A Stranger to Me 2.0

Using the spare key that I had been given, I unlock the door to my brother's apartment and slide it open a hair. "Alex?" I inquire in a soft voice while peaking tentatively inside. An uneasy silence is the only response.

Deeming apartment 186 clear of its resident, I tiptoe inside and close the door behind me without a noise save the soft click of the latch. Still, as I walk through the apartment and into Alex's room, an unshakeable trepidation wells up inside me.

Upon examining the room as I wonder where to start my search, the oak dresser against the far wall catches my eye. Immediately I begin opening drawers, careful not to scramble the contents while at the same time remaining thorough. I even check if there are any bottoms that can be pried open to reveal secret compartments, but…

Nothing.

"No worries, Mags, there's still plenty of time to search," I assure myself, but while my brother isn't due home for another two hours, swallowing the wave of anxiety that fills up my stomach and snakes up my throat proves to be an onerous task.

Reminding myself that people like Alex are much more clever than hollowed-out spaces in dressers, that I knew it wouldn't be as easy as that and that I still have time, I return to my search. This time, my eyes settle on the large painting that hangs upon the wall above the bed. It doesn't seem like a likely spot to hide anything, but the brains of people like Alex work in stranger ways than most. When it comes to this investigation, thinking outside the box is necessity.

To test the painting, I lightly rap a fist along the entire perimeter of the painting's wooden frame and listen closely to discern whether there are any hollow spots.

Nothing.

And so I move to the back of the painting. With great care, I lift the piece off the wall, lay it down on the floor, and turn it onto its front. Gingerly I feel across the back for tears, lumps, hollow spots—anything that might suggest that Alex had placed something inside. Once again, the result is negative.

After hanging the portrait back on the wall, I turn my attention to the wooden floor below. Slowly, I walk across the room and back again; over to the bed and to the opposite wall where five small, rectangular photos hang. My shoes make the softest of sounds as they walk along each plank, to each corner of the room, and right along the walls, but I never come across a single loose floorboard. Sighing, I wonder where else to look.

My prying eyes then fall to the space beneath the bed. Although I know there's little chance of finding what I'm looking for there, I search it anyway. Finding nothing, I check between the sheets, the box spring, and the mattress of the bed. I check the backs of small picture frames; in the frames and backs of all the other pictures and paintings in the house, and in the closet. And then I check through all the books in the main room and between every possible crevice—

Absolutely nothing!

Walking back into the bedroom, I fall onto the bed and cry out in frustration into one of the pillows. "No! No! No!" And then I realize how childish and weak I must seem, losing my composure and throwing a fit. Screaming my frustrations into my brother's pillow. Sitting up, I take a deep breath to try to compose myself. It brings little success.

It has to be here! Where else could it be? I ask myself, but I can think of absolutely nowhere else to look without damaging furniture or otherwise clearly divulging the fact that someone has been rooting around, and I can't have that. While uncertain as to what Alex might do if he finds out someone is close to unveiling the truth, let alone his sister, I'd prefer not to find out.

But now that every possible hiding spot for the evidence in question has been scoured, panic is starting to set in. Once again trying to take a few deep breaths to regain control, I glance at my watch: only half an hour until my brother comes home. No, more like half an hour until Alex is expected to come home, but there's no guarantee he won't arrive sooner.

Glancing around feverishly, I wonder where else he could have hidden the ring. It's the last remaining artifact; the final piece of evidence that could link him to it all. It's been lost ever since the tragedy over a year ago, but my whole purpose of searching my brother's home today is that I was so certain it was here. Although, if the ring is found in Alex's possession, the appalling truth will be revealed. And although I've solved and seen a number of gruesome crimes, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle this one if the culprit turns out to be my own brother.

I scan the bedroom one last time to check that everything's the same as before I came, then walk back into the main room. And just at that moment, the doorknob jiggle, the lock turns, and the door swings open. As my breathing grows short and my mouth becomes desert-dry, I scramble to think of a way to explain myself to Alex.

Act calm. Act calm. Act calm. Act calm. I tell myself over and over again, trying to get the moisture to return to my lips and the breath to my lungs. Tell him you wanted to borrow a book. That's all you say. In theory, the lie sounded rather believable. In practice, however, doubt lay thick upon my mind.

"Maggie." Keys still in hand and jacket slung over one arm, Alex stops abruptly in the doorway, bewildered. "What're you doing here?"

"I came to borrow a book." The nervous waver in my voice is difficult to curb and my heart feels like a thumping lump of ice that's sinking in my chest.

"Which one? And why isn't it in your hand?"

