SHORTS FROM THE SHELF features short serialized fiction by author Shannon Muir, administrator of SHANNON MUIR’S THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF, that may be later released as part of e-book or print collections. The story line featured currently is “Blacke and Nu Beginnings,”  that will appear on Saturdays and Sundays over the next several weekends, and then a special daily run from March 21st to March 27th, 2020. This is Part Four.

“That’s what I came here to find out. I don’t really know anymore. I went to apply at the police academy, and they did a whole background check. That’s when I found out the people who raised me didn’t legally adopt me.”

“Sounds like people like that would have kept you from taking that kind of life path,” Cait interjected.

Saundra noticed the man went on as if not hearing Cait at all.

“They’d died not long after I became an adult. So, they also couldn’t stop me from going through what they’d left behind, piecing together what of the puzzle I could. I found my way to where you grew up, Saundra. Though the grandparents that raised you had passed as well, people knew where you’d gone and I was able to get some clues. That information led me here.”

“Thank you for all that background,” Saundra told him. “But that didn’t answer my question.”

“My first name is Marcel. I could give you the last name I was raised with, but that would mean nothing. Since my parents obtained me illegally, they appear to have gotten me right at birth since I can’t find any other birth certificate than the falsified one. I can tell you my birth mother’s name, but you wouldn’t know that either.  The one thing I can tell you that you might recognize is the name of the man my mother’s mother had a brief relationship with. Travis Richmond.”

“But how can that be?” Saundra said. “That is my grandfather’s name. He and his wife took me in as a teenager when my mother died. And you look to be my age. You’d have to be my twin brother.”