Case File #10

(2nd Crime)

"Move it James, let me go out" she pushed him and ran outside and the noise got louder as she approached the gardening tools shed house. Behind it, Kate was on the ground on her knees holding a shovel burying something; as Sharna approached Kate saw her and then James came to them running.

"It's not what you think it is" Kate said axiously putting down the shovel.

"I don't even know what I think it is" Sharna said.

They were all silent for a few moments, James and Kate were exchanging weird looks and Sharna got more and more confused "Care to explain?" she said looking at Kate who said nothing, so she turned to James "James?"

"It's not my secret to tell" he said trying to be calm

"I" Kate said "I have kleptomania" she buried her face in her palms.

"I don't understand" Sharna said

"She's got this urge to steal things, useless and worthless things" he said

"I just can't control it, Emma" Kate burst into tears "and ever since my husband's death I'm less and less in control of it" James started patting her shoulder to make her feel better, he sat on his knees next to her.

"Are you guys together or something?" Sharna wondered

"Of course not" Kate shouted "my husband died less than a month ago! James has just been helping me out with my problem"

"What happened?"

"A woman saw me stealing, she blackmailed me into paying her or she would tell the owner of the shop, so I had to get rid of the evidence" Kate told her in distraught "Can you please keep this a secret Emma?"

"If you promise to try and get this under control, I will"

Kate sighed in relief and then James helped her up. Sharna decided to stay behind and look through the buried things to make sure Kate was being honest and all she could find were random and useless things as James said. "Being honest about this doesn't make her less of a suspect" Sharna said to herself.

She then got up and into the house to change before dinner since her clothes got dirty. It was still a little early for dinner, so she decided to go pay John Doe a visit.

She entered the room and he was still lying on the couch, she grabbed a chair and sat in front of him.

"WAKE UP!" she said "I am the master of fake sleep, for a whole year I used to pretend I'm asleep every morning so I wouldn't go to school and have to explain to people that my dad was killed rather than killed himself"

The man opened his eyes "I'm just sick of questions" he said "I honestly remember nothing and it sucks just waking up to find yourself in a strange place knowing nothing"

"You must've came here for one of two reasons" she said looking him in the eye "One: to steal which is not good for you. Two: to meet someone who doesn't wanna speak of it and that's not good for you either"

"If you wanna play detective my head hurts too much and I don't wanna play"

"Kate, James, Mary, Eliza" she listed the names to him to see his reaction, but he seemed clueless. "I'll believe you for now, but if I find out you were lying, it wouldn't end well for you"

As she got up from her seat, she noticed something shinny on the ground, she got down on her knees and held it, it was an earring. "Did anyone visit you today?" Sharna asked him.

"I don't know, I was sleeping for most of the day"

"We'll see about that" she left the room and went down for dinner with an idea to reveal whose earring was that.

The dinner table was ready, but no one was there yet except her, she lifted the lid off the roasted chicken and put the earring on top then put the lid again and walked away to an arm chair till the others arrived.

Eliza came downstairs and walked over to Sharna "Hey" she said "Anything new?"

"Maybe" Sharna said "I think I might need your help"

"Finally!"

"Can you hang out with Toby after dinner tonight, try to learn from him that secret he's keeping"

"What secret?"

"I have no idea, I tried to make him tell me, but I couldn't. You're his sister and he'll trust you"

"I'll do my best"

They went to the table, everyone was seated in their usual seats when James held the large knife to chop the chicken, he removed the lid and they were all shocked.

"What's that?" Ingrid asked

"Mum, isn't that you earring?" Liz said "the one I borrowed from you for Serena's party?"

"It is, but I don't know why it's here" Kate was worried

"Doesn't really matter, it must've fell when you went into the kitchen to check on the food." James said, but Sharna noticed she was wearing a totally other earring "The important thing is that the chicken smells wonderful"

They all sat for a very uncomfortable dinner and as soon they were done, they all left. Eliza took Toby to his room trying to get him to tell her his secret, James and Mary helped Ingrid upstairs to her room to watch TV, leaving behind Sharna with Kate.

"I know that right now, for you, I must seem as the weirdest person ever" Kate approached Sharna "I can't blame you though"

"Why do you care so much what I think?"

"I don't know, I thought that we might become friends"

Sharna looked at her in sympathy, she was a bit confused whether Kate is really trying to just be her friend or was she just trying to keep her enemies closer and after a small conversation in which Sharna tried to pretend that things are okay between them, she went upstairs into Eliza's room where she was waiting.

