Jaimie woke up as usual. He wondered if he'll be able to sleep like a normal person anytime soon. His breath was heavy and was sweaty in an air-conditioned room. Judy observed that Jaimie felt ghastly and asked if he was okay.

"It's fine. Don't let it bother you," he replied. However, the concern in her face was something which he appreciated.

"You are going insane. This is nuts. You got to get your head checked." Judy said while struggling to pull her sheets off. Just as she found her balance, she got out of the bed and headed into the washroom while saying "Damn it. You know I can't stay here. It is already getting late. I have a busy day ahead."

He replied, "Don't go driving around like a lunatic now. You are not sober enough to make it."

"As if you are," she replied smiling.

"Good thing that your craziness affects only your sleep or it would be such a waste of time."

Jaimie laughed. "You know you can bet on that."

She continued, "Seriously. If something's up, just try to let me know... I'm not here just to recommend a free massage."

He smiled. He tried to stop her as she was about to leave the door.

"I'll get a cab or something... I wasn't born yesterday. I can manage." Judy said finally and left.

He wasn't sure what was going on between them but he wasn't complaining. He needed it. And of course, she was beautiful.

Ever since the day he had that massage, his life had fallen lower than he thought was possible. Nightmares about the black sedan incident and the bloody street brawl developed new scenes. He could hear in his sleep the muffled scream of a pale faced woman who was blindfolded calling out for help in a desperate attempt to survive. He could feel her asphyxiate as she was handcuffed to the door handle and choke-pressed to the car seat.

That started as a road-rage. He was fully loaded after a night at the club and had given up on driving. He managed to park the car somewhere before he had blacked out. He had just come to his senses, contemplating about life when there was a thud as a black sedan zoomed past him, shattering his side mirror.

Granted, he was quite close to the middle of the road rather than to the side. But it was a remote, low-traffic area and the sedan dented his pride more than the car.

He was a man of the streets. He knew the way around town better than anybody else. He had been in petty fights throughout his life. This could be dealt with after the fact.

Nobody could get away after ramming Jaimie's car. Mirror for mirror.

He took a shortcut to the next main street, going at full throttle. After a while the black sedan came into view. As the road was empty save for these two in early part of the day, he was able to close the gap considerably until he came level to level. Then he had his weapon of choice, the half-filled spare bottles of alcohol he had in the car. "Slow down motherfucker. We need to talk" he yelled as he hurled one at the Sedan while trying to maneuver the car. The bottle landed on the Sedan's door splattering its contents on the dark tinted glass and the glass pieces rebounded some of it towards his car.

"Shit..." he cursed as he raised the tinted glass on his side still trying to keep pace. He weighed his options. He didn't like this car. Airbags were working. He had his seatbelt on. He had a hockey club with him. A pocket-knife. He shook his head to not get carried away. Just as he reached the level of tail-lights of the sedan, he saw or heard shots with one bullet entering through the front glass missing him by a distance he didn't want to measure.

His bravado and smugness turned into fear and pure panic as death stared at him. He involuntarily accelerated and rammed against the side of the sedan which was much bulkier than his.

Should've stopped.

The sedan came crashing into his car with sheer force and he crashed on a tree on the side of the road. He was in agony. Though he was saved by the protective equipment he was in no way ready for any kind of brawl. He had heavily underestimated the opponent. These aren't the kind of assholes he usually dealt with. These were the real deal. He was stuck to the seat with seat-belt and the airbags preventing movement. He was too exhausted. He was in the middle of nowhere.

He took out his phone and dialed the emergency number. Phone went in SOS mode.

Giant hands hoisted him from the seat releasing him from the seatbelt, and the giant fist landed on his face. Nose started bleeding. Another man went towards the sedan and the window lowered. Jaimie saw the woman who would later fill his nightmares. He froze. An abduction. Wrong place, wrong time. His and the woman's lives were at stake. He remembered his friends who had warned him that his unbridled temper tantrums would land him in trouble.

Not like this.

He summoned his strength and landed a backwards kick to the crotch of the giant man who was restraining him. He fell like the final turn of a Jenga game. Jaimie ran to the car searching for anything he could find. He got the club. The hooded men were on to him as well. Two of them.

The sedan drove away. The woman's screams faded.

He whacked the club as hard he can to the face of one of the men knocking him down. Just before he could land a fatal blow, the other man restrained him from behind. Jaimie repeatedly elbowed the man's face and when his grip loosened, turned and round-house kicked him. The other man was still down. He just had to wait for the ambulance. He tried to search for the phone as he reached his car. He bent down to have a look. He felt an object land on his head with incredible amount of force He collapsed to the ground. It was over. He was beginning to lose his consciousness.

He writhed in pain and turned around, his eyesight was getting blurry and thoughts vague. He saw his hockey club lying on the ground, broken into two and silhouette of a giant man.

Stolen novel; please report.

***

Cindy was getting ready for the interview first thing in the morning. She had been rejected from three other interviews – one for being overqualified, one for being not assertive enough in a group discussion and third due to interviewer being one of the influential workers in Magnus Motors during the lay-offs. Spite wasn't the official reason but she knew better.

The guy had lost his job. But she had lost her husband.

She was unable to persuade her son into going back for college. He had seen murder happen in front of him after all. She hoped it would all turn out okay. She was on optimistic like that. She thought everybody meant well. She smiled through hardships. She was about to leave when the doorbell rang. She opened. And she was surprised.

"Haven't seen you around here. Who are you?"

"Kelly. From the police."

Cindy was nervous. She recomposed herself and said "How can I help you?"

"Just some questions that I want answer for."

"You have history at Magnus Motors, am I correct?" Kelly enquired.

