All You Had To Do Was Stay

29. Someday

"The more I try to get to you, the more we crash apart."

- Bumper Cars, Alex and Sierra 

_______

"How are you? Better now?" The detective asks.

I nod. "Yes, thank you."

"Has Ed been alright? Last I saw him, he wouldn't eat much and rarely spoke. " He remarks, his index trailing over the counter in the kitchen as I watch him from my stool.

"Really?" I frown briefly. "I didn't know that."

"It happens. He has his father now, though." He stops his slow steps as he sets his odd gaze on me. "So, do you remember what happened?"

"You mean the...?" I point to my shoulder hesitantly.

"Yes. " He pulls a chair and sits across the counter in front of me.

I run my fingers through my hair lightly. "I think, I could be wrong though and mix it up with a nightmare instead. " I inform him.

He takes off his glasses. "It's alright. Go back to that day, walk me through it." He urges and places his elbows on the table with his hands clamped together.

"Alright, well, I guess I was walking to the pub after getting into a fight with someone from work. I don't really remember that, but I do remember I was too angry for something that was irrelevant. I got into the place, the faces are sort of blurry. I think I barely made it to the bar when I felt the bullet..." I wince slightly. "That's it, I didn't see who it was."

Detective Jones slowly nods. "I see. " He sighs and pulls a tight smile. "Good news is, we have the person who shot you, and the person who was behind the whole thing. Tell me, does the name Daren Johnson sound familiar to you?"

I think for a moment, almost saying no until a face appeared in my mind. "Maybe? Why?"

"Well..." he takes out a file from inside his coat, and I mentally snort at how stereotypical he looks for a detective. He takes out two printed pictures of a man in prison holding holding that card with some number. "That's Daren, he worked as a cop for a long time until he was fired for a certain case that he tarnished. It caused a lot of damage. He disappeared after that, according to his wife he took his things and just left. He had two daughters," he pauses as he takes out something else from his coat. It's a locket that looks awfully familiar, even though I'm more than sure I've never seen it before. He opens it and slides it toward me. "It's been years since they saw him. We didn't find him until we had his partner first, who was a suspect at first since we didn't have a solid evidence. We only saw him once, he was found dead the next time we went to arrest him."

"Jesus." I mutter under my breath.

"Yeah, well, he's been shot three times in his chest. It was clear someone wanted him to shut up, forever. And so, we searched his whole house until I found a hidden old phone in a shoe box under the sink in his kitchen. We found a blocked number in it, and got that cracked by one of the agents and we called him anonymously and tracked the call. That's when we found Daren hiding in one of the poor areas in the city in a small wooden house. He was arrested, but that wasn't the peculiar part. What was found in his house...well, if I didn't know better, I would have thought he was a psychopath. "

He takes out another pair of pictures. "This is where he had names of people tied together with threads and pins." He points at the picture where there is a board with pieces of papers pinned on it.

The words are small and blurry, but that didn't make it any less creepy.

"Turns out he's responsible for five other murders, including the one of his partner."