13 WINDOWS

Chapter 23 Part 3: ESCAPE

Two and a half months later...

Rupert stared out the window of the plane. The sun was setting off in the distance and a crescent moon hung above in the sky. He wasn't sure where this trip to Europe would lead him. But after the past few months of his life he knew he had to get away. He kept asking the flight attendant for refills of his red wine. He was in business class and they seemed happy to oblige. The wine was bottomless.

He hated the turbulence. His stomach would do somersaults whenever there was the slightest bump. And if the turbulence continued, it was like sheer terror. He was mortified of death. There had been so much of it in his life lately.

He thought about the events of the past two months. There had been three funerals. The first was for Nina. The police investigation had delayed the funeral for several weeks. He had met her partner Jeremy there who had taken the loss terribly. He was a broken man. Rupert met her family as well and realized how little he really ever knew about her life outside of their therapy sessions.

Everyone had been rather distant with him as soon as they realized who he was. It was probably because the only two things they knew about him were that he had been the last person to see Nina alive, and that the murder was somehow connected to him.

He had left the church early that day. He knew that he wasn't wanted. He went home and grieved privately.

The second funeral had been for Serena. This was an even more difficult ordeal. Rupert was emotionally shattered when Detective Langdon told him that Serena had not survived the attack. Rupert was quite sure he would never get over the grief. And again, at Serena's funeral, suspicion seemed to surround Rupert. He felt like he was being ostracized by several people in the room, even some of his closest friends.

To make matters more difficult, Serena's death had also become national news, not just because of the gruesomeness of the murder, but because she had been a rising star. The media had latched onto the bizarre story of the double murders allegedly connected to a mysterious figure who had fled the country.

The trail had gone cold. No one had seen the man leave the Simpson Hotel. At least not the man who appeared in the picture Rupert had printed. But there was video footage of a mysterious bearded man with curly dark hair. He was heavier set as well, similar to the video footage of the janitor in the building across from Nina's office. The detectives, and Rupert, had both reached the same conclusion that this was probably Stefan's disguise.

There had been a report that someone matching that description had boarded a flight to Munich shortly after the murder, but the passport had been under a different name. When Rupert was told by Detective Moore what the name was that Stefan Streicher was using, he felt a chill shiver up his spine. He had used the alias Hans Schiller! At the very least, the pieces were beginning to come together. Or was Stefan deliberately leaving them bread crumbs?

Rupert stared out the darkened window of the airplane, leaning his forehead against the coolness of the pane. In the reflection of the window he saw the passenger on his left looking at him. She was an older German woman in her sixties who seemed as though she wanted to make small talk. Rupert had put his earphones on as soon as he had sat down. He had been trying without much success to shut out the world with music and booze. The plane suddenly dropped in altitude and Rupert grabbed onto his drink with one hand and gripped the armrest with the other. The turbulence subsided.

He drifted back to the events of the past couple of months. Throughout the terrible crisis he had been unable to locate his Auntie Emeline. It was odd since she had left all of her clothes and luggage at the Rosedale home. He reported her as missing after 24 hours had passed. Rupert felt himself juggling disasters when he heard a news report that an unidentified body had been found below the tracks of the Mud Creek railway bridge. Rupert had a sinking feeling it was Emeline.