Pernicious

|Chapter 26|

April 8th, 1988

Houston, Texas

10:00 am

Michael's Perspective:

*tap tap tap*

My fingers nervously tapped on the wooden arm of the chair I was sitting in. Naya sat directly beside me in the dimly lit room we were sent to. Although the room was neat and fairly decorated, the lighting and the smell of stale cigarettes did not give the room a very welcoming atmosphere. Frank sent me here to give me the proper details of yesterday's events. However, it didn't help that he was running behind. I haven't said much to Naya since yesterday. I could clearly tell that she was still upset with me for snapping at her and I was upset with her for what I found in her room. I still needed to interrogate her for the note, but I was far too mentally exhausted yesterday to cause an even bigger fuss. The silence in the room lingered on until I just felt way too uncomfortable for it to persist any longer. At one point, Naya cleared her throat and I took that as an opportunity to start a conversation.

"How's Malik holding up today?" I awkwardly squawk out.

"Why didn't you talk to him before we left? Then you would have had your answer." She snaps in a low voice.

"Well, I just asked a simple quest-" I began to snap back. As I was just about to finish my remark, Frank barges through the door and walks over to a chair connected to a large wooden desk in front of us.

Phew...perfect timing...

"Good morning you two...Michael...Naya...Can I get someone to get you a coffee? Water?" Frank asks before sitting down.

Naya and I both politely decline. We didn't want any delays and wanted Frank to get straight into the details that we both desperately wanted to hear.

"Alright then, well if that's the case, let me get straight into the details about the incident. It's quite strange actually. This incident wasn't really an accident. He wasn't a crazy fan or stalker. This attack was actually planned."

"Planned? But wait-how?" Naya began, but Frank interrupted her by slapping a case file he pulled out from a bag onto the desk.

"This is the information given to me by the Houston Police Department. Our guy is 38-year-old Antonio Alvarez, or Tony Alvarez as he likes to be called. Roughly 6'1" and...well these stats really aren't important. Alvarez is quite a shady character. Criminal record of assault and theft just to name a couple kinds of offenses. He has been linked to gang activity in other cities than Houston. During questioning, police were able to discover that Alvarez was hired to break into the toy store and attack one of you."

"Wait, which one of us?" I interjected.

"According to questioning who he attacked didn't matter, he says he wasn't planning to kill any of you because he understood that security would probably take him away before he could do any serious harm. He also wasn't armed at the time of the attack which is good."

"But wait, so if he wasn't there to kill one of us, then why did he try to choke Malik? Also, what's the point of trying to attack one of us if he knew that he would have been pulled away and arrested immediately?" Naya asked.

"Well, that's a good question that can't be answered yet. Like I said before, Alvarez was hired by someone or multiple people to do this. I'm assuming Mr. Alvarez didn't really have anything against you, but apparently other people did."

"Who was he hired by?" I asked.

"That is another question that is unknown at this point. Alvarez wouldn't tell law enforcement. Turns out he had been paid a pretty penny to go through with the attack and to keep his mouth shut."