Why him of all people?

What was he doing here?

He looked as though he just finished work, and seemed to be dressed in another bespoke suite of creams and blues. Just how many did this guy have?

She then heard something approach and looked down to see a little girl, dressed in a cherry red blouse with short sleeves, a white skirt with cherries for the pattern and black slip-on flats as her hair had been done in a French braid. This little girl was looking up at Kira in complete silence. Kira stumbled back in response, nearly causing Freddie to fall too but gripped the railing before he had.

It’s like she just popped up through some interdimensional portal.

Wait no, she was just some regular kid, with no mystical powers, just some very silent tiny feet. That’s all. But man, the little girl sure knew how to scare the bejeezus out of someone.

Then Kira noticed how the kid was looking at her in silence.

“Amalie,” her father gently called for her, causing the little girl to break eye contact and go over to where Alastor was, in which he then looked to see the detectives and gave a curt yet polite smile. “It seems you have some important people waiting,” he says before looking at Eloisa. “I hope it’s nothing too grim.”

Eloisa didn’t respond right away. “No, it’s fine, I’m sorry that I didn’t inform you that we would have to change the time for this. It was incredibly rude, especially with how long you’ve been with us.”

Alastor’s smile became a bit softer. “There is no need to apologize for something that is, fundamentally, out of your control. Something like this would hardly be considered rude.” He then changed the topic. “So, when would you like to reschedule our appointment?”

“How about this Saturday? I’ll have to close the shop for at least a few days. I hope that’s okay with you?”

“I have no issues with Saturday, same time then?”

She smiled. “Sure,” she then looked to Amalie who looked a bit uncomfortable. “I’ll have yours ready as well by then too, okay Amalie?” Amalie merely nodded silently as she clung close to her father. “Something wrong?”

“Things at school have been a bit difficult,” Alastor explained.

Eloisa looked at him with a frown of concern. “I thought she was going to be starting at a different school by now?”

“Some difficulties arose, so it won’t happen for a little while still.” He says as he runs a hand atop her head. “But we’ll manage and get through it.”

“I suppose that’s all you can do.”

“Thank you,” he then glanced at Kira and Freddie. “We should go, I would hate to take up more of your time.”

“Yes, I’ll call if something comes up. Goodbye Mr. Hilmarsson.”

The man paused at the door, and with a faint smile said. “I do hope they find your brother soon. Try to stay optimistic. I’m sure there will be news.”

She gave a small smile back. “Thank you, Mr. Hilmarsson.”

As the two left, Kira caught the little girl looking their way before silently following after her father where Eloisa locked the door and flipped the sign when they were gone.

“Would you both give me a moment?” Eloisa asked as she kept her back facing them. “I should have made some calls to clients about this, but I need to reschedule some appointments. Hopefully, it won’t take too long.”

“Yeah,” Kira said. “Sure, take as long as you need.”

Eloisa didn’t say anything as she went to a counter and pulled out a planner that probably had client information inside. Kira turned when she felt Freddie tapping on her shoulder, who then silently jabbed his thumb to head back upstairs. To not bother the woman any further and wait. When she had Freddie closed the door and looked at her sternly.

“Don’t say it,” she asked but was ignored.

“Do you even know what I’m going to say?” Freddie asked.

“‘I shouldn’t have poked my nose in other’s business’?”

The look intensified, seriously, the man was practically on par with her father.

Thank goodness it wasn’t her Mom.

Kira sighed. “Look, I get it, okay?”

“You certainly don’t seem to!” Freddie snapped.

“Then why did you follow me?” she snapped back.

“To make sure you don’t do something that could very well get you in trouble!” he snaps back. “I know for a fact you still haven’t been sleeping well even after I told you! Poor sleep makes for piss poor decisions! Especially when you have to be clear-minded and focused to do your job.”

She bristled at his comment. “I’m only human Fred!”

“Yes, you are.” His shoulders become relaxed; his face less angry as his voice became even. “Which is why you cannot obsess over this. This case! Every single time we run across one of his victims, you toss all rational thinking out the window and go head first without looking at what could be below! Shit like that will get you killed.”

Kira broke eye contact. She couldn’t say anything back to that statement.