"Murder on the Orient Express. I was at the café the other day reading my own copy and someone knocked into my table. My coffee spilled and ruined it." I say, trying not to sound too hasty to explain myself. "I just walked in a few moments before you did. I didn't get a chance to grab it yet." It seems like a plausible story, but the doubt still remains.

"Maggie," he says slowly. I freeze at the sudden change in tone that's low, accusing, and suspicious. While he's acted similarly when discovering lies of mine in the past, this time is different; more ominous in nature. His eyebrows rise ever-so-slightly and his steady blue eyes pin me to where I stand. "I know you're lying. I know what you really came for."

"All right. So maybe I came to…borrow a little cash," I falsely admit with a weak chuckle, dearly hoping he doesn't know I've figured out the truth.

"Maggie," Alex says a third time, so quietly it's chilling. "You need a better lie than that to convince me. It's the ring that you came for, I know it is." Out of a pocket he pulls the very ring I've been in search of. It's our father's ring, the one I had feared my brother had taken from the man's dead body one and a half years ago.

He holds it up for me to clearly see as my chest swells with emotions that come in thick waves and stick in my throat. That one little ring is all the evidence needed to prove his guilt.

"Dad…" The word comes out as nothing more than a whisper, heavy with a mixture of solemnity and disbelief. The small spot of dark red that stains the solid gold band has me transfixed. The last time I saw it, it was on my father's finger as he lifted a glass of champagne and joyously toasted his brother's 25th anniversary.

"Alex…Alex, why?"

"Why. Hmmm. 'Why' is the only piece of the mystery that you don't know; isn't it, Sis? Well, let me clue you in on a little secret. See, like you I did some investigating and found out that dad wasn't the man he claimed to be. Remember how mom's death was declared an accidental overdose?" my breath hitches at the mention of our mother. "It wasn't."

"What? No, that can't be true!"

Ignoring the outburst, Alex continues. "You recall how mom used to often suffer from migraines until she started taking medicine to prevent them, right?"

"Of course. But one night—"

"It wasn't an accidental overdose, Maggie. A few hours after taking her regular dose, he 'treated her' to a glass of wine, but before offering the glass, he grounded up several extra pills and slipped them into her drink."

"No, it was an accident!" I cry out in rebuttal. "Her doctor. The police. The coroner. They all said—"

Alex shakes his head. "No, it wasn't an accident. He killed her and made it appear to be just an accidental overdose. Another case of a negligent drug user who took an extra couple pills and killed herself. But it was really dad's fault, and he had no problem sleeping at night. No problem looking at you and me and telling us how sad he was that mom was gone when he had done the deed himself," Alex explains, and although he grows angrier and angrier to the point where his eyes are a wild fire and his teeth are grinding like cinderblocks, his voice never rises. Instead, it's frighteningly low, causing the hair on my arms to prickle as goose bumps spread across them.

"No…" I murmur, so quietly it's hardly audible. Tears fall as I shake my head in denial. "No, dad would never…"

"Oh, but he did. He told me everything," Alex says bitterly. "Dad was getting involved in illegal business dealings. He used to get phone calls when we were with him, remember, and he'd leave the room in haste."

"I remember that, but that doesn't mean anything," I argue, but even I can't deny that, looking back, the behavior was a tad suspicious.

"While we didn't pick up on dad's strange behavior, mom did. She noticed the clandestine calls, the trips out late at night when he thought she was already asleep…We were both too young and busy with college, perhaps that's why we didn't realize…Mom followed him and found out the truth but wasn't sure what to do. Finally, she confronted him. Dad promised her that he'd end them and, after a few days, everything seemed normal. Dad and mom decided to have a toast one evening to celebrate, and that's when he killed her."

"But dad loved mom. Why would he kill her even if she knew? Mom didn't go to the police, she went to him."

"Dad didn't love her anymore, Maggie. Not nearly as much as he used to. I wish I could tell you why—"

"No, of course they still loved each other! If they were unhappy, they could have divorced. We were in college by then, they wouldn't have needed to worry about—" I argue, but Alex cuts me off quickly.

"Maggie, he told me all this himself. They were unhappy; he didn't love her anymore. But that's not the point—that man killed her and before we buried her, he stole this wedding band from her dead finger."

"But if dad didn't love her, why keep the ring? He must have felt some amount of guilt!"

"Oh, sure, he felt guilt," Alex says caustically. "The last thing he said to me was that it was either kill mom or lose us, and he wasn't prepared to give us up for prison. He couldn't let mom take us away from him."

"She'd never have made him choose. She'd have found a way…We'd have found a way to make it work!"

