“Well, at least I am not going to die a virgin.” Harry smirked at her.
“You see this is the reason why I don’t want my name to be associated with you. It took me ages to come out of the darkness you pushed me into. Do you have any idea how I felt when you broke up? You still have no idea after so many years, because you are an insensitive jerk. You use people for your pleasure and then move on. This time, I will not let you use me.” Alicia was not mad at him; she was mad at herself for falling in love with this moron standing in front of him with the confidence of the most virtuous person on earth.
“I used you, amazing.” Harry came closer in anger. “We dated for eighteen months and we never had sex, because you were not ‘comfortable’ with that, and you are talking about using. You were so full of your family problems that you were unable to see me, my desires and my needs. In fact, it was you who used me to feel good about yourself that at least you have one relation in your life that doesn’t suck.”
Alicia didn’t remember when her hand raised and slapped him right across his face. For a minute, she thought Harry was going to hit her back, but then he turned and looked away. Alicia wanted nothing better than to pick something heavy and hit him hard. She closed her eyes tightly hoping that when she opened them, Harry would not be there.
“Listen to me.” Harry tried to control himself. “I know there are lots of negative feelings between us, but think as a lawyer, as a human being. Would you let me go down for a crime I have not committed? If not as a friend then at least as a human being, help me.”
Alicia rubbed her face and talked in a thick voice without looking at him. “I need time. I cannot confirm it now.” She started to walk towards parking; Harry walked beside her.
“All right, but please think like a lawyer. As you said on the dinner, victory of right over wrong matters most.”
“You thought it was clueless.” She reminded him walking in the cold night, but the word “ashamed” didn’t exist in Harry’s dictionary.
“No, you were right. It took me a while to get it.” He opened the door of Volkswagen for her which he had never done before.
The rest of the journey was quiet and uneventful. She sensed that Harry was darting glances at her with worry, but promising to give an alibi was not a candy that she could just give it to him on asking. Faking an affair to create an alibi was unlawful from every angle. She would have thought twice even if Ken asked it. She wondered why didn’t Ken mention that Rebecca had worked for him in evening? He didn’t say anything about her on dinner when Melanie mentioned her briefly. What could be the reason of that unless…
She left her thought unfinished when Harry stopped the car in front of the Stone Manor.
“Did you get any information about the first two victims?” She asked him.
“No, we ran their finger prints and facials in our databased, but none of them was matched. It was an obvious conclusion that they got in illegally.”
“You checked with visa office?”
“Yes, same result. If they are from EU, they would not need a visa anyways so we also forwarded the request to the home office.”
“Hmmm.” Alicia thought for a second. “Can you send me their case files?”
“I can’t do it in professional capacity. Sending information to anyone outside of the department without any authority is prohibited.” Harry sounded curious. “Why do you want it?”
“I was thinking about running some checks of mine, but its fine.” Alicia said and stepped out of his car.
“I will try my best.” Harry said from behind when she was ringing the doorbell.
I know Harry you will try your best now. I know you, like the back of my hand, except that the back of my hand is not repulsive.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Concerning A Bullet
Flora opened the door and she headed straight to attic without looking at her. She was still mad at her for leaving her at the mercy of Harry last night.
Flora kept trying to talk to her while she climbed the stairs, threw her bag in a corner, went to change her dress and when she finally came out, she only said stepping down to the kitchen to full her empty belly. “We need to talk about Harry.”
“I was trying to talk to you all morning.” Flora looked at her niece gulping the hot beef stew.
“How was your night?” Alicia asked her.
“Well, it cannot be long at that age.” Flora smiled meaningfully.
“Why did you leave in a hurry?” Her mood was still the same.
“I was afraid that you would refuse to come back with Harry. I really wanted you and Harry to spend some quality time together.” Flora sighed.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am actually coming back after spending ‘quality time’ with Harry.” She enjoyed the idea of how would Flora react on tonight’s event.
“Really? You two were on a date?” Flora said in excitement. She had put water on boiling to make tea.
“Oh yeah.” She chuckled.
Then slowly, eating her dinner, she told her everything from the Rebecca’s murder to Harry’s request; while, Flora stared at her in shock. She looked disturbed with the news of Rebecca’s death.
“I can’t believe it. I have met her so many times. How could someone do this to her?” She said in grief.
“Actually that someone has only killed her; the rest is Harry’s doing.”
“Oh please.” Flora looked at her with disapproval. “You don’t leave a chance to bash Harry. What did you decide then?”
“I am not deciding anything, if situation comes then I will see,” Alicia shrugged her shoulders, “and you are not shocked that he was cheating on her girlfriend.”
“Sweetheart, when you reach my age, you will also stop getting shocked by cheating.” Flora said without paying any attention.
“That’s the worst relationship advice, I have ever heard.” She watched Flora pouring tea in small crystal cups she had brought from Romania, one of the souvenirs of her adventure.
“What is the deal with your boss?”
