They entered the Jones residence and found Emma sitting with Nora while Officer Andy talked to them in a childish manner, entertaining Nora.

They eyed Emma and decided to ask her straight away.

"Emma, what were you doing last night?" She inquired.

"Sleeping."

"You didn't hear or see anything?"

"No, I was sleeping with my headphones on."

"Emma, I know you are lying to us. We found a footprint near our window." Christina saw signs of shock and guilt in Emma's features.
Like she was caught.
"Was it your father?" Davis asked.

Emma looked up, totally lost, as if she had seen a ghost.

"We know your father is in the states. Did he come and sees you last night? Has he been trying to contact you."

"Yes!" Emma suddenly broke and down, hiding her face.

"It was daddy!" She confessed and began crying uncontrollably.

"Can you recount what happened?"
Davis demanded.

"He has been trying to contact me for a long time but I didn't say anything. He visited me once at night like that through my window to ask about mom and Nora."
Christina looked at Davis who was carefully watching Emma speak.

"He came last night too. I let him in through the window. He was saying crazy stuff. He was drunk. He had a knife in his hand. And he talked about how he didn't like our new dad and how bad and stupid mom is. And then-then, Josh came and knocked on my door to see if everything was fine and Dad hid behind the door. When he came in, they began fighting! I tried to stop them. But they wouldn't listen. Josh ran down and dad followed him. I was so scared. Then dad came into my room and said everything was fine and I could go to sleep. He had a small black bag with him. I didn't know what to do. He went out through my window. I was so scared. He wouldn't hurt us too would he? Please, help us!"
Emma cried out and Christina consoled her.

"I will inform the headquarters about the warrant." Officer Andy offered and went to call in.

"Very well."

Christina couldn't believe she solved the case.
The feeling was...elating.

Walters would make an arrest and with Emma's confession and the evidence was enough to hold him.

She couldn't believe the reality. She solved the case within an hour.
She looked at Davis who was instructing officer Andy and Christina slipped out quietly.
She wanted to celebrate her victory all by herself.
And what better place than the one where she acquired it.

Humming she went inside Miller's residence. She couldn't believe how easily she did it. Could she really be a good detective as Davis suggested?

She reached Emma's room and smiled to herself and sat on the bed.
She closed her eyes and exhaled, imagining how it must have all happened. Piece by piece, joining each theory and watching it before her eyes.
And suddenly she remembered, there were no signs of struggle around the room. She looked around and the room was clean and well.

Her eyes landed at the posters.
Gazing at the Japanese poster of cherry blossom festival and she recalled her chat with Emma.
Did Emma lie? Something told her she was celebrating a little too early.
Something didn't sit right with her at that moment.
Her eyes focused back and she saw the corner of the poster she had been staring at for such a long time.
She stood up and reached for it.
It was curled around the upper right corner.
She touched it and felt a lump underneath her fingers.
Grabbing the edge, she peeled off the entire poster and few photographs fell at her feet.

It was from Emma. With a boy who appeared very older than her... might be in the early twenties.
They were hugging and in one picture even cuddling on the bed.
The boyfriend. Ryan Jensen. All of them were selfies. Very well hidden.
She saw that the adjacent poster was also peeling off at one corner and the paint had been ripped from the wall as if an aggressive pull caused it. She touched the bottom of the thick poster and felt something behind it.

She peeled it off and the contents under it clinked on the floor as they fell.

It was a gold bracelet and a necklace along with a ring tangled around each other.

The stolen items!
She saw the picture and the stolen items.

It wasn't her father. She lied!

It was her boyfriend.

Shock jammed her to one spot and she felt dread begin to fill her gut.

She pulls her phone to dial for Davis but notices an unseen message from Walters.

"Matthew Johnson alibi checks out. He was at the club on the night of the murder. Heading back."

Why! Why?

She dialed Davis' again but it kept on ringing.

"You shouldn't have done that." Christina hears a familiar voice behind her and everything gets arrested at the moment.

She turns around to see Emma pointing a gun at her. The fifteen-year-old girl who was crying just a few minutes ago.

And then it clicked. She made it all up.

