Next chapter up! I hope you all enjoy this story!
We were at Marina’s, which was basically our base of operations at this point. Marina was out shopping according to Logan, something about presents for us. I had to admit, I hadn’t expected or wanted anything from her and Logan. The whole idea of presents was weird to me anyway, not that I had ever gotten any except for socks and five dollar bills, and that’s if I was lucky.
I pulled a chair over next to Logan, who was at his computer. “Anything,” I asked. He sighed.
“I don’t even know what to look for in all honesty. Everything I’ve found isn’t much help.”
I shrugged. “There’s no Christmas monsters?” Logan looked at me. “Too many. The Grinch, Krampus, Jack Frost, I could go on. But, I don’t know David. The stories about them have so many versions. Even if it turned out to be one of them, I have no idea how we’d go about getting rid of it.”
I nodded and put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright. We’ll keep looking.” Suddenly, I heard Christmas music. It was Last Christmas, one of the only holiday songs I could stand.
I looked at Logan, and he looked up at me, grinning almost evilly. I felt the vibrations in my pocket. My phone.
Last Christmas was playing on my phone.
I took it out of my pocket. “When did you even do this,” I asked, seeing that he had changed my ringtone to the song playing. He shrugged, hiding his laughter behind his hand.
I rolled my eyes and mouthed “I’m getting you back for this” as I accepted the call.
“Hello,” I said to the caller, trying to sound chipper as Logan began laughing hysterically.
“Hey David,” I heard Elliot say. I smiled lightly. “Hey Elliot. What’s up?”
I heard a loud sigh, and I guessed he was probably rubbing his forehead, like he usually did when annoyed or confused. “There’s another victim. We’re thinking it probably has something to do with the last one. And you’re never going to believe how this one died.”
“Poison kiss under a mistletoe. Now that’s something I never thought I’d see,” Logan said as me and him looked at the dead body.
The body was pale, except for the lips, which seemed stained with red. Not blood, lipstick marks. I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think anyone would expect to see something like this,” I agreed.
Elliot came over. “I told you you weren’t gonna believe it. Guy just wanted to kiss his girlfriend under the mistletoe. Guess she didn’t like him as much as he liked her, huh?”
“You could say that again,” Logan muttered.
I turned to Elliot. “The girlfriend?”
“We have her in custody. You want to talk to her?” I nodded before turning to Logan.
“Go, I got this part.” I gave him a silent look that said thanks and then went with Elliot.
He brought me to the police car, where the suspect was being kept for the time being. She was handcuffed, but I could tell she wouldn’t run. She didn’t seem to notice me as I sat next to her. Her hands were over her mouth, her eyes shiny from tears. She was muttering to herself, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I tried. She jumped and her eyes darted towards me. “I didn’t do it,” she said, voice cracking. “I don’t even know where I would find poison.”
I looked over at Elliot, who understood what I wanted and closed the door, leaving us alone. Then I looked back at the woman. “What’s your name,” I asked softly.
“I-Ava,” she said. “I didn’t do it.”
I nodded. “I believe you Ava. But I need you to tell me what happened.”
Ava nodded, though she still looked a little scared, as if she thought this was some tactic to get her to confess.
“Well I had just come home from work, I’m a baker. Charlie wanted to surprise me, so-so he made some Christmas cookies, but they were burnt. I told him I’d get some more chocolate, so that we can make them together you know? But then he told me I walked under a mistletoe on my way out.”
“So you two kissed, and then he collapsed,” I asked for confirmation. Ava shook her head.
“Well, yes. But first I noticed something on his arm. It looked like a tattoo, but I know my Charlie, he would never. And then he kissed me, and I just forgot about it. Until now.”
I remembered the last victim, the woman with the garland. “Ava, please tell me you remember what this tattoo looked like.” Ava nodded, as if this was a strange question. I took out a napkin and pen.
“Can you draw it?”
Of course it would be the same tattoo.
I went over to Logan, having left Ava in the car (I would help her get out of this situation later).
“Same tattoo,” I said, showing him the napkin on which I had got Ava to draw on. Logan looked at it. “Now that’s interesting. And he didn’t have it beforehand?”
I shook my head. “Apparently he would never do something like that.”
Logan nodded. “Well, I got something too.” I motioned for him to tell me.
“Well, think about it. First victim, loved Christmas, killed by a garland. This guy, loved Christmas, killed underneath mistletoe. I think whatever it is is targeting Christmas lovers.”
I had to admit, it made sense. But the issue was we still didn’t know what was doing this. And why go after Christmas lovers? Sure they started way too early sometimes, but it’s not worth killing over.