Alicia took a sip from the warm tempting tea and felt relaxed instantly. “He can’t hurt a fly.” She declared.
“You know that, in detective books, the most unlikely person usually turns out to be the killer.” Flora told her.
“You think Mayor would support him if he was the killer? Robinsons are looking after Georgestown since decades, and look at Melanie. I can’t see any of them supporting a criminal.”
“They would if they don’t know he is the killer.” Flora had a point.
“You can’t fool Melanie, you just can’t. It is impossible.” Alicia shook her head denying her reason. “There is just one thing I want to know Kripke mentioned something about Warsaw, and he said Ken and Rebecca were there too. I want to know what really happened in Warsaw.”
“You don’t trust Kripke’s words?” Flora looked at her questioningly.
“He is nice, but he is too fixated with Ken, and he is not looking for other clues which might be lurking right under his nose.”
Her cell phone rang at that time. It was an email from Harry containing PDF’s. She smiled at her small victory.
“All right. I need to do some work. We will talk tomorrow.”
She finished her tea, kissed Flora on cheek and hopped to the attic. In the peaceful confinement of her bedroom, she opened her laptop after covering herself with soft bed cover. First she thoroughly read case files of the three victims sent by Harry, then she opened search engine page and type “homicide” and pressed enter which led to millions of results. She went into advanced search settings and set region to Poland. That also generated thousands of results. She went into tools and set date range for the entire month of May, two thousand and sixteen. That narrowed down the result considerably, but the problem was that most of the results were in Polish. She opened the results one by one with translate-this-page function offered by the search engine. One of the news article was titled “Homicide in a bookstore
.” She read the article eagerly and surprised to find that it was exactly like the first murder in her own bookstore. Police took statements of eyewitnesses as well. There was a picture of the brothers of the victim and an excerpt of their statements.
Her breath grew shallow looking at that picture. If she was not wrong, then one on the right exactly looked like the second victim who was suffocated with the shopping bag. The caption mentioned their names as Bernard Michael and Garret Michael. The name Garret Michael rang a bell in her mind, but even after thinking for too long, she didn’t remember where she had heard that name.
The man, mentioned as Garret, had white complexion and green eyes; while, Bernard had black eyes and bronze skin tone. Oddly, they didn’t look like brothers to her.
She thought about passing that information to Harry, but if it turned out to be useless, Harry would never share any information with her again. She could not share it with Kripke without telling him how did she get the case file. She wanted to know the complete truth before contacting the police. She was sure police kept contact information of the next to the kin of the victims in most cases. Bernard was dead, but she hoped that Garret would be alive to tell the real story behind the events. All she needed was Garret’s contact number—from Poland.
She checked the time, it was ten past midnight. There was no way Sam would be sleeping at that time. She sent him a message.
“Do you know any hackers?”
Sam was quick to reply. “One of my friends can hack, but why?”
She replied. “Can you bring him to the bookstore tomorrow?”
Reply came quickly. “Sure but not guaranteed.”
She typed, “Thanks. You earned a treat for that.”
Next morning, she packed her laptop and internet dongle in a big laptop bag and left for breakfast. She didn’t want to use computer or internet at the bookstore, in case the Polish police tracked it back. There were already enough proofs against Ken to make him a suspect. She didn’t want to add to his problems.
Flora was making pancakes in the kitchen. Steve and Lucy were having their breakfast in the living room watching a morning show. Alicia was about to clean her plate when her mobile rang. It was a notification from her bank of her salary getting credited in her account. She screamed in joy and showed it to Flora.
“That’s a large sum of money.” Flora hugged her tight. It was not large from the market standard, but by the standard of her family, it was quite large. “What are you going to buy?”
“I was thinking of buying something to wear at work. It would be good investment if I go to London.” She said in a flow and then stopped. She had not told her about Melanie’s offer yet.
Flora looked at her fiercely. “You are going to London?”
“If, and this is a big if.” She tried to pacify her.
Flora smiled, “It’s alright. Harry had already told me about the offer Melanie gave to you.”
“There is no offer.” Alicia felt annoyed. “And your friend Harry tells you everything except that he is a cheat and a liar.”
“Lady, if I tell you the number of men who cheat on their partner, your little heart will start beating faster.” Flora mocked her. “Grow up.”
She made a face and kissed on her cheek. “I will come late today ... will go for shopping with Sam.”
Little did she know, she was not coming back at all.
————
When Alicia entered the shop at noon, Sam was already there, but he was alone. She closed the door behind her and put the heavy laptop bag on a side table.
“Your friend was busy?” She asked taking her coat off.
“Which friend?” He asked with an innocent face which she suspected immediately. She narrowed her eyebrows at which he laughed.
“There is no such friend who can hack. I was talking about myself.” He cleared the air.
“Then why did you say your friend is a hacker?” She was puzzled.
“You cannot have any such conversation in writing, text, or email. All such things can be traced back to you and can be used against you in court. Someone can even blackmail you with this.” He said in secret voice. “Always talk face to face in shady matters.”
