HONEYDEW (A murder mystery)

Chapter 26

Assalamu alaikum.

Hello readers,

I hope to garner a million comments which are next to impossible. But one can always fantasize. 💕

Dedicated to Mumtaz70

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Such beautiful roses, It cannot be from Aahil, "Who sent it to you?" Lissa questioned as she eyed the roses suspiciously.

I handed her the card and sank to the nearby sofa, trying my best to calm myself.

Her mouth formed an O, as she stared at the card, "Aleena you'd better call the police."

"Yes. I should do that."

I recalled the card Mr Hamilton had given me. I walked over to my handbag and fiddled with the unnecessary items in my bag until my hand traced the hard paper.

A minute later I was on the phone, "Detective hamilton."

There was a brief delay, "Yes. Green Hamilton here."

"This is Aleena here. Someone has left a huge bouquet of red roses in my hospital room by the side table and there is a card tucked in between the roses, which has a threatening note. I wonder if you could come by ........."

There was silence.

"Give me a couple of minutes."

I took a deep breath and turned to Lissa, "Don't worry. He's coming."

"I will worry. Stop acting brave, Aleena. It is ok to be scared, someone is trying to kill us."

Naked fear crept through my spine and I remembered the last time I received such threatening note, Aahil assuring me that he would protect me and I needn't be scared.

But now the role had to be reversed and I couldn't break down so easily.

I would protect him. I wouldn't allow the threats to freak me out and back out from solving the mystery. I would ask the police to increase hospital security.

Yaa Allah protects us.

Lissa placed a call to Dilshad and he promised to be there within a couple of minutes.

I and Lisa hurriedly snatched our abayas which we had discarded a moment ago and slipped it over our pyjamas.

There was a slight knock on the door and Lissa opened it to reveal a tensed looking Dilshad.

He had witnessed as much stress as any of us in the past days and had lost a huge amount of sleep too. I felt very guilty to have disturbed him when he could have had slept peacefully for a few hours before the surgery.

Liss passed him the card and bouquet, and he just sat there staring at the note without replying.

He looked too drained to speak and I couldn't blame him as I myself was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

The silence stretched for a good amount of time until Dilshad noticed the untouched food on the table.

As he urged us to have dinner, without any argument with him, I and Lissa began piling the food on our plates and sat on the sofa and began eating.

It tasted like sawdust as I had no mood nor appetite.

After about half an hour, Detective hamilton knocked on the door.

He was accompanied by a handwriting expert who had come to the villa previously when we had got the first threatening note.

He sat in one of the chairs in the corner, retrieved the old note from a small bag he had brought and sat there comparing both the cards for a long time, "There is no similarity between the handwritings, both the notes are written by different people."