CHAPTER 19
I wrapped up all my work and got ready to go and meet the real Mr. X a.k.a Joe Jacobs
I had a ton of questions for him, starting with why would he kill his own family? Why Sarah? Why not kill me that day? The bastard had a lot of explaining to do.
I went to the place and I instantly recognized it. It was the place I saw in my dreams. There was the pendulum clock I could see. I looked around a little to find everything the same as in my dreams. I definitely was in the right place.

I reached the place I was called to. It looked like an old beat-down factory of sorts. Tons of machinery here and there. There was grease and oil on the floor making it slippery. It looked as if this factory was shut down years ago. It was a perfect hideout.
I hardly saw anyone around.

I was frisked by one of Joe’s henchmen at the entrance to the building. Any weapons or communication devices I had were taken away, which included my phone, department radio, pistol, a knife and believe it or not they even took away the nail clippers I had in my pocket. How scared are you to do this? I was actually laughing inside but I couldn’t show this on my face.

I was shown my way into a room, where a man was sitting on the chair, facing the other way. As soon as he turned towards me, memories flashed in front of me. All that running, all that turmoil, all that suffering, all for this. He had exactly the same face as Mr. X.
“There you are Joe! You bastard! How could you do all this!”
“For firsts Richie… I am Steve not Joe. Joe is dead”
He said this so nonchalantly, with absolutely zero guilt. How can a person be so cold towards his family? And wait a second what does he mean he is not Joe, He is Steve.
We had confirmed Steve’s identity by checking DNA records of old suspects.

Then it struck me, identical twins have almost exactly the same DNA structure. We might have ignored a little variation as sampling error. But then fingerprints wouldn’t have matched.
“Wait a sec…. I don’t get it. I can understand the DNA, but how did the fingerprints match.”
“You didn’t read the report your friend made closely, did you? They did not find any fingerprints. You know why? Because my plans are always perfect. My poor brother Joe had Nasopharyngeal Cancer. I, being the nice brother, consulted him to a doctor who gave him Capecitabine on my orders. Ain’t I a nice person?”

This made me furious. Standing before me was an absolutely shameless man who was planning this since a long time. Capecitabine is an anti-cancer drug which has a long term side-effect on fingerprints. It causes destruction of fingerprints if taken in high doses for a long term.
“You are an absolute scum!! Using your brother like this. Practically killing him long before he died. And all this for what? Just so you can be let off the hook? By staging your death and by killing your own brother? Ruining these many lives? You are a complete psychopath!!”
“I had a very disturbed childhood because of my brother and sister, and I had to take revenge. So why not? It was fun having them work to get me free and then kill them!
I wish I could have killed Joe myself, but nevertheless you did a great job! Hahaha…”

Hatred was brimming in me. What kind of a person can do all this? I was already guilty about killing someone, now to know that it was indirectly for a scum like him, I played right into his hands.

“This petty a reason. Seriously? Do you even hear yourself when you say something? How can a human be so cold? I still don’t know why Sarah helped you?”
“Because she didn’t want to lose her brother. Even though I am Mark but I look exactly like Joe and Joe was about to die. You see emotions are very funny. If you don’t control them, others will control you… Sad I had to kill her too…”
I completely lost it now!! My eyes were red with anger. I wanted to strike him down so badly. I wanted to kill him right then and there. I was about charge towards him, but then I realised that he had Jessica captive.

“Where is Jessica? I am here now, release Jessica.”
“Hahahaha…. There you have it again. Emotions indeed are really funny.”
“What do you mean??”
“What he means, is that you are a complete idiot. All this Mark could never have done alone. It was all part of an experiment that I was conducting which helped Mark in a way.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I just hoped I was hearing it all wrong. But then I turned around and my face turned pale.
“Oh heyy Richie.... Surprised seeing me free? Hahaha…”

It was Jessica. She had a sinister smile on her face. She was not the victim, I was.
I was trapped now…..


CHAPTER 20

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Even Jessica was his ally too?
“What is the meaning of this Jessica? So you too put your mom’s life in danger shamelessly just for his sake….?”

“No no no…. Not for his sake. But for the sake of my experiment. The success of this experiment would have made me huge within the CIA. People getting killed and my mom getting hurt was just a step along the way… Not a big deal…”
I couldn’t believe such an insensitive behaviour towards Alice. She is such a sweet person, who absolutely trusts her daughter, who is a complete asshole.

“Mark wanted to end his misery of running from the police. So he set up the murder pattern from long ago… just so one day he could stage his own murder by killing his brother….Also he could get revenge for his ruined childhood from his siblings….
As for me… The experiment was an amazing opportunity….
It was a win-win…”
“You keep on telling about Mark’s troubled childhood… What is this ruined childhood you are talking about… What could they even do as children ?”

