The Misguided

"Serial Killer"

Chapter 16- "Serial Killer "

Lilian was going through it, pacing around the living room in a circle, waiting for answers. You know the feeling where there's an overwhelming uncertainty in your future that starts bottling up like a deadweight, sinking the entirety of your emotions into a well? Dr. Marco calls it the "free anchor." Alongside the prospect of her being possibly incarcerated for a crime, she did not commit. Someone out there, somewhere calculated, plotted this so she would be framed.

Lilian knew deep down she didn't kill him. But there were fragments of her memory that were absent the day of the murder, constantly replaying the scenes in her mind hoping they would emerge into existence. Xavier tries to kill her. He drops the gun. He shoots himself, red splatter painting the wooden walls. She didn't pass out right away, and then what happened?

Did she do something? Did someone else do something?

The thunder of Lilian's inner investigation was stifled after the blaring ring of the doorbell. Lilian jumped from her couch, noticing a swift reflection of her appearance on the coffee table, tangled, matted hair imitating dehydrated moss and black streaks of mascara under her eyelids. She quickly trotted to the nearby bathroom and ran her hands through her scalp, separating intertwined ends with her fingertips while scrubbing away her makeup residue with an alcohol wipe.

"Ms. Woods, are you in there?"

"Yes, sorry, one second!"

Lilian took a deep breath and opened the door, painting a fake smile over her face- no, she has to look presentable, like someone who isn't bothered by the evidently false accusations, put together and confident in their statement without an ounce of flaws.

She cracked the door open slightly to see Detective Jenning alongside a man presumably in his mid-50s, a tense face cast with the stern. Dark, bushy eyebrows curved slightly upwards at the tips. A pair of hazel eyes with a cold undertone. Lilian glanced over at his name tag, "Mark Ruben, detective," it stated in bold.

"This is Detective Ruben; we are here because we were granted a warrant to search through your place." Ruben gave her a cold stare and nodded in silence. "We would appreciate it if you could cooperate with us through our investigation."

"Of course. Would you guys like to have some tea or coffee to freshen up?" Lilian gestured to them to come in, slightly waving her hands toward her.

"Thank you, but we are actually okay." Ruben pushed the door as it flew wide open; a cold breeze gushed, seemingly frosting the exterior further. The furniture was scattered all over the place. It seems like a burglar broke in and foraged for any trace of valuables through cracks in walls and dust. Ruben pushed over the coffee table in front of the entrance hallway as they stepped in, putting on gloves and a mask.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my house is very messy at the moment."

"That's okay; it saves us time from taking it out anyways."

Shoot. Lilian suddenly remembered the bandana she found in Camila's basement the night she killed Daniel. Xavier wore the same one the night he died, making her inevitably suspicious of possessing items of a dead victim. It's stuffed in a Ziploc bag in the cupboard beside the home office, exactly where Ruben is approaching right now.

"H- hey, Detective Ruben. You seem tired after all of your hard work! How about I get you something to eat or drink as you take a break?"

Ruben kept walking closer to the kitchen as if he couldn't hear the compassion in her voice.

Lilian sighed, "Well, I guess not -"

"I said I was okay earlier," He abruptly turned around to face Lilian, but he noticed the cabinet her gaze was fixated on- the one on the further most left, not leaving her peripheral once. He was immediately aware of unassociated intentions. "Thanks. But we just came here not long ago."

He opened the door of the cupboard, and saw nothing except for a small plastic bag containing a  small piece of black fabric. Ruben slowly opened the bag, and wafted towards his nose before taking it out, flashing a light to find thin, wavy long hair. Certainly not Lilian's, Camila's, nor does it belong to her husband for that matter.

"What is this? Is this yours ?"

"It's my friend Camila's. She left it here a few days ago. I was thinking of returning it, but..."

"Camila has been serving sentences for over 2 weeks, Lilian. "

"Yeah, that's what I meant to say." Lilian looked away, her hands jittering. She knew that was a poor excuse.

Ruben stuffed the bandana into a plastic bag, along with a piercing glare of skepticism. "I think this is important. We'll return anything that's not physical evidence of the crime." He murmured while he walked back towards the living room.

"Ruben, I found a gun." Jenning yelled from the study, hand held a black handgun with gold coating on the trigger. Ruben immediately took it out of her fist,  holding it up to the gleaming window, twisting it around to reflect light. There were specks of brown stain coating the bullet hole and a metallic smell. "There are traces of blood on here. We should probably get it lab-tested."  Jenning turned the gun upside down, revealing a serial number. She put on her gold-rimmed reading glasses while quickly flipping through some files, locating a diagram matching the gun."The bullets carried for this gun model also complement the ones found at the crime scene," She rummaged through her pocket, took out a plastic-wrapped bullet, and installed it inside the gun after a crisp click.

Lilian ran up to Ruben and snatched the revolver out of his hand. This is impossible, she thought. Lilian never once touched the weapon- it was lying flat on the floor before she left. Even if she did bring it home within circumstances of a mind freeze - the gun was broken, the frontier was detached from the revolver, And here, it's perfectly intact, polished like new.

"Ma'am, we ask that you do not touch anything that could be potential evidence for the homicide."

Lilian's hands trembled, and she plopped the gun onto the wooden tiles, " but wait... This isn't mine. I don't know how it got there!" But she knew her cry was no use. This was the moment she knew someone planted this in her home, which was perhaps their plan all along. Xavier and Daniel are dead, and Camila's in jail. Apparently, she has some other unknown enemies without clear motives.

"We heard this excuse over and over again, Lilian. Try to be more original."

I didn't do anything; it wasn't me, she reassured herself. At this point- everything felt cast with a blur filter; her head felt heavy. Lilian remembered she hadn't taken her prescribed medication today, already missing the optimal time. She rushed upstairs into her room, grabbed the bottle and popped a capsule into her mouth. As she was about to put the bottle back in the drawer, she noticed something different on the drug label. Her dosage was more than intended; it stated 0.0010 mg per daily intake instead of the usual 0.0005 mg, and it was proven that anything past her current information makes her have blackouts and somewhat reversing effects.

For the past couple of weeks, Lilian has been experiencing brief but sudden blackouts within a short interval of taking her medication, sometimes it takes a bit longer to see the effects. She brushed it off, assuming it was the overwhelming stress, but the high drug content makes more sense. She wondered if perhaps Dr. Marco made a mistake and it was the product of an accident. Lilian held along the rim of her bed and grabbed her prescription records flimsily while everything looked double, trailing along her vision while her head repositioned. She folded the paper open, confirming it was, in fact, not a mistake; her dosage was supposed to be the normal amount.

She took her medication a moment before she headed for Xavier's house that day.

This was when Lilian knew this wasn't even near the end of chaos, and more would strike.