CHAPTER TWENTY

Evening came and Alva headed home as a frustrated human being. As she walked in, she met Kira as they sat across the living room to talk.

"Hm, oh hey girly!" Kira greeted.

"How was work?" Kira asked.

Alva looked at her, a hint of desperation in her eyes. "You know what, girly? I think I'm going to resign."

Kira laughed for a long time.

Then, after Kira had laughed, she asked, "What happened? Resign? What, what happened? Tell me."

Alva explained everything: that they weren't even getting close to catching the Shadow Killer, that they found out he was the one that stabbed one of the workers, a high-ranking person at TM Corporation.

"He was stabbed... blah blah blah... ah, like..." Alva trailed off.

"I'm really frustrated," she continued. "I am frustrated. I don't know what to do again. This is getting out of hand. I don't even know what to do again."

Then Ava said, "Do you know the worst part of it? The worst part is that we've been chasing this guy for years now, and we've not caught him. What kind of human being is he? I don't even know... let me just say the guy is too perfect."

At any crime scene they went to where he had committed a crime, there was no single lead, no single mistake. Even if they saw a mistake or a lead, they couldn't trace it to him. They couldn't even find him.

Alva was just pointing out her frustration.

Then Kira asked her, "What are you going to do now? Are you guys going to drop the case? I think that's the best thing to do, because you guys are running after somebody you don't even know what he looks like. Maybe you guys should just drop the case. I will advise you, drop the case. Drop the case, it's better that way."

Alva replied, "It's not me that is gonna drop the case, it's the chief. That's who is going to drop the case, but the chief doesn't want to drop the case, he wants us to keep on running after that guy."

Kira exclaimed, "What kind of thing is that? The chief will relax like the chairman that he is, and send you guys out to danger."

Ava said, "Let's forget about that. So tell me, how did you get the permission? Because the chief that I know is a very strict and wicked person. He wouldn't want to give permission."

Kira teased, "I knew it. You were scared of asking for permission. Oh, you just mentioned he's a wicked person, wicked and strict."

Alva quickly clarified, "No, no, no, no, no..."

"Don't you tell me that! Don't tell me that, okay?" Kira said.

Then Kira continued, "I told him that you'll be taking a leave from next week... wait, did I say next week? I mean this week. It's not next week, oh, it's this week. The party is on Saturday, and Friday we are going to go and shop."

Alva checked her phone and said, "Ehm,today is Wednesday!"

Then Kira said, "Friday, we are going out to shop, then Saturday, we are heading there. So, you better prepare yourself, because you are coming back with a soulmate of yours."

Ava stood up and said, "You know what, I'm heading to the bathroom now."

But Kira stopped her, " Sit, I'm still talking! Sit, Kira said, you cannot leave why I'm talking, okay? Because you are almost thirty, and look at you, is this how you are gonna continue? Oh, when do you want to even get married? Is it until you get to fifty? What kind of human being are you?"

Ava noted that Kira was making a point, and she looked at Kira and said, "But you are thirty, right? Okay, and you don't have any single person in your life, so why are you facing me? You should face yourself first."

Then Kira said, "Oh no, no, no... oh, that reminds me, you know that stranger that I came with to the police station ..the one that caught that bag thief?..I think I'm interested in that stranger."

Ava laughed and said, "Wait, I thought you were interested in my colleague Ethan?"

Kira replied, "It's not bad being interested in two people at the same time, is it bad?"

Alva laughed again.

"Then Ava said... Do you know the problem you have? You have this problem of falling for cute guys at first sight, and the worst part is that none of them are even staying in your life. And now you are looking at me,telling me that I am almost thirty."

Then Kira got hurt, she didn't know what to say, she was speechless. Whatever ava said to her was like a slap to her face. Then slowly but surely, she got up and went into the room to sleep.

Alva felt bad.

*****************************

Julian was laid in his hospital bed, and his father strolled in. Then the father sat beside him and said, "Who do you think would have done this to you?"

Julian said, "I think it's the Shadow Killer, I think it's him. Yeah, it should be him."

The father said, "Didn't I tell you we should get rid of this Shadow Killer? You said no, no, no, we can should keep him to do the dirty jobs for us"

Then Julian said, "The Shadow Killer seems to be after money. Even when I offered to double the money for him, he sent me his account details and I doubled it. But he still chose to stab me and spare my life. He stabbed me in a way that was not life-threatening. He wanted to show and prove that he had done his part of the job and spare my life for the money I gave him. The Shadow Killer, I think, is after a lot of money, maybe money that would sustain him and he could use to do something meaningful with it. He doesn't care at all."

The father said, "That's why we need to get rid of him. We need to set a trap for him."

Julian said, "Don't tell me you think he's the kind of person you can set a trap for. He's not that kind of person. You can't set a trap for a Shadow Killer."

The father asked, "How do you know all this?"

Julian replied, "From his actions, from his mysterious ways. Even the police have spent years looking for him and they haven't caught him. From his actions, you'll know he can't just fall into any trap."

The father said, "Ah, so there's no way we can lure him out and tell him we want to give him a contract, and when he comes out, we get rid of him? And then we can hire other people to do the dirty jobs for us? And when they do it and it looks like they're getting exposed, we can just get rid of them too?"

They were so engrossed in their talk that they heard the door creak open. When the door opened, a crazy, pretty girl strolled in, wearing revealing clothes. Julian hesitated, then told his father, "Can you please excuse us?"

His father said, "fine," and left.

Julian looked at the girl and said, "Laila, what do you want?"

Laila said, "I came to just check on you since I heard about the disturbing thing that happened to you. I just came to check if you are still okay."

Julian said, "I thought things were over between us. We don't have anything again.."

Laila said, "Like I said, I came to check on you. Besides, you're okay, you're good. So maybe I just wasted my time."

Laila hesitated and headed out.

**************************

Ethan headed to his mansion. He told Sam to continue working on the systems.ethan was looking for something to eat, and when he found some food in the kitchen..he sat in the sitting room.

Sam didn't say much, but asked "Don't you have any client that you want to go and meet, someone who has brought work for you?"

Ethan replied, "I don't, there is no client for now."

Ethan's phone buzzed, and a message popped up. He clicked on it, and the message was from the number that had sent him a message before. The number said, "I asked you to get rid of him, I asked you to kill him, but you, why is he still alive?"

Ethan replied, "Mm, I don't know what you're talking about. I did what you asked me to do, but it's surprising he's still alive. It's not my fault that he's still alive, and it doesn't concern me. Somehow, he ended up in the hospital,so that should tell you that I did something "

Before the other person could respond, ethan blocked the number.