Love is Dangerous

2. Memories

The following days were a little better. No one talked about what happened in the building and the fire was considered only involuntary, a casual event due to the old age of that place and the fact that, apparently, it was used as an unauthorized warehouse for flammable materials.
It was impossible to have other ideas about it and so, after a while, even Charlotte tried to forget all that awful situation.

And Mark? After the fire, he declared that he felt too sick to go to work and he literally disappeared for some days.
That was a real relief for Charlotte; she could have enough time to think about the writings and to try to find an explanation.

Did she have any enemies? Probably not...not in Bath, at least. But, at the same, it was highly unlikely that a person who didn't know her had decided to write her name on the walls of an old building.

So...maybe there was another Charlotte Cornell in town, and that idea was okay but, again, the fact that the warehouse caught fire in front of her eyes suggested her that she was the right Charlotte.

The writings were surely referred to her. Also, she was a cop, she couldn't believe in coincidences...

At that moment she was working at the police station, and Lydia came close to her; they were still friends, so they talked for a few minutes, but Charlotte didn't say anything about all her doubts.
However, as soon as she went away, Charlotte continued to think again about her problems, exactly from the point where she was interrupted.

There were some things that almost no one knew about her past; she never told anyone because it was not important in her opinion and also because she had always hoped to leave the past behind. Maybe it wasn't possible.

The problem was that sometimes it was difficult even for her to collect all the pieces of the puzzle, and her memories, after two years, had slowly started to disappear or, even worse, to change a little. It really was not easy to think about the past; because, at the same time, other memories were still so clear, so intense, that sometimes it was even difficult, painful to remember. She didn't want to think about Newcastle anymore but now... Now she had to.

There were many reasons why she decided to move from Newcastle to Bath: for example, because job opportunities were better in the South of the nation and, also, because she had always liked Somerset. All these reasons had been important for her final choice, but not fundamental, there was something more.

When she worked in Newcastle, her hometown, she was one of the best agents and, in just 3 years, she had become important and respected; she made some mistakes in her first missions as a cop, for sure, but her skills were rapidly recognized by her colleagues.
She had many friends there and also a boyfriend, who worked side by side with her to fight the crime of the city. Everything was perfect.

They were almost the same age and, although her career was becoming a little more important than his, she felt that nothing could have destroyed that amazing life.
Instead, something actually happened.

Daniel, her boyfriend, one day decided to start breaking a couple of rules of the police, trying to uncover the plans of some criminals in some "questionable ways". It was nothing serious at the beginning, but after a while he started to take more and more risks.

Everybody knew it, however all agents decided to keep the secret because they believed in him and, also, because even if he wasn't following the standard procedure, he was really trying to do something to help the city.

To her eyes he was almost a hero, a person ready to lose everything just to help the others. He was great and Charlotte, as well, never did anything to stop him or to change his purpose.
And...one day everything went wrong. During the final investigation, he was murdered.
As usual, he was trying to save the world all by himself, and decided to contact the police station only after finding out the exact location of the criminals; when they arrived, it was already too late.