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  Closed Door

  The Angela Hunter Series, #1

  Copyright 2013 C. M. Okonkwo

  DISCLAIMER

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, undead, in the before-life or in the after-life, will be deemed a compliment of the author’s genius.

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this novella to all my ardent readers who asked me for a second part of Closed Door. This was meant to be just one short story, but it ended up being a novella with seven parts.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Part One: Closed Door

  Part Two: The Confession

  Part Three: The Pursuit

  Part Four: The Informant

  Part Five: The Deal

  Part Six: The Italian

  Part Seven: Private Eye

  Special Preview

  Acknowledgments

  Part One: Closed Door

  “Aggie! Open the bloody door and get out of there right now,” I yelled, as I banged on the grey door that separated my room from Agnes’s own. “I need to use the bathroom.” I banged a few more times, but she didn’t open it, or make an attempt to.

  Honestly, it wasn’t surprising that Agnes refused to open the door, because she always spent an eternity in the bathroom doing heaven-knows-what. You would bang and bang repeatedly, and she wouldn’t even have the courtesy to say, “Yes?” or even “Give me a minute.” Perhaps “Give me one hundred minutes,” as it was always the case with her.

  I would always go to our older brother, Samuel to knock the door down, and we would see Agnes standing in front of the full mirror, either singing or acting. She would hiss at us, roll her eyes, and stomp out in anger.

  “There’s a mirror in your bedroom!” I always said to her, reminding her that she could lock herself in her room and look in the mirror for as long as she wanted. No one would bother her, or even care.

  If our brother wasn’t home, I would go to our mom. But after unsuccessfully trying to talk Agnes out of the bathroom more than ten times, Mom gave up. She couldn’t be bothered. She had a bathroom in the master bedroom she shared with Dad, so Agnes could spend the rest of her life in the one she and I shared for all Mom cared. Dad had also tried to talk her out of the bathroom on several occasions, but like Mom, he gave up trying. He would always jokingly say to me, “Sorry Angie, but your sister is crazy in the head.”

  I admit that Agnes was kind of weird. She was the total opposite of me: quiet, introverted, shy, and very brilliant. Not that I wasn’t brilliant, I wasn’t just as brilliant as she was. And even though we looked identical, we were always referred to as “beauty” and “the brain.”

  Well, I think it’s mostly because we just entered college; I chose to major in Creative Arts and Make-up, while she chose to study Engineering. I wasn’t bothered at all, though. Life was too short to study anything difficult. I just wanted to do something easy, be done with college quickly, then start “painting faces,” as Mom always put it.

  To tell you how excited I was about choosing that major, I started constantly doing Mom’s make-up. I mean, forcing her to wear make-up, and I think Dad liked it. I always felt his heart race whenever he saw Mom looking so beautiful and yummy, many thanks to me. I also tried to apply make-up on Agnes’s cute face a couple of times, but she always shoved me aside.

  She didn’t really like that kind of stuff: make-up, manicured fingernails, or even fancy, colorful clothing. So you can only imagine the look we had on our faces when Samuel kicked the bathroom door down the first time, and Agnes was there, hairbrush in her hand, singing into it.

  “Dammit Aggie. There’s a mirror in your bedroom!” I told her, in case she hadn’t noticed.

  On that same evening, after I had banged on the door repeatedly, I decided to use Samuel’s bathroom, but when I got to his room, his door was locked. I think he was on the phone with Alexandra “Lexie” Smith, again. I didn’t know what Samuel saw in that neighborhood slut, but whenever he got on the phone with her, his door remained locked for the rest of the night. Well, it was also because I walked in on him once, touching himself.

  That day, Agnes had locked herself in the bathroom and I needed to shower, because I had a party to attend with my friends. I called Samuel a couple of times, but he didn’t answer. So I went into his room, thinking he was sleeping, hoping to drag his muscular body off his bed. I was so embarrassed when I switched the bright light on and saw him stark naked on his bed, holding his thing and saying, “Yeah baby,” “Say my name Lexie,” “Call me daddy.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” I gasped, and held my hands over my mouth immediately.

  “What the hell are you doing, Angie? Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. I had frozen like ice when I saw him in the act. “Are you fucking deaf? Get out!”

  I ran out and slammed the door behind me. I stood there for a while, awkwardly biting on my fingernails before realizing I needed them to be perfect for the evening. I took a few deep breaths, then turned back to face Samuel’s door and remembered my manners.

  “Sam?” I called out politely, as I knocked gently on the door.

  “What?” he replied, sounding military.

  “Can you let me use your bathroom?” I hesitated briefly. “Pretty please?” I added quickly.

  “What’s wrong with yours?”

  “Aggie is!”

  “Go to Mom’s.”

  “Dammit Sam,” I said, feeling frustrated. “Mom and Dad are out!”

