DALIA (Book 1 in the ISWAJI series)

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Dalia's POV

"You notice this person?" He points out to the person, a man who was at least forty.

"He lives in that neighbourhood. He is very creepy. He runs a supermarket but I am not sure of his name." I respond to Officer Steve.

"How do you recognise him?"

"I've been to that supermarket a few times. But everything always felt...eerie? I don't know, he always made me feel uncomfortable. Whenever I would walk around the store, he would follow me around, he tried touching me once."

"Can you describe him more for me."

"He has this gash on his face, as if it's a claw mark from a lion? I'm not sure. He has brown hair and a weird accent. Very foreign, that I don't even recognise it. Umm, he's tall, at least six feet, I think?"

"One moment." He gets up and leaves the room, only to come back a minute later and placing more pictures in front of me.

"Does he look like any of these men?" He asks, looking at me, as if trying to get into my head to look for an answer.

I scan the pictures in front of me. Looking closely at each and every one of them.

"This one. That's the weird guy." I point out, tapping on the picture as if it could zoom in.

Officer Steve, folds his arms and leans on the table between us.

"I know you didn't do it." He says all of a sudden.

"Wait what?" I look at him confused.

"Your reasons were valid and there was no one in the school that has done it. We interrogated all the teachers there, even a few students. You seemed to know more than everyone else, which is why we took you in. You could help us." The officer looks me straight in the eyes and my sanity is wearing out.

What the fuck?

"So you thought it was logical enough to handcuff me in front of my students?"

My sass, my attitude was about to get unleashed.

"You could be leading us to more than just the case of Ghaith. This man in the picture." He points to the picture.

"We have been looking for him. He has attempted murders in the past, rape, you name whatever illegal crime that can come to your mind."

"So me pointing out to a random picture of footage the cameras in the street have taken, has helped you?"

Nothing makes any sense.

"Some what, yes. You seem to know the area, you have a good and bad feeling about things."

"The parents of Ghaith never called in for a missing person?" I ask him, to confirm what Waleed said to me.

"We did receive one. Just not directly from their phone number, they used a payphone. The possibilities of the case being a suicide was slim. Why would anyone call through a payphone, unless threatened?"

"Oh you better fucking let me in. My fiancé is in there and possibly about to spend the night in prison because of your psychotic assumptions." I hear Waleed's voice boom through the hallway.

"That must be your fiancé." Steve chuckles.

My face heats up, the thought of the fact he is, we are, considering that. Makes my heart beat.

"Chief, this man is going banana's out here." One officer comes in and tell Steve.

He's the chief? Motherfucker.