The Tranquil Predator ✔️

Chapter 8

Patricia's Pov

I was in awe.

He just stood there. Hands folded together looking down on us because we were celebrating. Without that smile. That charming smile. It was as if he was that same guy from the airport. But at the same time, he wasn't.

This was serious Arjun. This was Detective Arjun.

"What the hell is going on here? Do you not have work to do?", he continued as he looked at Officer Menon. He sounded extremely calm but we all knew he was furious. The senior officer looked down in shame not meeting his gaze. The humble old man getting scolded by someone who was half his age didn't sit right with me.

"It's not his fault. He just came over to let me know that the person who tried to harass me had been caught", I said as I walked in front of the Officer and blocked him from the detective's view. Now you would have thought I spoke in a bold voice.

But no. I didn't.

That line just came out in a high pitched frantic voice. But the thing was, I shouldn't have done that because now I was in the line of fire. His stance didn't change. Just that first he was glaring at Menon, now his eyes were on me.

"You must be Ms. Patricia Fernandez", he said. "Did you narrate the entire story to the officer or just a part of it?", his eyes were as hard as stone.

Excuse me? Is he serious right now?

"Yes sir, I narrated the entire story", I mumbled. I did not want to argue with him. He looked pretty mad. Did he even recognize me? I was kind of hurt by the way he was acting and treating me like a total stranger, but then again feelings aside, if we think about it, we were strangers. Two people who were on the same flight. Maybe it was normal he forgot about me.

There was pin-drop silence in the room. No one said anything. No one moved. Finally, the Detective broke the silence by saying "the town is not safe yet as he is still out there, so I suggest you all not to become too excited."

"But sir, according to Ms. Fernandez's story, he followed her. He even chased her when she tried to run. How are you so sure this is not that monster.", Menon spoke from behind. It was surprising how respectful he sounded to that prick. That was the power of superiority. Menon was older than Arjun in both age and profession but in this case, Arjun was his superior so Menon just quietly followed the chain of command.

"The person we are after has successfully killed five people in a month. If he were the killer he wouldn't have chased her or wasted time. He would have finished her already", Arjun replied ignoring the fact that I was standing there.

I shivered at the thought. Arjun noticed my pale face but he continued. The thing was the next person he planned on making feel terrible was Officer Menon.

"I went through the case file of the first victim. The cuts that kid had represented the work of an amateur. There were defensive wounds that showed the child fought back. There were cuts in many parts of the body. They were light cuts though, which indicated they weren't meant to kill. They were meant to overpower him so that he stops fighting back. And finally the throat slit. There wasn't just one slit, there were three which showed he couldn't kill him in the first go so tried two more tim-.", he stopped.

Ping.

His phone just pinged. Pulling it out of his back pocket, he read the message he had just received.

The rest of the house looked horrified but he? He looked like someone who was narrating a story in the school assembly. Maybe when you deal with such cases daily, they stop sounding horrifying to you.

"Ok so where were we?", he continued putting his phone back. "Oh yes, coming to the remaining victims. Compared to the first victim, the remaining four had relatively fewer cuts. They even had less defensive wounds which showed they didn't or maybe couldn't fight back. And lastly, they just had one throat slit. You know what that means Officer Menon?"

"It means he is evolving", I replied instantly. Now I know nothing about serial killers but I do know a lot about the cases that Sherlock Holmes and Detective Poirot handled so I replied. And I regretted my decision immediately.

His attention shifted towards me again. Cocking his head to the side he smirked. It was a very light smirk. As if he was impressed. No one noticed it except me, maybe because it was directed towards me.

"Precisely Ms. Fernandez. However, his rapid evolution isn't the only thing that is a problem. This person is a psychopath with random victims. So I think it would be better if we catch him instead of celebrating because a mere sex offender was caught", he concluded.

That last line pierced through my heart.

"Mere"

How insensitive could he be? Yesterday was the worst night of my life. I was almost frightened to death and this person thinks that guy was just a 'mere'? Yes, he was nothing compared to the serial killer on the loose right now but he was monstrous enough.

"Yes sir, we cannot deviate from our goal", Officer Menon said from behind me.

I had forgotten about his presence. Looking at him so quiet and upset broke my heart. He was so happy a few minutes ago because he thought his son's murderer was caught. Turns out, he wasn't. And detective Malhotra purposely reminded him how brutally his son was murdered so that he doesn't take this case lightly.

"Cool then, I guess we better leave, got a message from the forensic department. They say the postmortem report is out", Arjun ordered.

"And Ms. Fernandez, I will be visiting you later to hear your share of the story again. Please do not leave the house", he said curtly.

"Okay then", I gulped. The detective is going to interrogate me. I better write down my story, incident by incident so that he doesn't start thinking I am somehow behind all of this.

And off they went.