  Our folks usually locked their bedroom door whenever they were going out. They started doing that a long time ago, and eventually got used to it. Well, thanks to Agnes; she had done a few too many experiments in their bedroom, which resulted in Dad having to fix one of their closet doors, repaint the walls, and change the whole light-brown rug. I don’t know what tools and chemicals she had used, but Dad spent a lot of money getting the bedroom fixed.

  I knocked on Samuel’s door again, in an irritating way, and I heard him get up, put some clothes on, and walk toward the door. He yanked it open and walked past me. In less than a minute, he broke my bathroom door down. Agnes was in there, and this time, she was reading a play she had written, or copied off the net. She was also acting it out in front of the mirror.

  “You are welcome,” Samuel said, shaking his head as he walked back to his bedroom. Then he went in and slammed his door behind him.

  I reminded Agnes, again, as she walked out, that she had a full mirror in her bedroom. Gosh, I hated our house. Samuel’s bedroom had an in-built bathroom. And since Agnes and I had separate bedrooms, I wondered why we didn’t have separate bathrooms too.

  Dad was mad when he came home that day, but he got the door fixed the same week. And after about six more door-breaking-down episodes, he vowed never to fix it with his money again. In fact, he even threatened to fix it with Samuel’s allowance the next time.

  So you can understand why Samuel didn’t want to help me out on that particular evening. I had a get-together to attend, and Agnes was being annoying again, but he couldn’t afford not to have his monthly allowance. I banged one more time, and there was still no answer. I went to Samuel’s bedroom and knocked on the door, gently.

  “Get lost!” he yelled, anger in his tone.

  I figured he was on the phone with Lexie, and didn’t want to be disturbed. I walked past the living room, heading toward my folks’ bedroom when Mom stopped me.

  “Where do you think you are going, young lady?” she asked.

  “I need to use the bathroom, and queen Aggie won’t come out,” I replied, still walking toward their bedroom.

  “I didn’t say you could use ours.”

  “But Mom—”

  “Didn’t you already have a lo
ng bath this morning?” Dad interrupted with the question.

  “And a longer one this afternoon?” Mom added.

  “Yes!” I answered. “But I’m going out soon, so I have to take a quick bath.”

  “You go out every single day. Don’t you think you should rest today?” Dad asked.

  “No, I don’t! This is a very big event and I have to be there,” I pointed out clearly.

  “Don’t you have any studying to do?” he fired back.

  “I know, right? Don’t you ever have any homework, like your sister does?” Mom asked.

  I didn’t reply. Mom was like Dad’s shadow. Instead of being on my side, she supported his every word.

  “Or tests, or even exams?” she added, confirming my belief she was not on my side.

  “No, no, and no!” I said, breathing like a threatened dragon. “I study creative arts and make-up, so I have no coursework or research paper.”

  My folks saw the desperate and angry look on my face, but instead of being compassionate, they laughed out loud before Mom finally motioned for me to go into their bedroom.

  “Thank you both,” I said, rolling my eyes as I opened the door and entered the bedroom.

  I had a thirty-minute, warm and relaxing bath. Then, I wiped myself dry, creamed my body, and put on my housecoat. I smiled as I walked out of my folks’ bedroom, already thinking of what to put on for the get-together. As I walked toward my bedroom, I felt their eyes fixed on me before Dad asked a question.

  “Quick bath, huh? Do we still have any water left?” He and Mom burst out laughing again. I didn’t think it was funny, so I ignored them and kept moving.

  As I continued toward my bedroom, I noticed the bathroom door was still closed. I sighed, because I knew I would have waited endlessly if I were hoping for Agnes to come out before it was time for me to leave. I pounded on the door one more time as I walked past it.

  “Queen Aggie, what act and scene are you on now?” I asked, muffling a laugh. “Or did you compose a new song this time?”

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I tried the door. I guess it was just my reflexes, since I knew she always locked it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked this time. And as curious as I was, I opened it and pushed it to the end. As soon as I saw Agnes, I screamed, right before I fainted.

  When I woke up, some police officers were in my house, and a red stretcher was already wheeling Agnes’s body out in a black body bag. I stood up immediately, but Dad told me to sit back. Mom was standing by the door and crying, as she watched the stretcher leave. Then, she ran after it and started pulling it back into the house before Dad went to hold her. I turned my head to the side and saw Samuel by the hallway, his phone glued to one ear, whispering into it.

  I didn’t know what exactly had happened, but as I was trying to put everything together, an officer walked up to me. He introduced himself as Detective Jacob Slaughter, and his partner as Detective Kingsley Pruitt. Before I could even grasp both their names, he started throwing questions at me. Then, he asked if I saw anyone in the bathroom when I opened the door.

  “No, Detective. I only saw my sister on the floor, her wrist slit and the knife by her side.” I shook at the mention of that. “There was blood everywhere.” I sobbed and Dad came to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed them gently.

  Dad was joggling between consoling Mom and I, while Samuel was making himself useful to his phone, and useless to us. No one could even hear what he was saying, but we were very sure Lexie was on the other end of the call.

