Wicked Exertion

Chapter 3

"It's, uh, nice to meet you, Mr. Jacobs. Not exactly, under the circumstances, but still... Anyway, I'm Detective Heartsbane." Ash's words sliced over the thick, tense silence. He reached his hand out, and for a couple seconds, Mr. Jacobs didn't respond. Soon, he also reached forward and shook Ash's hand.

"I'm Detective Groves," Cecilia smiled, and shook Mr. Jacobs' hand too.

Ash placed his hand on my shoulder, making me flinch due to the fact that I had just been snapped out of a trance-like state from staring at Mr. Jacobs. "This is my daughter, Hyacinth." Ash told Mr. Jacobs.

He raised both his eyebrows, indicating confusion, because Ash definitely looked like he was too young to have a daughter my age. "Step daughter," Ash corrected with a small smile. "We, um, had some problems back home, so I didn't want to leave her alone. You don't—"

"Alone?" Mr. Jacobs interrupted. "What about her mother, or real father?"

I could practically feel Ash turn rigid beside me. He didn't like my mom being mentioned; I think the only real reason I could stand him all those years was because I knew he truly loved my mom and genuinely made her happy.

"Her mother passed away," Ash replied with as little fury as possible.

"Yes, she can stay around, if that's what you're asking,"–I couldn't help rolling my eyes because he didn't even apologise, now knowing about my mom–"I actually have a daughter her age. Missy would be thrilled to have someone hang with her. She hasn't been taking her cousin's death so well, you know."

I don't mean to be rude, but I really would rather sit by myself in the corner, reading a cheesy teenage romance novel that I'd brought with me, instead to having to deal with an angsty, grieving person. I just wasn't in the mood at the moment.

"Great. Thanks, Mr. Jacobs." Ash said.

"Why don't we come inside and start discussing the case?" And finally, someone–also known as Cecilia–who said something reasonable.

Mr. Jacobs made way for the three of us to enter his house, and I took in my surroundings immediately. Unlike the outside, the inside was quite dark.

There was a coffee table in front of a worn-out leather couch in the middle of what's supposed to be the living room. And a grand piano stood by the corner of the room. It was a bit bland, in my opinion.

I then looked at the spiral staircase, which looked pretty cool, despite the supposedly white colour of the carpeting being now dull.

A figure was standing at the second last stair, from the bottom. That must've been Missy.

She was a bit on the short side–much shorter than me. She was beautiful, and didn't look like her father at all. Her skin was a few shades darker than her father's, for one. But her eyes were like Mr. Jacobs–they were dark brown and sharp. The only difference was that hers was puffy and red, and I could see that even from a distance.

Her dark locks were tangled in a few knots, and quite frizzy. But despite all that, Missy looked great.

Missy's full lips weren't smiling, like her father's had been. But she didn't look angry. She looked exhausted and sad. She obviously hadn't been taking her cousin's death well.

"Missy, would you mind taking the detective's step daughter upstairs with you?" Mr. Jacobs spoke up. He was looking at me as he said this though. He had an odd look of amusement in his hawk-like eyes. I frowned at that.

"Sure, dad." The way Missy said "dad" was in such a spiteful way, that I couldn't help get a weird feeling about this family.

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