The Plan

Chapter 21

Winter of 2008

Twelve years had passed since that night that she lost everything. Her mom, her dad, Peter…her entire family.

She looked at the empty white wall, holding a picture she printed earlier, and she sighed.

Planning was one of the things she learned in being a nurse—along with knowledge of drugs she would find useful later on.

Finally, she took one step towards the wall and started pasting her plan.

 

April 3, 2011 (3:00pm)

They don’t know where to go after all that had happened, so they decided to go to everyone who had known Kyla Howard. It included one boy: Sean Lightman. Lawson decided he should talk to the man alone and Tanaka went to talk with Carlson’s family.

“Mr. Lightman!” Lawson called out to the young man as he climbed out of his car. “I’m Detective Lawson from NYPD.”

Sean Lightman frowned at the badge he flashed open as he approached. “Do we have an appointment?”

“No, but I won’t take up much of your time,” he promised, “Just a couple of questions.”

Sean looked around his driveway, “Who let you in?”

“The guard at the gate. I showed him my badge.”

“I guess I should have a talk with my guards then,” Lightman said, looking straight at him, “What do you want to talk about?”

“This might be uncomfortable for you to talk about, but we believe that your parents’ death in 1996 is somehow connected to our current case.”

Lightman looked at him, his face unreadable. “I don’t want to talk about what happened in 1996. It was just a burglary case. You guys were adamant on that specific detail.” He turned around towards the door.

“It’s about the green-eyed killer,” he tried to call back the man’s attention. He saw Lightman freeze on the spot. “We believe that the little girl that saved you that night is the green-eyed killer.”

Lightman turned around slowly and looked at him, “And you came here because…?”

“I was hoping you can give us anything about Kyla Howard. We know that you have been looking for her as well. Maybe we can share information.”

“No, that will be impossible. I don’t have information about Kyla Howard. Now, if you don’t have anything more to say, I have things to do.”

Lawson’s instinct overruled again, “Mr. Lightman, are you keeping something?”

Once again, Lightman stopped but did not look back as he said, “Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “maybe you consider Kyla Howard as your guardian angel?”

No answer came. Instead, Lightman started walking towards his door.

“Mr. Lightman, if you’re trying to protect Kyla Howard in any way, you’re obstructing justice. And if we catch her and it turns out you’ve been keeping information from us, you know your name will suffer along with everything you have.” It’s the best he could do to try to talk to the man. He turned around to leave when Lightman opened his doors and closed it without looking back at him.

Lawson knew deep in his gut that Sean Lightman was hiding something.

Sean sat in his office deep in thought. The authorities already knew about Kyla. She already told him of the possibility of this happening, but it’s too soon. He wanted to work with Kyla, but only in the background. His name getting involved in the mess was something he’s not going to risk.