Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

XXX It Was An Accident

 "There was an explosion right outside the door to the office," Detective Andrea explained to me as I sat upright in the hospital the next day. My injuries were superficial, they told me, but kept me overnight for supervision and I'd be getting out later that day. "On impact, you hit your head on the bookshelf, but all things considered, you were lucky."

"Manny broke his arm," I told her, even though she might have already known that. Luckily, he was safe as well, but I was able to talk to him last night in the common area of the hospital and saw his cast. He had some bruises and cuts, but was going to be alright. And, understandably, was quite distraught about the entire ordeal. "He fired me as one of his clients, which I get. He has to think about his family first."

"I talked to Manny this morning," Andrea confirmed with a nod. "Has anybody told you about Julia?"

"The receptionist?" I asked curiously. "No, I haven't talked to anybody but doctors this whole time. Did she see something?"

For a moment, I had hope. Julia was at the reception desk all day, only stepping away to get lunch during the explosion, but maybe she got a license plate from that blue truck. Or saw some suspicious behavior. Could she even have made out a face? Or talked to the person directly? Could this really be our big break?

"We found her body out front," Andrea gave me the opposite of the kind of news I was expecting.

It felt like every organ in my body fell to the my feet and my blood went cold. I was sure that I heard her wrong, so I cocked my head to the side in confusion and stuttered out a nervous, "What?"

Andrea looked solemn and uncomfortable as she continued to explain, "It seems that the suspect was waiting in the reception area for the bomb to go off and wasn't expecting Julia to return to work for another twenty minutes. But Manny called her to come back to help with the jammed door. She was found with a bullet wound-"

Andrea continued talking, but after I heard 'bullet wound' my brain refused to process anymore words. Even after I emptied my stomach into the small trash can beside my hospital bed, I could barely process what was happening.

I'd spent the last day or so trying to cope with almost dying myself, and I was feeling relieved that I got out of there alive. I suddenly felt so guilty for feeling so happy that entire time, when there actually was a casualty in the whole mess.

I didn't know that much about Julia, but she'd worked for Manny the entire time I'd worked with him. She would smile at me when I came in, start up conversations with me while I waited in the lobby. She had beautiful brown hair that she wore in a bun every day, along with the same shade of purple eye shadow. I didn't know how old she was, maybe in her thirties or forties.

"Does she have any family?" I finally mumbled as Andrea handed me a water to cope with the acidic burn in my throat.

"We've notified her parents and sister," she said.

I was dizzy and finding it hard to focus, but Andrea waited patiently for me to process the information. "Was there any warning of this in the letters?" I finally asked. I had dropped off a new letter from my mailbox to Andrea's desk just last week.

There was a long pause of silence before she answered while she watched me cautiously, as if she knew that I wouldn't like her answer. "We haven't gotten through everything yet."

"Well, how much have you gone through?" I continued to prod. There wasn't a ton of letters and packages, enough for just a couple of people to read through them as they came in. So I was confused as to why they weren't doing just that, but by the look of apprehension on her face, I could tell that was definitely not the case at all.