24. Michael
Chapter 24
Michael
T he smart thing to do would be to not enter an abandoned house just because someone asked to meet you there.
They said they had information I might need, and that they were the ones who sent you the flash drive with the security footage. But because of the voice-changing effect, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
What does it matter, though?
A smart woman who is trained in martial arts could still kill me even though I would put up a fight.
“I should have taken boxing,” I mutter. “Or martial arts from the instructor who wanted to teach me as a thank-you for taking his daughter’s case.”
My phone rings, making me jump.
I answer it.
“Peter.”
“Where are you?” He asks.
His tone is sharp and impatient.
“Does it matter?” I respond. “Did you tell her?”
“Yes, I did, and she hates both of us now. Why did you back out of her case? Savannah thinks you backed out because you think you don’t have a chance of winning,” he says curtly.
Shit.
“She said that?” I ask.
“Did you hear what I said?” Peter asks sharply.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I exhale. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“What did you think was going to happen? If you had given me a heads-up that you would be out of town, I would have come up with something better. Also, why did you tell me to lie that you’re out of the country?”
I open my mouth to respond but stop when I see a figure dart into a corner of the house. I’m in the first room, but I see past the second and into the hallway.
My senses go on alert.
“Michael?”
“I didn’t tell you because I was certain you would cave. There’s a lot at stake here, and I wanted to put together the pieces before it got out of hand.” I whisper into the phone, trying to maneuver my way through the abandoned house to find the person who contacted me.
Peter exhales and I can tell he’s frustrated. Meanwhile, I take careful steps out of the room and into the hallway. There are three rooms on each side, which means whoever is in the house is in one of them.
And I don’t know if they are armed.
“I should have brought a weapon,” I mutter under my breath.
“For what?”
“I shouldn’t have said that out loud.”
“Where are you, Michael? Don’t tell me you’ve gone on a secret mission. You’re no detective, you know that.”
Hearing Peter scold me reminds me of when we were in college. He was adamant that if we were going to be friends, I had to keep my grades up. So, we partied hard, but we studied harder.
“I’m meeting with someone who has something important for me. Nothing else.”
He snorts. “Right. You forget I know you better than you know yourself. If you die, though, I hope you’ve left the firm to me in the will.” He jokes.
“I left it to Savannah,” I say quietly into the phone.
“What??”
Despite my worry about the intruder, I end up laughing out loud.
“I’m kidding.”
“You better be. You have me out here worrying about a grown man who supposedly can take care of himself because he decided to walk into the line of fire.”
“You should have taken someone with you, Michael.”
I shake my head despite knowing that he cannot see me.
“I was asked to come alone. I need this to work.”
“Is that why you did not tell Savannah? Because you don’t want to disappoint her? Are you worried that you might disappoint her?”
It’s comforting and also annoying how Peter can see through me sometimes.
“Maybe?”
“Hm. You’ve never been worried before. Tell me, do you like her?”
“What are you talking about? She’s a client and she’s your sister. Two reasons why I cannot fail. I don’t know if I’ll be able to look you in the eye if we end up with a plea deal.”
Peter laughs.
“You’re good at deflecting, you know that? I asked if you have designs on Savannah. Don’t worry, I won’t get mad. If you two are dating behind my back, then I’ll give my blessing while acting like I know nothing.”
It warms my heart to hear that Peter is in support of my feelings for Savannah, but I cannot tell him the truth. Not until she and I have resolved things—and established what we want from each other.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he goes on. “I get it. I’ll talk to you later. Be safe, okay?”
I nod. “Okay. Take care of Savannah for me.”
My response is a part-confession, so he knows without me coming clean directly.
“I will.”
As the call ends, a boy of thirteen comes out. A scrawny child who looks like he hasn’t had a bath in a week. His hair is dusty and unkempt and his clothes are dirty and unwashed.
I frown.
“You cannot possibly be the informant, are you?”
I don’t know the age or gender of the person who called, because they used the voice changer effect. But I knew it was someone close to either Brandon or Savannah, so I compiled a list.