"Hands up! Step back from there, you stupid bitch!" Emma's lips curled and Christina was shocked to hear her like that.

"Emma, we can do this the right way. I won't harm you. Put down the gun-" she tried to advance calmly.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Emma shrieks and Christina raises her hands.

"Everything was going well. They are arresting that useless pile of shit of my father and you just had to be nosy!" She grits her teeth and Christina's mind began working franticly.

"Give the jewelry to me. Right now. I won't harm you but if you make even the slightest movement I am gonna shoot you in the goddamn face!" Emma warned taking a step towards her.

"Emma there's police all around! You won't be able to run if you shoot me!" Christina tried to reason with her or just buy some time and just then an unfamiliar ringtone began ringing in the air.

Emma retrieved a cellphone, "Baby, I got the jewelry. But I messed up. I am so sorry. Where are you?" Emma talked over the phone but her eyes were set at Christina, her aim unwavering.

Christina glanced at the connected call from Davis and she saw a ray of hope. He picked up. He is listening to this.

Her gaze turned intense in just a fraction of second as if what she had heard had ignited a fire inside her, "Ryan, we will make it." She promised and disconnected the call.

"You would be surprised to see what I can pull off." She seethed, "Save me from daddy!" She mimicked herself from earlier and scoffed, "You adults are painfully dumb!"

Her eyes resembled a maniacal, rogue beast.

"JEWELRY! YOU DUMB BITCH!" She yelled and Christina threw the bunch of tangled jewelry at her.

"Why are you doing all this?" She wanted to stall her. She could harm anybody on the way.

"Fuck you!"

"Give me your gun! Do it hurry! She ordered.

Christina's eyes involuntary reached her cellphone which now beeped with an incoming message
The tension increased tenfold.

Emma's nose flared and she realized what was going on.
She raised the gun at Christina's head and at the same time Christina reached for her gun.

A shot fired and it all happened in just a blink.

Christina felt a fiery pain and a scream escaped from her throat. She felt dizzy all of a sudden from the blinding pain.

She heard Emma yelling and in the middle of the room, found Davis holding Emma down.
He had twisted her wrist to release the weapon.
Christina saw blood coming out of her arm.
She had jumped aside at her instinct the bullet had just singed skin of her arm.

And then whatever happened was a huge blur to her up until they took her from that place and reached the headquarters.
It was almost evening and her wound had been patched up.
Emma's boyfriend, Ryan Jensen was just arrested. They tracked him easily after one of his friends revealed that he had left in the car. They had found a broken ceramic pot with him which was missing from the house.

The message that had risked her life in just a second the one that beeped when she was at the gunpoint was from Walters.

He found out the real identity of Joshua Millers.
Joshua Millers was a sex offender from Florida and his real name was Hendrick White.
A pedophile. They had found out after a face match from the database.
Turns out, he has kicked from the pediatrician clinic for exhibition inappropriate behavior. The doctor didn't want a stain on his clinic so he never took legal action but it was revealed and he was ready to give statements.

Christina saw the nineteen-year-old being brought in. A very ordinary-looking teenager with a lean body and dark eyes of an addict. The real culprit whose DNA was a perfect match from the crime scene.


"So you made all that up to about your father breaking in?'

Emma was being interrogated by Davis for confession.

"Of course, I did. I didn't even have to put any effort. You presented the idea to be yourself. I didn't even know what to say." She laughed, 'Pretty genius, don't you think?" The sneer in her expression was full of malice.

"Why didn't you just tell your mother?" Davis asked.

Emma scoffed with a maniacal look in her eyes, "Tell her? I fucking wept for an entire hour in front of her! She told me to quit the teenage drama. She had this absurd idea that I was saying all of that because I didn't like him. That guy was a fucking creep. He used to look at me weird when she wasn't around. I remember him touching me they had just married. He appeared like a saint in front of her. She refused to believe me! Me? Her own blood! Her own child! What choice did I have? My dear Josh is such a good man... Fuck her and fuck you people." She had pure fury oozing out of her youthful face.
"I tried to tell her I didn't like him that he touched me and Nora but you know what she told me? That we weren't used to being touched that's why it feels weird! Stupid bitch." She seethed.

