Sweet Revenge thriller

Chapter Sixteen

WHEN I GET HOME Floppy welcomes me with the usual slobbery tongue equalling ankle cringe! I'm obviously not the pent up crazy she woke up to this morning. For the rest of the day many people whiz through my head and I scrutinize their previous actions, side glances...did they then, or do they now appear to me to be suspicious. No one comes to mind. It is evening when I realise what a real dick I am! The Careless Whisperer had to be before the murders and working at Provincial Securities was much later which means I have to dismiss all my associates I'd met through my temp jobs.

I hadn't been thinking straight and I cringe at the image of The Sleaze lying bloodied and broken in the darkened alleyway.

* * *

It is in the early hours of the morning when I stop drinking and decide I need to clear my head. At the time it seemed a natural thing to do, take a walk down the empty cobbled streets in a nearby lower socioeconomic neighbourhood. I planned to take Floppy with me but when we walked out of the apartment block onto the footpath she whimpered, whined and tugged on her lead. What a loser! Back we went and I watched her scramble up onto my bed.

The moon is at half-mast and winks its dull beams between storm clouds. The gusts pick up and I lift the collar of my jacket. Tall shadows of the houses and trees appear and then disappear, blending into darkness. The iron on a tin fence rattles with the breeze, a dog howls and a vehicle which needs tuning cranks up in a nearby street. My eyes flick to movement, an old car on the sidewalk. Someone is jimmying the car door. I pretend I don't notice because the perpetrator must be desperate...two flat tires the car isn't going anywhere. But, maybe there's something of value in the car? I scoff at their optimism.

While I'm walking the empty streets I come to a harrowing possibility. I may in fact be the Careless Whisperer the girl in the dark room is referring to. I may have inadvertently told someone, something which has led to their deaths. The logic side of my brain tells me it is not possible because I never knew anything about my parents before their deaths, other than they were the utmost law abiding citizens of the UK. The thought is suddenly forced out and replaced with another and my head explodes with pain.

LIAR. LIAR. LIAR.

I grab at my skull with both hands cradling my head as if the warmth of my fingers can erase the tormenting agony of my innermost fear. Everything could be my fault. I stumble and lean against a concrete fence.

This is not the time. Do not go back to those earlier years. Focus on what needs to be done. I am a warrior. I take no prisoners.

Moments later salty tears trickle down and I turn my face into the cold breeze as the reality of the task ahead of me wrenches my heart. If I have said something to the wrong person, where the fuck do I start? Because, in my gut I know, I have no idea what the hell I would have said that led to the chain of events with such catastrophic consequences that eats away at me, day after day. And, I have no idea who I would have said it to.

A cat leaps down from a rubbish barrel and lands in front of me. It hisses. I turn and head back home while wondering who the hell I would have said anything to. Prior to the murders I had few people I could call friends, Lila being my one true friend. Since the murders I have none. I have just vanished from my former life except from my professional acquaintances; my psychiatrist Patrick, Betsy my lawyer and Ryan my accountant. All my temp job acquaintances, are just that.

Apart from recently when I contracted Betsy to arrange for me to purchase Athena's apartment block, I could count on one hand the times I had met Betsy. I would call in to pick up documents for my parents, that sort of thing. And each communication we engaged in, was just polite stuff. The weather. Betsy wanting to know how my job was going. Ryan was the same, although I was usually dropping documents to him, not picking them up. And in all fairness I hardly got a bloody word in edgeways, he was always yabbing on about something or other.