“Amazing. I am going to learn law from MBA students.” She sighed and pulled out laptop from her bag.
“This man,” she showed him picture of Garret on the news article she saved last night, “I want his contact number.”
“And where can we find it?” Sam asked plugging a USB in her laptop.
“Err ... in a police database.”
He looked at her in fear. “Really?”
“Well, yes.” She made an apologetic face. “But it is not British, so there is a chance that it will take them more time to trace us. Anyways, it’s my laptop and my internet IP, so even if they trace us back, I will be the one going to jail.”
Sam thought for few minutes. “Alright just covered your webcam with something. Some tracking software are really badass and take snaps of the hackers by hacking into their webcam.” They put a scotch tape on the camera and Sam was good to go.
“You know when I joined the bookstore and I found how most of the supervisors had only been to high school,” He said running the hacking software from his USB. “I told my old man and he was really worried that I might learn bad habits in their company, and then you joined. I was so impressed that she is a lawyer and I would learn some good things from her.” Alicia started to laugh by that point. “And look what you have made me. First, we broke into a house, and now I am hacking into a police database.”
Sam also laughed with her, when he suddenly stopped in excitement. “Here is our little fellow.” The profile on the screen had the same picture and name, Garret Michael, along with an address and a phone number in Poland. Alicia quickly saved his profile on her laptop and asked Sam to logout from the database. She rummaged her bag for her mobile phone but didn’t find it. She remembered having it in kitchen eating pancakes but did not remember putting it in her laptop bag. She cursed herself for forgetting it on a day like this.
“What happened?” Sam monitored her struggle.
“I forgot my phone at home.”
“Take mine.” He gave her his mobile.
She pushed the numbers on the digital keypad and pressed the green icon. The bell started to ring on the other end. After few minutes, someone picked the phone, but didn’t speak. She listened to heavy breathing on the other end which was kind of creepy.
“Hello!” She said slowly looking at Sam.
“Hello!” A thick voice followed with heavy breathing.
“Can I talk to Mr Garret?”
“Who are you?”
“He doesn’t know me, but I need to talk to him about his brother.” She spoke carefully.
“What’s your name?”
Alicia made a face, and said, “My name is Alicia.”
The man on the other side of the call didn’t say a word for several seconds, finally he said amidst of heavy breathing. “There is no Garret on this number,” and cut the call.
Alicia cursed the man, “He asked my name and my purpose, and then he said there is no Garret living on this number.”
“That’s fishy,” Sam also looked worried, “Do you think it was right to tell him your name?”
“It is a Poland number. Do you think this weirdo will trace me back to Georgestown and come here?” Alicia asked.
“Why do you want to talk to this Garret guy?”
“He is a brother of one of the unidentified victims. He can help us in solving the case. We still don’t know about the motives of these murders.” She said thoughtfully.
“I don’t know anyone in Warsaw or we could have had him checked this guy at his home.” Sam suggested.
“May be we can.” Alicia snapped her fingers. “We can hire a freelancer in Warsaw to collect information about Garret, and if possible to trace him there. It will be like a freelance informer. Garret might have misplaced his mobile.”
The topic was closed in a hurry as the supervisors started rolling in the bookstore. Sam had agreed with the idea of hiring a freelancer on internet.
When the clock struck three, Alicia looked at the door expectedly. Alicia’s heart beat heavily in her chest as if it suddenly became larger than the rib cage. She wanted to ask Ken about Rebecca and why exactly did he fire her. Ken always came at that time, not even a single minute late—but not today. From anxious to disappointed, Alicia shifted her attention to the visitors in store.
At four o’clock, Sam asked to go for the lunch.
“Should we leave without Ken?” She didn’t like the idea. What if he came late and found the store entirely at the hands of supervisors?
“We can go to the coffee shop on the corner.” Sam suggested to which she agreed. They could easily keep an eye on the bookstore from the coffee shop.
Alicia asked Edgar to hold the checkout counter while they were away, and picked her laptop bag.
“Why don’t you leave it behind?” Sam asked opening the door for her.
“I don’t know, just don’t like the idea of leaving it behind.” She said walking out of the door. Sam was a little behind her on the street. She suddenly stumbled as the strap of her laptop bag split into two and quickly bent down to avoid it from falling to the ground. Sam, who was coming after her, jerked in an unnatural way. Alicia’s whole attention was on her laptop bag. She had no idea what happened behind her back; she never saw Sam falling on the ground.
“A..lici..a” She turned hearing her name from a voice which she would never recognize as Sam’s in any case. She saw Sam trying helplessly to control his blood spilling from his guts. Alicia didn’t remember reaching him, leaving her bag behind. She also didn’t remember who called the ambulance. The only thing, she remembered later, was Sam’s blood spilling fast and then faster, and her screams getting loud, and then louder.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Killing Scripture (Alicia Stone Series Book 1) Page 12
