Eighty Two

"You didn't call me as you promised."

It was when he said it that I remember. When I left the villa, my mind was so occupied that I forgot almost everything that happened that day. All that replayed in my mind was the faces the blond made at me, how the house looked like. The awful words he said about Paige Kam. When I finally got home, I took one of my sedating drugs and slept it off. I felt that was the only way I could escape my complex reality. When I woke up, I felt better. At least. I felt a little peace. Peace enough to allow me to make breakfasts, and I occupied my mind with my favorite TV show while waiting for Kyle.

I wanted to avoid giving my new job a thought. It would do nothing but kill my spirit. And now that Kyle is back, I finally regained all my lost train of thoughts.

"I'm sorry I forgot." I took his suitcase while he gave me a warm hug. I sniffed.

Good, just perfume and sweat.

But does that mean he didn't use the gunner? Of course no!

I just delight in the pure scent of Kyle, pure cologne.

"It's alright. I see now that you're good." He smiled. "I got some pizza for dinner." He handed over a box in his hands. I could not help but grin wildly. How I love pizza?

But I made dinner!

"Unfortunately, babe, my efforts won't go to waste. We'll eat this tomorrow. Dinner is served."

"Oh, I thought you would make one. You shouldn't have. You must have been tired after the day's work."

"Hmm. How touching? Why shouldn't I love you this much, Kyle?" I said, hugging him from behind. I love this man. I really do.

"I'll join you soon."

*

"You're not going to tell me about your outing?"

He reminded me after dinner. I've avoided this conversation with all I've got. I didn't know how to say it to him. Or how will he take the new info I have got?

And I felt so much like a fool after leaving the Villa. Not really anyway, but "fool" is the perfect word. I might be defending a criminal due to gut feeling.

My gut feelings have never been wrong. What went wrong this time?

And why should I believe that blonde?

"Hello!" He waved his hands across my face to snap me out of my myriad of thought.

"Oh yeah!" I said almost immediately, trying to gather myself. "It's just… I didn't want to talk about it, but… I guess I have to know."

He nodded and sipped his glass of wine.

"I was really annoyed when I called you this morning. When I asked for the address. She annoyed me and I walked out on her"

"She's so rude. So ungrateful…"

"She doesn't want help. She has said that the umpteenth time to everyone she sees. Anyone who tries to help and that alone is fishy. "

"Yeah, right?" I scoffed. "You need to be there to understand. You know how patient I can be, but with this girl. I can't stand her."

"Well, you were also unreasonable on the phone. Why would you think that I needed an accomplice to search a house? "

"I was just trying to be safe. You never know with influential people, and the fact that no other lawyers took the case is something to worry about. I won't send you into the den of the lion itself without a watch. In fact, I have a confession to make…"

"Shoot!"

"You left the villa thirty minutes after you entered at exactly twelve thirty-four PM. You had a brief discussion with one of Jude Kam's bodyguards…"

"You!" I shrieked, throwing him a pillow. "You sent a junior officer."

"A spy. Yes." He said.

"You are…"

"What did he say? And why did you leave so early?"

"I felt threatened. He said some things that… On a normal day, they'd have meant nothing to me, but…" I paused. "I think little sense in some of those."

"He said she might be a drug addict. He narrated the incident to me and I really so no reason why she would kill her God father from what he said. He said she was in rage when she walked in that day, which I guessed was a big lie because from what I read, she wouldn't have walked in alone. She was just discharged from the hospital, though fully recovered."

"He looked as if he's been with the Kam's for long,, and he said she had always had issues with him. Mere issues though."

"He mentioned that she spend most of her nights in strippers club, and she does drugs."

I stopped, realizing how much uncertainty he sounded and how weird my explanation sounded to my ears.

"What do you think?"

"I think…"

We were both startled by rushed footsteps at the back of our window. A noise that seemed like an iron bar being forced into a heap of pebbles, the pebbles at the back of our window.

That only meant something.

There's an intruder.

"Stay here. I'll go get it." Kyle took careful steps to the door, while I tiptoed behind him. Who should stay put? Me? Never!

When he finally opened the door, there was no one there. I sighed, but he didn't. Of course, he's a policeman. He rushed back into get his short pistol in one of the drawers beneath our TV and want to back out. I followed.

We walked quietly until we got to the balcony, which was the only place in our house that had pebble stone. Kyle examined the stones closer and hissed.

"Truly…" He gasped, then went on with his professional examination.

"Come on, Kamila, there's something buried in these stones." He alarmed me and I joined him. We dug the stones careful and truly there was a brown envelope there.

How did it get there?

Obviously, there was an intruder.

Kyle emptied the envelope quickly. It had a letter in it. When he opened it up, I saw it only had two words:

STAY AWAY.

Then I knew, certainly that:

I was deceived hook, line, and sinker