Don't Scream (Complete)

Chapter 45

Eli Bensworth

"You have an accomplice, don't you?" Rhonda spat at Ben. 

They were back in the interrogation room. The new, vital piece of evidence that Cassidy had just produced brought about a huge change in the investigation. Ben hadn't been operating alone. 

"What? No!" Ben spluttered. 

"Don't lie!" Rhonda spat again. She thrust down the list of financial records onto the table. There, circled in red ink, was one name. 

MATILDA STONE 

"This list belongs to Mr Hoskins," Eli explained. "It seems to us here that the real person embezzling company funds was Matilda, not you." 

Ben scrunched his face up tight and looked upwards at the ceiling, sighing, his eyes brimming up with tears. "Alright. Alright, I'm sorry." 

"Confess!" Rhonda yelled, getting impatient. 

"I loved Matilda!" Ben sobbed. "She came to me that day, she said Mr Hoskins had caught her embezzling funds and she asked me for a solution. So I- I-" 

"She made you kill him?" Eli asked, disgusted. 

Ben couldn't do anything but nod silently. 

Rhonda slapped her forehead with her palm. The door to the interrogation room suddenly flew open and Alberto stormed in, looking flustered. 

"Detectives! Bad news!" Alberto spluttered in a high-pitched voice. 

"What?" Eli asked. 

"It's Matilda Stone. She's got a flight to Albania scheduled for today!" Alberto said. "You have to intercept her at the airport before her plane departs or she's gone for good! We won't be able to chase her that far! She'll get a new face and a new identity, then she'll get off the hook scot-free!" 

"Ah crap!" Eli cursed. "Rhonda, come on! Quickly! We'll have to ditch the Honda, we need a police cruiser to get us through the traffic fast!" 

* 

Rhonda and Eli were once again breaking speed limits. They were above the law at this point. They couldn't let Matilda leave the country. 

The airport came looming up ahead of them. Matilda's flight would be leaving Terminal 2 in 10 minutes. They had to find and locate her in the huge airport before she got away. 

"Let's move!" Rhonda said. 

The two of them tumbled out of their cop cruiser and ran over to the main terminal. Inside, the place was magnificent with its polished marble walls and floors. The place was crowded with people at the check-in desks, going up and down escalators, purchasing souvenirs from the San Francisco gift shops or just sitting around waiting for the time of their departure. 

"I go right and you go left!" It was all that Eli could manage to say. 

The two of them split up hurriedly. Eli felt overwhelmingly insignificant in this vast place. Hundreds of people all crowded around with still a ton of available space to walk. That wasn't even including the runways and the planes out on the other side. 

Eli ran around, examining all the people seated at benches or on the seats, or standing by the gift shops. He reached a window looking out onto the runway. There were a bunch of planes there that Eli didn't recognize, apart from one of the planes, a Legacy Shuttle, closest to him out on the tarmac, heating up in the sweltering hot sun. 

Eli turned around and that was when, as if by a mere lucky stroke, that he saw her. There she was, Matilda Stone. Eli could never miss those haughty features of her. She'd been pissed when Eli and Rhonda had showed up at EDITORIAL DELIGHTS twice. She'd certainly be pissed now. 

Eli began to cautiously make his way over to her, trying to be careful so as to not alert her to his presence. When he was only a foot away from her, she wheeled around. Seeing him, she let out a small yelp of shock. Her hand luggage dropped and landed hard on her foot, causing her to jump in pain. 

Before she could dart away as most criminals did, Eli grabbed hold of her wrist and cuffed her to him. 

"You're not going anywhere, not on foot or on plane. It's time you paid a visit to our workplace," Eli said, lugging her along.