Here's the latest addition to the story. Hope you like it. As always, you can find chapters 1-3 in my earlier posts
Tech-nesh
4.
Ben didn’t
even have his dreams to himself anymore as he slept, reclining in his office
chair. He was surrounded by articles and papers, strewn, haphazardly all around
him. Ben didn’t even seem to take better care of the hacked record of Stacy’s
foster care that he had worked tirelessly to acquire or the police file about
the Black widow killer that had stretched his moral boundaries to the limit to
obtain. The mess was nothing in comparison to the disorder this situation was
growing in his mind. His latest search for answers had led him into a frantic almost
visceral hunger. There had to be a connection, something that could unmask this
murderer without incriminating himself, because after all, Ben had thought to
himself, all criminals make mistakes.
The alarm
clock next to his cold bed erupted into its cumbersome ringing. Ben launched
out of his chair, long arms flailing, heart pounding, papers sent drifting to
the floor. Just then his watch joined in the disorienting noise too. He lifted
his wrist to turn off the alarm, blinking the pleasant dreams about Stacy out
of his head. It was four o’clock. She
would be off work soon; time to escort her home.
He reached
for his shoes under the desk and one of the fallen papers caught his attention.
He had read it a few times before; it was an article about Stacy’s husband’s
funeral. His death had been a big blow to the small community that they had
lived in and most of the town came to the memorial service which was apparent
in the photo that went along with the article. And then something jumped out at
him that he hadn’t noticed before. Within the grieving crowd behind Stacy and
the casket stood a man that he had seen recently. Ben’s eyes widened angrily;
how had he not noticed before. How could this have escaped his meticulous
searching? He had seen this man twice in the last month at Stacy’s office
building. He had thought something was suspicious about the way he walked up to
the entrance and then abruptly turned and returned to his car.
Ben poured
over this new discovery during his covert drive behind Stacy’s car as she made
her way home in the evening traffic. He made room for the article in the
passenger seat by tossing the bills he had gotten in today’s mail to the back
of the car with the others. He didn’t have the money to pay for them anyway now
that he no longer had time in his arduous new lifestyle for his job.
Outside her
apartment, he tucked into his usual parking spot behind a dumpster where he
began his nightly watch. He had also just finished adding up all the variables
in his head for the last time. The man in the picture, the man that Ben had
seen outside Stacy’s work seemed to fit the profile. From the case file Ben
learned that the Black Widow Killer is known to select his victims while
attending their spouse’s funeral. The murderer then brutally kills the mourning
widow within the week, but Stacy had moved suddenly and left everything behind
to start a new life. This explained the strange, unfinished personal
information Ben found imbedded in that returned computer so many months ago.
It seemed
like an eternity ago when he went about his meticulous, orderly life as if it made
sense. And now all that mattered to him was preserving the life of the woman he
loved; a woman who didn’t know he even exists. He wouldn’t let anything or
anyone hurt her; she was all that mattered. In his resolute train of thought
Ben, ironically almost overlooked the shadowed figure walking down the sidewalk
in front of Stacy’s apartment. He didn’t notice until the person walked up her
steps and looked over the directory, underlined Stacy’s name with a finger, and
pause suspiciously before descending the stairs again.
Ben’s heart
raced with anticipation as the person slowly walked under the street light and
revealed his face. It was him; Ben knew it and with complete certainty. This is
the man from the article picture, the man Ben saw at Stacy’s office; her
intended murderer.
To be continued...
To be continued...
