CHAPTER FIVE

“Do you believe it was a suicide?” she said after a moment of silence between both of us

“look we are not that close yet, don’t you think you’re meddling too much into my business?”

Yeah for real this was getting really weird. I mean I just met her why is she acting like we’ve known each other for such a long time

“I didn’t mean to I’m sorry” she said looking sober

Gosh this girl was making me feel really guilty. I didn’t sound mean, did I?

“let’s just go out, to a park maybe”

She seemed to agree because she just nodded and dropped the half empty ice cream bowl in the fridge dumping the spoon in the sink. I grabbed my jacket and the house keys to lock the door behind us.

The park was cool, a lot of kids were there. Adults who just felt like whiling away were also there, heads buried in their smart phones. We talked about a lot of stuff, the town, our hobbies, our school and pretty much our past relationships

“My best friend’s name is Ashley or was Ashley I might say” I said drawing circles with my feet and my hands in my pocket

“what happened? Did she move far away or something?” she bent to pick up a stone she seemed pretty interested in

“actually we moved faraway, to Los Angeles where we are”

“why did you move here, work?”

“private family business stuff like that I can’t really explain”

“no problem I understand” she paused for a while trying to bring up a conversation

“this Ashley girl don’t you have her phone number or something?” she continued looking directly at me, eyes piercing mine

“nope, all possible connections have been cut some way or the other” I said with regret in my guts

“boyfriend?”

“never, unnecessary distractions”

That was the last thing I was going to blurt out. I had to find out more about her I’m not the only one who’s got a history

“why don’t you tell me about yourself” I straightened my shoulders and held my chin high to look really confident

“Sure, that’s easy. I am the only child of my parents, my mum was killed in a fire two years ago...”

“outbreak?”

“arson. They wanted us to believe it was an outbreak but my dad and I aren’t that easy to deceive. We formed our very own two-person intelligence team and gathered evidences to get the killers behind bars for the rest of his life” she looked at the lemonade stand so it wasn’t easy for me to see if she was tearing or she simply didn’t want to look in my direction

Arson? Her mum was murdered. Now that’s really huge she’s really tough to tell me this. Wait what if my mum was murdered? No, no way it was definitely a suicide I mean no one on earth can possibly think of murdering an angel

“you think my mum was murdered?” I said without thinking straight. I had just poured out exactly what I had in mind

She walked over to seat right beside me with her hands crossed over her chest

“have you asked what your dad thinks?”she looked at me with a smirk patched on her face

“he probably believes it was a suicide too just like the rest of the world” I said with a huge sigh

“what do you think?” she held both my shoulders this time and looked me straight in the eye as if she were studying my pupils. She waited patiently for my answer as I shifted my gaze from her to my nails then back to her

“I think I have a lot of unanswered questions” I swallowed hard

“I think we have a crazy adventure ahead of us”