"I know the secret"

"Well that was fast"

"Let's just say I now owe Toby a huge amount of Candy and a toy helicopter"

"What did he tell you?" Sharna urged her

"I won't say anything unless you promise me that from now on, whenever you learn something further on the case you'll tell me about it" she raised her eyebrow

"I promise" Sharna said then Eliza told her everything Toby said.

"It all makes sense now" Sharna thought then she got out of her seat and left the room.

On her way to meet again with John Doe, she overheard a conversation between Mary and James in James' room.

"I don't understand why you don't approve of it, you don't even know who he is" Mary shouted

"It doesn't matter if I know him or not, he's just a freaking gold digger" James said confident as ever.

The room was silent for a moment then Mary continued saying "I'm getting old James, I wanna get married and have kids while I still can"

"I know, but you can't marry a car mechanic. It'll be a disgrace to our family name!"

"You're always sleeping around with all of those women and I never say you disgrace our name"

"There's a reason why I never married any of them"

Sharna knew that the conversation was coming to an end, so she decided to leave, before one of them got out and saw her, she went to the library upstairs.

"I was following the wrong lead all along" she said to herself. She then grabbed her phone from her pocket and called Officer Caleb whom she used to work with during her days with the police.

"Officer Caleb, how are you doing?" she said

"Detective Sharna Davis personally is calling me! How lucky am I" he joked

"I think I need your help" she then explained everything to him and he said he'll be there soon.

Sharna then went to Mary's room, she was already sitting there in the dark, but as Sharna entered, she turned on the lights.

"Hey Sharna" Mary said as she closed the door

Sharna grabbed a chair and sat opposite her "Hey"

"How are your investigations?"

"Better than I expected, I have so many clues now"

"That's really good" Mary smiled

"Are you ready to know the truth?" Sharna asked and Mary nodded

"You've been outsmarted"

"Excuse me?"

"You thought I was an amateur, you thought you can trick me, but you were wrong" Sharna was silent for a moment trying to determine Mary's facial expression. "It's simple, you killed Richard and wanted to blame Kate for it, now you have the money, the kids and you can marry our John Doe"

"Sharna" Mary said calmly "I think you're tired and your mind is creating stupid theories that don't even make sense. Why would I kill my own brother?"

"You never liked him even Ingrid knew it and you tried to make yourself feel better knowing that he already wanted to die"

"I don't approve of your humiliating assumptions"

"They're not assumptions. You got Toby that train to keep your secret, or should I say John Doe; he already saw you together before"

"He's a kid, he still believes in santa and the tooth fairy"

"Just stop lying for a moment" Sharna shouted "You intentionally left Kate's earring in John Doe's room when you visited him earlier, because he remembers you. He remembers that the both of you killed Richard for his money with the intention of getting married, he's the car mechanic you were talking about, he had grease stains on his pants"

From the looks of it, Mary was starting to break, she was shaking and couldn't defend herself anymore.

"Just admit it! You were lucky though, with the whole 'Sally Smith' thing you found a way to distract and mislead me."

"What are you going to do now?" Mary said coldly

"So you admit it?"

"Even if you tell the police, they'll figure it's just assumptions"

"Then why are you so afraid? Were you that afraid when you murdered your own brother?"

Mary jumped off her seat onto Sharna's taking her down to the ground with her and she tied her hands with the scarf she was wearing, then she grabbed another scarf from the bed and tied her mouth.

"Never, I didn't feel one bit of regret" Mary said and grabbed her bag while Sharna was trying to get out of the ties. "I always have a backup plan"

She went to the door when Sharna finally was able to move the scarf from her mouth saying "It's too late, the police is already here" they heard sirens getting close.

Sharna was still on the ground, but Mary tried to escape through the backdoor. However, the police were able to catch her and then went upstairs and untied Sharna, who gave them her phone as she recorded her conversation with Mary, and they went to get John Doe too whose name turned out to be Bruno.

A few hours later, the police finished their investigations and Sharna got back to the house to get her stuff and leave, her arm was hurt from the fall, but it wasn't so serious.

She went to Eliza's room to pack, when Liz and Kate came in.

"Sharna suits you better than Emma" Kate smiled at her

"I hope so"

"Thank you so much, if it weren't for you, I might have been the one in police custody now"

"It's my job and I'm always glad to help" Sharna said then walked closer to her and whispered that she'll keep her promise if Kate kept hers, referring to her stealing habit.