  “So was she depressed, or was anyone giving her any trouble?” Detective Slaughter asked, looking back and forth at the three of us. I suddenly snapped out of the thought of snatching Samuel’s cell phone, telling Lexie to get lost before smashing it on the wall right in front of him. Mom had walked back to the sitting room and joined me on the couch.

  We all shook our heads at Detective Slaughter’s question. For one thing, we knew Agnes was very quiet and never got into any form of trouble. And neither did I.

  “And you are absolutely sure you didn’t see anyone in the bathroom?” He fixed his gaze on only me when he asked the question.

  “No, Detective.” I shook my head several times. “I didn’t see anyone in the bathroom.”

  “Do you normally leave the bathroom window open?”

  I stopped to think about it for a second. I wasn’t sure if I normally did. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” He looked at me as if I had just spoken in Latin. “It’s either a yes or a no!”

  “Well, I don’t! Leave it open, I mean. And I don’t know if Aggie did, or does, or did.” It felt weird speaking about her in present tense, but weirder referring to her in past tense.

  “Aggie?” he asked, with eyebrows raised, almost touching his hairline.

  “Agnes, I mean. We shared the bathroom,” I said, correcting myself. They obviously had no idea we called her “Aggie” for short.

  “Did anyone ever enter the house through the window? Or did Agnes ever have someone in through the window?”

  I rubbed my jaw and squinted my eyes at those questions. As I thought about it, I realized it might have been possible. Agnes might have had people climb in, then send them out quickly whenever she heard our voices at the door. All the singing and acting in front of the mirror might have just been a way to distract us. But as I was thinking of what Agnes might have or might not have done, it suddenly hit me that the detective’s questions were off point.

  “Does it matter if someone was in the bathroom, or if we always left the window open?” I asked. “I mean, what does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has to do with everything, because Agnes didn’t commit suicide,” Detective Slaughter said, and paused briefly. “She was killed.”

  We all stared at Detective Slaughter as those words came out of his thin lips. Samuel finally put his phone down to hear what the detective was going to say next. I was sure it was probably Lexie that asked him to listen, because she also wanted to know what was going on.

  “What are you saying?” I asked the detective almost immediately. “How would you know that?”

  “Agnes was cut on her right hand, and unless she turned her left hand 360 degrees, there’s no way she cut herself,” he replied with absolute certainty.

  “What does that mean?” Dad asked.

  “It means that a left handed killer sliced Agnes’s wrist and let her bleed out.”

  “And if we are very lucky, the killer would have left us some prints on the knife,” Detective Pruitt added.

  We all turned to look at Detective Pruitt. He hadn’t said anything before then. Just like me, I was sure the others were also thinking he was mute. I guessed he was just naturally laconic. It was good to know that he wasn’t a robot. When they were done with the questions, they took the evidence they found, and Detective Slaughter gave me his business card before they left.

  The following day, my family was invited to the station to witness an interrogation. Just as Detective Pruitt had said, some fingerprints were pulled off the handle of the knife, belonging to two boys: a certain Bill Newman, who I had only seen once before, and a Gregory Kindle.

  I saw them both at an event. Bill Newman looked lost, as if he was looking for something or someone. He had introduced himself to me, but I didn’t remember what else had come out of his mouth that night. Gregory Kindle, on the other hand, was new in the neighborhood. Apart from the first time I saw him at the event, I saw him again two weeks later at a house party I attended, and we had spoken a bit. He said his family had just moved in, and so he wanted to make new friends. He was very good looking, but to a fault. His charm gave him the looks of a mysterious killer. But right after he left me, all the girls were all over him and he gave out a soft smile, making him look angelic all of a sudden.

  Anyway, after about two hours of interrogation, the detectives weren’t able to get anything out of the boys. So they kept them in
holding, and walked us out of the building. As we were going to our car, we saw a young guy casually strolling down the street. I recognized him.

  The young guy noticed our eyes on him, and turned to look at all of us. Then his eyes shone bright when he saw me, like it was love at second sight. I had also seen him once before, so this was our second eye contact.

  “No. It can’t be real. You!” he yelled, pointing at me. “I killed you! I watched you die!”

  Before he could say another word, the detectives ran over to him, tackled him to the ground, and handcuffed him. Dad and Samuel were confused, and Mom already started to panic.

  Dad turned to me. “Who in the world is that?” he asked. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes,” I replied, shocked. “That’s Benjamin Clay!”

  “Who the hell is Benjamin Clay?” Dad asked, as we watched the detectives drag Benjamin into the station.

  I turned to look at Samuel before replying, “Benjamin is Lexie’s cousin!” I then turned back to look at Dad. “He dropped Lexie off at the house about two weeks ago.”

  They all looked at me with eyes and mouth wide open, before running back into the station to join the detectives. In the process, Samuel pulled out his phone and started making a call. I had a feeling he was calling Lexie to inform her of the situation. I also followed them into the building, because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. But I couldn’t stop thinking of what I could have done wrong to Benjamin. I didn’t know why he wanted me dead then, but he had murdered my identical twin sister, thinking it was me.