Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Two

"What flavour do you like?"

"Vanilla." Charlie made a funny face.

"What?" Jennifer asked amused.

"Vanilla... It is just so ... not the it."

Jennifer frowned. "No, it is definitely the it. It is amazing and has the best of best of nutrients. "

Charlie shrugged.

"I prefer chocolate." He faced the vendor who had just attended to some customers.

"Give her what she wants. And I will have the most amazing, ever amazing chocolate."

"I still think it is vanilla." Jennifer claimed, her eyes gleaming with excitement at the silly exchange they were having.

The vendor handed them their ice creams and they went to a open seat opposite the ice cream stand to sit.

They sat in silence, both of them devouring their ice creams. But then, the silence was become prolonged, Jennifer was becoming tired of it.

“I am starting to feel Francis has a hand in all these.” Charlie took his eyes off the cup in his hand to look at her.

“Really? Why are you thinking that is possible?”

She breathed loudly, stabbing the still solid ice cream. “I remember a time, after my dad died, I was still in my grieving period. You should have seen me, I was a mess.” She chuckled, sharing a second eye contact with him before she continued.

“Well, I remember our help, Hannah, coming into the room, telling me to feel better and all that. But there was something seemingly important she wanted to tell me about Francis and Amanda, my best friend. Francis came in at that exact period. And now that I think of it, it was too precise. I fear…”

“Francis and Amanda is the reason you are here.”

“Yeah. I mean, Hannah hardly says anything and for her to want to mention something… I am afraid…”

“What would you do if you eventually found out this was true?”

“I don’t know. I feel a bit angry right now just thinking about it, I just don’t know how I would feel about it.” If words could explain the heaviness in her heart, she would have loved that. It would be a shame and a great pain to find out either or both of them have a hand in her accident.

“Your ice cream is melting. Listen, if you feel anger express it, if you feel sad when the truth eventually comes out, show it. If you want to kill someone, say it out, but don’t do it, I don’t want your beautiful face in jail.” She smiled with the spoon in her mouth.

“One thing you have to remember is that, you want to be happy, you deserve to be happy. So, let go of every toxic feeling that comes along the line. Remember, you deserve to be happy.”

“You speak such amazingly soothing words. Who exactly are you Charlie Webster?”

He shrugged. “I am just plain old me.”

“What is your story?”

“You are not giving up, are you?” Jennifer shook her head in negative.

“I am actually nothing special. I grew up in a wealthy home. I lived there till I was fifteen. Uh… I was thrown out of the house on my fifteenth birthday.”

Jennifer gasped. “Why?”

“Well, my dad dealt in illegal crude oil sale and I didn’t like any bit of it. My brothers taunted me because of my belief, said the only way I could make it in life was to learn the trade, or else I would be so poor, I would prefer to be eaten by maggots six feet down.”

Jennifer moved closer to him and clutched his arm.

“Obviously I rejected their offer, so they threw me out. I don’t know how it happened, but within few weeks I was back in school, I made sure of it. I hustled between part time jobs and applying for scholarships and studying hard. But I did it anyway. I got a full scholarship and from there, everything went smoothly. And here we are.” He smiled at the end of his sketchy story.

“Wow, that was quite a story. I am glad you were able to make it good, if only your silly brothers could see you now.” They both smiled, going back to their almost melted ice creams.

Charlie raised his cup up and smiled. Jennifer raised a brow, sort of liking the silent communication.

He raised that cup a little higher and did a thumbs up, pointed to her cup and did a thumbs down.

Jennifer frowned.

"What exactly are you trying to say?"

"That chocolate remains the best."

Jennifer nodded her head slowly, her mouth shaped as though she was thinking.

"You know what, I would just ignore you right now."

"So, you are low key agreeing that chocolate is the best." He gave her a wide grin.

She rolled her eyeballs and looked towards the other side.

"So what are you going to do about your situation now that our planned two weeks of fun is almost over?" He broke the silence that existed for some minutes.

"I don't know."

Letting out a deep sigh, she faced him.

"Sometimes, I think I should just forget I had a past and live my present. But then, remembering what my life was before the incident is a reminder that I should stay around for a while, get to know the truth."

Her voice took a deeper tone.

"But thanks to Mark, my amazing friend, and his annoying being, I don’t see the getting to know the truth part happening. "

“Eh- em. Jennifer?” She jumped off her seat immediately she heard the voice that called her. He was really the one as her brain had detected.

“How did you find me?” He looked a bit wasted, not the over clean dude she used to live with.

“Ben helped.”

“Why are… oh my God! Ben is back.” She looked at Charlie, who clearly was trying to figure out whatever was happening.

“The PI is back.” She said, suddenly realizing the moment of truth had come.

“Well?” Charlie asked Mark who had his eyes on Jennifer.

“He is made some findings. So you’ll have to come over to the…my house when you are done with your date.”

“Just freaking tell me what Ben freaking found out!” She was almost screaming, impatience and fear were making her act up.

“Uh… so he found out Fran…cis was the one that tried to drown you.” Mark said carefully.

To her surprise and the two men’s she just nodded.

“Is that all?”

“There is another person involved. She is the mastermind of the whole accident.”

“She?” Jennifer shared a look with Charlie.

“We don’t know who she is. Ben couldn’t find anything about her based on what he got from the video.”

“Video?”

“Yeah, his surveillance camera got Francis and a brunette lady talking about your accident and death.”

“Of course I am dead.” She rolled her eyeballs, wondering who the lady might be, she did not have any brunette friend or relative as far as she knew. But then, Amanda did have a habit of dying her hair.

“Can I see the video?”

“Sure.” She decided to ignore how nice he was acting. It was all drama to her, he was probably jumping of happiness that she would be finally out of his hair.

She collected his phone and played the video, Charlie getting up to also watch it.

‘I can’t believe that man blew all that cash away.’ Francis looked as before, but Jennifer wanted to know who the woman that was seated opposite him was.

‘We can always make up for it. Sometimes you forget this company is yours Fran-bear, all yours.’ The voice wasn’t familiar to Jennifer at all.

‘You certainly don’t want all of our hard work in getting rid of Jennifer to go to vain. Or do you?’

He got off his seat, moving close to the woman. ‘I watched her drown. I watched Jennifer die. I definitely won’t let that amount of hard work go to waste.’ Jennifer felt tears roll down onto both cheeks. Watching him talk about killing her with no remorse hit her hard.

‘Good. Don’t worry, I will take care of Mr Carpenter. You just keep being a good boy.’ The woman’s sultry voice became instantly replaced by the noise of their intense making out.

Jennifer cleaned off her tears. “I can’t recognize that voice. The person doesn’t seem familiar.”

“So, what next?” Charlie asked, looking worriedly at Jennifer who was looking elsewhere lost in thoughts.

“We all have to meet to discuss the next step.” Mark said stylishly eyeing the guy in front of him. Recalling the scene where he and Jennifer had almost kissed the other day, he had to acknowledge that the guy was good looking.

“Well, let’s go. Come on Jennifer, let us go.” Charlie dragged Jennifer out of her thoughts with his voice.

“Where are we going?”

Mark answered immediately. “My house as I said earlier.”

“Are you fine with that?” Charlie placed his hand on hers, to Mark’s notice, he did it quite lovingly.

“Of course I am. It’s not the house that is crazy but it’s owner.” She said it so casually.

‘Ouch.’ Mark thought.