Chapter 1:
The case seemed too good a tactic and Reeves couldn’t prevent but instantly into it. It sure was going to be an avalanche of feed for his unquenchable hunger to sort out puzzles. And this was such interesting that he was even convinced to join with his wife and children only after finding out the cause behind this intelligent arrangement. He sure was going to love the doer. Ultimately picking up the correct thread to keep people of the house from giving troubles and using the vast lonely space in a commendable independence. A thread of fear that warned a cost of life if anyone poking the nose into the matter that, after all, happened in their own house. Whoever was setting up such image, Reeves already decided, the person was going to be a worthy competent. The more the case was labyrinthine the sweeter would be the smell of success. Briefly a helpless glow of euphoria flew across his hard features. He set his vision into the window one more time, his cold slits of eyes steady as if seeking a path of clarity through the window, into the tangles of an impenetrable maze.
George gulped, not able to muster the courage to turn his head and have a look himself at the seventh floor, and the window. Was the yellow light flickering now? He shuddered thinking of the dark creature that always loomed over there and watching them down intently. Even now, he palpably felt its thick gaze slowly spreading its heat over his back, creeping into his spine.
He looked into Reeves’ face, trying to figure out what was going on up there. His haunted eyes froze at his immense attention over the particular point for a long time. Cringing down, he gulped. “Is it there now?” he whispered shakily.
Reeves’ voice stern as he asked him back shortly, “Where can I stay?”
George’s body straightened, a wide smile of relief brought up a bright ray of hope into his opie face. He’d heard from his wife how excelled Reeves was in digging unto the root of a matter and axe down the whole fault right across at its linchpin. He even had witnessed the strangely fervent eyes of his wife when she’d been raving about Reeves’ recent project on her friend’s aid. Even some of his servants, too, had later told him he was such sharp that his watching eyes could even pinpoint a fresh raindrop from an ocean.
“Oh, Detective Austin Reeves!” he exclaimed in elevation but calmed down when Reeves’ austere face came back to him. “Oh…hohoho…”George laughed lightly and hesitantly, and then nodded witnessing the indifference lingered on his face. “Sorry, Reeves,” he corrected himself. “You can take a room on fourth floor where it has been specially arranged for you.”
Reeves nodded. “Yes, thank you,” he said as his dead focus again diverted to the seventh floor.
Reeves made him for the fourth floor and his luggage was taken into the room. Two servants who helped out with his things didn’t meet his eyes. It was like the women were calm but not casually. They often swallowed while moving here and there around the room. Their breathing visibly weighty and they kept having a constant watch on him from the corner of their eyes. As if a stranger on this place meant only for introducing an attack on them at any time. It was only sometime later, he discovered they weren’t watching at him but behind his back and everywhere around him. What was that haunting them so crucially? Even then, what was that compelling them to work here? Reeves decided to not ask anything now as he felt they were too fidgety to react sanely to his enquiry right away. He thought they were in a tight clutch of fear the doer had assiduously snared about each and every individual person right from the master of the house to the basic servants so that no one could dare gain a revolt against. Creating a perception of ghost, the clichéd knowledge that was beyond humans but still that nevertheless caused shivers to the deepest of their bones.
He waited for the maids to leave to manipulate things peacefully.
When they left, he opened away the tall windows stretching until the roof. It was immediately very cold from the outside and was pouring fogs of white blinds upon the whole of the vastly floored meadow. The silence was forbidding laced with the frosty surroundings of the building. There were not much of humans to see. Very unusually not a single servant was found to be roaming around the garden or anywhere else in such gigantic mansion. The air reeked of fright and carried a tight whoosh of phantom listeners lurking from the beyond. Beyond! Reeves forehead rucked, his body suddenly stiffened. He felt by his each cell he was being watched. Intently. Now. From every angle. An excruciating feel, downrightly new to his all the time sane service, sprouted through him that he couldn’t quite name it. Something away from his logical right mind. As if being watched by the invisible. He looked up in a jest, into the roof, over to the seventh floor. He pressed his jacket and conformed that the gun was there. He left the room, strode over the corridor and surprisingly couldn’t find the dim yellow light faintly spread the illumination down his place as had suspected but the whole of the mansion was drowned in darkness except for the light spilling out of his room.
