This is getting to be familiar territory, Susan thought as they entered the corridor and turned to go towards the library. They knocked politely, turned the handle and then gradually descended down the steps. In his smoking jacket Lord Billington sat there crouched over a table occupied by the game of chess in progress. He frowned.
“My dear chap. Welcome…. And also to you, Susan. The frown was about me being puzzled by the state of the game. Join me for a few moves, eh, Frost?” asked the earl.
He waited for Nathan patiently as he toured the board from all angles. Sitting opposite to Billington, he moved one of his pawns. Billington looked perplexed.
While waiting Nathan picked up the imposing Queen. He used a clean handkerchief to wipe off the wwaist a tiny mark. Then he placed her back on the board.
“She is a heavy lady,”
Nathan’s POVI will always remember the barn. How could I ever forget it? It was a big, corrugated iron one, dull with age and with no windows on the lower level and just one at each end, up in the gable. Tall narrow windows that let light into the loft, while below the barn was dark and silent, cluttered and filled with dust. But I didn't know that when I first saw it. I came upon it slowly as I emerged onto the top of the mountain, after a steep climb from the bay below, which had taken me through the untouched forest of the National Park. And I came at it from the rear, seeing the high window lit with the full afternoon sun, and I saw him there caught in the sun, naked and golden, like some lost angel. Perched up there on the windowsill with his arms spread wide hanging on to the frame. He is the reason I remember the barn so well. I stopped there, breathing hard, recovering from the climb, and
The person behind Claire was a young man, Asian, handsome as hell. He was clad in a tight black t-shirt and jeans, all as perfect as the day they were purchased. She could detect the scent of an exquisite cologne lingering in the air.She closed her eyes momentarily and took a small step backwards. The aroma was enough to flood her brain with endorphins, it was heady, perfect. She glanced downward as if to check her charm bracelet and in doing so scanned his hands for a wedding ring, none.With a slow exhale she turned to face forwards again. She considered how to start a conversation: bumping, fainting, dropping something on his feet. Without realizing she had formed a decision she turned, her bracelet now in her hand. Just before release the blonde guy next to him threw his arm around his shoulder. They two me
In every big city in America, there was a small part of the city which was better known as Chinatown. London was no different at all, here also there was a city where people came to find marrow of the white tiger’s bones for the sake of increasing their virility or even might be something lamer than that. The restaurants in Chinatown were supposed to be the best and they were the main stream of income in this part of the town except the drug deals which took place when every single refugee had gone back to sleep.And there was another thing that no one, usually the one which no one took care of but respected from afar and remained silent about it. In every Chinatown there were ghosts, and everyone knew because this was common knowledge that if not anything else spirits of dead people were supposed to be treated with reverence. They haunted the quiet Tai Tung village in China as well as the garish and loud Beach street wh
It all started with the terrified scream of a frightened woman. A scream pierce the winter morning like the air raid sirens did a few years before. It echoed through the terraced houses making the origin hard to pin-point. The first cries were undoubtedly terror, but not the shrill cries of a movie theatre, the cries of one with eyes locked wide and every muscle rigid. The next were of pain, garbling and pitiful. The boys found her, most of them taking off after the attacker without any luck.We can never truly feel another's pain, but that scream of the young girl came close. It was the kind of scream that puts every other thought on hold and roots everyone close in the very same agony. There wasn't a person in a hundred feet that didn't come running, most of them with cell phones already out to dial for ambulance.But she had not made it. The paramedics had tried saving her but it was already too lat
When Susan got the call she was asleep in her room and she could hear the soft snoring of Grubby from the room opposite to her. As soon as the phone rang with a shrill ringtone, she cursed her fate for not being able to get any sleep at all.“I am going to be there as soon as possible,” said Susan as she hung up the call and then found that James was standing in her doorway.“Everything alright?” asked James as Grubby trotted inside and placed his chin on her bed.“Yeah, I just got called on a possible homicide case in Chinatown. I need to go, since I am the only one closest to that area. Would you be alright alone for a few hours?” asked Susan as she scratched Grubby behind his ears and James nodded silently.“It is quite late James. So no watching TV. And please sleep. You need the rest, you have taken quite a
Sunlight filled the sky, pure scattered light; its hue ambitiously illuminating each crevice of the land. Sparrows chirped an explicit background melody. With breath paused in his lungs, he wished time would halt. The trees shone as if they were wearing golden crowns and the vast sea was not able to absorb the bright sparks of the sun. The tides on the sea were racing among each other to reach the horizon from where the mighty godlike sun appeared. And though time continued, the emotions that flowed stilled my soul.The curtains add an orange glow to the morning light, every morning a perfect sunrise. It reminds the young man of the times he slept in a beach hut, watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment his mind conjures the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore and feels his heart beat to the same slow pace. He breaths in deeply. A new day has begun. He reaches his hand out to the fabric, noticing ho
Nathan Frost’s POVPolice tape was strung across the entrance to the house on the corner, before Jane and I turned into the next quiet street so that to not alert the cops present on duty. We still had no idea who had been assigned the case and who had been the first one to be here on the scene. I was driving slowly pulling in next to the tape. As I alighted from the car, Jane followed my suit. I did not even bother to tell to stay in the car because she was never going to listen to me like always.The body had been hurriedly and hastily covered with a bed-sheet so that to not disturb any of the onlookers in case someone did slip inside. Slipping on my latex gloves, I pulled away the bed-sheet and sucked in a breathe sharply. It was not a pleasant sight at all.The woman on the floor was lifeless. Lifeless. Her auburn hair was scattered in multiple places, stained with dr
There was no ring or watch on the hand but there were tattoos on it. That was not the strangest part. It was a heavy hand which meant that it would take considerable amount of skill and strength in order to slice the hand in this way.“So it was just lying here in this way?” asked Susan as she looked at the hand still not convinced that this was all the part of one incident which had no head or tail whatsoever.“Yeah, fresh and warm meat like that with the scent of blood that would mean that rats would have been pretty quick to make a nice clean work of it,” replied the cop whose name Susan did not even bother to remember.“No nibbles here, as I can see,” said Susan and she turned towards Bill who had crouched down beside her as well and he said,” This means that it has not been here for that long.”&ldquo