"Maggie, you're in the criminal justice field. You know there wasn't another way and so did he," Alex says, rolling his eyes at my words. "In his last moments, he continued to insist that while he didn't love her any longer, he kept the ring because he still felt guilty. Complete crap, I think. The fact that our father supposedly felt remorse yet never told a soul tells you just how guilty he really felt.

"After I killed him, I took the ring back; he didn't deserve to have it. It's a worthless thing now, anyway. It used to symbolize their love and the solidification of that love through the bond of marriage, but when he stopped loving her—when he killed her—it became nothing more than a pathetic golden trinket."

"And when you killed him, it became the one solid piece of evidence that would tie you to it all," I answer.

"I'm not going to toss my love for Paige away like our father tossed his love for our mother away," Alex assures me, looking more certain about this than he's ever been about anything. Paige, a beautiful, wavy-haired brunette, is the love of Alex's life whom he met in college. I'd never seen my brother so smitten over a girl. When our mother died, Alex tuned out everyone and everything, even me. But not Paige. Paige was the only one able to bring him back to his normal self—or so everyone thought.

I say nothing about my brother's sudden declaration. Instead, I press onward through the reawakened grief. "Alex, why did you kill everyone else? I know why you killed dad, but why all those other guests?" I demand. "They were innocent people! Good people!"

Alex chuckles, and my heart twists at the sick, mangled display of humor that is so unlike my brother. "Maggie," he laughs, shaking his head as if dismissing a silly child's inquiry. "You can't possibly think that any of them were saints! None of those people were innocent! They all committed wrongs, even confessed them to me in their last moments."

"We all do things we're not proud of, Alex. Humans are flawed and you can't condemn one for one awful thing that he or she did!"

"And what about our father? What do you think of what he did to mom?"

I pause for a long minute, swallow as if to prepare myself for the response and his assured rebuttal, then shake my head and tell him resolutely, "All my life, I've known dad to be someone I could trust, ask for advice, and speak to about anything…To me, he was all a man should be—hard-working, loyal, devoted, loving—I looked up to him and I was proud to call him my dad. It's not as easy to stain that image of him after he's gone as it is to stain that ring with his blood, Alex."

"You're going to forgive him just like that?" Alex asks with incredulity. "How can you forgive him for that?"

Ignoring his comment, I continue. "I'm not going to lie—if he were alive I wouldn't think the same way about him. I'd be disgusted and my respect for him would be tarnished. I'd never forgive him, but I don't think I could completely despise him after knowing him for so long as someone else."

"Even after what he did? Even after he committed the one act that ruined our lives and snatched our mother from us?"

"I won't fill my heart with hatred like you did, Alex. Killing dad because of your hatred has made you no better than him. And killing twenty-four people has made you a hundred times more wretched. Maybe dad was a fearful and selfish man, but he wasn't a vengeful one. He kept mom's ring; that alone proves he felt something. But where he actually felt remorse for his actions, you clearly feel nothing."

"Don't tell me I'm the one who was wrong; he's the one who killed our mother! Don't you understand that? You said so yourself, he took her away from us out of fear and selfishness and he lied to us about what really happened for years! I was doing right by mom; right by you and me. An eye for an eye!" Alex says defensively, stepping forward in a confrontational manner. I step back, alarmed and scared.

"That's not how it works," I argue in a breathy tone, afraid but firm.

"Maggie, he may have been our father—and trust me, that didn't make it easy to kill him—but he deserved to be punished for his wrongs just like the rest of them! Perhaps they hid their dark secrets from you—which is funny, seeing as you claim to observe so much—but I learned it all: the affairs, the illegal dealings, the lying and deception...everything. I wanted to make things safer for Paige. I would rid the world of the rest of the greedy, dirty scumbags if I could. I didn't do it out of revenge or selfishness or fear, Maggie, I did it out love. I don't have a black heart, you just don't understand."

I'm disgusted and repulsed by his response, and yet the strength and the volume of the words that come out of my mouth next surprise even me given my growing fear of what Alex is capable of. "Those scumbags were our friends, our aunt and uncle, our family! They were human beings who made mistakes just like you and I! And because they made wrong decisions, you killed them? You think that justifies what you did?"

"YES!" Alex shouts back in my face. "They did horrible things, Maggie, you have no idea!"

Despite how frightened I am by the volume and intensity with which he speaks, I firmly hold my ground before him. "Even if they did and deserved to face justice for their wrongdoings, what gives you the right to be the one to do it? You're more despicable than all of them! I knew you took mom's death hard, but it warped you more than I ever thought!" Surprisingly, I find myself now stepping toward him, raising my voice, and shouting things at him as tears brim up in my eyes.

