Dark Secrets

Chapter 1

She slowly stroked over the picture in her hands, his cheek, lips, and her eyes almost lost themselves inside of the blue of his own eyes. She could almost feel the warmth of his skin, the softness on his chin even when he hadn't shaved for one day. And the smile he gave her...it was a smile that made the angels sing.

"Miss Stratton? Amy?"

Suddenly, a deep, bariton voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She pulled her stare away from the picture in her hand and looked up to the man who sat opposite to her on her white sofa. He had dark hair, a dark goatee and deep, dark brown eyes. Everything about him seemed so dark. So different from Jason, she thought to herself.

She blinked and tried to remember what he had just said to her. "I'm sorry, Detective...?"

"Mendoza. Steve Mendoza."

"Ah, right, yes. I am sorry, Detective, but I...I don't know..." She stopped, not knowing what to say. She looked down once more onto the picture in her hands and noticed that she had started shaking. She pressed both of her thumbs against each other, which she had always done when being in stressful situations since she was a little girl. As always, that calmed her down.

"I know this must be hard for you, Miss...Amy. And I am incredibly sorry I didn't come with better news. Jason was a wonderful man...friend...colleague." Detective Mendoza stopped for a moment and took a breath. "But I am here to investigate what happened, and you are our best shot at finding whoever did this to him."

Again, Amy couldn't really process what was happening around her, what the Detective had just told her. Jason, her Jason, her beloved brother, was dead. Died in line of duty for the LAPD. Shot multiple times. She tried to shake that picture from her mind, but after all those years living with her brother under the same roof, knowing the threads he was facing every day, it didn't work. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes when she looked at Mendoza again.

"How?" she asked, her voice trembling. "How can I be of any help? I haven't seen Jason for months now. The only thing I know is that he had been on this undercover mission and couldn't come home until it was finished. The only contact I had with him recently was a phone call every now and then. He always said it was dangerous to keep in touch more often with me."

Mendoza nodded. "I know, Miss...Amy," he said, correcting himself once again. "But I need to know if there was anything suspicious in his behaviour recently. Has he ever mentioned anything weird when he called you? Did he sound worried or scared?"

"Not that I know of, no. Jason is...was not an afraid person. He was a cop," Amy added, looking at Mendoza as if that would explain everything.

"Did he mention having a fight with anyone recently?"

"No."

"Nobody?"

"No," Amy replied again, starting to feel annoyed despite the terror that slowly crawled up her stomach. The realization that her brother was never coming back again. "Look, Detective, the only thing I know is that it was your Special Unit that made him go undercover a few months back, and I know that things like that never end well. I told Jason to let it go, to decline that job. But he always told me it was his big chance to step up on the career ladder. And that he was the only one able to pull it off. Whatever it was. No one ever told me anything about what was going on. I begged him to tell me what was going on, because I could feel that it was more than just an undercover job. But he never told me anything." Her eyes darkened.

Mendoza shifted forward on the sofa, now almost sitting on the edge, and grabbed Amy's hand in his. Her touch was cold and felt like he was touching a dead body, and he almost shuddered at the thought. He waited until she looked him straight in the eye.

"I know what I'm asking of you is too much for you right now, and maybe it's the shock that doesn't let you remember anything that might help our investigation. But please, try to think harder. Our entire force needs to find the bastard who did that to him." He pointed at another picture that now lay upside down on the table. The crime scene photo he had brought with him. Even through the white, thick paper, he could see the many gunshot wounds inside his former partner's body. Goosebumps and something else crawled over his skin.

Rage.

For a moment, there was a deadly silence between them, and Mendoza already thought Amy remembered something Jason had told her about his investigation, but then suddenly, she pulled her hands free from his grip, stood up and looked at him furiously.

"Think harder? My brother has just been murdered and all you do is trying to tell me that I don't think hard enough? Excuse me if I'm in shock right now, excuse me for moaning about my brother's brutal death through the hand of, what, a drug baron? Hell, next thing I know is that you'll be accusing me of killing him because I was angry that he didn't tell me anything about his undercover job!"

Mendoza stood up himself, trying to reach out to Amy, to calm her down. "Amy, please, I am sorry, I didn't want to..."

"I don't give a fuck what you want to, Detective! He was your fucking partner, it was your fucking job to take care of him, and it was your fucking boss who got him into that undercover job, so maybe you should start asking your fucking questions to him!" Amy stopped for a moment, breathing hard. She felt her heartbeat pounding in her chest, and her pulse starting to go faster. She felt like blacking out every minute. She needed to be alone. Right now.

"Go," she said, and walked over to the door of her two-room appartment. She opened it and felt the cool breeze on her bare skin. She turned around, and when she saw Mendoza still standing at her coffee table, just infront of her brand new white sofa, she screamed: "Go!"

Startled, Mendoza flinched, then grabbed his jacket from the chair next to the table. He slowly walked over to the door, but before he crossed the threshold, he stared Amy straight in the eye. He felt his own pulse thumping in his temples, knowing that a bad headache was on its way. Before she could scream at him again, telling him to leave her alone to grieve, he opened his mouth, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"This undercover thing wasn't a job. Jason quit 3 months back."