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    Chapter 16

    tab There were only two things that would've surprised me more. One, the thing that you found was more surprising. And two, the fact...that you found something that was more surprising than this
    tab Needless to say, I was pretty surprised. I stared at the ground, at the ground, a blank look on my face, waiting for the conversation to go on.
    tab "You okay?" I looked back up. A concerned face was printed on Sarah's face. I straightened my back, and replied,
    tab "Yeah. Fine." Now Sarah was surprised.
    tab "That...wasn't the reaction I was expecting."
    tab "Reaction to what?" I asked, acting as though I hadn't heard anything peculiar. Which would be a total lie.
    tab "I saw it!" she shouted, aggrevated. "I told you, I saw your wife...wife murdered..." Her voice droned out on the word murder, and she glanced away.
    tab "Pinch me," I gaped, still hardly believing what I heard. "I'm dreaming." She looked back at me, and said,
    tab "I'm afraid not." Neither of us said anything. Not a word. For a minute, the room was quiet. Then I said,
    tab "You gonna tell me what heppened? Because, I'm dying here."
    tab "Yes. I was getting to that." She took a long, deep sigh, and started,
    tab "When oppurtunity came knocking, I didn't turn it down. Immediately, I ran away...ran away from everything. Everything that happened."
    tab "You said you were getting used to life as a criminal. Why did you run away?" She looked at me, and said as if the answer was obvious,
    tab "Chad, if you been stuck with a criminal gang for 15 years, than you would understand. I didn't say I liked being a criminal. I said I was used to it. A beggar is used to being poor. That doesn't me they like being poor." I shut my mouth. No more comments from the peanut gallery.
    tab "Anyway..." she went on, "for the next...over month and a half, things happened in a blur. I remember asking people...asking about where Elizabeth lived...about where my sister lived."
    tab "So my wife was your sister. Is that what your saying?" She paused, and then nodded.
    tab "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, she was."
    tab "Why didn't she tell me?!" I shouted, all sorts of angry all over again. "Why didn't she tell me she had a sister?!" If I had thought about it, I would've probably been able to figure out why. But my mind was too fogged at that moment. I couldn't think straight. Heck, I couldn't see straight. My eyes were in a blur of uninivited tear drops...I then realalized how much I wanted Elizabeth back. Not just because I missed her, but for that too. But because I had questions for her, some of them I didn't think Sarah could answer. How much did she know about this gang? Did she know Charles was part of it when he came over?
    tab "She couldn't." I suddenly snapped back to reality, off my not-on-track train tangent.
    tab "What?" I asked. For a second, I forgot everything we said.
    tab "She couldn't tell you. I was held hostage, and she couldn't risk telling you. It would probably attract too many questions from you, and might've led to you leaking it to the media." Ah. Right. Again, no more comments from the peanut gallery.
    tab "All right," I said, trying to get off the subject of my dumb questions. "Go on. I'm all ears." She nodded, and continued,
    tab "Eventually, I learned she lived here. On the same street where we were raised...The same street I was kidnapped on. The same street which I learned then was named "Doom's Street" after me. That's when I heard the rumors. I had to contain myself. I didn't want to reveal my secrets to the world. Not yet." She hesitated, and then went on with a glum look on her face,
    tab "After obtaining the information, I went over to the house. She didn't notice me for a minute, but once she did, boy, I sure got a reaction. I think there are more adjectives to describe her face than just 'surprised', but I can't really thing of them. She was stuttering, asking me what happened, how I did it, if I was ok, whether anyone else knew..." A tear trickled down her cheeks. More came rushing down, and through her waterworks she managed to say,
    tab "It was really dark. It was somewhere around 4..."
    tab "Somewhere around 4..." I repeated, awe struck.
    tab "Yes. I started to explain to her what happened. Everything. When suddenly, the phone rang."
    tab "The phone rang...So Charles wasn't lying."
    tab "The conversation wasn't long," she cut in, uneasily. "Just a quick 'Hello' from Elizabeth and there was an anonymous crack noise in the air. It took me a second to realize what happened." She held up her right hand again.
    tab "I was bleeding. Hard. I fell--I fell to the ground with a scream. The world was dizzy. I felt like I was about to explode. But...I was still concious. And I saw...or more accurately, heard what happened next. Immediately...Elizabeth dropped the phone, not even bothering to put it into the reciever. Another crack rang in the air. Elizabeth didn't utter a sound of pain, but I saw her shadowed silhouette crumple to the ground. Dead. My sister was--was dead. And then the world faded away, and I passed out."
    tab "Why did he leave you wounded? Why didn't he shoot you again to kill you?"
    tab "It was pitch black. I'm sure the murderer couldn't tell whether either of us were dead or not." Shoot. Frikken peanut gallery.
    tab "When I came to," she continued, "it was still dark. Pitch black. I couldn't see anything. I crawled my way out of the room, and got to the kitchen. I found a strip of wash cloth, and wrapped it around me. When I came back to the room, Elizabeth--Elizabeth was gone."
    tab "Where was I?" I asked, suddenly cutting in.
    tab "What do you mean?"
    tab "From my memory, I went to bed with Elizabeth. So, tell me. Where was I?" Sarah shook her head, and replied,
    tab "I don't know. But I didn't see you on the bed."
    tab "You didn't see me--Wait, what?! Then was I even in the room?"
    tab "Everything happened so fast, Chad. I don't...I hardly even remember that that night even happened."
    tab "So I can assume you weren't able to identify who the killer was either." Sarah shook her head.
    tab "But we know it wasn't Charles," I went on. "He was busy making that phone call. For whatever reason exactly he made it in the first place."
    tab "But he was still a proxy to the crime," Sarah reminded me. I nodded, and said,
    tab "Right. But as far as murderer goes, I got my bets on that Kyle guy."
    tab "We can't go throwing the blame out yet," Sarah pointed out. "We don't have enough proof." I nodded.
    tab "I know the motive of the crime, though, now," I said. "That clears up a lot. The murderer was after revenge. And the murderer got two birds with one stone." Sarah tilted her head like a confused puppy, and asked,
    tab "Two birds...in one stone?" I nodded.
    tab "Yes. You escaped. You broke the deal. So they might not have killed you, but they killed your sister. And I got Kyle in jail. Those are the perfect motives for murder. But who did it? Was it really Kyle? And where was I in all this? Those questions are still jumbling around in my head." Sarah smiled at me, and said,
    tab "Well, I'm sure you'll be able to figure everything out."
    tab "Just how do you figure that? I don't even know where to start." Then she leaned closer to me, bending her head towards me.
    tab "You're a detective. Do what comes natural." Then something a little unexpected happened. I was kissed. Right on the nose. A quick two second peck, granted, but still. She took a couple steps back, then a little hurriedly rushed out the door.
    tab Yeah, right. I knew why I was a detective. I don't have talents. I'm just a paranoid freak who lost his wife and kid and wanted to get even with all those criminals. I had no sleuthing blood in me. None.
    tab But more importantly, did that just happen? Did Sarah just kiss me?
    tab I think I found the two things that were more surprising than the last surprising thing.