Post by ALIX QUINN on Oct 30, 2023 19:57:29 GMT
”Thank you for your time. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Alix swallowed hard as she walked down the path of the little house, with its white picket fence, cat snoozing on the porch and its now sole occupant still crying as she closed the door. It was the third home she’d been to in the last two days and at each the answer had been the same. I’m sorry to tell you, they’ve passed away. Such a gentle way of explaining they had been murdered. Not a single one of the cases had been solved and unlike the professor, so far none of them had miraculously been bought back.
The door was shut as she reached her truck and glanced back, but the drapes were twitching. It wasn’t like she’d been entire inconspicuous in her arrival. She couldn’t walk into the house and announce that their loved ones had been placed on a hit list and were likely innocent, but someone had wanted them dead all the same. They had been hits she’d decided to pass on, in one case ignoring repeated messages from Ralphy to avoid killing someone she wasn’t absolutely sure had done what they had been accused of. The further she’d gotten down the list of those she’d spared, the more worried she’d become that someone had cleaned up their messes. Maybe Ralphy himself, maybe some other asshole who only saw dollar signs and not people with lives and partners and kids.
If she had been a journalist maybe she’d have splashed another article on the front page of the Daily or the Courier, but she wasn’t and the majority of those who went missing in this town barely managed to score an inch or two in a column buried towards the back of the newspaper these days. Any reports on those who’d been killed must have been just as brief, just as buried because she hadn’t seen a single one of them as she’d started to dive through what had been published after the professor after his death. She needed to find some explanation for who was behind it to take the crushing weight of the guilt off of Christian’s shoulders. He’d lost enough, he didn’t deserve this on top.
In a few hours he’d be back from the school. She’d be back at the warehouse, pasting on a smile, pretending like she wasn’t focussing almost everything on trying to strip the guilt away. Her own scales were so far out of balance that there was no tipping them back, Christian’s weren’t, not yet. There was a chance for him to find some peace and move on, putting the hunting and the heartache behind him.
Alix felt an ache in her chest at the thought. She peeled a hand off the wheel to grind the heel of her hand against her sternum. There was no tension to massage away, just that overwhelming feeling off loss for a future that wasn’t more than just another dark smudge on the horizon for the moment. It was better that he found somewhere where he could leave in peace than stay in a place that would continue to torment him, just as it would the other widows who were clinging on here for their answers.
Just as the lights changed, she saw him through the front window of the Diner. Another name on her list, one that she’d been leaving til last because knowing that Brady had lost someone else he was close to was going to be another blow – one that she’d aided in a way. A car behind her honked, but she was waving off the complaint, pulling into a space outside the restaurant. Alix slipped out of her car and was through the door in just a moment. The moment Declan caught sight of her she was raising her hands. ”I come in peace … again,” she informed him, before she sat down uninvited. ”I was looking for you though. If you’ve got the time to talk?” She glanced around, perhaps it wasn’t the best setting, but she could make do. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to hide what she was really talking about.