Upside Down

(20) Curiousity Killed The Cat Shifter

Chapter 20

Family : Good :: Murder :: Bad

"Emmie ... Emmie ... Emmie!" I bolt up and topple off where ever I was only to fall off and hit the ground with a thud. Small feet are standing in front of me, tapping impatiently. "You're awake ... finally." A small, round face came into my view, smiling and bubbling with her hair upside down. "I made brownies!"

I smile up at her, my face eating carpet but I'm not really caring. Her smile is so nice. She's so nice, so sweet, and so caring. I know a lot of people say that about other people but still ... thing time it's true. I don't think anyone could be as sweet and nice as Kriss, she's one of those people that are truly good which is strange seeing as how she grew up. I can't even understand how someone who went through so much had become such a great person. It must be that child-like demeanor she had.

"Brownies you say?" I joke and look up at the girl. She giggles at me and nods, trying to pull me up but I flop out on the floor and groan. "Ugh, I can't make it! My legs won't move!" Kriss is still laughing and pulling at my arms, trying to drag me out from in-between the coffee table and couch but my legs and arms are everywhere and catching onto everything and she's not getting very far.

"Emmie, come on," Kriss whines.

"Kris-Oof!" I let out a puff of air as Kriss jumped onto my stomach which kind of hurt but not too much, especially when she's smiling at me like that as if daring me too say anything. "Oh, oh no you didn't." She bites her bottom lip in an adorable way when I jump up, swoop her up in my arms and run to the kitchen as we both scream.

"Emerson, what is with all the screaming?" I hear my mom say in front of the stove.

"Oh, hey Mom." I grin at her and set Kriss down. "I heard there was brownies."

"Finally, you've woken up. You've been dead to the world for a couple of hours. Brownies are on the counter." Mom told me, turning back to the stove and chopping up carrots.

"Hours?" I questioned, unfolding the tinfoil from the pan and pulling out there square of deliciousness that could only be one thing: a chocolate brownie. So fantastic, so scrumptious, so ... amazing!

"Save some for the others!" I shriek when I go for a third brownie and my mother's hand smacked my hand away. "About four hours, why, you got somewhere to go?"

"I was going to go to the winter festival later with Kriss." I mumbled through a mouthful of brownie.

"Well, you might want to start heading over there. It's already six 'o' clock and it closes around twelve."

"Will do, mom."

[The Rufus Family Household]

Another beam of light from a camera flashed quickly over the scene.

"So, when was the last you saw him?" The man asked with a pen poised over a notepad.

"In the kitchen where he asked what we were having for dinner." Mrs. Rufus answered with her diamond necklace gleaming. "I don't know what happen, please tell me." She pleaded, black tears ran down her cheeks from the mascara, her face was starting to turn red and her blood was pumping too fast. On the floor of the room down below her husband laid, his blood not pumping at all. In fact, his blood laid in a red pool around his neck and shoulders, crusting his nicely gelled hair and expensive black suit. His grey eyes were dull, more dull than normal and not blinking. Oh, and one of his shoes are missing.

Xavier stood with another cop in the other corner of the room, talking. He didn't look too stressed for a boy whose father is lying dead on the floor not ten feet away. Though he could never commit this kind of crime, he had a good alibi, out to the movies with his friends and he even had the movie ticket but ... the police officer wasn't too sure.

Something about Xavier always gave him the creeps. It might be that smile, or those knowing eyes, or how he stood, it was just weird to him.

Casey Douglas was a relatively new officer but he wasn't knew to the cat shifters and every cat shifter knew who Xavier Rufus was. Xavier was the golden boy, the know-it-all, the goody-two-shoes who always ran to the parents telling who did what. Casey had never met the boy personally but from his younger cousins and friends ... he didn't exactly want to. And at first Casey thought it was all just stories that they exaggerated because they didn't like being caught doing bad things but now ... he was starting to see it. That weirdness the other, older officers don't seem to notice like his fidgeting and how his eyes always seem to drift around to different points in the room and especially his cell phone.

Xavier was officially giving Casey the willies. Casey could barely concentrate on his paper work before Officer Graveled, told everyone to pack it up. Casey couldn't have rushed faster if he tried. The forensics were packing up samples, one officer was wrapping it up with the Rufus's youngest child, Charles, and Casey bolts out the door before you could say OMG-there's-a-dead-body! Right as he jumps into his crappy green Prius he looks out of his window and into the woods. Something is flashing, glinting like it's reflecting light.

Slowly he gets out of his crappy Prius and walks to the woods. Everyone is still and side and no one sees him. There's something in the woods, it's in a hollow of an old tree. It was glinting and the closer he got the better he could see it.

A knife, and not just any knife, one covered in blood lying next to a single black dress shoe. The bottom part of the shoe was broken and something else glitter. Even though Casey was horrified by the thought of the killer being in those woods (because he knew whoever hid this was Alexander Rufus's killer) he knew his duty as a police man told him to find out what it was that shone between the sole and the rubber of the shoe. He placed on some latex gloves from his pockets onto his hands then gently pulled the shoe apart to find a key.

Just a key, not even a cool old looking key just one that looked to be a house key. If this was Alexander's shoe then he must of kept a spare house key here just in case, nothing special about it. Casey huffed, and he had thought he had found a big something, it would have been cool if he had found something like that though.

A rustling brought Casey out of his day dream, a small rustle but a rustle none-the-less.

"Whose there?" Casey called out and no one answered. He reached for the gun in his holster just as the bush in front of him started rustling and out stepped a monster Casey could only find in his nightmares.

He started to scream, he started to thrash around but the monster had him in deep grips and no one heard him from the woods.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that curiousity killed the cat?"