Happily Never After (sequel to Stolen Love)

Chapter 11

"I want to help those kids. They all just lost someone that they loved. I know what that feels like." Alex and I were getting ready for work when suddenly my phone started ringing. "Detective Towning." There was a pause before the person on the other end started talking.

"Hello, this is Dr. Kein." Doctor Kein was the coroner working on the case. "I just finished the autopsy on Riley Connor."

"Blunt force trauma, like the others?" I assumed.

"Yes and no. There was blunt force trauma to the back of her head, but it was post-mortem. The cause of death was a stab wound to her lung. Riley Connor suffocated to death."

"How did we miss that at the crime scene?" I questioned. A stab wound would have left a lot of blood; a lot more than we saw.

"I presume that her jacket was strategically placed to cover the wound up after she had bled out because there is very little blood on the inside of the jacket."

"Thank you for telling me all of this." With that, I hung up the phone and continued with telling Alex the news.

"That's not our killer's MO." MO: modus operandi. It's killer's method of operation; how they kill, where, etc. "Does that mean... our serial killer isn't Riley's killer?"

I nodded my head. "We need to get this case. Things have been pretty slow in our serial case, we are already pretty involved in this case, I think with enough persuasion we could get this one."

"That will mean a lot of extra work on our part. You sure you want this case? There are other detectives who can solve it."

"I want this case. Please?"

--At the police station--

"You want me to let you take on an extra case? Are you serious?" Chief Larson questioned Alex and I.

"Yes. We are already so involved with these kids and the case, we have extra information. Our case has been slow and we don't have any more leads. We could solve this case fairly quickly I think." I tried persuading the chief when he said something I couldn't believe.

"Okay."

"What?" Was he seriously giving us the case?

"Okay. The case is yours. But if it starts to get to be too much you will hand over the case to another set of detectives, agreed?" He emphasized the word "will".

"Agreed. Thank you so much."

We left the chief's office and went over to our desks.

"Where should we start?" Alex asked me.

I thought for a moment before responding "we start with the kids. Maya, Sam, and Dominic."

--At the high school--

Alex and I were sitting outside waiting for the three to show up. We went to the office and had them call them to the courtyard.

"Detectives." Dominic said as he entered, his two friends trailing behind him. "You needed to see us?" He had an air of confidence that I hadn't seen in him before.

"Yes. We discovered that Riley was not killed by the same killer as the others." Alex explained.

"What does that mean?" Sam asked, a worried look in his eyes.

"It means that a new investigation is going to be conducted."

"Is this an interrogation?"

"No. Just a talk." I answered Maya

"I watch all those detective shows." Maya mentioned. "I know that we don't have to say anything."

"This isn't an interrogation." I responded.

"I also know that you can't speak to us without a parent present unless you want to risk losing your job." This was a new side to Maya that she hadn't shown us before.

"And you are completely free to go. We just want to figure out what happened to Riley and give her justice. You three knew her better than anyone else in the world, we were hoping you would be of some assistance." Alex took the lead on this.

"I'll stay. I'll help in any way I can." Sam spoke up.

"I'll stay too." Dominic added.

"Suit yourselves. I'm out of here." With that Maya was gone, her blonde hair swaying behind her.

We proceeded with asking Sam and Dominic questions, but Maya was right. We couldn't get any useful information from them without the risk of losing our jobs.

-- Sam's POV--

I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I looked at the clock; 9:00.

"It's open." I said and was surprised to see Maya standing in the doorway. "What are you doing here this late?" She didn't answer me. Instead, she walked over to my bed and sat down, she was inches away from me. Her breath was cold as she exhaled. "Maya, what's wrong?"

"She was so perfect."

"What are you talking about? Who was perfect?" I asked her.

"Everything she did was perfect. She was the best soccer player, practiced all the time, had straight A's in all of her classes. Most of all she was dating you, the perfect guy. Everything about her was perfect." I realized who she was talking about; Riley.

"She wasn't perfect, nobody is." Maya was clearly upset and I tried calming her down.

"She had a car, a nice one. She had two loving parents and a little brother. She had the perfect family. Everything was perfect. Me on the other hand..." Maya gave a little chuckle. "I am so far from being perfect. I was the one thing in her life that didn't match with everything else. I am not a straight A student, I don't have the perfect car waiting for me or the perfect family. My family is so messed up. My mom is never home because she always has to work and my dad is God knows where. My mom barely makes enough money for our apartment, so me getting a car anytime soon was out the window."

"What about soccer? You're great at soccer." I spoke when she stopped talking for a second.

"I'm good. But compared to Riley I would never be good enough. I would always be in her shadow. Always!" She paused and when she started talking again her voice was down to a normal level. "I was lucky enough to find a guy who liked me and even he got tired of me."

"He didn't get tired of you." I cut her off before she started talking again.

"He chose her over me. He got tired of me. Everybody does. It was only a matter of time before Riley got tired of me and left me too. I would have been alone again." Maya paused and I could see the sadness in her eyes. "Her life was perfect, but she made one mistake and it cost her her life." She looked up and looked me in the eyes. Her blue eyes had a tint of green in the smallest part of the iris. "If our roles were switched... I would never have made that mistake." She stared at me for a second before she started moving in closer to my face. Her lips slammed into mine and I pushed her away.

"Maya, what are doing?"

"Isn't it obvious? I like you, Sam."

"You're upset. Your brain is flooded with emotions and you don't know how to process it all."

"I'm not upset. I like you. The perfect guy, I bet there isn't a girl in school who doesn't like you. But you love Riley so much that you can't see it. You can't see how much all the girls swoon over you as you walk by, that they whisper about you and how amazing you are. You can't see how much I like you."

I didn't answer her. I didn't know what to say. She was right though. I loved Riley so much that my brain was clouded from seeing anything else clearly.