“Alastor isn’t who you’re after,” Freddie said suddenly pulling Kira’s attention back to him. “So why do you look at him with such disgust?”

Kira frowned. “What? No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” Freddie says plainly. “You look at the man as if something about him bothers you. Why is that? Is it because he’s a single parent?”

“No,”

“Is it because he’s social?”

“No,”

“Because he’s rich?”

“No.”

“Because he’s famous in Toronto?”

“No.”

“Do you think he’s homophobic?”

“What the---no! Of course, I don’t! It’s none of that.” she shook her head. “Why are you asking me all this?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “You keep looking bothered by him like you suspect something of him. Why else would I ask those questions? If it’s about his wife, Alastor was questioned right at the beginning but had a solid alibi for when she fled after she tried to kill the kid five years ago. There’s video proof and everything of her heading to the airport.”

“I know that!”

“Then what is it? Kira, you decided to follow Ms. Sarto after hearing Mr. Hilmarsson speak, what exactly made you do that?”

“It’s…” she let out a breath. “It’s his eyes.”

Freddie arched a brow and waited.

“The way he looks at others, sometimes, I’ve noticed that his gaze looks as though other people are less important.”

“So, you think he’s racist?”

“No, no, not that. I mean, like, regardless of who or what a person is, depending on how things go his eyes give off a feel as though they aren’t important. Like he finds them disgusting. Like with Karen Crock.”

“Can you blame him for not liking her? The woman hit the man and even tried to hurt his daughter over a blasted book.”

She ran a hand through her short hair. “Yeah well, speaking of that, he seems way overly protective of his kid. Like over-the-top protective. It’s weird.”

Freddie did not look too pleased when she said that. “Kira, he’s a single Dad, raising a young child. Of course, the man is going to be protective. Hell, I bet he was even before his wife did what she did. If anything, it added to it.”

She looked at him skeptically. “Is that your fatherly intuition talking?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Then returned the disapproving ‘Dad’ look. “Yes. If you ever decide to have children, blood-related or not, then you’d know damn well you’d do everything you could to make sure no one hurt your kid. Granted, you can’t protect them from everything, hell sometimes you have to let them do something stupid so they can learn, but you’d at least still try to keep them safe. Especially if you’re doing it alone, like Alastor.”

Kira inwardly cringed, she stepped on one hell of a landmine, Freddie was known in the department for just how much he loved his kids, and what he’d do for them if anything happened.

“Alright, alright, I understand Freddie. Well, not completely, I don’t have kids,” Hell, I don’t think I even want them. “But I understand where you’re coming from. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you owe an apology to.”

Kira pinched the bridge of her nose with her right hand’s index finger and thumb. “Right, I suppose so.”

* * *

After twenty minutes of waiting, Eloisa came back upstairs to start answering questions.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to take as long as I had.”

“It’s fine,” Kira said. “And actually, I need to apologize too, I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on your conversation.”

Eloisa merely stared at her. “That was pretty rude of you, not to mention disappointing from someone in the police force. I expected you to be trained better.”

Kira felt like she was being verbally stabbed by the woman’s words, she wasn’t wrong though. “I… I know, I shouldn’t have done that. I was just surprised to see him is all.”

“Mr. Hilmarsson has been a long-time customer. This year he came for not only himself but his daughter.”

“Why his daughter?”

“Christmas,” Eloisa replied. “It’s for a Christmas event that he will be attending with his daughter. So, he asked in getting not only a suit for himself but also a dress for her. My brother didn’t want to, but Mr. Hilmarsson asked me because he knew I’ve been commissioned for women's and children’s clothes before.”

Kira looked confused. “Why not just go and get a cheap thing at Winners? Or somewhere else like it? Not to offend but it seems a bit excessive to spend several hundreds of dollars on something she will probably only wear once.”

Eloisa gave the detective an unimpressed look. “If you knew the family, you wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I thought he didn’t have any other family.”

“I think she’s referring to the other half of Amalie’s family,” Freddie said.

“Oh,”

“Exactly, so you can understand why. But even then, Mr. Hilmarsson has always wanted the best for his daughter, regardless of what you think of him, detective, he will always do anything for her, no matter how or small it is.”

