Dead By Now : A Murder Mystery [COMPLETED]

Chapter One: Now

I

He had his face to the wall and his back to where his doom was to come from. The hand that killed him came from behind him, injected something into his arm, and well, that is how he, Elwood Adams, died.

SPOILER ALERT: I am dead too, but unlike the aforementioned gentleman, about whose murder we will talk in detail later, I wasn't murdered. I killed myself. Yeah, I know. Heavy stuff. You must have a lot of questions like.. What? Why? When? and I promise, more on my story later. First, we should get to know my sister, Madelyn Adkins, a little. An introduction for the heroine of the story, right?

She had always wanted to be a lawyer. And guess what she is now? yes, a lawyer. She was barely 15 when she left home, or rather, had to leave home, and has been back three times in the last 3 months. The first time she returned was 12 years after she had originally left. It was my funeral that she had to come back for. The second was when my father fell severely ill. People say it had something to do with his son committing suicide but that's hard for me to believe.

Now, which would be her third and last time back here, she's back for her childhood best friend Kori's wedding, to one of the Ashton brothers.

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As she sat there, on one of the pews in a row in the middle, Madelyn couldn't help but think back to the time when she first met Kori almost after a 12-year gap, on her second visit to our town of Lynntonville, after my funeral, when my father was sick. Because of their complicated history, however, Madelyn had to make up an excuse to visit Kori in her clinic, she decided to fake a TMJ flare-up. Kori Wilson's clinic was also where I used to work.

Even though they were meeting for the first time in years they didn't really talk about much of anything and it took Madelyn a while to realize why Kori hadn't mentioned anything about her imminent wedding at the time when she later learned about it the same day from Lionel.

Why she didn't tell her about it wasn't as big a mystery for Madelyn as why Kori was getting married at all was. But before things could unravel any further, Madelyn had to head back to the city, where she lived with her life partner. There was this one thing that she had not talked about with anyone yet, anyone at all. She and her life partner were having issues for quite a while and they were now finally getting divorced. This was in part the reason why she was back in a town where she, more or less, was not on good terms with really anyone. Kori's wedding was merely an excuse. In reality, she just wanted to get away from the person who she was divorcing.

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As she witnessed Kori utter the words "I Do", she wondered what could have been.. if only Neil hadn't seen her kiss Kori in the woods that day and hadn't told their parents what he had seen and her father hadn't sent her away to live with her aunt. More than anything, however, she wished she could ask Kori if she, too, ever misses what they had.

II

Being at an ex's wedding was not the weirdest thing that happened to Madelyn that day, nor was having to have a very awkward conversation with the person, she was sure, outed her to her parents. The night before the wedding she had discovered something so strange that she herself hadn't fully understood yet.

The last time she was home, we had a very serious bedbug problem. Till I was alive, my family did not have anything of the sort to worry about. I always kept everything under control. Even the bedbugs. Now they obviously needed professional help but for some reason that I don't understand at all, they were hesitant to get it. Madelyn only spent like a day at our house and the next morning moved to a nearby motel. This time, however, she had confirmed it in advance that mom had taken care of the bedbugs. But unfortunately for her, the problem was not entirely taken care of. I mean, you can't really blame my mother, bedbugs are incredibly hard to get rid of, trust me I've tried. It was almost 3 in the morning. Already very exhausted from all the traveling, Madelyn was having a lot of trouble trying to get some sleep and finally decided that she's had enough. She woke mom up in the middle of the night and asked her if there was anything she could maybe sprinkle on her bed to keep the bedbugs away. Mom told her that Elwyn (Yes, that's me) mostly kept his stuff downstairs in the basement and maybe there's something there that she could use.

Even though she couldn't find a pesticide down in the basement, she did find something that caught her eye. A painting. In it were two women sitting together on a beach, staring at the setting sun. She was immediately bewitched with its beauty and decided to bring it up to her bedroom. The frame and the glass were covered in dust so she thought of cleaning it first before hanging it on her wall. After she removed the dust some words that seemed scratched on its wooden surface became visible. "Come Back Please". Madelyn didn't think much of it at the time. She was too tired really to think about anything anymore so she took a sleeping pill and after a hassle of a few minutes, finally fell asleep.

The next morning she woke up to a big thud. The painting that she was supposed to hang on her wall the previous night had fallen from her bedside table. She picked it up and put it back on the table and went downstairs to get something to pick up the pieces of the shattered glass with. After the cleanup, she jumped right into her bed again. It was 9 in the morning but she was still a little sleepy.

There was a whisper, and then some footsteps and some muffled words that Madelyn couldn't understand.

At first, she did not give the noise much thought obviously, it could have easily been coming from down the stairs, but mostly because she was half asleep. Suddenly, however, She was startled, when a voice seemed as though it came from a person standing right next to her in her bedroom. "Oh, My God!" Madelyn was sure, were the words she heard and then the noise of someone running towards her.

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