Chapter 26 FOUR: Meeting an Old Friend

Is this what Mrs. Lena meant when she said she is going to put an end to all this?

Kevin glanced up at the body hanging from the ceiling.

She was going insane after all—there’s been no masked man with her all along. She was slowly losing her mind.

Tears trickled down in his eyes.

We should have moved her to a mental clinic when had the chance-–maybe then, she would still be alive.

A sick feeling rose in his stomach, and he felt his leg tremble from looking at her lifeless body swivelling from the ceiling.

“Mrs. Lena…” his mouth moved with great difficulty, as if searching for the right question to ask.

“Why?”

Then he picked up the chair that’d been flipped beneath her feet and climbed onto it to reach her. He scrutinized the rope she’d used to tie herself to the ceiling; it was the clinic tube. Untied her from the ceiling and took her down gently. Her head rolled freely to her shoulder. That was when he noticed her neck was broken. As he laid her gently on the bed, her lips peeled back in an unpleasant smile.

Kevin felt a twitch in his stomach. A feeling of guilt crept over him as he turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide open, glaring at him in a way that caused him great discomfort. He ran his hands over her face, closing her eyes.

“Lena, why?” he repeated.

Tears escaped his eyes, sliding down his cheek slowly as he look at her for the last time, before moving the blanket to cover her body.

“Why does it have to end this way?” his voice choked.

A little paper dropped from his pocket and he bent to pick it up, looking over it.

If you want to know everything about the masked man, meet me under the stone bridge tonight by 9 pm. The little note read.

There was a fierce battle in his head as he contemplates whether to meet this stranger. For a long second, he remained still, glancing over the note with indifference, and the texts stared back at him, waiting for him to decide.

Kevin wondered what this stranger was so afraid of that he couldn’t meet him upfront in broad daylight to say what he had to say—why does he want to meet me at nightfall?

The more he thought of it, the faster the answers evaded him. He looked over the note and read it again. This time, he became curious to know what this stranger has to say, especially if it could help him uncover the identity of the masked man.

Kevin pulled out his cell phone to ring Alex. He listened to the echo of a distant ringing, then, there was a soft “Hello?”

Looking over corpse, he mumbled sadly, “Lena is dead.”

He heard Alex breathe out loudly over the phone. He was obviously getting tired of hearing news of people dying.

“She took her own life.” he added.

“Where are you now? I will come meet you there.” Alex asked.

“I am still at the hospital. Standing right beside her.”

“Stay right there with her, I’m on my way.” The phone line went dead.

“Wait…”

He was about to talk to him about the stranger—and his notes. Cursed himself for not telling him about him from the very beginning, after all, Alex seemed trustworthy and was willing to help him put down T-Rex for good.

Kevin glanced through the window and noticed daylight was fast fading, and evening was approaching. He knew he wasn’t about to listen to Alex’s instruction to stay put. Then he looked over the note in his hands and returned his gaze to Lena. Noticed her hands were hanging from the bed. He placed her hands gently over her chest, making it appear as though she was fast asleep.

“Lena, I swear it, I will find who this masked man is. Together with T-Rex, I will make them pay for what they did to Mirabel—and Loretta.” He shoved the note back in his pocket and left the room to go meet this stranger.

The day quickly faded into night. Wandering under the stone bridge in the silence of the night, Kevin felt as though he was being watched—even though there was no one around. He had both hands dipped in the pocket of the thick leather jacket he wore to find warmth from the freezing night breeze.

He looked around the bridge. The silent night, devoid of life, stared back. Every part of him warned him against coming out here, but he kept faith, assuring himself that nothing bad would happen. Although he didn’t know what the outcome of this meeting would be, and that’s what scared him the most. He glanced at his wristwatch.

9:02pm.

He turned to look around.

Where is he? His anxiety grew.

“Never thought you’d show up.” A husky voice spoke from the shadows, startling him.

Kevin quickly turned to see a silhouette of a man standing in the dark, leaning beside a pillar covered by the darkness. Tried to see if he could recognize him through his voice, but couldn’t—even though it sounded vaguely familiar.

A cold mist formed around his nose as he drew his breath and exhaled. “Who are you?”

He said nothing.