Kira said nothing back, realizing that Eloisa had heard Freddie and her talking.

“Anyhow, we should continue with what it was you wanted to know,” the woman stated as she then sat in an armchair in the living room across from the couch.

Freddie sat across from her, with a notebook in one hand and pen in the other as Kira remained standing behind him. “What was your relationship with your brother?

“Growing up it was a typical relationship between siblings, though my brother was older, he was always jealous of my accomplishments. He hated that I was just as good if not better when it came to our shared desire to take over the family shop. It’s probably because of that that he resented me, and our father. The older we got, the worse it became.”

Judging from what we’ve learned about him, the guy was an ass. Kira thought.

“And when he originally kicked you out of the store?” Freddie asked.

Her face flushed red with embarrassment. “That was because my fiancé proposed, he even wants to take the family name. Something of which he and my father talked about while visiting him in the hospital.”

“Is your father unwell?”

Eloisa shook her head. “No, he’s been in recovery for surgery…” She came to a halt as if realizing something as her breath became short. “How am I supposed to tell him that his son is dead…? It’ll break his heart…”

“Was there any dispute with ownership?” Freddie asked after giving her a moment.

“Huh? Oh, no, no, the shop was supposed to be split evenly. Though my brother was going to try and take my name off the deed, our father wouldn’t let him. He… uh, he said that as a family we should stick together and work things out. But my brother never liked that, it was more of a “his way or the highway” kind of thing. My father told me that if anything happened to him, my brother wouldn’t be able to do anything since a will he and my mother made was air-tight and couldn’t be contested. Although, I believe my father intended to change it when Giovanni married Miriana. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but she was an awful woman, who brought out the worst in my brother.”

“And your mother?”

“She was murdered, three years ago, by a bunch of thugs who wanted her money. She was shot, and died instantly. It broke my father, would have to take some time to himself even when customers were around.” Eloisa frowned. “Oddly enough, the men who attacked my mother were found a month later. People say it was that serial killer that killed them.”

Kira frowned in turn. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “Because of how they were found, they looked like something from an art piece, I don’t know which. I honestly didn’t care, if anything, I was just glad they were dead. If it was Cadavre Exquis then I have the solace to know that they suffered greatly when they died.”

“Do you feel the same with your brother?” Kira asked before Freddie had the chance to say anything and gave a disapproving look in response.

But this was a question that needed to be asked, even if it was rude.

Her back straightened as her shoulders became stiff. “What? No! He was my brother! He could be a real bastard to a lot of people, even towards me, but there’s no way I’d ever want to see him killed in such a horrible way!”

“But you said that you were happy that the ones behind your mother’s murder were dead.”

She glared at Kira. “They murdered my mother, detective. Now, I don’t know about your personal life, but how dare you insinuate that I’d be happy with my brother being killed. If you have siblings, I hope you never have to deal with something like this or anyone you care about for that matter. One instance does not equate to another. Sure, there were times I hated my brother, but as I said, I wouldn’t want to see him dead. Not ever.”

Freddie let out a breath. “I apologize, Ma’am, we didn’t mean to get so far off-topic.”

Eloisa still looked upset, looking away from Kira. “Is that all you have or are there more intrusive questions like this?”

“No, there won’t be any more questions like that.”

She looked at Freddie. “As long as they come from you, I have no issue with it.”

* * *

By the time Freddie finished questioning Eloisa Sarto, it was becoming late in the evening as they drove back in silence, where Freddie took the wheel, but instead of going back to the station. He stopped the car on the block where Kira lived.

“Freddie, why are we here? I still have paperwork.”

“Deal with it tomorrow.” He looks at her. “Go to bed Kira, before you go over the line with the wrong person.”

“It was a question,”

“It was too invasive and you know it.” Freddie’s expression became stern. “If you keep this up, I’ll be asking the Chief to take you off any case involving Cadavre Exquis in the future.”

“What? Freddie, you can’t!”

“I will if you keep doing this!” he snaps back. “You know damn well this path you’re on will bring you down, and if you keep going it’ll get you killed, just like Louis!”

