Sweet Revenge thriller

Chapter Three

MY BLOOD CHILLED as I stared at the photo of my parents. I shouldn't have bought a paper, but I couldn't stop myself. I scampered back to my apartment with the newspaper under my arm and the minute I got home I crashed onto my couch and started to read. 'How innocent were the elderly couple who were gunned down? Although Detective Inspector Rutherford who is the lead investigator into the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Morisot has declined to give a statement, it has been leaked by their department that although the couple who have been portrayed by family and friends as 'just a lovely quiet couple,' they had in fact a secret life.'

I am beside myself. The article continues to suggest there was something murky in their lives which got them killed. The article wasn't explicit but the journalist hinted that Cottonsdale wasn't the quiet little village everyone thought it to be, in fact it was one of the areas with a high rate of drug trafficking. I am devastated. I decide there and then I am going to sue the paper. I google the newspaper and the same article is headlined. My knees start to wobble as I see there are several other articles from different newspapers all suggesting the same thing, with their own slant. To these horrible people that didn't even know my gentle loving parents, they are telling the world they were either Drug Dealers, Money Launderers or both.

Each article starts with, 'It is possible the Morisot's weren't the law abiding folk that everyone was led to believe.' I am grief stricken! With all my pain, I now have to deal with journalists sensationalising their murders. That night my evening is filled with anger and my stomach is filled with alcohol.

From the moment the gutter presses ran their own opinions, my phone rang constantly with Reporters wanting to offer me money to tell their readers about the secret lives of my parents. I was hoarse with shouting at them and when I shouted Floppy tore about the place like a demented, barking at my closed front door and growling at everything from my shoes under my bed to the bathroom curtains flapping in the breeze. I took her strange behaviour as a sign my mother was showing her annoyance of the situation through her much loved dog, which tore at my already hammered insides and in the end I howled like Floppy.

Everywhere I went, I had a camera or a microphone stuck in my face. 'How are you coping Athena?' 'Have the police got any new leads?' 'How much did you know about their secret lives?' I would shout at the journalists, 'My parents were law-biding citizens. If you don't stop printing your lies, I will sue you.' Generally it got a good reaction, like the journalist would back away from me. But, with every encounter I relived the agonizing moments of their bloodbath in my head.

Not that I remember very much at all. Self-preservation, Patrick calls it. But I spend countless hours asking the universe—Why? Why would someone do that to them? I know they weren't drug traffickers or money launderers. But, did they know something they shouldn't?

And as I torture myself, yet again, I trawl through possible reasons that resulted in their murders. Wealth. Maybe the murderer wanted their money? But the police had ruled that out. If the perpetrator had wanted money, they wouldn't have killed them. It is a possibility, so the Detective in charge of the case believes, that it was a drug theft that went wrong. However, no drugs were taken. I am angry the police aren't pursuing this line of inquiry...like pulling in all the drug dealers in the area...but it is their view that the viciousness of the murders is not consistent with just a drug theft. Apparently drug thieves don't butcher everyone the way they had, and especially as the perpetrator was disguised with a mask of some description pulled down over his or her head. A masked man or woman, which is pretty much all I can remember seeing. There was no reason to kill anyone.

So, we are all left wondering why?

I allow my memories to take centre stage—my father, a gentle man. A strong man. Right from an early age I sensed he was always keeping an eye on me and my mother. The Protector, was my secret name for him. Did he foresee a macabre future?