"Shut up! You're wrong! I did everything right. I was justified in what I did because they would have never gotten what they deserved otherwise. They weren't just criminals, they were liars and they were good at what they did. If you didn't know, the police certainly never would've found out! Don't you dare tell me I'm the one who's wrong!"

"Then why not take credit for what you did? Why is my fiancé occupying that jail cell and not you?" I demand angrily. My fiancé is the main reason why I reopened the case to begin with. When it came to my knowledge not too long ago that my brother had to be the one responsible for the massacre of twenty-four people, I realized what had happened. Somehow, Alex had convinced Nathan to take the blame for all those deaths so he could get away clean.

And Alex had called our father selfish.

"I can't leave Paige. I can't leave her, I love her too much."

"And you think I don't love Nathan? Or that he doesn't love me? We were going to get married! Our family and friends didn't get together just for Uncle Laurence and Aunt Harriet's 25th Anniversary, they also came to celebrate my engagement to Nathan!"

"No, I knew Nathan loved you. That's why I knew he'd agreed to take responsibility for what happened," Alex replies defensively.

"What do you mean?" Watching him warily, I wait for an answer that is already unnerving me.

"I told him that if he signed the confession and didn't say anything to you or anyone else, I'd let you both go home unharmed."

I blanch at the admission. My resolve shudders so much that my voice shrinks down to a mere whisper. "So you were going to kill me?" My blood runs cold at the realization that my brother had been ready to kill his own sister, the only family he had left, for the woman he loved.

"I was heavily considering it as a last resort. I didn't want you to die, but I didn't want you poking your meddlesome detective nose around and finding out the real culprit, either," Alex explains, as if it's all so obvious.

Now it's clear what happened and the knot in my heart wrenches painfully in an entirely new direction that makes me feel dizzy. "So you told Nathan, who probably caught you murdering someone, that it was either death for us both or him taking the blame so I would live."

"It was perfect. He wasn't happy about it—in fact, he wanted to kill me himself when I threatened to hurt you—but even though he wasn't quite trusting of me, he agreed because he knew it might be the only way to ensure your safety."

"You made me think Nathan was responsible for months; that I was a fool for loving and trusting him—"

"Oh, don't worry, sis, you weren't the only one I made a fool of," Alex replies in an almost sympathetic tone.

"I went to you for help! I was devastated and depressed for months! I blamed myself and cried for hours…!"

"And I knew you would. If only it had lasted longer."

"You're sick! Why would you do that to me? You threatened to kill me, you manipulated me, and you lied to me!"

"I told you, Maggie, you're my sister and I love you dearly, but Paige means so much more to me." He makes it sound as if it is the most logical thing in the world, but all I can hear is how deluded he's become. As if she would love him if she ever learned the truth; that she'd find it so romantic that he'd gone to such lengths for her.

"If Paige knew what you did, would she still love you back?"

"Of course she would!"

"Why doesn't she know, then?" I inquire, having picked up on the dubiousness in his voice.

"Because she's not ready! Paige wouldn't understand because she's still grieving!" He answers, raising his voice as if increasing the volume eradicates his sudden uncertainty.

"How could Paige possibly understand? How could she ever accept what you did?"

And just as quickly as the volume of his voice rose, it drops again, so misleadingly calm that I'm pretty sure my bones begin to tremble. Something in him has snapped and now his expression hardens. "She won't need to. No one will even need to know because you're not getting this ring. You're not going to tell a soul. You're not even going to leave this apartment. I'm sorry, Maggie, but I have no choice." There's only the ghost of regret in the gleam of his eyes as he stares me down with a chilling sense of finality.

"Alex, I'm your sister," I insist, stepping away from him with quivering hands, although I know I've lost him for good.

All possible regret dissipates as his hand closes savagely around the handle of a clean knife lying on the kitchen counter. He slowly approaches me. "I'm really sorry, Maggie, but I can't lose Paige."

"This makes you no better than dad was, Alex. Don't stoop to his level!" I say briskly, continuing my retreat across the room.

"I'm nothing like him!" Alex yells back. "I told you, unlike dad I'm not going to throw my love for Paige away!"

"Alex, there's no point! I've already sent all the information in. They'll have enough to search your place and your person and they'll find dad's ring. Even if I don't get to see it happen, Nathan will be set free and you'll take his place in that jail cell. Everyone will learn the truth that you were the one responsible for the massacre. Whether I live or die doesn't matter, you're not getting away with it," I tell him, running to the door only to find that it won't budge. I turn around and press my back up against the door to see my brother's grip on the knife tighten. There's a dark malignity in his gaze as he stares back across the space between us with a solid and discomforting resolve.

