Mystery Loves Company

Chapter 51 - File #6.6: The Resentful Reunion

Avery

If you looked at Leonard Pierce's face when his seven years old daughter showed him her gold medal for the Mathematics Championship, the first thing that crossed your mind would be that he was a proud and caring father. When most of the participants had their mothers to come, this little girl came with her father—not only because her mother had to stay home this time to take care of her baby brother, but also because it was her father's usual routine to accompany her to any competitions, in which she was always the youngest competitor.

That was why you would never believe that he was going to do exactly the opposite of it just about two hours after: leaving her alone.

In a room with a dead body and a murderer.

It might seem hard to believe, but it did happen and it happened so fast. Instead of going straight back home, Leonard Pierce made a quick stop to a house in the middle of the town. He thought it would be safe leaving her in the car, but she just couldn't wait any longer, especially after she received a call from her mother. She went to the house to get her father, but she didn't found him and ended up in a kitchen. When voices approached, she immediately hid in the nearest cabinet.

A man came, but it wasn't her father. Maybe he was the owner of the house, she thought. She was going to come out and apologize for coming in without permission, but the door was opened first. They were both startled, but he quickly closed it again as soon as someone called him from another room.

Arguments started, she could hear it vaguely until the man came back to where she hid. "Stay here," he said. "You'll be okay. Don't make a sound."

Other voices came closer—apparently there was so many people in the house.

"Stay here," the man repeated, with a much lower voice, and then closed the door.

The girl, who was always curious about her surrounding, became nervous—but that didn't stop her from finding out what happened out there. She slowly opened the cabinet door and left some gap to see about ten men filling up the kitchen area. One argued with other, and another joined, and so on. It became very heated when one of them pulled out a gun that put the room in silence.

She was surprised—she had seen her father's gun, but even though he was a police detective, he wouldn't be showing off his gun anywhere, especially in front of his children. That man had an ill intention with the gun, and it was definitely confirmed when he shot one of the men there—the very man who said that she would be okay if she stayed hiding there.

What happened with the little girl next? She survived, with a great amount of shock and trauma hidden behind "I'm okay."

Every time I tried to replay the whole story in my head, I only had two wishes: that it wasn't my own life story, and that I wasn't born with a photographic memory.

I might blacked out a little about the details of the event, but one thing I would never forget was how my father knew I was missing from the car but he didn't even try to look for me in the house. He just left and never came back for me. For his family.

Until now.

"Avery," he was surprised to see me standing in front of him. I bet he thought I would never breathe in his direction ever again, especially after it was revealed that he was stalking my whole family this whole time—knowing damn well what we did everyday, but had no guts to show his face, to finally apologize for what he did to me, my mom, and my brother. "How are you?"

"You tell me," I replied with gritted teeth. I wasn't gonna argue about how he's been following us for God knows how long, Rhett probably already got it covered.