MYSTERY: Distance Hours - Walking alone: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Series ) (ADDITIONAL BOOK INCLUDED ) (Mystery & Suspense, Suspense Thriller Mystery Collection) (4 page)

The last task was completed, the man was no more, the man who had ruined her whole life had no life now, yet there was no satisfaction. She had killed him the way she had always dreamt she would, from the night she was molested and left to die till the night she finally did it.  The poison that attacks the ability to speak first and then crucial pain coursing through every part of the body.

Yet she still felt empty.

There was nothing more to do now. It had been decided, years ago that she will end her career of killings at the final murder of Dr. Theodore Woodhouse and it was done. She was once an innocent girl until she turned thirteen years and had to say good-bye to her comfortable life for the revenge that boiled her blood. As she looks back at those early years of her life she could not believe how much she had changed. Ten years had burnt her, molded her, and turned her into a completely different person.

She had come back to home from school that day with her friends. Nobody had the slightest idea of what had happened in the house. She entered the front door, still laughing at a joke her crush had made in the math class, not knowing what horror was to welcome her inside. Her father had been lying on the floor, immersed in a pool of blood, half-conscious. When he saw her coming he ordered her to run away but she was rooted to the spot and her mother was lying on the floor either dead or unconscious. Somebody grabbed her from behind and a stroke of something heavy brought her into the black zone of nothingness

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a cell. It was the basement of a mansion, the same mansion in which she was to kill her tormentor, many years later. She was accompanied there by an old man who was also a prisoner. He smiled at her kindly and in later years he was the one who became her mentor. He told her that her father was killed because he was trying to bring the truth to light. Mr. Theodore was involved in smuggling of innocent children and her father had found some strong evidence against him. Her father was a police officer, a simple one who took his duty to heart and he hated hypocrisy. This Theodore was considered a social reformer and a great leader that the public looked to and her father’s involvement was not welcome at all. She did not know how much she had cried that night. She missed her mother and asked the old man about her and he said that he thinks she might be alive or not, he was not sure.

She was to be transported to some other country, somewhere in the next week. She knew it so she started misbehaving with the guards. Whenever she would get frustrated she stated calling them names and profanities. The old man tried to stop her, but grief had turned her insolent to the point of insanity. One of the guards got infuriated and despite his orders of not harming her, molested her and the uproar it caused was enough for the old man to take her and run away from the prison.

He had her treated both physically and emotionally. At first she did not know or understood anything but gradually she started to recover and the first thing that she noticed was she was not in London. It was a nice small house made of wood and all around her was lush greenery and huge mountains. That was where her love for nature had developed. He used to visit her daily and brought gifts for her. She started to love him. He healed her as much as was possible, but the things which are beyond healing are another problem.

Some things must be remedied by action, he had told her one afternoon. It is when words are not enough to describe what crucial pain the person is feeling that it use of force becomes inevitable.

She nodded and after a pause she said, but what if you do not know wat should be done?

I cannot tell you that, dear. The course of action can only be decided by the one who has experienced the pain. I have seen people turn into great saints after trials and afflictions while the same tribulations for others have turned angels into demons. He replied.

What if the demons are in the form of angels?

How about creating an army of angels in the guise of devils? He had winked at her.

He stopped visiting her after that conversation and it was not long after that a young man arrived at her residence with a letter from the old man. It had a single sentence written in an elegant slant writing, would you like to be an angel in the guise of a devil? It was signed by a single beautiful G.

For the next week she kept thinking, more about the writer of the letter than the letter itself. Who was this old man? He looks old but he doesn’t feel old, she had thought. At times she felt, almost dreamt that if this old man was a young lad with romantic blue eyes. Then she jerked this thought away. It was inappropriate and this was plain obsession which she must get over with, but he was so mysterious…….

She sat at the desk in her room. The giant handsome mahogany furniture was extremely beautiful and no doubt expensive. She took a piece of parchment and gazed at it for a long time. She was not sure what to do. She wanted the revenge and she wanted to know about her mother too but even after all the tragedies she still could not find the fire in her, the desire to burn everything with it. She glanced at the window and as usual it took her breath away. The sun was setting and the sky looked like a painting of different shades of various colors; the blues mixing with red, oranges and pinks. The color can only be described as the color of sunset and anybody who has seen sunset would know what is being described. It soothed her and she made her decision, but she could not find a pen. She started to look into the drawers of the desk and with a pen she found some photographs, letters, and documents. The mystery of the old man unraveled a little and she wrote her reply.

Dear G,

YES!

Ever since then there was no looking back.

8/5/2015

Dear diary,

Today is my birthday. I have turned 28 years old. It may sound old to you but in comparison to my mental age, it is nothing.

I want to confess about something, a thought that is bothering me a lot now. It is the strangest thing to have happened, but I think I must retire now. I feel like I don’t want to travel anymore. I want to return to my home or to my mother. It is the same thing because my mother is my home. I have no other family member.

I know it is rather selfish of me to leave my mother alone, but I have left her in responsible and loving hands of Gana, the caretaker. I think Gana loves my mother more than even myself. Please, do not take me wrong, I love my mother but the fact that she did not respect my wishes and had no trust in my decisions had always been a source of pain for me. I know what she did was only out of love for me and for my safety, but I think she should have recognized my strength and allowed me to soar, but instead she tried to cage me. It is a general notion that the more you try to confine something the more it pushes through and comes out, tearing all the bonds holding it and then there is a lot of pain.

Me and my mother fought a lot on the subject, but my will was not to be broken I knew. The shock was that she did not yield either and we both got so much hurt in the process. I could not bring myself to let go of my only wish.

