Duskwood - Afterstory

Chapter 9

Jake nods slowly. 

"Yes, ma'am." 

All you can do is stare at him. You knew he was pardoned. But he's conveniently forgotten to mention the fact that he's being constantly monitored. 

"Thankfully, we have not detected any criminal activity on your side, which makes my job a whole lot easier, to be honest." She stops for a second, flipping pages in her notebook. Then she lifts her gaze at you. "On your side, miss, the only thing you have on yourself is breaching the speed limit, using smoke bombs outside of your own land without legal permission which caused incidents on a seemingly busy road. But given your circumstances, and the whole situation, this is the smallest of our problems right now." 

"I-- I still don't understand..."

She cuts you off with a hand gesture. 

"Now, the point of you two being here is that you two are obviously key witnesses in a case which involves murder, stalking, breaching of privacy, and a road chasing. What you have the right to know, especially Mr. Danford, is that the chasers are government officials."

"I was aware of that," Jake nods. 

"But what you are not aware is that these men were responsible for the murder of that young woman from Duskwood." Once again, she points at the board. A voice in your head says a quiet 'bingo'. "That murder is connected to this road chase. Now, you might be wondering how this is all connected to you, why they wanted to get to you so bad. I really wish I had a better explanation, but I don't. It was all their obsession with you, Mr. Danford."

"Excuse me?" you two say in unison. Then Jake continues: "I don't think I'm following." 

The woman sighs and it sounds so... regretful. It doesn't really help your confusion, though. She goes on. 

"I know this all sounds too... easy or too wishy-washy. I am aware of that. However, after you have been pardoned, Mr. Danford, some people, those three to be exact, just could not accept the fact that you're not in jail for all the charges brought against you in court. They have worked in the shadows, so we did not notice them at first. That's why they were able to kill that poor woman as an attempt to lure you out so you would do something illegal. Anything that they could use against you." She stops again. "But seeing that it didn't work, that you did not do anything inherently questionable, they started tracking you down. Which led to the motorcycle chase outside of Duskwood. We have a reason to believe that after all of this, they were also ready to kill both of you, given the fact that they have shot guns in broad daylight on a busy road with civilians around." 

Once again, your mouth is hanging open as you're listening to the woman's explanation. The air is frozen around the three of you as silence follows the woman's words. You turn your gaze at Jake. He doesn't seem as confused as you are, in fact, he's locked eyes with this woman as if he just... understood this insane story. 

"They have planned this to get me to do something illegal. Am I understanding this right?" Jake now asks, breaking the silence.

"Yes, Mr. Danford." 

"It does sound plausible."

You still don't understand how this could happen. Government officials being so obsessed with a random person that they decide to kill someone innocent and completely unrelated to Jake? No, you are definitely not buying this. But as you lift your gaze at the board behind the desk, there is nothing that says it's all just made up. You understand that even people in ranks as high as the government officials can go crazy in a second and do questionable things. They aren't supposed to, but they do. They were probably so utterly happy to finally catch Jake, and then devastated when he was pardoned.