Davis remained calm and after his numerous tactics, Emma broke down, "Again, what happened that night?"

"Fine. Ryan used to come to see me often like that. A day before we had an argument so he came to see me again. We were talking and Josh heard us. I thought he would be sleeping. He told me to open the door and I-I told Ryan to hide in
the bathroom. When I opened the door, Josh demanded I tell him what was going on and I lied that I was talking on the speaker mode and he bought it. I thought he would leave but instead, he looked at me creepy and began touching my legs. He had this crazy look on his face. He was going on and on that-that, Mom was going to leave him soon so he might as well enjoy himself while it lasts. I tried to push him away but he was touching me everywhere. I was so scared and disgusted. Ryan suddenly jumped in and pulled Josh off of me. They began to fight and Josh was beating him up. I had to stop it so I pulled a knife."

"How did you get a knife?"

"Ryan gifted me one long ago to protect myself. I always kept it under the mattress." She explained and Davis nodded her to proceed further.

"He was beating Ryan, mercilessly. I warned him to get away and he did. He said he will tell mom when she wakes up about Ryan and everything and I couldn't take it. I began cursing him that I would kill him and he was about to do something and Ryan took the knife from me tried to attack him. Josh ran off to the hallway and Ryan chased him downstairs and I just heard him making noises and glass shattering. I didn't know what to do. Then, Ryan came to me and told me he would never come near us again and I felt such a relief..." She paused, closing her eyes, and took a gulp of water.

"Ryan told me to get a bag for him, he was going to run away. We needed to do something quick so we tried to mask it as a robbery. I got some of the grandma's jewelry and gave it to him. He said police would never suspect me and when all this is over he would come to get me and would sell the jewelry and run away." Emma heaved.

"I assume you cleaned up later?"

"A bit, I couldn't sleep. Ryan called me a while later and told me to clean everything around my room. He would pick me up when all of this over and we would leave forever."

Emma broke down crying and was taken away while Ryan was brought in before Davis.

"I don't regret killing that pedophile. He was touching my girlfriend and her baby sister. I would do it a million times again!" Ryan fisted his hand and clenched his jaw." He confessed simply before Davis could even begin.

"Please, tell us what happened?" Davis insisted.

"I killed him that's what happened. The guy was touching Em. I couldn't just stand there... Em told me what he had done and I swore to kill him that day already. It was just god giving me the opportunity.
He needed to be killed. Her mother was a retard for not believing her."
Ryan gritted his teeth.

"Can you tell us what exactly happened?" Davis blinked several times, relaxing back into his chair.

"I went to see Em as usual. We were talking when that douchebag knocked. I think he heard us. I hid in the bathroom and he was trying to be all father to her until I heard her panicky voice. I lost my shit, man. That fucker had his hand on my girl. I lost it but before I could beat the crap out of him Em pointed a knife at him. He got all shocked and everything. I took the knife from her. I didn't want her to get in any trouble. The fucker tried to run away but I grabbed him. Next thing I know he was trying to choke me. I did what I had to. When I got my focus back, he was already done for."

"What did you do afterward?"

"What could I do? I ran away, man. I went to my bros and got changed and they hooked me up with some stuff. I called Em who was crying. It wasn't her fault. I planned to take her away from all that... To fucking Japan or something. She is crazy about that..."

"You could have asked for help. Or called 911."

"And till then what? Man, if I wasn't there that piece of shit might have done things I would rip his head apart for. And who knows what else! That useless mother of her was knocked out like a dead body. If I hadn't killed him there I would have someplace else!"

Davis was quiet for a moment and then he got up and left the room.

Christina just stood there, clutching the small cross on her chest.

It was like a garden of spiders. Each of them knitting their own web to catch prey or to stumble in a trap woven by another.

🕷🕸🕷🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷

And there you have it.
A story written by my pathetic brain, broken eyes and pinch of depression to plague your pandemic boredom.
I wrote the major part of story and plot within a day but it took my lazy ass a week to edit it, re-edit and edit it again.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I tortured myself through this.

At the end I will say one thing only:
tum mujhe shabd do, mai tumhe murder story dungi....
© Samiksha Kemwal