Nalson held on to Sharon and screamed, “Do something fast Patric, or she will be dead. You don’t want to be the reason for her death too, do you?”

Patric’s hands started to shiver. Sharon wondered what Nalson meant by that. She was worried for her life. But this was not the first time Sharon was in a situation like this, and she always managed to get out alive. She worried very little about her own welfare and this is what most worried her roommate Kathy.

For a moment, Sharon caught Patric’s attention, and as he looked at her, she could see him visibly relax. Patric looked right at Nalson and said, “Listen, Nalson, you are just acting out of fear. Don’t be scared, we will help you if you help us. What you are doing now isn’t really helping!”. As he said this, he took a small step forward towards Nalson.

“Who and what do you think I am scared of? I told you man, don’t come any closer, don’t come near me or I will shoot her. You just don’t listen, do you? I guess he doesn’t give a damn about your life, Sharon! All he wants is justice for his parents who have been gone for a long time. Grow up Patric, get over the past!”. His glance moved from Patric to Sharon and back to Patric as he spoke.

Patric instantly knew he had made the wrong decision stepping close to Sharon, as Nalson aimed the gun at him and shot. Luckily, he was shaking all over, and missed his aim by a couple of inches.

Sharon breathed out in relief, it was very obvious that Nalson was acting out in fear. He was scared of something that they did not understand. She decided to take a shot in the dark, looked straight at Nalson and said, “Listen, Nalson, I understand that you are scared, of whom, I do not know. Just give our offer a thought. You can still surrender and give us the information we are asking of you. You have nowhere else to go from here. You are stuck.”

Nalson seemed to consider Sharon’s words for a moment, and then screamed, “No, I will not be tricked. I will not! I have to live for my family!” and started randomly firing at the wall. Luckily, his bad aim ensured that he didn’t meet his target even once.

Finally, his gun ran out of bullets, and Nalson sunk to the ground. Weeping into his hand, he said, “I am so scared. I shouldn’t have been caught. This was not the plan. And now I’m stuck here. If I confess to you, I will be putting not only my life, but also my family’s life in danger. I cannot let anything happen to my children, they cannot know that their father is a criminal and a murderer. It would devastate them.”

Sharon looked at him, eyes filled with pity, and said, “Listen, you will be safe. You will definitely go to jail eventually but you and your family will be safe. We will deploy security to protect your family every moment of the day till we are sure that the people behind this are brought to justice.”

Nalson wiped his tears, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, I have no choice but to trust you. The main guy who put me on to killing your parents, Patric, was Smither Francis. He had two men who took care of all his work. Their names were Smitherine and Daggy John.”

Now, they had a confession, but they did not have it recorded. Sharon immediately felt silly for not carrying a recorder on her and catching Nalson’s confession on tape. Sharon looked at Patric, disappointed. Patric said, “We will figure something out. Now that he has agreed to confess, it will not be a problem getting him to confess again.”

At that moment, they heard the door unlock and Santosh came running in, “Guys, you did it, you got his confession on tape. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we have video and audio surveillance in this room. I captured all of it on tape.”

Patric glared at Santosh and screamed, “If you were right outside listening to us, why the hell didn’t you come in when you heard the gunshots Santosh?”

Santosh looked away sheepishly, “Actually, I had stepped out to pick up some doughnuts for Sharon and you, and was not around the monitor when that happened. When I stepped back in and looked at the monitor, Nalson was on the floor, weeping and confessing to the murder and was dishing out the names of the other killers!”

Sharon sighed, and said, “Cops! Never on time anywhere!”

Patric, hardly able to hold back his laughter, said, “So, Santosh, can we have our doughnuts now? And spare one for our man, Nalson, he has had a pretty rough day!”

Santosh brought in the doughnuts and they sat down and discussed the next course of action. Once they ate, Santosh sent Nalson home with a security in tow and the three of them sat down to discuss Nalson’s confession.

“It really amazes me how you get people to confess to their crimes, Sharon! We got all the information we need, and will get started on nabbing the rest of the suspects from tomorrow.” Santosh was pretty impressed with Sharon’s detective skills.

As they were discussing the details of the case, time flew by and it was nearly time for dinner. Sharon, looking at the time, said, “I’m starving, shall we head out and grab some dinner?”

Both Santosh and Patric agreed and they decided to head to Connie’s for some fully loaded burgers. Just when they were stepping out of the station, Santosh’s phone rang, he picked it up and spoke for a couple of minutes. When he cut the call, he looked at Patric and Sharon, and said, “Looks like I will need to skip dinner. Nelson almost got attacked by Daggy John. Nalson is safe, but the security detail assigned to him shot Daggy. He has been taken to the Society Private Hospital and he seems to be recovering well from the gunshot wound. We can go in sometime tomorrow afternoon to question him.”

Poor Nalson, he was right about his being unsafe. They were glad the security was there and that he was safe. Patric and Sharon decided to meet Santosh at the hospital at 2 pm the next day, bid him goodbye and then decided to drive down to Nalson’s home to visit him.

In fifteen minutes, they were outside his home, and rang the bell. Nalson opened the door after almost five minutes, and he had the security guard standing next to him. He said, “So you heard about what happened!” he looked visibly shaken, “I have sent my wife and kids to her parent’s place. Santosh has assured me that he is assigning people to guard that house as well. I knew this would happen. I somehow managed to get off by saying it’s an issue related to my office. But my wife is no fool, and I’ll have to come up with some answers for her before this ends.”

“Well, you could tell her the truth. You are no more that man and you are going to pay for your mistakes. I am sure they will love you and forgive you for this whole thing, only if you would try to be honest with them!”, said Sharon.

He agreed with Sharon’s point and decided to confess to his wife as soon as this whole mess was sorted out. “Sharon, good point, I cannot lose my family over this, I will do as you say. Now, on a more serious note, Daggy John is stupid, no wonder his attack was so pathetic and he got caught so easy. I really cannot understand why Smither would send him and not Smitherine, his go to person for any kind of planned killing. There is something really suspicious here. You guys need to watch out for these two, they are trained killers.”

“We understand, Nalson. But I have Sharon here to guide me, and she can outsmart the both of them anyday!”, said Patric, with pride.

Sharon beamed on hearing this. She sure was developing a soft corner for this man.

Nalson cut into their moment, and said, “Guys, I’m hungry, and I’m sure you two are starving. Come to the dining area and let’s eat. I have some lovely lasagna that my wife has left back for me. You will absolutely love it.”

 

They sat together and ate some of Nalson’s wife’s delicious lasagna. They ended their hearty meal, with a big slice of homemade chocolate cake. Sharon and Patric thanked Nalson, wished him goodnight and head back to Patric’s home to catch up on some well-deserved sleep. After all, who knew what the next day had in store for them?