CHAPTER 37

    Dylan walked across the parking lot hurriedly. Her heart was still beating loudly and rapidly even after she had left the building. She never would have thought that seeing Carly would affect her like that. At least she had hoped it wouldn't even though she had spent the most part of her life trying to forget her. She fumbled into the pockets or her jeans and produced her car keys, opened the car and got inside.

           "Shit!" she exclaimed loudly and leaned back in her seat then closed her eyes. Despite all efforts of pushing it away, the image slowly formed in her mind. She saw herself turning around a corner, looking up and her eyes settling on a woman. She had just seen her from behind but the way her heart had jumped,with a very familiar realization she had known. Then she recognized Carl and it was all confirmed. The woman had turned around and the moment their eyes,her mouth had gone dry and her eyes fixated on her in a daze. Every word she would have wished to say failed her, burning her throat but not coming out of her mouth. And then she had decided to approach them. That had been the most difficult step she'd had to take that day. Carly,her highschool lover and the only one she had managed to love genuinely in her entire life. The girl who had broken her heart into a million tiny pieces but still captured her in a snare. Now a grown woman,a very attractive and mature woman who now had responsibilities unlike during their highschool times when she dodged them whenever she had the chance. She had been taken by her form,her physical appearance so grown up and so captivating. She had caught herself staring which was the last thing she would have wanted at that moment. There was also a certain kind of sadness in her eyes. She had no idea where it came from; whether it was because of her unwell son. Oh yeah, the son she was yet to meet. How did he look like? Her or his father who she had tried not to hate even though she hadn't met him. Pathetic she knew,but she couldn't help herself. But that was years ago, she ought to have come to terms with that and not carrying the hurt from her past. Or was the sadness because of something else? 'Why are you concerned? It's not like she would want you to feel like that about her, your closeness ended along time ago.' A voice inside her head said and flipped her back to reality. She had duties to attend to instead of entertaining thoughts of a person who had lost interest in her and moved on a long time ago. She started the car and left.

                    *****

       She stood under the warm jet spray of water,her eyes tightly closed and for a moment thoughts about Carly were forgotten. Her most recent concerns took over. It was the third day since Kelley Smith was released from jail and even though she knew she shouldn't be concerned about her,at least not for the first few days,she still knew she had to be ready for anything not to be taken by surprise like her mother had. And then there was the multiple cases of death and assault all around the town and they hadn't known who was carrying them out or who was being targeted next. There hadn't been a pattern in the killings which had started a few months later after her mother had died. Her heart skipped a bit, could they all be related to that? And if yes,did it mean that Kelley was involved in those deaths or had she been wrong about her? Maybe it wasn't Kelley that had ordered her mother's death, maybe it was someone else who knew about her prison escapades and how she had collided and made enemies with Kelley and then decided to take advantage of that knowing that it would all lead back to Kelley. But who exactly was that? She frowned. She couldn't think of any other greater enemy even if she cracked her head. 

        Her hand travelled upwards towards her neck and caught her pendant. She twirled it in her fingers absently but the moment she felt the letters against her skin,her mind snapped back. She had no idea why she still wore the pendant. She had no idea why it was so hard to take it off. Perhaps this was why she hadn't managed to move on. Because she had carried a part of Carly all along with her. 'Don't be ridiculous, it's just a pendant.' Yeah,a pendant that had been her eighteenth birthday gift from the only girl she had ever loved and had been hanging around her neck for the last eleven years. She shook her head. 

     She heard a gentle rap at her window. At first she thought it was her paranoia acting but then a click followed. She turned off the shower and listened more alarmed now. Was it just the wind swaying the window at the front of her apartment? She lived on the first floor of the  five storyed building, which had a tree in the back whose branches rasped against the glass window of her apartment. She was used to it but this time it made her jump. She wrapped a clean towel around her waist,put on a random t-shirt from her bed and retrieved her gun from the bedside table. She walked out slowly, blinking minimally afraid that anything would go past her eye and went to her living room,her gun poised in front of her. Rockie pricked his ears,whined softly then laid back down uninterested in whatever was going on which proved to her that she was alarmed for nothing. That though didn't stop her from going to her window and checking if there was anything unusual. She peeped outside then shook her head and sighed heavily. Her line of work meant looking over her shoulder all the time but this time, the situation was beginning to get in her nerves. She dropped the arm holding the gun to her side and walked back to where Rockie was lying. She bristled her fingers through his fur then patted him on his head before heading back to her bedroom. Her eyes flew to the small package she had definitely not left lying on her bed then directly to her bedroom window where the curtains stood as intact as she had left them. She frowned then headed forward and looked down. No one was in sight. How could someone enter the room, leave the package then leave unnoticed within the few seconds it took her to get to her living room and back? A ghost?

     She couldn't blame herself for thinking all sorts of impossible things. Her brain was a mess.

