Condemned Daughter - S01 E08

Story 2 years ago

Condemned Daughter - S01 E08

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 8

She laughed immediately she saw him. “Yes, I am the killer. I killed my sister”. She made eyes at him and drove off.

He walked into the house before Gretta’s ex- husband allowed him in. “Nathan Edwards?”.

The man nodded. “I hope your visiting me does not concern Gretta?”.

“Why not?”. Raymond daringly helped himself to a cushion.

Nathan sat at the other cushion. “I thought you found the killer?”.

There was humour in Raymond’s eyes as he looked at him. “What killer are you talking about?”.

“One Rosa like that”.

“Rosa is not even a suspect. By the way, what was Mirabel doing here?”.

“Mirabel is my best friend. She is the only one that understands my pain”.

“What pain is that?”.

“My son”.

“Gretta started blaming herself at the beginning for killing her son, then all of a sudden, she started blaming you. Why?”.

“The idiot was just looking for someone to blame”.

Raymond looked around the house.

There were paintings around the wall.

Paintings of a woman crying over a bloody dead child. “Why do you torture yourself with paintings like this?”

“It comforts me”. He closed his eyes as if meditating.

Raymond walked into his room.

Nathan rushed after him. “What do you think you are doing?”.

Raymond rolled his eyes. “Stop panicking, you are not even one of the suspects on my mind”.

He noticed a lot of female shoes in his shoe rack. “Are those shoes for Gretta?”.

“Er? Er yes”. Nathan stuttered.

Raymond moved towards the shoe rack and picked one of them. He examined the shoe size.

Size forty one.

He was going to confirm the size of Gretta’s shoe from Arnold.

“You and Gretta should have married again since you still loved each other this much”.

Nathan shrugged and nodded.

Raymond could see it in his eyes.

Nathan didn’t love his wife.

He was hiding something.

He sighed deeply and moved out of the room. “I will be back”.

“Anytime you are coming to my house again, make sure you inform me. Don’t just barge in like a spoilt brat”. Nathan retorted.

Raymond shrugged and walked out.

“Gretta’s shoe size was 39”. Arnold told him when he had called to confirm.

Raymond dropped the call and thought to himself deeply.

Gretta was not the owner of those shoes.

Neither was Mirabel.

Mirabel had a very small leg.

Size 37.

If it was neither of them, then Nathan had been cheating with someone even before Gretta had divorced him.

Could that link to Gretta’s sorrow before she died?

“I knew that you were a fake detective the moment you didn’t even notice that the last two pages of Gretta’s secret book was missing”. Mirabel said as she approached Sophia’s coffee shop and joined him at his table.

Raymond gasped at her. “What are you talking about?”.

“The last two pages of Gretta’s life was missing”.

“How did you know that?”.

“Have you critically examined that secret book?”.

She scoffed. “Don’t tell me that you were thinking that the killer didn’t know about her secret book?. Have you forgotten the adage that says, if you want to know the killer, think like a killer. If for instance, I have the intention of killing my sister, I will observe her for months. No one will observe Gretta for months and not know about the secret book”.

“What were you doing in Nathan’s house yesterday?”.

She chuckled. “Are you really jealous right now?”.

Sophia approached their table and frowned slightly at Mirabel. “What do you want? What flavour of coffee do you want? Milk? Sugar? Bland?”.

Mirabel smirked. “I didn’t come for your coffee. I came to talk to my boyfriend”.

“Your boyfriend or your ex-boyfriend?”. Sophia cried out.

Raymond frowned slightly and sipped his coffee. “Women in their thirties don’t do this”.

Sophia angrily walked back to the counter.

“That low standard girl trying to compete with me for a man” Mirabel pulled his coffee closer and sipped from it, trying to aggravate Sophia more.

Raymond looked closely at her. “You dodged a question three minutes, twenty seconds ago”.

“What question is that?”. She shoved his coffee back to him.

He smiled. “You know what i am talking about”.

She rolled her eyes. “Nathan was cheating on Gretta before she died. Not just that, he has an idea about the killer but it seems like he is being threatened, that is why he is trying to push the blame on Rosa”.

Raymond nodded thoughtfully. “So you got close to him so that he can finally learn to trust you and give you information?”.

She nodded.

He sipped his coffee. “You are playing a tough game you know”.

