Murder She Wrote

34. Leave While You Can

The waitress passed by me for the third time, she gave me the same hard stare. I could read her thoughts out loud. I've been sitting here for nearly half an hour in the middle of this restaurant and I haven't even ordered anything yet. I checked my phone again to see if he possibly called. Maybe he flaked out. It's my fault for trusting a guy I barely even knew and worse, a guy who's closer to Veronica than anyone. It's her brother, the last person I'd expect to go behind Veronica's back and give me the information I needed. I hoped he would come because of the offer I placed on the table while we were talking on the phone.

It's a generous one. I agreed to take half of his criminal records off of his files if he tells me who Veronica really is and the truth behind her always moving to different places a lot. I know she has more than one victim. She has a past and I'm eager to know most of the stuff she's hiding. If she committed the murder of the police officer, he definitely knows more about it than the police themselves. On top of that, there's no telling how many other murders that needs to be buried out. If I don't get him to talk and tell me what I need to know, I'm afraid the process of "getting rid" of her is going to be a lot more difficult than I expect. She needs to be stopped, before I become one of her "victims" too.

I tapped my foot impatiently on the ground, checking the door every second. The same waitress approached my table again. "Sir, you need to order something soon, I need to clear out my tables before I go on break," she said.

"Fine, get me a glass of wine for now, I'm waiting on someone, I don't want to order without them here," I informed her. I saw her roll her eyes quickly and walk away.

I took out my phone ready to dial the number I called him from, until the sight of sneakers approached my eyes while I kept my stare down. I looked up slowly and saw him standing there with an unhappy look on his face.

Without saying a word or greeting, he took his seat and faced me directly. He had his hands folded on the table, waiting for me to speak. I cleared my throat before talking, "You showed up..." I said.

"You look like shit," he then said bluntly.

"Thank you for making me aware of my distressed appearance, I look like shit because I haven't slept in days."

"I told you not to get involved with anything that Veronica does. What did you do? You get involved," he chuckled to himself. "You should've took the first two warnings I gave you because it looks like you've hit the bottom."

"Listen I didn't want to meet up so you could fucking lecture me on something I didn't ask for. I fully aware of the situation I'm in and I don't know if you've noticed but I'm on the verge of losing my mind as well. I've lost my job, my family, and my mentality. I called you here so you could help me put a stop to this," I said to him with a serious tone. "Can you at least do that?" He scoffed for a second and placed his attention on the menu.

"You expect me to come to a restaurant and not eat? Call the waitress I'm hungry," he demanded.

"I never agreed to feed you," I said to him.

"Fine then I'll leave, you're the one who needs help not me." Just when he was going to get out of his seat, I quickly stopped him. I called over the waitress to let her know we were ready. I ordered the first thing I saw on the menu, not even caring about the food. Andy ordered a whole three course dish that seemed expensive by just hearing the name of it.

"The food will arrive shortly.."

Once she left, I faced him again. "The offer is still on the table. I can clean out all of your records and promise you any charges or claims made against you are dropped if you tell me what I need to know."