The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (30 page)

Why lie about there being anything more than just that?

People who lied about their feelings for one another, usually ended up in miserable situations. Amelia, was a fine example of this. She was in her early forties and married to a man that she had absolutely nothing in common with nor did she even love him; she constantly lied to herself and others about her true feelings for him. In the early stages of this relationship, Amelia, herself, had pointed out Bobby's flaws. He was a user, that had paid for absolutely nothing the whole time that they had dated; he had expected her to pay for everything. Yet, instead of seeing this as an incentive in dumping the fuckhead, Amelia had instead married him.

To Genevieve, her brother in-law gave new definition to being truly a worthless wimp; he was a lot like a woman. He got upset if Amelia forgot their anniversaries and he expected, during these occasions, for Amelia to take on the role of the man and pay.

The whole relationship was truly twisted, but what could be done?

Amelia was her own worse enemy. She was trying to feed her overly bloated ego by lying to herself over how happy she was. When in all fairness, she really wasn't.

It was Malcolm's persisted presence, that finally ended up yanking Genevieve out of her thoughts. While Genevieve was still feeling that ever present headache, throbbing in her temples, and was far from in the mood to talk to her ex-douche bag partner, she decided to just let him have the full extent of her wrath. “What do you want, dickhead?” she growled.

It was on rare occasions, that Genevieve had ever seen her former partner get angry. Yet, when he did, it usually was like a grenade’s pin coming out – soon there would be a huge explosion.

This, just so happened, to be one of those rare occasions. If there were two things, that Malcolm absolutely hatted being called, it was dickhead and douche bag. Genevieve, on more than one occasion, had the sick gratification of being able to brag that she had called him both.

As brief as that angry, irritated, look in Malcolm's eyes was, Genevieve was gratified to know that she, again, had been responsible for that anger. Yet, no sooner had that flare been there, was it quickly replaced with a broad smile.

“Ah, Genevieve, baby, wont we ever be friends?”

“
Not in this life time, douche bag.”

With his smile faltering somewhat, he said, “Really...Why not?”

It was a surprise to Malcolm, when Genevieve suddenly stood up from her chair. Yet, that surprise didn't last, when she sarcastically said, “Okay, Malcolm..., we can be friends...”

“
Really...?”

“
Yea...Of course, that is, after I become friends with a rattlesnake...” seeing that anger flare up in his eyes again, she said sweetly, “So, when that happens, you and I can become the best of friends...” doing her best stupid, ditzy, bitch impression, she said, “Like girlfriends.”

Picking up the file on her desk, she purposely pushed past him.

Before leaving, Genevieve, swiveling around, said, “By the way, the only butt-head known in this precinct; is the cop who stole those six kilos from the evidence locker.”  

XXX

As Genevieve sat in Star Bucks, staring out the window at all the traffic, she tried to surf the internet with her useless laptop. The computer was so slow, that it took her thirty minutes just to get logged into Star Bucks' wifi and an extra twenty minutes just to get online. 

Yet, once she had, she was able to look up Monica Summers.

Like most of the people in this day and age, Monica had a Facebook account. Yet, unlike most facebook addicts, Monica hadn't posted anything new since the day she had disappeared; which was July 7, 2013 – almost six months had past since her disappearance.

Her relationship and job status, was the only thing that had changed; she was currently single and starting her own little bakery.

So, here was a woman who was moving into a healthier beginning; out of an abusive relationship and into a more prominent career.

So the real question was:

Why would someone leave all that behind – work, family, friends, and so forth?

And the answer was, they wouldn't. At least not willingly.

There were upsides and downsides about being a cop. One upside, and, ironically, this was also, a downside, was that every good cop developed this keen intuition. It was that very intuition, that was telling Genevieve, the exact same thing that the North Carolina authorities were already saying; and that was that Monica was dead. Yet, while her cop intuition was saying this, her all too hopeful optimism, was hoping that Monica had just decided to run away from it all –get a new start somewhere else.

As Genevieve continued immersing herself in the profile picture of this once happy, vibrant, young woman on her computer screen, she felt a small smile creeping to her lips.

Monica had one of those infectious smiles.

She was a very appealing woman; with curly light brown hair, brown eyes, a slightly askew nose, a darkish European complexion, and a very pretty smile. It wasn't just Monica's appeal, though, she had looks that were very similar to her own sisters. If Genevieve hadn't known better, she would have sworn that she was staring at one of her sisters or at least someone that was related to her.

When she eventually pulled herself away from Monica's profile picture, Genevieve started surfing the rest of her facebook pages. As she skimmed through Monica's numerous pictures, Genevieve noticed a few with James Fording. And, again, she was blown away by how creepy the guy looked. While in certain pictures he had his arm possessively around Monica, he still, in all those pictures, had that same creepy, cold, expression plastered to his face.

Whatever Monica had seen in James Fording, must have been a deceiving mask that was quickly removed once he had his hooks in her.

As Genevieve continued to stare at this one picture, that had James possessively holding Monica in it, she found herself, again, utterly, hypnotized by his cold stare.

Time seemed to stand still. And while Genevieve stared at this picture, her imagination took a turn for the extreme; the picture appeared to have a mind of it's own; it came alive.

As the picture started moving, like an old movie, with James' frozen expression changing from that to a sinister smile, Genevieve found herself wanting desperately to pull her gaze away from his. Yet, in the end, she could only stare directly into his cold gray eyes. The penetrating way that his gaze went right through her, had her wondering how a person could stand being stared at in such a way?

