the overweight child with thick glasses, the one nobody noticed and maybe no one knows.

He was Harry Finn.

Sarah immediately began searching school records.

Minutes later, another file appeared.

Father: Martin Finn

Mother: Laura Finn.

Occupation:

Father—Accountant.

Mother—Teacher.

Last recorded address was Sterling Village.

Victor looked surprised. "He lived there?"

Sarah nodded. "Only three streets away from the Sterling ancestral house."

Silence.

Everything slowly began connecting.

"He wasn’t following her."

Victor whispered.

"He simply never stopped watching."

Sarah continued digging. Another old newspaper surfaced. It was Aurelia Academy’s Recognition Day.

One blurry photograph showed children receiving awards.

Liliana held first honors.

Christopher stood beside her after winning a music competition.

Near the edge of the stage, Harry Finn stood alone holding second honors. Almost cropped out of the photograph.

Victor quietly looked at it.

"He was always there."

Sarah nodded.

"But nobody remembered him."

Victor suddenly remembered something.

"The envelope."

Sarah looked up.

"What about it?"

"The handwriting."

He hurried toward another cabinet to get the threatening letters Carl had sent.

Then, compared it with an old school newsletter where students had to write something about their life in school before signing.

Victor placed both papers side by side.

Sarah stared silently.

"...It’s the same."

Victor nodded.

"The same way he writes the letter L. It has the same spacing and the same pressure."

Sarah slowly exhaled.

"We finally found him."

Victor looked toward the wall covered with photographs.

"No." He corrected quietly. "We found Harry Finn."

But one question still remained.

Victor slowly folded his arms.

"If Harry Finn grew up beside Liliana, if they attended the same school for thirteen years and watched her before she became famous..."

He looked directly at Sarah.

"...Why?"

Sarah stared silently at the kindergarten class picture.

The little boy wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t looking at the camera or the teacher. He wasn’t looking anywhere else.

Only at the little girl with brown pigtails.

Sarah felt a chill run down her spine.

"This wasn’t obsession that started recently."

Victor nodded.

"It started in childhood."

He looked once more at Harry Finn’s face.

He was the forgotten classmate, the invisible boy and maybe the child no one even remembered.

Except, he had remembered Liliana every single day for the last twenty years.

Victor quietly picked up his phone.

"It’s time to call Matthew."

Outside, thunder rolled across the dark skies of Aurelia City.

Thousands of kilometers away, the group continued their European tour, unaware that the investigation had finally uncovered Carl De Vera’s greatest secret.

He had never been a stranger.

But he had been there since the very beginning.