We’d been there for roughly three hours, and it was now past eight at night. The information we now knew helped us gather even more information, and we created a timeline. It was all speculation, and we had to prove it to many people so we could convince them, not only ourselves.
“It’s late.” I heard Lucas mumble. “I should take you home now, yes?”
“Yeah. My aunt’s going to be worried.” I thought she’d tried calling me, but when I looked at my phone, nothing came up. Either she knew where I was and who I was with, or she didn’t care.
When I walked into the house, my aunt was sitting on the couch. She peeked at me above her glasses and smiled.
“Lucas?” I nodded. “I thought so.”
“How was your day? What did you do all day?” I asked as I gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I went to a meeting. Everyone there was so afraid that another killing would happen, and… we couldn’t get much done. Anyway,” she took a sip of her tea. The way this woman loved tea left me baffled. How could someone love plain black tea that much? How? “Miles came by today, he wanted to see you.”
“Oh? Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You should drop by there yourself and see what he wanted.” My aunty suggested, wearing this stupid grin.
“Yeah, okay.” I grabbed my phone and made for the door. Might as well get it over with. Miles was a nice person, but he wasn’t… interesting. He never had much to talk about. But that might be because I had spent little time with him at all. He lived across the street, so not that big of a deal getting there.
He opened the door when I was about to knock for the fifth time. He looked shocked when he saw me.
“Angie!” He exclaimed. ” What… what are you doing here?”
“My Aunt said you wanted to see me? I figured I’d drop by and see what you wanted.” It was my aunt’s idea. But it was my consent that had led me here.
“Oh! That’s… nice, I suppose. I didn’t… I never said I wanted to see you…” That made me laugh at his regretful face. Was I supposed to be hurt or what? “I asked how you were doing, that’s all.” He made way for me to get in. I walked in and he closed the door.
“Hey, um… Can I have something to eat? I’m hungry.” I was, and I was also lazy to make food for myself. Therefore, I was going to capitalise on this situation and have something to eat. And besides, his apartment smelled like he’d been cooking.
He nodded and made us both some food; it was noodles. I love noodles, so it was splendid. After some small talk, we started talking about our families.
“My mom must always know everything about me and what I’m doing, who I’m with, who is doing whatever with. And she must always come to parties with me. But then, that’s not a problem because I don’t go to parties that often.”
“My father passed away when I was eight.” He said, “So it’s always been me and my mom. And I have to say… she’s exactly like your mom.”
“Oh? I doubt there could be anyone with a mom like mine who can grow to be like you. You’re way more mature than I am and I’m sure that has to do with my mom.”
“You should meet her one day, a replica of your mom if you’ve described her right.” He sighed. “I hope you have time to meet her, although I might not be able to see her before she dies.” He saw my confused look. “She’s got cancer and doctors say it’s not good. She needs some expensive meds and stuff and… I don’t have any money, not even to go see her.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Miles. I…” I didn’t know what to say.
We went on talking about random things for the next few minutes, after which I left. I felt so bad for him. So his father’s passing had crushed many of his dreams when he was eight. His father had been a wealthy business owner, but his mother wasn’t good at business and soon they had no money left. She’d spent his share of the money his father had left, but Miles still hadn’t sued his mother and he said he never would. He’d loved sciences in school and wanted to pursue that field, but he couldn’t because of the lack of funds. They went from wealthy to poor in only a few years. And by the time he was eleven years old, his mother and he were living in shelters.
Then his mother got a decent job as a bartender, but it wasn’t enough to send him to university. When I asked why he didn’t work his way through university, he said he couldn’t. But with everything that had happened in his life, it made sense for him not to want to be separated from his mother.
My aunt had gone to sleep when I got back, and I don’t think she’d needed me that night. She was an independent woman, and she showed me this. She hated being treated like an invalid. Her need to do things by herself was a driving factor in her life.
“I … I found something.” Lucas said into the phone. He’d called me, and his frustration was clear from his tone of voice.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“This crime had to have been commited by two people. Earlier today, I had a person question your friend, Philip. And what he said is… confusing.”
“So, you released him, yes?” I asked.
“Yeah, Angie. But that’s not the point. He said there were two people on the beach that night. Both of them dressed in black. One taller than the other by about half a meter.”
“And…?”
“That means if Tanya is the killer, she had an accomplice. And we’ve completely overlooked that idea.” He said, exasperated.
“Oh! I understand now.” I was too tired for this. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Can I get you tomorrow morning? We need to do some more digging.”
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