She walked back to her bed and took the small box. It was light as if nothing was inside but she went ahead and opened it. Seeing a picture of her and Carly when they were teenagers was the last thing she had expected to find inside. She looked at it in confusion and shock but only for a few seconds. A note at the bottom of the box caught her eye. She took it and read,'DID YOU MISS ME?' was scribbled in a handwriting that seemed more like a child's. She frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Was she supposed to be aware of the identity of whoever that was? Kelley? Someone else? She felt a cold sweat trickle down her back. What was she supposed to do now? Be vigilant in the streets and in her own home? 

        "Fuck!" she cursed loudly. It suck to be the hunted without any knowledge who her attacker was or when they would strike or even which angle they would strike from. Her phone vibrated then rang at full blast and she jumped."Jesus!" The chief's name appeared on the caller ID and she sighed with relief. She took a deep breath before answering, "Yeah."

         "How long is it gonna take you to get back here? I have a family emergency to take care of."

        "I'm on my way." She replied then ended the call. She walked to her closet, picked the nearest uniform and dressed. She unleashed Rockie then locked up and left, remembering to activate her door security alarm. 

   It took her fifteen minutes to get back to the hospital. The chief was already pacing up and down the hallway near the door of the room their victim was being treated in. He stopped immediately he noticed her..

       "Now you do look like an officer on duty,"he commented with a smile. "What took you so long?"

        "Sorry,I was just..." she caught herself before she started telling him about everything that had happened within those few minutes. "Just stuff...I had to release my dog and my neighbor's cat had to be fed,"she lied laughing it off with a sigh,"I have to make sure she doesn't die while her owner is traveling overseas."

   Her boss looked at her with a frown then nodded,"Okay, since you are here now, I'm gonna go. Detective Watson will be here at around two in the afternoon to relieve you."

         "Watson?" she had never heard of such a name in the department.

         "He's new, just came in from secret service in DC."

  Dylan frowned wondering why someone would leave a job like that to work in a local department in Los Angeles but she nodded without a question.

         "Tell me if anything happens. With you,with our victim... don't keep a single thing from me, alright?"

 She nodded guiltily,"Yeah."

Of course she should have told him about the picture, about the small note. She wanted to dismiss the whole thing as a mere joke or probably a prank on her to see her reaction. She wanted to think that it was someone who knew her too well and everything that was going on in her life including her fears; who else would be in custody of a picture from her past except those close to her? Her gut though, told her otherwise. She couldn't just ignore the whole thing but at the same time didn't want to alarm her boss. Knowing him,she would be forced off duty and taken to protective custody until the whole thing ended. What she thought was that they at least needed a base to start with and it would only happen if she was involved. Once she had that, she would talk to him about it. She took a chair and settled at the door of the room, crossed her arms and stared up in the ceiling,her mind beginning to work in every angle she could think of.

                         ★★★

       Meanwhile, Carly walked back into her son's room. She couldn't stop thinking about the conversation she'd had with her brother about Dylan. Could it be true that she hadn't allowed herself to love or be loved by anyone else in her entire life? Had she broken her that much? It hurt to think that that was the only explanation but it was now too late to go back and undo the things. She knew if that was true, she would have to leave with the guilt for the rest of her life. She sat down on the bed since her parents were occupying the only two chairs in the room but her mind was far away in deep thoughts. She could hear them laughing but she couldn't tell what had been said.

               "Mommy?" Teddy took her hand and shook her snapping her out of her thoughts."What's wrong?" she asked in his little concerned voice. Her parents focused their eyes on her.

   She looked at him and tried to smile,"It's nothing baby." She rubbed his little palm with her thumb reassuringly.  "Everything is fine, just focus on getting better."

             "Are you sad about me? Did the doctors say that I'm going to die?"

   Carly looked at him but not  surprised he had asked that. It wasn't the first time.

            "Carly?" her father called but instead of answering, she looked at her son. She knew they were surprised and probably even worried by his question but she knew how to handle him.

             "Are you afraid that you might?" she asked softly.

             "No," he replied softly. "But I don't want to die and leave you alone."

    Carly knew he meant every word and he acted like he understood everything about death perfectly and it took all her courage not to shed any tears. 

                "You are not going to die. You will be treated and you are gonna go back to school. You will have many visits to the beach with Grandpa and get to eat many chocolate cookies made by grandma and we are gonna have so many pancake Saturdays together."

              "And ride many cars with Uncle Carl?" he added.

   She smiled,"Yeah and that too." She looked at her parents and found them looking on with pride and she could see how genuinely happy they were.

            "What happened outside though? You seemed sad about something," he stated and she sighed knowing that he wouldn't drop it until she had told him something, anything.

               "I just ran into a friend I haven't talked to in a long while and it didn't go so well."

   Her mother looked at her questioningly, "Dylan?" Of course she would immediately guess who exactly had affected her that much. She nodded.

            "Who is Dylan?" Teddy asked innocently. Carly didn't know how to answer him,lie to him or tell her exactly who Dylan was or had been to her. She looked at her parents for help.

             "She's just someone your mom used to go to school with,years back," her father replied and she looked at him with gratitude.

             "Cool name!" Teddy exclaimed with a grin.