The One I Knew

Chapter 3

**Picture is of Emma Watson cast as Kathryn Hirst**

We huddled together in the car and read the document. It stated that Charles had signed this contract that had Eric, who we learned was Eric Shallts, was to kill Malissa. It also somehow contained Malissa’s death Certificate, which even the police department hasn’t received yet..

“How could Charles do that?” Michael asked.

“It wasn’t Charles,” I said, looking closely at the signature at the bottom.

“What do you mean?”

“Well Charles curls his i’s a different way, this one doesn’t. Whoever signed this, forged Charles’ signature.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’ve just seen his signature before,” I said, looking away from the document.

“How may I ask?”

“I just have alright? Now we know that someone has been impersonating Charles and knows him well enough to have been in his house and planted the contract,” I said.

“Someone close to them...So we need to find who this Eric is and who paid him to kill Malissa.”

“What if it’s the same person?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what if it’s one person and they’re just tricking us. That all of this is just a game and we’re the pieces.”

“Huh, I guess it makes sense,” Michael said.

“You guess? It makes complete sense! The murderer tricks us into thinking there are two people, so then we are preoccupied with finding two of them, when there is only one. When he has the chance he’ll slip away forever then Malissa’s murderer / Kathryn’s kidnapper will never be seen again.”

“Now this is why you are the best detective in Maine,” Michael smiled.

“Oh stop,” I said, lightly punching his shoulder. He swiftly grabbed my hand before I pulled it away.

“Rose,” he said, almost saying more.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just like saying your name,” he laughed. He started the car and pulled away into the road.

“Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Er...Nevermind, it wasn’t that important,” I sighed. I mean Michael was an attractive man and I honestly did like him, but it wasn’t the time for a crush. I had a murder and kidnapping to solve and so far we had only a couple clues.

“We need to turn this into Joshua, it could lead to whoever this Eric is,” Michael said, as we walked into the police station. Everyone was in a complete state of frenzy

“Where have you two been?” Joshua yelled, angrily.

“Investigating Charles’ house why?”

“Because...We got a call from this so called Eric.”

“Seriously? When did this happen?”

“A few minutes ago, he threatened that we should stop the investigation or else he’ll kill Kathryn,” Joshua said.

“Yeah, same thing he said before-”

“Not just that though...” Joshua gave a worried look around the room then had guided us into his office, away from the other detectives.

“Joshua, what is it that you can’t say in front of everyone else?” I asked.

“He said something else. He said that if we didn’t stop that he would take one of our own.”