“If my sister died, why can’t I die?”.

He nearly choked on his drink by that statement she said. “Are you kidding me right now?”.

She glared at him. “To all the idiots that believe that I killed my sister, you, Rosa, Arnold and many more that I don’t even know, you will be shocked that i will find the killer before you all do”. She walked away.

After eating pancake and tea which I had made for my family as dinner, I walked into my room to relax.

Someone knocked on my door.

It was my sister.

She walked in and sat on my bed.

Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me. “I appreciate the sacrifices, but Ryan is suffering so much. He had grown so lean in the last few days. Please help sis, I don’t want Ryan to suffer because of me”.

I held her hand in mine. “Sis,that is your job, not mine”.

“What job?”.

“Being there for Ryan is your job”.

“No. He wouldn’t be happy. There is a huge impact it makes in you when the one you love is there with you”.

“What if Ryan doesn’t love me? Look here sis, true love doesn’t happen so fast. It grows. Love grows. How can Ryan’s two weeks ago likeness be love all of a sudden?”.

“He has liked you for so long”.

“No. Love grows from knowing each other. Till now, he doesn’t even know me. Ryan is a spoilt brat and because of this, he is still very immature and doesn’t even know what he wants. You know him more than I do”.

“…but he thinks about you all the time”.

“The excitement of that moment will fade very soon”.

“You haven’t even loved before. How did you get the idea about love?”.

“Love is in me already, sis. I don’t have to fall in love to know love. When love comes, I will know how to deal with it because love is already in me”.

It was a Saturday morning.

Raymond called Rosa over to his own apartment since she wouldn’t be going to work because it was weekend.

He had made Spaghetti and fries before she arrived.

She excitedly sat to eat when she arrived.

She tasted the food. “Hmmm. You tried a little”.

He gasped at her. “This food that tastes this good is, ‘You tried a little?”.

“You didn’t add enough salt to the fries and you had put too much oil in the fries too”.

He made eyes at her. “So in your mind now, you are a food critic?”.

She nodded. “I am your food critic. The spaghetti is nice though. You didn’t allow the vegetables to overdone”.

“Just eat and stop frustrating my life”.

She chuckled.

He cleared his throat. “Actually, Ryan wanted me to talk to you about…”.

“We already sorted things out. So by the way, why is your apartment so dark?”. She looked around.

He chuckled. “The house of a detective is usually like this because they deal with people with dark minds”.

She burst into laughter. “You always have a response for everything…”.

“Yes, even though I know you diverted from the discussion about Ryan”.

“I just don’t want to talk about Ryan”.

“… because of your sister?”.

“No. I just feel like he is only infatuated”.

“How do you differentiate between infatuation and love?”.

“Infatuation happens faster than love, it is more unnecessarily emotional, more unrealistic, like you are reacting more than how you really feel…but love is deeper and more comfortable without you being unnecessarily emotional. Love grows gradually, not because you met the person once and you felt chemistry”.

There was humour in his eyes as he looked at her. “I thought you said that you have never loved before”.

She chuckled. “What about you? How was it with Mirabel? Why did you break up with her?”.

“I loved Mirabel. I did since my early stage at the university, but I started loosing interest in her when I noticed that I was always making effort to gain her love. She was always making emphasis to the fact that her father was richer than my father and that I don’t deserve her. After i broke up with Mirabel, I told myself that I was never going to fall in love with any girl that is richer than me again”.

“No wonder you completely turned your back on her despite the fact that you know that she still loves you”.

“She doesn’t love me,she is just naturally possessive. She is too proud to believe that I can fall out of love with her”.

She chuckled. “I am so enjoying this love discussion”.

He rolled his eyes and she burst into laughter.

His phone suddenly rang.

He connected it and gasped at what his subordinate had told him.

She searched his eyes impatiently. “What happened?”

“The taxi driver that had killed Gretta’s child was released three days ago and Nathan booked a flight for him abroad. Why will Nathan book a flight for the person that had mistakenly killed his son in an accident due to overspending? Not just that, Gretta was the one that locked him behind bars before she died, and now, her husband is not only releasing him immediately after her death, he is flying him abroad”.

“That is obviously an attempt for his taxi driver to leave Nigeria. But why?”.

“We have to get the taxi driver before he leaves Nigeria then”.