"No, I won't let you take her away from me!" He declares tearfully, and clutching the knife in both hands at arm's length, charges forward.

Everything stops for a moment as the knife plunges into my stomach and my breath hitches. All I can take in is the sight of his face, so pitiless and empty and so unlike the Alex I knew. And then I'm falling back against the door, all my weight collapsing upon it as I slowly sink to the ground like a punctured vessel floats to the ocean floor. Alex pulls the knife out as I fall, taking a step back in the process, and holds the bloody weapon at his side as he watches, appearing unsure as to how to react. While there are clearly tears streaking down his face, which is an embarrassing shade of red, his expression is indecipherable as he stares down at me.

"When mom died, you gave me a necklace," I whisper, and hesitantly, Alex kneels down beside me. "One with the symbol for infinity on it to…represent something that you said was more important than ever now that she was gone: …the bond between brother and sister. We weren't going to be spending a lot of time together b-because we'd be going back to college soon…so you gave it to me and said" –I take a slow, shaky breath— "to let it serve as a reminder that even though you weren't with me in person, you were with me in spirit… and I was never alone.

"You also said that it represented love. You said that even though our time on earth is limited, even though mom was gone, lo —" A spout of coughs cut me off.

"Love was infinite. Yes, I know," he finishes, albeit impatiently. He's wondering what the point of dredging up the trinket is; why, of all things, that particular trinket means so much to me right now.

Feebly, I reach up and pull a silver chain out from under my shirt, holding out the charm on the end of it for him to see. My hands, which are starting to feel numb, reach up and try to unlock the clasp, but they're too weak and shaky. My fingers fumble around the clasp unsuccessfully for a minute before I finally unhook it and hold the necklace out to him. Taking Alex's hand, I lower the chain into his palm and let it drop. Weakly, I force his fingers to close around it and draw my hands back to hold my bleeding abdomen.

"It's more meaningless t-t-than that gold ring in your pocket, so you can keep it, too. Just don't take this," I say softly, touching the engagement ring on my finger. "Please, just…just tell him I love him and that I'm sorry." Had the room not been entirely silent, he might've missed what I'd said. "You'll do that, right?" As I break into coughs again, blood speckling my chin, he nods.

Despite my quickly diminishing strength, I find the steely resolve to tell him one last thing. "I know you want to stay with Paige, but with me gone, Nathan won't have a reason to play along anymore. And it'll take a hell of a lot of convincing and role playing to get everyone to stop suspecting foul play in my death. I don't hate you, Alex. I don't think I even know you well enough anymore to hate you, but just know that justice always comes to those who ignore it. Somehow, it'll find you."

"No! I can't lose her!" Alex rebuke, his eyes filled with both anger and a twinge of terror. The fear of losing the woman he cares for most is making him lose all his composure.

"T-The only way that you'll…lose her is if you forget what…that symbol on that necklace means," I say with sincerity and affirmation, followed by another violent choking spasm.

"You said that it was meaningless," he replies, sounding frustrated.

"T-To me. But for you, it can still mean something. You won't lose Paige, no matter how apart you are from her, if you remember…that love is infinite."

"That's not good enough," Alex responds assertively, jaw clenched.

"Then you'll never truly know love," I wheeze, ignoring his animosity.

Alex scowls and rolls his eyes. "What do you know?" He sneers. "Love isn't infinite, anyway. Most love, at least." He pulls out our father's ring. "Their love certainly wasn't. And now all that's left of it is going to disappear forever," he says, getting up suddenly and striding over to the sink. I'm shaking terribly all over and so numb that I can't stop him; can't even move in protest. "No," I think, and although I make an audible sound of protest, that's not the word that comes out. I'm not even capable of getting out one syllable. All that I can manage is to choke out my despair for the loss of the ring in a string of bloody coughs. And as I'm hacking away, he lazily drops the ring into the sink and watches it go down.

"Your love for Paige could end up the same way," I say between coughs as he strides back over.

"No. It's different," Alex replies angrily, eyes flaring.

"We'll have to see," I say, a sad yet mischievous little grin flitting across my face for a moment before my muscles are too weak to even manage that.

"So long, Maggie," Alex answers teasingly as he watches my eyes flutter. I see him pull out his phone, punch out three numbers, and lift the phone to his ear. Then he stares right at me as he does a hauntingly good impression of the distressed witness calling to report a terrific tragedy.

"Hello, 9-1-1?" he says, his false quivering and sobs sounding genuine enough to make the operator instruct him to take a deep breath and remain calm. "I need help immediately. My sister—she just stabbed herself!"

And that's when everything disappears.