“Oh, Mr. Reeves,” a female voice from nowhere, alarmed and echoing, acknowledged him, penetrating through the thick layer of his deadly focus.
Reeves’ gaze shifted, he calmly looked toward the direction of the voice to find a silhouette slowly minimizing the distance between itself and the space he stood. He recognized from the stride of a woman she was young. She appeared slender and he noticed that each of her thudding steps against the wooden flooring was calculative. It seemed she’d something in her hands but he couldn’t see what it was. Why should she walk without lights?
“Yes, and you?” he talked grimly, and with each fervidly professional fiber, his form automatically readied for an indelicate counterattack.
“Just now I checked you and you weren’t sleeping yet,” she softly said while entering into the region of light. Reeves observed, unlike others, she wore a constant, gentle smile on her face. “You may be hungry.” She smiled lightly indicating her eyes down. He saw that she’d a tray on her hands, filled with light dinner meal and some glasses and mugs for hydration. He frowned, his attention came back to her appearance. She was dressed well, her hair well kept, and she didn’t manage to give a look of a maid. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny, demanding her identity. “Oh, I’m Mrs. Linton,” she responded kindly, “Regina George Linton.” Shifting her stance, she gave him a hand for shake, balancing the tray with one hand.
Nodding, Reeves shook his hand with hers. He looked at the tray and then in her eyes. “Mrs. Linton, you shouldn’t need to check me. You can ask me straight. I’m not hungry now,” he said crisply. “Remember from now, I’ll let you know myself if I need any stuff,” he instructed in a matter of fact tone and left.
He felt drained from the long travel and needed to rest down. He decided everything would be from tomorrow morning. As he went inside his room, he was stopped by George. “At least you can warm your body,” George said, joining to his wife’s side, and she smiled in agreement. “Mist is falling really like you can’t get your hands before your eyes. My wife makes really a good, hot tea,” he said and laughed.
Reeves suddenly noticed this was the first time he was seeing George laughing without the lines of fear shadowing his face. A pure unconscious reaction. He agreed for a tea, for only the first change that struck a detective’s mind in the very first place shouldn’t be pushed away heedless.
They moved in and were having tea. With the full bright lights around, Reeves could now get a complete impression of both George and his wife’ faces. George appeared rather cool for his voice had sounded back there in the entrance. Perhaps, he could’ve made better of something after that. When he looked at his wife, she appeared too young. Her round face was pale that he hadn’t thought it to be in the fall of dim light outside his room. When deeply observed, she’d dark circles under her eyes. Though she wore a constant smile, he could clearly read her restlessness. As if knowing the things well and could envisage them. Even her fingers around the coffee mug kept growing pale with each passing second. Reeves eyes converged their vision into a tiny dot, painstakingly taking a print of her abrupt flow of emotions hidden behind the thin smile, and just then they heard a creaking on the fifth floor. And something like door opening. The sound penetrated down and they heard a reverberating laughter. And something mumbling. Reeves put himself on both George’s face and his wife’. His wife just sat there without an expression. Her face turned several shades bloodless and her lips got paled and also her hands whitened while together tightly. She wasn’t as calm as she maintained a look outside. George just looked up at the ceiling frustrated and lividly…
________________________________
To be continued…
________________________________
I’ll never stop smiling
Baby, come have a look at me
I’ll never stop smiling
You hurt me that November evening
It was cold everywhere
I was crying hiding my face from you…
It is November again
And I’m still hurt
It is cold everywhere
I’ll never stop smiling
Baby, come have a look at me
I’ll never stop smiling
I still feel a twinge in my heart
Call me arrogant
Slander me again
I promise I’ll never stop smiling
You’ll have my image to remember with my everlasting smile
Baby, please come have a look at me…
_______________________________________
Keep smiling dear friends. Never stop smiling before the one who hurt you, no matter what 🙂