Kira just sat there stunned, but then remembered, Freddie was Louis’s partner before becoming a detective. Louis’s death hit Freddie just as hard but had gone and dealt with it in a completely different way than she had.

“This is my final warning, Kira. Pull that again and I’ll make sure you can’t work any cases that Cadavre Exquis has committed.”

He was serious, what’s more, he wasn’t throwing his words around, the man had clout, and if Freddie felt someone wasn’t up to the task, he’d give them a chance to prove themselves before pulling them out before it did something to that person, be it physical or mental.

“Now go get some sleep. Take the day off tomorrow too, those files won’t be going anywhere.”

“Freddie,”

“No,” he says sternly. “I don’t want to hear it unless it’s coming from a clear mind, not one hyped up on caffeine and lack of sleep. Go home Song.”

She was silent, the man was set in this, and wouldn’t budge, sometimes she hated that about him, but knew that deep down it was coming from a place of concern, “Alright,” she got out of the car, her chest feeling tight. “I am sorry, Freddie, for how I acted.”

He didn’t look like he believed her. “Save it for when you’re well-rested.”

Kira closed the door as he then drove off without another word, leaving Kira to stand alone on what would normally be a busy street.

She leaned against a brick wall and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. “Fuck…” she muttered. Kira grit her teeth while fighting the urge to bash her head into the wall behind her. She didn’t mean to piss Freddie off, but there was one thing that she couldn’t deny.

He was right.

And if she did keep going like this, she might just end up like Louis, or worse.

Letting out a deep sigh she shoved her hands into her coat pockets and walked the short distance to the entrance of the apartment, but while walking that short distance she nearly stumbled into a woman who was a little taller than her, with long brown hair when rounding the corner.

“Oh sorry,” Kira said. “I wasn’t paying attention.” And continued, not noticing that the woman looked back in Kira’s direction and silently smiled before carrying on their way.

When Kira made it home, she saw her girlfriend, Lucia, working hard on her laptop, dressed in pyjama bottoms and an oversized sweater, Kira’s sweater, typing furiously away on her laptop. Lucia was like that this morning when Kira left, her girlfriend could become extremely focused when it came to her writing. Without a word, closed the distance and wrapped her arms around Lucia’s shoulders and hugged her.

This snapped Lucia out of her focused trance. “Hey, when did you get back?”

“A little while ago, sorry for interrupting. I just… really wanted to hold you for a moment.”

“You’re not interrupting anything, want me to stand up?”

“No, it’s okay.” She looked at the screen. “What are you working on? A new book?”

“Nah, going through and changing some things in one of my other works. I think that if I can change it up a bit then maybe a publisher may like it.”

Kira didn’t say anything, this was a book that Lucia had been working on before but was rejected several times. This was a story that Lucia just couldn’t let go of, even though it was in a genre that wasn’t all that popular.

After a moment, Kira let go, went to the bathroom and took out a bottle of sleeping pills, took one, changed, reheated something from the previous night and then went to bed. Which Lucia soon joined her afterword’s.

“Rough day?” Lucia asked in a whisper.

“Yeah,” she then felt her girlfriend move closer and rested her head against Kira’s chest.

“Tomorrow will be better, just keep thinking that and you’ll be on your way.”

Kira hugged her back and kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Lu,” though she still didn’t feel all that good about it, about everything and how she was acting.

As they lay in bed, Kira couldn’t help but wonder why that little girl looked at her the way she did.

Grey eyes filled with wariness, and, almost an impassive look. Like disappointment. What kind of child could make such an expression? And why was it directed at Kira?

No that shouldn’t matter, not now at least as the pills were now starting to take effect. She needed to be better, way better than how she was acting this past while.

So, for now, she’d bury it. Her anger and hatred for that monster who had no face to give, and do all she could with her job, think objectively and not push a person, or cross a line.

She needed to be better or it’d cost her in more ways than one.

Not to mention, she needed to apologize for how she was acting towards Freddie. Before she drifted off to sleep, Kira thought of that fancy coffee place and recalled a certain drink and pastry he liked to have on a rare occasion.

She’d buy him that as a way of sincerely apologizing, she’d only hoped he’d take it.