Glass Lane

Chapter 2: Charlie

Charlie could barely hear her thoughts over the sound of her mother's wailing. 

"My Hampton! My Hampton!" The woman rocked back and forth in the velvet-covered chair while the detective watched on in pitiful silence. Barbara Cross's perfectly coifed hair was a mess. Frizzy strands hung in a golden frame around her face. The woman had hardly eaten or slept since the night of the gala. That morning, driven from her bed by her daughter, she had refused to shrug on anything other than a thick robe.

Charlie Cross sat beside her, a blank look on her face. 

She knew she should be asking questions, but the words seemed to stumble and trip into silence before they crossed her lips. Her father was gone. Gone. The word just didn't seem right or real. In Charlie's mind, her father was a giant, still astride the city in all his greatness and power. She tried to fathom it all, but she couldn't.

"Of course, I'm sorry to be the one to give you this news. It's my duty, though. I'm sorry."

Charlie understood, but she understood little of the horrors the detective had revealed to them.

Everything went back to the gala for the National Institute of Historical Art, only two nights earlier. 

The event had been a lovely mix of all the city's highest society. The Hathorns. The Richards. The Harpers and even that silly exiled Duchess of Rothsmore. Faces from her childhood face from family weekends in the Alps, Charlie had been among all the familiar movers and shakers that surrounded her all her life. It had been a night of charm and enchantment...until the explosions began.

Her father, Hampton Cross had been swept up in the chaos of it all.

Once the explosions started security personnel swooped from their hiding spots and carried the family away to safety. Charlie's father had still been on the stage and was swept away by his own retinue of bodyguards and security pros. She had expected they would all meet in the alley, where the caravan of SUVs that carried them to the event was parked. However, Hampton Cross had never shown.

He wasn't seen again until his body had been discovered on the roof of the museum.

"It was tucked behind an air-conditioning unit," the detective said monotonously. "The gunshot was the official cause of his death, but there were also knife wounds in his belly and in the side of his neck."

Charlie's mother had become inconsolable after the details of her husband's murder lay exposed.

"Hildi," Charlie called into the other room. A woman in a plain housekeeping dress appeared in the doorway of the salon. "Take Mother up to her room and see that she has a few drops of moonlemon."

The woman shuffled over and took Barbara cross gently by the arm.

"Come on, Mrs. Barbara. Let's get you cleaned up."

When they were gone, Charlie Cross turned her attention back to the detective.

"How could this happen?" Charlie asked between tears.

Her uncle, Roscoe, had been the one to identify the body the morning after the gala. Now, the detective from the Manworth Metropol Police was here digging for answers.

"We don't know," the stern-faced woman said. A grimness lurked in the corner of her scowl. "That's why we're here to ask you these questions. I know it's hard, but any details you give us, no matter how small, could be incredibly helpful."

Charlie did her best to give the detective the answers she wanted. Still, there wasn't much to go on and there wasn't much that Charlie could give. She offered up what answers she had, but they were few and far between.