Crinkles wrapped at the corners of his eyes as he tried to make out the face of the stranger in the dark. But he pushed his face further away from the light—like he was trying to prevent Kevin from recognising him.

“Show yourself.” he snarled, moving few paces towards the dark, but then stopped when he saw the stranger walking towards him.

The stranger walked away from the dark until his face became visible under the light. Kevin didn’t recognize him, but he saw that he was dressed in a police uniform. Then realized he was a cop.

“Who are you?” Kevin asked again, trying to be patient.

“Not sure you would remember,” The stranger started, his lips drew back in a half-smile “But a year ago, you came to me to file a report about the kidnap of your fiancée.” he hinted.

Kevin looked at him, eyes narrowed as he tried to remember. Then suddenly, his face lit with recognition. “Leonard?” his eyebrows rose. “Leonard Narlor?”

The stranger snorted at his response, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “So good of you to remember me.”

“Of course.” he took his hand in a friendly handshake and patted him in the back. “I could never forget the one person who’d helped me through the dark moment of my life. After Loretta died, I never could have survived if it weren’t for you.” A line appeared between his brows. “But how did you find me?”

Leonard took out a card from his pocket. “You handed me this, remember? Said if I ever find anything new on Loretta’s kidnapper or T-Rex, I should immediately contact you. I visited your old residence recently, but your neighbours said you moved out a few days ago, so I tracked your current location through your cell number.”

“But why bother? You could have just called me instead, or better still, sent a text.”

“There are reasons I’d left you that note at the park rather than just leave you a text message.” his eyes moved to the corner as if he was watching out for someone, then his voice lowered. “I am being watched. That’s the reason I didn’t bother to call, they are always listening in on my every conversation.”

Kevin flinched at his response. “Who are ‘they’?”

“They go by the name Beocraft, it’s a secret community. Something happened to Murphy last week and now he has disappeared without a trace. Nobody knows where the hell he is.”

“Murphy, you mean your partner.”

Leonard nodded in affirmation. “The last time we talked, he said was being followed. This started few days after he made a breakthrough in the case you filed a year ago. He finally found a way to reveal the identity of the masked man that’d kidnapped you and your girlfriend. It turned out there is more to Loretta’s murder than we’d anticipated.”

Leonard stopped to glance around at the dark surrounding and continued, “Murphy started to gather information on what Beocraft meant and found it wasn’t a name of a person, or a place. Beocraft is an organization. It comprises of a small group of high profiled shifters. They gather to meet, usually at night, at a hidden location.”

He paused for a moment, then peered into the surrounding darkness. And when he was sure no one was watching, he went on, “Murphy found that both T-Rex and the masked man were a part of this organization and this had to mean something. Maybe this had something to do with Loretta’s torture, Murphy thought. And he was right. He started working on his map to pinpoint their location, but then he just suddenly vanished.”

Kevin recoiled in shock. “He vanished?”

“He just simply vanished without a trace.”

It made little sense.

“Murphy said they’d been following him, do you think, maybe, they’d murdered him because he knows too much?” Kevin asked.

“We haven’t found his body yet, so for now we assume he’s still alive.” he disclosed. “Few days after Murphy disappeared, I went through his files. That’s when I found out he’d already finished the map he’d been working on.”

“Murphy figured the location, and he went in alone?” Kevin raised an eyebrow.

“He left his badge and gun behind. Murphy may be persistent, but he’s not that dumb, there’s no way he would go in alone without a gun or anything to defend himself with.” Leonard vouched, then continued, “Days passed and Murphy still didn’t show up at the office, that’s when I visited the address he’d marked on his map. I saw them all—hooded figures in black garments, all gathered in an abandoned warehouse. Each had a mask on. My eyes were drawn to the painting on the table which they surrounded. It had the eyes of a wolf painted on it. I figured, maybe, it’s some kind of logo. I tried to bring the activities of Beocraft to light, so I returned to the precinct, telling everyone everything I knew. That night, the state security officer led an attack to capture them, but they were all gone before we got there. It’s either they knew we were coming, or they’d changed the venue for their meeting. After that night, I started feeling like I was being followed.”

Kevin realized he’d also been feeling the same way recently, like someone had been watching him. Could it be that the same organization was onto him too?