He left her paralyzed.

She wondered if Monica had felt the same about James. Possibly that was why it had taken her so long to leave him.

Had he threatened her with his piercing stares?

Who's to say.

Just when she thought her eyes couldn't get any more deceiving, Genevieve became convinced that James' stare had went from penetrating to actually winking at her.

As she leaned closer to the picture, to get a better look. It was, then, that she noticed these horrible fangs protruding from beneath James' gum line.

What the hell was going on?

She had wanted to blink, before, but, again, it was like her eyes were fixated on his face.

When she thought that she was going to lose her mind, if she didn't pull her gaze away from his, it was then that her cell phone rang—jolting her out of her hypnotic state. Finally able to break the trance, she looked away from the picture to her cell phone; she was relieved and, at the same time, disappointed to see that it was Kyle.

Letting her finger linger over the green pick-up button, she finally decided on the red one and quickly ended the call.

She was in no mood to talk to either Cirpian or Kyle.

Both men had her confused...and upset.

One minute she had been convinced that Cirpian had messed with her car on not one, but two occasions. And the next minute she found herself leaning more toward her own partner.

If Kyle had been outside her apartment and had seen Cirpian show up, he could have gotten really jealous over the idea of what her and Cirpian were doing upstairs in her bedroom. So jealous, that that jealousy had then turned to this overwhelming anger that resulted in him vandalizing her car.

Yet, the only problem with this theory, was that he had sounded truly surprised when she had told him what happened.

Then again, he could have been faking it.

For close to seven years, Genevieve had been a homicide detective; and since that time, she had developed in the sense that she now had more experience with people, that could fake such emotions as: sadness, empathy, sympathy, love, and etc.

If that wasn't enough experience, she also had the experience that came from knowing her own mother's side of the family. With the exception of her own mother, everyone on that side of the family was a perfect example of a sociopath.

Her cousin, Sandra, had been one of the best actresses that Genevieve had ever met – she truly missed her calling. Yet, the only difference between Sandra and these actors, was that, they were just pretending. Sandra on the other hand, was a true blue sociopath and, if that wasn't bad enough, she was a pathological liar. The girl had an inability to tell the truth or, even, feel remorse and sympathy. She could lie right to your face, without even blinking an eye.

On more than one occasion, Sandra had boldly looked Genevieve in the eye and lied to her. And Genevieve had believed her, up until she had gotten old enough to know better.

Along with maturity, Genevieve had also developed in the sense that she could no longer feel anything for Sandra or even Sandra's family.

It hadn't even affected her, when she found out, from flipping through the newspaper and stumbling across the obituaries, that her cousin had passed away.

At first she hadn't been sure what to feel for Sandra.

It was like reading a complete stranger's obituary. Except, she had felt more for the strangers in the obituaries than her own cousin. As much as she tried to feel something, either by remembering good times or just trying to feel that empathy for her Aunt and Uncle, her brain kept telling her that those good times had not been shared by her cousin nor the rest of that side of the family.

In the end she had closed her newspaper and went about her day as if nothing traumatic had happened.

She supposed what was saddest about the situation, was that even her own sisters didn't seem fazed about Sandra's passing. At first they had asked, who was that and, then after awhile of thinking about it, it had dawned on them who it was. Yet, they had shown the same or possibly less emotion than herself.

As Genevieve stared down at the missed call, she wondered if it was possible for Kyle to be as vindictive as her own cousin.

Could he hurt her in such away?

He claimed to love her. Yet, her cousin had on numerous occasions had said the exact same thing and not meant one damn word.

Sighing she looked back at the picture of James Fording and Monica.

It shouldn't have been such a surprise, to see that the picture was nothing but that.

Yet, it was.

The two people in the picture, were in the same motionless position; frozen in time, unable to move – especially James Fording.

For those few brief moments, that Genevieve stared at James' face, she looked for all those changes that her imagination had concocted in front of her eyes; and she saw...

Nothing.

The picture was just that—a picture. Not a demonic picture of a man's face, that could move and smilingly wink at her.

When finally she pulled her gaze away from James', to look over at the smiling Monica, Genevieve noticed then, from closer examination, how Monica's eyes betrayed her true emotions.

Monica, to the untrained eye, appeared happy, but really her eyes showed how warily frightened she was.

It took only one guess for Genevieve to know who it was that Monica was leery of, and with this guess came that dutiful emotion to protect the beautiful young woman in the picture.

The only problem was that while Genevieve felt this protective obligation for Monica, she knew that there really was nothing she could do for her.

How could you help someone, that had not only disappeared, but was most likely dead?

Without even thinking about it, she leaned out to touch Monica's face.

As her fingers skimmed over the screen, she whispered, “I'll help you, by finding where he hide you.”

XXX

It was surprising how one person could end up in places, that they really hated being. Yet, that was the case with Detective Genevieve Freemen.

One minute she had been in line at
Home Depot
, waiting to ask the cashier where or if they had wire cutters. And the next minute she was outside that horror complex, that Kyle had made her promise she would never go into alone.

Yet, since he didn't want to be her friend anymore, she didn't feel obligated to keep that promise.

As she looked at the flimsy chain around the gate, her conscience made one last ditch effort to talk her out of doing this; this time it tried to tell her, that, this was not just illegal, but she could lose her job.