Bloody gift

Zelda’s pov

I got home just a few minutes before seven. After the award ceremony, my colleagues and I had gone out for some drinks at our favorite bar, ‘the coppers’. We drank, did shots, played darts and pool and it was a good evening regardless of previous events. On my way home I kept thinking about the old man and I really wondered who he was. Was he a spy for the butchers or another cartel? There was something awfully off with him but at the same time something so fatherly about him. Even if he wasn’t the one trailing my every step, I could feel that my life was in danger and more so the lives of those important to me.

I checked my answering machine, there was one voicemail from my mom, wanting me to go to the hospital as soon as I could. I guess my father had had another heart attack. A few months ago when he had his first heart attack, the doctor told us that his heart was failing and in the cause of time, the heart attacks will be more frequent, one worse than the previous one. We had to keep a close eye on him. My mom had to quit her job at our martial arts studio to take care of him. We even sold the studio in order to be able to foot the bill for the corrective surgery done on him a few months ago. I was the one taking care of their bills now with my FBI salary.

I went into my bedroom to change into something more comfortable before I left for the hospital. Then I saw a box on the bed. I approached it carefully and then lifted it slowly only to find blood seeping onto my duvet, into the bed sheets and the mattress. My heart raced with fear and I set it back on the bed as I took out my gun to patrol the house, someone was here. Someone was definitely in my apartment. Every room was clear. I went into my study and the door was broken, files littered everywhere. The room was ransacked and everything lay a mess. I walked in cautiously to check if the CCTV camera that I had installed in the house captured the intruder but everything was clean. My hard drive was lifted; it was missing thereby leaving another dead end. Exasperated, I went back to the bedroom to look into the box, and there it was, a bleeding goat head. I was going out to throw the box into the dumpster when my phone beeped inside my pockets. I set the box back on the bed to look at the message on my phone as I imagined it was my mom again. It was a message from an unknown number, I opened it, it read, “next it will be your momma’s head in the box. She is a pretty woman by the way” then another message followed. it was a picture of my mom in my dad’s hospital room. Then the intruder sent another message, “if you don’t follow my instructions the next twenty-four hours, pretty mama and dad will die.”

This meant only one thing, that whoever this intruder was, he was watching me and my parents right now. He probably had cameras installed in my apartment after disabling mine and secondly based on his texts, with him involving my parents, his vendetta was purely personal. I was going to find him and kill him.

I took off my boots and changed into my jogging sneakers and a coat rushed to my car and drove to the hospital. On my way, I called our director, Mr. Masawe or Mr. M as he was popularly known to inform him about the threats I was receiving. He assured me that he will look into it. A few minutes later, Luke, the lead forensic scientist and tech guru of our department called and I explained everything to him and he promised to send a team to dust for prints and check my CCTV system too then get back to me. Whoever this person was I was going to find him.

I arrived at the hospital and after kissing my mom and dad, I could not help but ask if any odd looking people had been to the room and my mom got so worried as to my question. She said it was just the nurses and the doctors but she also said that she has been feeling odd that someone was following her everywhere and she thinks someone was watching the house. I agreed with her and explained to her that someone was following me too and now I had my whole team looking for them and that I was going to beef up security around dad’s room and the house. That seemed to put her mind at ease.

My dad woke up and went close to his bed to know how he was doing and he smiled feebly and replied, “I am getting better, kiddo”. He was just trying to make me not worry yet I knew he wasn’t getting better. My mom said, “ baby there is something that I and your father have been meaning to tell you.” Her statement caught me off guard and I was about to reply when my cell phone rang, seeing it was Luke I excused myself gesturing at my phone, “ sorry, mom and dad, I have to take this”