And I, you

CHAPTER 5: THE RECORDING

 "Leave the past where it belongs"

- Unknown

"Lu, are you okay? I've been trying your phone for an hour for god's sake," Miles says and my trembling hands drop the phone again. 

"I-I don't know Miles okay? Where are you?" I ask him with a new level of urgency in my voice. The shock of it all has somewhat brought the luxury of numbness to me, overtaking the panic that runs through my veins. 

"I'm on the crime scene, I tried calling you before, but I was so busy with this latest issue that has come up. When you didn't answer, I went to your office to look for you but you had already gone home, but it's okay now, you've picked up the phone," he says with more urgency than I did.

"What's the matter, tell me"

"You have to come here and you have to come here now, I'm sending you the address just come okay? Do not get your mom or aunt along"

"Who'll pick me then?" 

"Shit, I can't leave the scene yet, wait I'll send someone, where are you?"

"At Lina's house"

I still can't get to stop calling it 'Lina's' house, as if she hasn't been dead for the past two years. Her memory isn't haunting like most are, it soothes me, reminds me she was here, a part of us and gone before she deserved it. Her death tells the cruel tales of the world, where humanity ceases to exist and justice is a word with no meaning. But at least she existed, if only for a moment. 

"Okay, I know the address, I'll send someone over, stay right there," he says and hangs up the phone. In a daze, I go back to the living room and find my mother and aunt watching that silly movie Lina and I made when we were young. They're so engrossed in the movie that they don't even notice me come in.

"Mom, I have to go urgently, it's work," I say to her. My voice startles her and she looks at me with a start. 

"But you can't leave! Ezra is supposed to come over in a few minutes," my aunt says, making me stop dead in my tracks. I totally forgot about him.

My family and their need to play matchmaking will never make sense to me, especially, when it involves a murderer. 

Oh my god, did he kill Luna? He had a gun in his hands, I remember clear as day and he hesitated when I asked him for help. I had always wondered if those two instances were interconnected but I had never quite achieved this level of certainty until yet.

Is the puzzle perhaps finally coming together or am I getting ahead of myself?

"Aunt Maria and mom, I cannot meet Ezra and please never ever invite him to our house again. Do not look at him, speak with him, ignore him and his calls altogether, no matter how charming he is, your life is still important," I say to them and hear their collective sharp intake of breath. 

It is my aunt who speaks first.

"One day into work and you're already thinking of death?" she says to me with a weak chuckle. The comment cut deep and my mom immediately reprimanded her for it, but it was already too late.

"Yeah, because he's a murder suspect. Now you will listen to me if you don't wish to end up like your daughter," I say and leave the room, slamming the door behind me.

"Luna!" I hear my mom shouting my name but I leave the house, slamming the front door with as much anger as I could muster.

"Isn't it a little too early in the evening to be this mad?" someone says to me and I turn around.