But,

Lately, it is a strange feeling, the moment I close my eyes I see her face and I just cannot control myself. I must return to her, I know. I miss the softness of her voice as she used to whisper soothing words to my ear, the affection in the skin of her hardened hands as they had touched me on so many occasions of happiness and grief and most of all the widening of her eyes at the mention of something alarming and wrinkles around them when she would laugh, smile, cry and talk. I miss her presence in my life, the anchor of a ship is also necessary to keep it safe. I will return to you, mum!

Before that, I have to make one last journey, though. I have lived my life the way I wanted to, welcoming different challenges as it had been thrown at me. I must plunge into one last adventure before I return to my final abode.

Let me see, where I should go now. I guess the start must be the stop. I will have my last adventure to where I had my first one. Italy, here I come!

Love,

Sam

Xoxo

There is a certain kind of people who have a habit of making their lives difficult for themselves? If there are no problems in their life, they start getting frustrated. They love to live in misery.

Augustus has that nature as well.

After Mr. Theodore had been poisoned, he resigned from his job. His reasoning was simple that he had been an undercover officer for so many years because he had never failed to catch a culprit but as he had failed to catch this woman, he had no right nor desire to continue his job.

His decision could be passed as logical on some grounds, but his further resolution to follow that woman who has defeated him was indeed maddening. It has been months since her last attack at Mr. Theodore and according to the reports, it was supposed to be the last venture of her career and she would have retired. Yet, Augustus could not get rid of those green eyes looking at him with a mixture of shock and interest.

Who is she? He thought. Where had she gone now? I have been following her around the world for around nine years now, she had done nine murders in those years and despite the reports that this one was her last, he was sure that she would do one more to complete the figure of ten murders. These people love styles and cliché’s he thought. He preferred them even more himself and decided to stop the tenth murder at all cost.

He thought of all the pros and cons. He would be working illegally but he had done that before so it was not a problem. He knows that she has green eyes and can recognize them instantly. Her height would be approximately 5.7” and she had a slim body. The little bit of her skin that he could see that night was white and if she was the same woman he had been following for all these years than it would not be difficult to catch her. Last time, she had dressed in a way to give a feeling that she was in the mid-40s, but he knew well that she was in her late 20’s. She is a master of disguises but so am I. he thought, I must defeat her at her own game.

Augustus was sitting on the balcony of his house. His chair was rocking back and forth. The tall trees around his house were visible to him. He drew a breath as an old memory of a small girl got refreshed in his mind as it so often had, but he jerked it away. Focus on the present, Gus. He told himself.

He was so drowned in these musings of his when the phone rang. He attended it and the voice from the other side informed him about something. He got satisfied with what was being conveyed to him and hung up.

He walked the whole diameter of his balcony, continuously smiling at something. I will catch you, dear, he said aloud. He paced up and down, waiting for something impatiently. Then finally the phone rang again, he attended it and the caller just said a single word and hung the phone.

He smiled with satisfaction.

Italy, he finally said it, enjoying the word thoroughly in his mouth and laughed at a joke only known to himself.

She was not sure why she could not forget those blue eyes. The scene was repeated many times in her memory. How she was hanging from the window, fighting for dear life and the jerk of her shawls and his handsome features filled with shock and interest. Her eyes must have had the same expression too.

He was a man in mid-forties and about 6 feet tall with a masculine body. His ginger hair was disheveled and slightly curly. His face was broad from the head, gradually tapering towards the chin, like an inverted triangle. His mouth was half-open with shock and his thin lips were making an O. his nose had the scars of glasses although he was not wearing one now. All his features were attractive, but she just could not forget the eyes, they were so expressive and mysterious at the same time as if they were conveying something and hiding it simultaneously.

A sudden desire gripped her. It was totally insane, of course. Although she was officially retired, but she thought that she is still capable of freeing this world from the shackles of injustice, slavery, hypocrisy and brutality. What if I commit one more murder then he might come after me again she thought desperately. Her thoughts were running on the dangerous track and she realized it soon as the memory of mother returned to her.

Life is not a game and least of a game of gamble. Following your heart is important but the brain is not a useless organ either, her mother used to tell her.

But it is so easy to listen to the heart. It never misguides anyone, I am sure. It is so easy to let go. She would always reply back not understanding why her mom was so cautious. She was a young girl then and did not have the experience of her mother.

The things which are easy to do never leads to the truth, dear. Her mother would say.

Years later when she had agreed to the old man’s proposition, her mother returned to her. She was scared and used to cry a lot. The old man had found her in the streets where she had taken up begging so she could remain safe from Mr. Theodore and it was easy for her to look for daughter as a beggar.

She had consoled her mother for a month and gradually, she started to recover and heal from the past wounds. When her mother regained the ability to talk and understand, she informed her about her decision to join the old man’s army to kill the people who practice evil acts in the society and take the revenge of her father’s murder. Her mother immediately lost her temper and a fresh lecture of are you out of your mind, you will be killed, it is too dangerous, you are very young and this is immoral started which ended on emotional blackmailing but she had already made a pact with the old man and there was no backing away now.

Well, I have done my duty now and I should not exceed it further. I will get back to the mother but before that I must find the old man.

After everything was clear between them the old man had disappeared. He stopped visiting her and all the messages were conveyed either through letters or cell phones. Her training began and different people trained her for different kind of crisis and situations, but the old man never came in front of her anymore. She tried to reach him but failed to do so. He had clearly ordered his crew to not bother him with the petty issues anymore and that he is working on something bigger.

I must find him now. He has answers to so many of my queries as well as to his own mysteries. I want to know who he is and I have a right to know so too! She thought. One last quest before the return!

She immediately started using her connections to check on his location. Even after several tries and days of hard work she failed to trace his location. She decided to look for him at every place she could think of. Then she suddenly remembered that he had once said something about the loveliness of Venice. She decided to check Italy first.

She reminded herself to forget about the blue eyes for the thousandth time!