With the list and armed with enough information on everybody on it, I was sure I wouldn’t be surprised by whoever showed up.
But I am surprised, a boy?
“Who sent you?” I ask.
He looks frightened, so I don’t approach him.
“Was it a woman? A man? Are you in danger?”
He shakes his head no.
“You don’t know the person?”
He nods.
I see. Someone took great pains to cover their tracks. Good for them, but also good for me because no matter how hard a person tries to cover their tracks, clues are always left behind, they’re just harder to find.
“Okay then. What do you have for me?”
The boy reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. It’s thin and long and stained, but he hands it over to me with fingers that have dirty, overgrown nails.
I collect it from him and place it into my pocket.
Then I sigh.
“Where do you live? Do you have a house? Parents?”
He shakes his head no.
“Do you speak?” I ask.
He shakes his head no, again.
This person is devious. Certainly.
Even if he knew who sent him, they made sure he wouldn’t tell me anything.
A devious grin spreads on my face. I haven’t had the pleasure of working on a challenging, wild goose chase case in over a year.
I am going to like this!
I head out of the house after giving the messenger a few bucks and I climb into my car. As soon as I do, I bring out the envelope and open it.
It’s a medical report from a hospital, and the patient’s name is Savannah Richmond. I read through, eyes narrowing when I came to the diagnosis.
According to what is written here, Savannah has been undergoing treatment for abandonment issues. The doctor noted that she had a problem stalking her exes and people she believed she was in a relationship with…when they ‘moved on.’
Before then, she would display psychotic symptoms of shouting and throwing herself to the ground to make them promise not to leave.
What is this?
Is this fabricated, too?
The security tape from the flash drive came back to be a fake, so that was that. Or so I thought until I received a call from the informant to meet them here.
I did not tell Peter, and I couldn’t tell Savannah either.
Like Peter said…I’m scared of disappointing her.
For the first time, I’m worried about losing this case, and I know I will never forgive myself if I do.
Taking my phone out, I did a quick search on the hospital and the doctor. Both of them come up with a location. Starting my car, I input the address into the GPS.
Time to go see the doctor.
***
“So, she’s been here?”
The doctor nods.
“Yes. She’s my patient. Miss Richmond comes once a week. Although the day and time we meet isn’t fixed.”
I see. So, there is no way to confirm if I can pinpoint her absence on my end. If they were fixed sessions, I would look back to find a pattern.
“Why don’t you have a fixed date and time?”
He smiles.
“Unlike most patients that I see, Miss Richmond has been the most cooperative. She’s been seeing a couple of doctors before moving to this city and after getting a few referrals, I told her we could do it her way.”
Then his face falls. “Of course, I didn’t know she would regress?”
“Regress?”
He nods. “I heard about the news. That she killed her ex-fiancé. As her doctor, I feel it’s my fault. I should have stopped it.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about but I sure as hell don’t like his tone.
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
The doctor rubs his chin. “You see, two weeks before the incident, Miss Richmond called out of the blue, asking if she could see me. It was late.”
“Due to the urgency in her tone, I asked her to come to the office,” he quickly adds. “She said that she was livid at her ex-fiancé. She mentioned something about a ring and how she couldn’t believe he would cheat on her and still want the ring back.”
“Then she said she wasn’t going to give it to him. If he wanted the ring, then she would die. And she would take him with her. That is if he refused to make things right and give her the wedding she deserves.”
I tilt my head and raise a brow.
Unbelievable.
There’s no way I believe this bullshit.
“I know Savannah,” I chip in. “But it seems out of character that she would ever do something like take Brandon back after what he did. She wanted to be done with him.”
He shrugs.
“You can never know. Patients are good at hiding their true thoughts and intentions. You just hope that you can get them to not act them out.”
He says it with such finality that I’m sure he believes she killed Brandon.
And honestly, it’s shaken my resolve a bit.
Yet, I still hold on to the fact that Savannah is innocent. There are things I don’t know about her, true, but I don’t think she did this.