Dead By Now : A Murder Mystery [COMPLETED]

Chapter Ten: To Love Is To Kill

I

The first thing Ken did after he left the police station was getting drunk. And when after a few days he reached The Lynntonville Manor, he was still drunk.

The person he had traveled all this distance for, however, wasn't home herself. Ophelia was visiting her mother, Evelyn informed him.

He asked Evelyn to get him a pen and paper. He wanted to leave a message for Ophelia. But it was something personal, he said and that was the reason why he did not want to leave it with Evelyn.

He said he was going to leave it in Ophelia's bedroom and that Evelyn should inform Ophelia about the same when she comes back.

The next morning when he woke up in his house he didn't remember much of the previous night. He remembered he had gone to Ophelia's house last night but not what he had written in the letter he had left for her.

II

Madelyn was lying on her bed, thinking about that same thing that had been keeping her very confused for quite a while now. There had to be a rational explanation, she thought, but she could not think of one.

The Ophelia's side of the frame had been quiet for a few days now and it was going to be for some more, Madelyn knew. Ophelia was gone for about a week this time. She wanted to spend some time with her mother.

Ophelia was back early Madelyn thought when she heard a door open. She got up to check and held up the frame in her hands. When the drawer opened, however, it was not a woman who opened it at all, but a man. Madelyn quickly moved away from the frame when she saw him. Ken threw the letter inside the drawer without even looking in it and closed it immediately. The letter went through the frame, that was kept in the drawer, and into Madelyn's lap.

III

"Hello Ophelia, I'd much rather prefer if we talked about it in person, but I am out of time, I am afraid. I am not sure if you have heard, but Julian has gone to the police with the information that he saw me go into the library that night. The night Elwood was murdered. He said at first he didn't pay much attention to it, and it wasn't until recently that he remembered what he had seen and realized what it meant. The police called me in to ask what I could have wanted from a library in the middle of the night. I don't understand why Julian is doing this all of a sudden. Now, I understand it might be a little too much to ask but considering the trouble I would be in, I think it isn't. We both truly loved each other once, didn't we? you'd do this for me I know, wouldn't you? and it is the truth after all. You did slip me that note with the dinner. The note that said to come to meet you in the library at midnight. I recognized your writing the minute I saw it for I had seen it many a times before, in the letters you used to write to me. Help me, my dear, and tell the police the truth." - Ken

IV

"She couldn't have known, she was with me." Ophelia had said about Evelyn.

It was when she had said this that the doubt had first appeared in Madelyn's mind. "How did Ophelia know then?" was the question keeping Madelyn dazed ever since she had heard Ophelia say that. If Evelyn couldn't have known that her brother was being murdered back at The Lynntonville Manor, then how did Ophelia know. She wasn't home either.

But it makes sense now, Ophelia knew of Nicholas's murder because one of the murderers told her about it. The murderer she was having an affair with, Kendall Walters.

-

"You're not looking for this, are you?" Madelyn said when she heard Ophelia, frantically, search for the letter in her room after having returned from her mother's house.

Ophelia stopped when she heard Madelyn's voice, "What?" she asked after opening the drawer.

"This," said Madelyn, pointing towards the letter she was holding in one hand, "Kendall dropped it here mistakenly," she added.

"... and yes I have read it," said Madelyn a few minutes after having handed it over to Ophelia, just in time for her to have read it.

"I can explain," Said Ophelia, stammering.

"That is just the thing, Ophelia. You do not have to. You never had to. I couldn't care less about who killed Elwood. All I ever wanted was to help you. Why didn't you tell me," said Madelyn.

"I did not kill him."

"And I wouldn't blame you, Ophelia, if you had, from all what I've heard, he deserved to die. He was a horrible person. I would have killed him for you myself if we had met earlier."

"That is just the thing, Madelyn. Someone already has."

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