The Day Hope was Murdered

16. The Visitor

// Chapter 16: The Visitor \\

Exactly a week ago

At around 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, a car drove into a parking lot in Brooksbank County—the lot merely held sixteen other vehicles—and stopped in the third parking space from the left, next to a rusty pick-up truck, whose windows were down. Water from the sky was pouring into the rusty pick-up truck, but the man who opened the door of the car next to it, paid the vehicle no heed. Instead he looked at the other vehicles in the lot warily, before stepping out of his own. He was tall, pudgy, and no hair could be seen on his head due to a black cap sitting atop of it. He slipped on black leather gloves and didn't bother grabbing the red umbrella in the passenger side's seat.

He took purposeful steps towards the building in front of him. He was on a mission. Yet unlike most people on a mission, he didn't care about being observed. In fact, he wanted the opposite.

Walking through the entrance of Brooksbank County Jail, he got what he wanted. Every eye turned his way. Gasps could be heard. Yet he continued walking, his head reached towards the ceiling. He kept his eyes straight ahead.

Perhaps it was his scruffy face. Or maybe it was his suit and tie. Nevertheless, there was something about him that made it hard to look away.

Murmured questions could be heard throughout each consecutive room he entered—'Who is that?' 'Why would that kind of man be here?'—but no one asked them to his face. That is, until he stepped up to a desk with a woman named Sandy, at least that's what he observed from her name tag, sitting behind it.

"What can I help you with?"

"I'm here to see Oliver Tinley."

"Just a moment."

The man shifted his gaze to the window behind her. In it, he could see a reflection of the woman's computer. He took note of the password typed into the screen.

The room was dead silent.

"He'll be in the visiting room shortly. You can wait in one of those chairs." Sandy pointed to a bunch of cushioned chairs stationed in the left-hand corner of the room. Not one of them which was occupied.

The man didn't say anything. Just nodded and strode over to the chairs. He didn't sit down. Instead he maintained his stick-straight posture and stood a few feet from the wall.

Eight minutes passed.

"Follow me." A middle-aged lady, with a rather ugly look on her face lead the man down a hallway and opened a door. She motioned for him to enter the room.

The meeting was short. Thirty seconds at the most.

It consisted of only the man speaking.

"Leila is coming to visit you soon. She's going to ask you about me. Don't leak anything, but that she should look in her journal."

"What j—"

The man put up his hand. "Don't speak."

"That's all you are to tell her. Is that understood?" The man pierced him with his murky green eyes.

Oliver gulped before he hastily nodded his head.

The man left.

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We're getting deeper into the plot now! Expect more of what genre this book is based on: mystery and thriller.

<3 ash