Vindicta: The Story of a Vengeful Spirit

Chapter IX

Dolores smirked at her father, realization dawning upon his face. He raced toward the sound, but the young girl was faster. In a flash, the smirk was off her face and a fake face of shock and concern replaced it as she stepped in front of Sir Banquesta, desperately calling for her mother as if she had not predicted that this would happen all along.

Several other people were also coming this way: some maids, the cook, even the gardener. Dolores pushed past these people to reach the room where her mother was. It was not a room that Lady Banquesta would normally enter; that was for sure. The room had no furnishing, only the mildly dusty concrete walls and wooden floor. Even Dolores had not known that this room existed, and she had lived in the house for nine years. Perhaps she did not fully grasp Vindicta's power yet, the spirit's ability to construct crime scenes that were not there previously.

At the far end of the room lay a blood-covered body, a knife still sticking out of her chest. Lady Banquesta's eyes were still wide open, her mouth agape in what seemed like shock. This was the goriest crime scene yet, and it seemed so obviously like a crime, with the murderer not even attempting to disguise it as an accident like before. The maid standing behind Dolores let out a shriek and fainted, and Dolores smiled silently in her mind. Something that cannot be seen by just looking at the crime scene was the letter tucked into the small pocket of Lady Banquesta's blouse, words of fury that Dolores had always wanted to scream at her mother written on it, a letter that was already starting to crumble into ash in that pocket.

Then, Sir Banquesta did something that may have been what caused his unfortunate fall. He shoved the crowd aside to loom over Dolores, who was in front of the crowd, staring at the crime scene in a shocked facade, looking just like everyone else. The man grabbed his daughter roughly by the arms, tightly enough for the little girl's hands to become pale for a second. Dolores let out a little yelp of pain, but his grip didn't loosen. The man almost lifted the girl into the air, turning her to face him. Sir Banquesta's face was red with fury.

"Why, you little devil!" he spat, spittle spraying from his mouth. "DEVIL CHILD! I should have gotten rid of you a long time ago. YOU HAD THE SAME LOOK SHE HAD! This is all your fault. You..."

Sir Banquesta's sturdy hand clasped over Dolores's neck, and for a moment, the little girl was afraid that her own father was going to murder her. Of course, that little girl was not just a little girl and knew that he was too cowardly to do so—he had billions in savings and he wasn't about to lose that money to a murder trial. Another thing that Sir Banquesta forgot to consider in his act of anger was the crowd looking at them. It was only when a gasp sounded there that he suddenly let go of Dolores. The girl's balance was just fine; she could have stayed on her feet, but just for effect, she collapsed to the ground and started weeping.

"Father, Father," she wailed. "What have I done? Was I not always a good daughter?"

She said this not to her father, but for the crowd, because they all knew, or thought, that she was always a good daughter. In their minds, she had always been kind, polite, and obedient to her parents. In their minds, it was always the Lady and Sir Banquesta who had thrown daggers first. And their opinion right now was all that mattered, because people were now dialling the emergency line.

...

The same police officer that overlooked Bella's case came to analyse Lady Banquesta's body. They temporarily detained Sir Banquesta for a hearing, but everyone knew that his money could get him out of any amount of trouble that he was in. Dolores stayed, pretending to be unwilling to go to the police station with the officers, but in reality it was to stare and silently mock her mother's body.

Oh Mother, Dolores thought, then mentally grinned, you shouldn't have been like that to me. You knew what you did was wrong, but it gave you a sense of power, did it not? In the middle of your husband's affairs and that nasty gossip about you spreading around town, you seemed to have lost a bit of that pride, but why take it on your daughter? Oh Mother, how I pity you, or how I would pity you had you not been so cruel to me.
Dolores did a little evil laugh in her head and looking straight ahead, she could see that little veiled figure of her spirit ally staring at her on the streets. The other occasional pedestrians looked straight past her as if she did not exist. That was odd. Even though other people never had the chance to see Vindicta, Dolores was quite certain that the spirit never had the ability to be visible to some but invisible to others. She should have paid more attention to that little detail, but she didn't, assuming that Vindicta withheld such ability, and too busy celebrating her victory, even though it was early.

"Nobody entered the room when the crime scene was found, is that correct?" the police interviewed each person in the crowd, each person nodding or replying with a quiet yes.

"Then the murderer is found." And he held Sir Banquesta's silver ring into the air. To add to that cake, Dolores heard that some fingerprints were found, too.

It seemed like her father had more than just a child abuse accusation on his head now.