Justice by Oleander - 2012 Watty Awards, Finalist

Chapter 26

She turned around, walked back to the cubicle with her patient, turned to look at him and then shut the curtain.

“The nerve of the man!”  She added loud enough to be certain that Peter would hear.  “My apologies Sir.”

“It’s quite alright dear.  That was the best show I’ve had since my Hilda passed,” he chuckled, making her blush.  “Much like yourself, she was quite quick with the tongue.”

On his way out, he saw the detective walk out of some room with Mika’s boss.  They shook hands and Xavier headed straight for him.

“Mr. Makey,” the cop greeted him.

“Detective Ryans.  Just a man I had been thinking about this morning,” Peter decided that he could be his charming self.

After her public scolding, he doubted that his source had paid much attention.  The woman hadn’t lied – not that he could tell.

“What can I do for you Makey?”

“You look tired.  Rough couple of days?”  He didn’t want to poke at the sleeping bear but it was too much not to do just that.

“You should know,” the cop eyed him from top to bottom with utter disgust.  “She might have left me high and dry but I know that you’ve got some kind of hold on her.”

“Maybe she’s finally seen the light,” he told the detective.  “And by the way, I’d appreciate that laptop back Officer.”

All Detective Ryans could muster was a scoff before he shouldered his way past Peter.

“You’ll get it back, don’t you worry your pretty boy head.”

Peter couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that reeled through every nerve of his body.  The feel of success was sickly sweet.

Gone about her day as per usual, Mika was glad when the time to head home had arrived.  She had texted Xavier a few times over the course of the morning and found out that he had put quite a bit of a good show, leading Peter to believe that she had left him without a cause or listing a reason.  She smiled at how easily it had been to fool the man.

And he thinks I lie poorly, she giggled as she exited the hospital.

She arrived at Peter’s, to an empty house.  Shaking the sense of eeriness off, she headed for the fridge in search of finding something to cook.  After all, she had been told to cook the man dinner and dinner was exactly what she’d cook.  It also fed her with the excuse to rummage about the entire kitchen in search of anything that might be of evidentiary value.

Dinner was slowly simmering away in a deep pan – stir fry was on the menu.

She sat down at the breakfast bar while she leafed through a medical journal she had picked up during her lunch, earlier that day.  Turning pages, not paying attention to what each article entailed, she couldn’t hide the satisfactory grin that had been gracing her lips for the last half hour.

After her prep, she had filled the garbage and decided to take out the trash.  It was like Fortuna, the Greek Goddess of fortune and luck was smiling down on her.

Behind the trash bin, she had seen something shiny – a glass vial.  Much like the ones she had used with her own victims, this one still contained liquid.  Using her phone, she took a quick snapshot of its location.

Taking note of where she had seen the re-sealable sandwich bags, she flipped the plastic inside out and picked the glass container carefully and like that, she enclosed it in the bag.  They might just have enough to pin everything on Peter Makey.