Logan looked at me. “Well, I got all I could from the body, which, to be honest, wasn’t much. We should go back to Marina’s.” I nodded and followed him out. We passed Elliot, so I said bye. Logan just looked at him.
When we were out, I kept walking next to Logan and gave him a look. “Seriously, what is your problem with him,” I asked. “Elliot’s a good guy.”
Logan sighed. “I don’t know alright? I just, he rubs me the wrong way.”
I stopped moving and stared at Logan. “He rubs you the wrong way? What does that even mean,” I asked.
Logan shrugged. “I already told you, I don’t know. You’re right, he’s a good guy, and a good detective. If he knew everything we did, he’d be someone not to mess with. But the weird thing is he’s so normal. He just fits in here.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Wait, are you jealous?”
“No,” Logan exclaimed, but the quickness of how he said it gave him away. He sighed. “Maybe. I mean, I’ve never fit in anywhere, at least not anywhere normal. Every time I tried I failed, and I hurt someone, or myself. But he’s just… a guy.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Logan…being normal is boring, and that’s not you. You don’t need to be normal. I mean, we wouldn’t have met if we were ordinary, right?”
Logan nodded, a small smile making its way to his lips. “Right.”
I smiled back. “Right. Now come on. Let’s go do some weird stuff at our weird house.” He laughed, and I knew I had gotten the real Logan back. During the walk back he told me what he found.
“The victim was poisoned, that’s for sure. Except, just like the last place, cookies were out. No bell this time, but according to the witness’ file, she heard bells before he dropped. This is definitely the same monster, whatever it is.” He stopped walking and looked at a window, and I had no choice but to stop with him.
It was a toy shop. In the window was one of those Christmas villages, with the small houses and people and snowy hills made of cotton. The entire building looked like a children’s playground, or as Logan would say a winter wonderland.
“Logan, you know your 30 right?” He glared at me and I put my hands up. “Okay okay. No need for that. You want something?”
Logan shook his head. “No. I just like looking at the decorations. Their pretty right?”
I looked at Logan, and then the building. “Yeah, nice view.”
Logan grinned. “You want to go in? It could be cool,” he said.
I gave him a knowing look. “Someone wants to,” I said. Logan gave me a pout and I sighed. “Fine.” He again looked like a child, but it was honestly kind of funny so I didn’t care.
The place inside was just as strange and childish as the outside, with brightly colored walls and toys seemingly everywhere. It was where a child would love to live.
Logan looked around, a dopey smile on his face. I just shook my head and leaned against the wall. I didn’t know anyone who’d want any of these things, and genuinely the purpose of many of them confused me. Why would somebody want a crying baby doll? If that had been mine I would’ve thrown it out the window, accidentally of course.
I looked over and noticed a part of the store was closed off. The door to it had barriers around it and caution tape. “Hey,” I said, grabbing the arm of a preppy looking worker. “What’s in there?”
The worker’s smile dropped a little. “Oh, that was a private toy making area. We used to use it as Santa’s workshop, but that’s been closed since before I started working here. Apparently some murderer used that area as his cover, and it’s been closed ever since.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A murderer?” The worker nodded. “Can’t remember his name. Bad dude though.”
Before I could ask anymore questions, Logan came over to me. “Hey David, can I show you something?” I looked at the worker, who just gave me a smile. Then I turned back to Logan. “Sure,” I said, smiling as much as I could (even if Logan had just invaded an interrogation, though of course I knew he didn’t know).
Logan grabbed my arm and began to bring me to where he wanted me to see. I rolled my eyes with a small smile. Logan’s sleeve rose up his arm a little. That’s when I noticed something wasn’t right.
I stopped moving, and Logan looked back at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Since when have you had a tattoo,” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t have the answer I thought he was going to.
“What? I don’t have any tattoos.”
I tried to remain calm.
“Then what’s that on your arm?”
Logan looked down and pulled his sleeve up to his elbow. He saw it.
The tattoo. 3 blocks, all with a 6 on them.
All I could think was curse words.
What will happen next? Who or what is the killer? Keep reading to find out! This will be 4 chapters, posted every Saturday, so stay tuned!
Part 1: @gracepro/the-mps-sequel-to-accused
And if you need to catch up, here's the first MPS story: Accused!
@gracepro/accused
@gracepro/accused-part-two
@gracepro/accused-part-two-e284bc46819b3 (part 3)
@gracepro/accused-part-4
@gracepro/accused-part-5