"Yeah, I was employed there. Was laid off after the union incident. Have received no benefits or no contacts after you know, my husband – It's none of your business really."

"Oh sorry. I have heard about it. It's more of a formality. We might require you to visit the station. Don't leave the town for a couple of months madam. Any planned vacations would have to be postponed."

"What is the point? This is ridiculous."

Kelly was getting impatient. "Can I speak to your son, Will - I presume, for a moment?"

"He's not here right now. " Cindy was confused.

Kelly was not pleased. If only she had been given the go-ahead for this. Morell wanted to wait.

"He is studying at the engineering college. Automobile engineering. He has good grades. Was part of college football team. "

"Can I have his number?" Kelly enquired, with something telling her she was not going to get it. In fact, she knew it. But she went through with it.

"I wouldn't be able to give you one if I wanted to. He broke it on the day when everything went crazy. "

"And you didn't ask how?"

"People break phones all the time. I have an interview to attend. This is all the time we have I'm afraid."

"Could you please let me know how your son got access to the event?"

"He looked up to Bill. He participated in some internet campaign thing... I'm not sure."

"Nice day Madam." Kelly said in a muted way. She wanted to search the place. But there was no warrant.

"Yeah."

"See you again."

Cindy felt that was passive-aggressive. Last thing she wanted in her life was another stint with the police. She had no reason to trust them nor the justice system for that matter. She smiled back and left for the interview. Kelly on the other hand, had some reason to trust the rambling lunatic in the station.

***

EARLIER IN THE DAY

Inspector Morell was having a hard time at the station.

He had thought his career was progressing rather smoothly and would be able to retire from service and live with his family in some suburban villa and play golf for the rest of the passing years, enjoying his deserved retirement benefits.

He has long been doing desk work away from the field duties. He looked like a wise old man until he opened his mouth. Though he was good at work, he was bad with people. His co-workers joked that he was an example that any man could get laid. The media blitz surrounding the Magnus Motors incident and the inability of the police to charge for murder clouded his future prospects.

The case was straight-forward. A man shot down four people. Engaged in armed residence against the security guards. Got shot on the leg. That's enough to keep him in prison for the rest of his life. There wasn't any shortage of witnesses. All the people who watched the broadcast till the point where everything went haywire can be considered one. Security guards are witnesses. Essentially, the whole world was. Even in the slightest of off-chances where the lunatic turned out to be true, there was absolutely no way that it could be proven in a way that matters to the court. He wasn't the superstitious kind.

Yet, the police have not been able to charge the man in question, Murray - the ex-HR lead of Magnus Motors - of anything. Not even for noise pollution in the police station. He even had some sympathy for the man who was so used to people taking orders from him, sitting high and mighty in board meetings, to be spending a lifetime in a wheel chair.

Murray's wife had left him after the incident and had told him that she was glad that they didn't have kids. She had vociferously defended him when he was alleged with fraud where he was supposedly extorting money out of the workers as bribe in the pretext that he will take a favorable stand to raising the minimum wage. He would repeatedly deny maternity leave for the workers citing low productivity and the losses incurred by the company.

When pressed for it, his wife had famously quoted "the world doesn't revolve around welfare. Baby-sitters and pill-poppers are a liability to the company" though she retracted the sentence later to tabloids of that time saying that the media had put words in her mouth and had misrepresented her.

Murray had yelled once to Morell in the middle of questioning out of nowhere "The bitch just wants to save her face. She had no fucking problem when she was getting all the money that I made, screwing over the leeches mooching off the company. Now acts like fucking nobility. Bet she found someone else to fuck."

Even an opportunist had levels of tolerance.

Morell had to sternly warn him to stop his rants.

Murray had used his condition to his advantage, asking for leniency against the charges, while hiring a lawyer without whom the police can't question him.

The repeated claim was that he did not pull the trigger that killed the four men. He repeatedly said that he had no control over his body while he did it. He had a specific dislike towards Inspector Kelly whom he foulmouthed often.

Morell lamented at least he will get charged with harassing a police officer if nothing else worked out.

It was Kelly who had suggested this to Morell, to subject him to a polygraph test. She wanted a reason to suffer through his rants more than anything. If all this were a lie, the man was done for. But to her and everybody's surprise, the result came out positive.

The police had reviewed the CCTV and broadcast footage of the press club from all available angles. Especially moments before the incident. The tennis ball autograph event was going on. This was the time that Murray had told he lost control over his body. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He had no wounds before the event. He was not under influence of drugs during that time according to his medical reports.

Kelly said while watching the footage "He's either a convincing actor who can pull off a robotic performance or a hypnotized puppet with a chip on his head like the internet lunatics say these days...even though his theatrics in the interrogation doesn't help him." She added. Morell chuckled.

She continued, "We've been trying to reach out to most of the people who were there in the press meet using the data shared by event organizers which was collected to issue event passes. Email id of students who participated in the social media campaign are also available with us. It was a hassle to complete the formalities."

"Good. Is there anything that I need to know?" Morell asked.

"I've gone over the footage many more times than I'd like to admit. There is this one student in the crowd, with face obscured by his hat in most of the footage, a bit too keen on what's happening. The registered number for the event not going through; used a temporary email to create the social media profile... something's off there. Don't you think?" Kelly enquired.

"I bet you are planning on taking this up on yourself, aren't you?" Morell asked knowingly.

"I guess. Students had to present their college ID cards as proof for entry. Got the name from there. Will. With some help of the college staff, came to know that he lost his father recently. The mother was laid off from Magnus Motors." Kelly replied.

"It is worth a shot as polygraph was positive. Don't force anything. We also need to account for Murray's wife's security. She has sought a restraining order. The man is a menace."