Kate then left the room and Sharna continued packing while Eliza sat on her bed holding her laptop.

"You know, I'll kind of miss having a roommate" Eliza said

"Me too, I'll be living all alone from now on!"

"Thank you Sharna, I hate the fact that my own aunt killed my dad, but it's a relief knowing that he wasn't selfish enough to commit suicide and just leave us" Sharna walked over to her and hugged her saying 

"He was in such pain living like this, but the only thing that kept him alive was his love for you and your brother"

"One day you'll figure out what happened to you dad too, I'm sure of it"

"Thank you, I really hope so"

Sharna soon finished packing, left the room and went downstairs when she heard James' voice from behind.

"Were you just gonna leave without saying goodbye, Sharna?"

"I thought you'd already be in one of your parties" she joked

"I just learned my sister killed my brother, yeah that's definitely a night that I'll be partying till morning"

she laughed "Those kids need you James"

"I know and I wanna be a good role model for them, but you chose the wrong night. I need to get drunk and forget all about it"

"I guess you have you're own way of dealing with things" she looked at him sympathetically remembering that she also has things to deal with.

"Maybe you should try my way sometime, you have an open invitation to my yacht" he smirked

"Even now you're also flirting" she joked

"It's a way of life"

"I'm leaving, because unlike you, I have things to do" she walked to the door

"Hope I'll see you again" James said as she closed the door.

Sharna took a cab to her new apartment, took a shower and unpacked her bag. She sat on the couch relaxing for a while, but then decided to call Johnny and make things clear, so she asked him to meet at the park.

A while later...

"Hey there Detective" he said as she approached

"Hey" she smiled

"How is that case you've been working on?"

She told him about everything and he looked proud.

"But I'm not here to talk about that" she said "I wanna talk about us"

"Me too, I think things lately have been confusing for me as well"

"On my way here, I thought of so many scenarios, but now that I am here, there's only one that I think is right"

"The sad one" he said

"It doesn't have to be, it's an ending for us, but a new start for something else"

"Don't you think what we had deserves at least another chance?" He looked devastated, it certainly wasn't what he thought he's be hearing.

"I think there was a reason why we had to break up and no matter how much we wanna deny it now or even for years, one day it'll just come up again"

"I think this time we really need some time away from each other" he said angrily "because I can't move on when I see you on a regular basis"

"Me neither" Sharna looked at him, got closer and kissed him one last time "I guess that's officially goodbye"

"Goodbye Sharna"

Sharna left and as she left she found her eyes start tearing, it was really over this time. She didn't want to go home and stay all night alone, but she didn't wanna go to Emily's either, because she'd smother her with sympathies, hugs and food.

She grabbed a cab and went to James' yacht then she walked into the party, he spotted her from a distance.

"You missed me already?" He smirked

"I just wanna party and forget too, just like you" she said and grabbed a drink from the table next to her.

"You've come to the right place"

After a long night of partying, James' driver drove Sharna home. She sat in the back seat with James, they were both drunk slurring their words.

"Will I see you again?" James said

"Probably not" Sharna laughed

"It's a shame, I didn't get to kiss you"

She jumped closer kissing him then she pulled away "let's just hope I forget all about this night" she joked

"Well, it's morning already" James said as they reached her building

"Thanks for the ride"

She said as she got out of the car and went upstairs to her apartment. She made coffee and showered then laid on her bed, just as she was about to fall asleep, the door bell rang, she wasn't gonna answer, but then it rang again, so she got out of the bed and walked to the door.

"It must be James" she thought, but it wasn't it was a woman in her 30s crying.

"I'm sorry to disturb you this early, detective"

"It's okay, come in" Sharna made coffee while the woman sat on the sofa wiping her tears.

"So what's going on?" Sharna asked

"It's my son, he's been missing for a while now, he never came back from school one day and ever since, he's been missing"

"9 years old?"

"Yes, how do you know?"

"I think we've spoken on the phone before" Sharna remembered her conversation with the woman just before she quit her job.

Hey guys! So what did you think of the 2nd crime? Hope u enjoyed it, thank you so much for reading, voting and commenting and tell me all your thoughts in the comments :) I'll also get into the third crime as soon as possible ;)

Also, I have a shoutout to @SherryVandermark for being my 100th vote :)