Tell Me A Story

Chapter 30: Regina

Somebody once told me that when you found yourself in a hopeless situation, you should be alert; a solution might pop out of the blue. Staring at the security officer before me, that was what rang in my mind. We were all standing still and silent, absorbed in the shock of the sudden revelation.

"We'd like to meet her," mom broke the silence.

His face narrowed on hearing this. "What for?"

Mom thought for a second before answering. "Something's been going on from where we are. Something nasty. We thought your sister might be of some assistance."

He shook his head. "Help? Haven't you people tortured her enough? She had to leave her own husband, for God's sake! You all were busy protecting Ms Cathy over here that you failed to see her tears."

The rage inside him was steaming out on us. It didn't look like he was willing to help us. To be honest, I wasn't sure Regina would be of any help at all. But other than her, we didn't have any leads and something was definitely better than nothing.

"Look here, officer!" I blurted out suddenly, to mom's horror, "We're extremely sorry to the turmoils your sister had to go through. But does that mean others have to experience it as well?"

By now, mom was hissing in my ear about language. Well, if I was being cautious about my language, we'd never get this done with.

"People are turning up dead all of a sudden! Think about it, if your sister could help us ... will you hold her back?"

He narrowed his eyes and appeared to be contemplating the matter. "What're you talking about?"

"I think that's irrelevant," I said, much to his annoyance. He shook his head.

Finally, he said, "Fine. I'll take you to her."

***

It was about 3:00 PM when we finally started to where Regina lived. Well, she lived in the same house as her brother, Kevin, which was actually his house.

Mom had a brief chat with Sally and she let Kevin take the evening off. I didn't know what she told to convince Sally but it definitely wasn't the truth.

Kevin was seated behind us and he was giving us the directions. His house turned out to be on the way back to Little Falls; at least that would save us some time when we drive back home.

With every passing second, the more my dislike for Kevin grew. He was now murmuring something about how depressed Regina was about everything, loud enough for us to hear.

Many a times I'd an urge to snap back at him but since we actually needed him, I held my tongue.

"There are certain things that you should keep in mind before meeting her," he continued in his stiff voice, "Maximum allowed time to speak to her is fifteen minutes."

For heaven's sake, Regina isn't a freaking celebrity!

"You're not supposed to speak anything about Jason."

For what else are we going there?

"And finally, only one person is allowed in."

"Honestly Mr Kevin," I began, "Do we look like we'd sprout tentacles and grow nails? We're not going to attack her!"

He ignored my comment but mom gave me a whack on my head. I winced. For the rest of the journey, I remained silent and thankfully, he did too.

Around an hour must have passed when we finally pulled into the driveway of his house. The first thing that attracted my attention was the neatly kept garden. Flower pots were arranged in a neat line around squares of lawn.