“Well I was a troubled kid. Having issues with my temper and behaviour. Whereas Mark and Sarah were always the ideal children. I was always compared to them, anything I did always turned into a be like them session…
The first violent act was because of them too…
We had an uncle who didn’t like my behaviour and was lecturing about how I should be more like them… I was completely pissed and I don’t know what came onto me, but I took a scissor and stabbed him in the eye… then I slit his throat and run away from there.
It was a very small thing that triggered me… but I liked the feeling of strength. That was the day I ran from my house and never looked back.
But this did ruin childhood. I practically never had a childhood. I was 10 when this happened and I have been my own ever since. I absolutely envied those two for it and the revenge felt sweet…hahaha…”
With every passing moment my depression was growing manifold.

Last two weeks of my life were seeming a lie now. I was starting to hope that all this was a dream now.
Everyone around me was lying to me. From Sarah to Jessica every single person I trusted has turned on me.
“How could you do this too Jessica? Supporting such a gruesome motto? You knew everything and still you deceived me? And why did you both kill Sarah? Wasn’t she helping you?”

“The thing is she had turned on us… She had started to think… Putting Robert in your dream was not our plan and neither was what happened that night at the lab. I am almost sure she had planted that destructive instructions to kill me and end this. But unfortunately she is not the expert and messed up….
Consequences…? She is dead now… Hahaha…
And well yeah, just brought her death a little nearer. Mark would have killed her anyway. Her death was inevitable anyway…”

Jessica said all this with the coldest of expressions. I was seeing a completely different Jessica now. She completely knew that if I went to the news, Sarah will have to come to me; to either kill me or tell the truth. She banked on that and Mark to kill Sarah. It was a completely ruthless plan to both kill her and put me to abyss. All this for what? Her stupid experiment? This was nothing but a lab rat to her?

I had decided now, that was it. This had to get over here and now. I was ready to kill them both if I had to and go to prison, if that was the need. I couldn’t take their shit anymore. I charged towards Jessica and grabbed her neck. I began choking her… but I was shocked that neither Mark nor Jessica were phased by that. Then suddenly Jessica snapped her fingers and I started going numb. This had to be another of her experiments, and sadly it was working…
Both of them started laughing and were ready to execute me. They had completely visualised their plans and they were overconfident that it had worked.

But they didn’t know one thing. They were keeping a watch on me, but one thing I had learnt from them were the diversion tactics.
Before coming here I had implanted a bionic microbot within myself, an idea I had received from Jessica herself. The only difference was that it had a live GPS tracking and Robert knew exactly where we were. Not only that, it was recording and relaying every conversation of ours.
We had enough of evidence to free everyone from prison, and get them both life imprisonment.

They pushed me to the wall and pulled out their pistols. Just as Jessica was about to pull the trigger, I could hear the gunshots and a very familiar voice on the megaphone.
“Freeze… You have been surrounded…”
It was Robert. He had saved my neck in nick of the time.

“Son of a bitch!! How did you do this?” I could hear irritation in Jessica’s voice.
“You see Jessica, I am a slow-learner, but I do learn eventually. Thanks to your idea of microbot, I could get you guys arrested with all the needed evidence… It’s over!!”

I could see a very irritated Mark stomping towards me. But before he could do anything, a shot was fired at his leg and he went down with blood spurting out of his leg.
I could see Jessica with eyes wide open in fear and hands up in submission….
It was finally over….
The turmoil that lasted two weeks, had finally ended in a very terrifying encounter for me. It had made me realise, that I need to pick people I could trust very carefully.

I was leaving that place, still stumbling on objects. Whatever Jessica had done, was still having an effect on me. I was swaying in exhaustion and was about to fall, just then I saw two people rushing towards me…
They caught me before I would fall.
“Hey buddy, tough time ehh…. Don’t worry it’s all gonna be fine”
I could see that wide smile on Jack and Robert’s face. They were the only people left standing by me in the end, and obviously Alice too.

“Don’t die on us Richie… We are really proud of you for all you did. Let’s get you to a hospital nearby and have them check you thoroughly. We don’t want any other fucking Jessica control you. You are too precious for that my friend.”
That’s the last thing I remembered. Receiving this words from Robert was enough for me.
The next thing I remembered was in a hospital. I was being examined by a psychotherapist, who was trying to make sure that any traces of triggers were erased completely from my mind. This sort of an incident was definitely not welcome the second time.

I then realised that it was the same hospital where Alice was admitted. I went to check on her and told her everything that happened. I could see the disgust she had on her face.

“I am sorry Richie you had to go through this… It was my fault for sending you to Jessica”
“Don’t be sorry Alice… It was all their plan and we fell right into that hole. If not for you, they would have found another way to get me to them… I am just glad that everything is over now and no one else is hurt. Except for Sarah….”
I couldn’t control anymore. Now after I am finally relieved, I don’t have her by my side.

This whole incident has changed me a lot. It has knocked some sense into me.
I hope I take all the experiences from here and never fall into a pit like this again.

All the convicts were released in a span of few days. Jessica’s lab was shut down and all her reports and studies were confiscated. Her assistant Max was arrested too, for felony. Mark and Jessica earned life sentences and were thrown into prison, the place where they belonged. Robert went back to NYPD and I was back to being the forensic analyst in CSI.

After 2 weeks, life had finally gone back to normal.
After all, All’s well that ends well.