100 Ways to Solve a Murder-Chapter 137: The Practical Joke III
7 Eastbourne Rd
The pounding on the main door peeved Mrs. Whitehall, and she tottered towards it from her flat in a hurry. The Agency was temporarily closed for lunch, seeing as the boys opted to eat out during their lunch break, and so, she closed the usually unlocked main door just to be safe.
The gray-haired woman’s face creased, looking at the closed door as the hard knocks continued behind it. She thought it was Davies; he always did knock as if it was an emergency--she didn’t like it and lectured him many times before about it. She thought he didn’t listen and was about to lecture him once more; however, it wasn’t Davies on the other side when she opened the door.
But it was Sam, and the fact that she was barefooted and wearing nothing but her lab gown over her clothes in that chilly weather caught the older woman off guard.
Sam’s body shook like a leaf from anger and the cold air; the older woman’s eyes widened in concern at her state. "Oh--dear are you--" Mrs. Whitehall started, but Sam interrupted, walking in the main door immediately and shutting the door close behind her.
"Sorry, Mrs. Whitehall, excuse me--Is Levi upstairs?" She asked in a clipped tone.
"Yes, dear--he came up just minutes ago," the older woman answered, but before she even finished, Sam was already running up the stairs. The older woman shook her head; she knew Levi did something. Enough that the redhead was fuming.
She made her way back to her flat when she heard the upstairs door slam, and she heard shouting. "Oh, dear--" she whispered to herself, pausing halfway to her door. She walked back to look up at the slicked blond’s closed-door from the middle of the stairs. She wondered if she should leave them be or check on them.
"YOU ASSHOLE!" Sam yelled at the Irishman seated on the sofa, looking ahead at nothing. His coat left on the floor, forgotten. His necktie was loose around his neck, and some of his hair was not in place. The blond remained impassive, thinking things thru. He wanted to make her feel as bad as he felt, and his mind searched for words he wanted to say to her.
Sam gritted her teeth in a fury, and she cussed at him again. All the curses she could think of spewing out of her mouth in alphabetical order to define him. She felt mad at the thought that he did it for a practical joke. It was terrible, she thought.
She had never been so afraid in her life.
Her attack, the blindness, even the threat on her life (multiple times) combined had never made her feel like that. She never felt so powerless.
Never felt so afraid that every breath she took hurts...and it was worse than the burning feel of water filling her lungs ages ago.
Sam stood before him, fisting her pale, cold hands.
"Did you think it was funny!?" she demanded, not caring that the neighbors may hear, but the Irishman remained unresponsive, not even bothering to spare her a look.
"Was it one of your bloody experiments? One of your jokes?! It wasn’t funny! It wasn’t funny at all, Levi!" She kept on yelling at him, the only way for her to release all her anger, all her fear.
Levi’s jaw clenched, and he fisted his hand on the armrest turning the knuckles white, "It was quite amusing," he spat. "Hilarious." He added, standing abruptly from his spot and looking at her for the first time. His eyes widened at her state for a second; she was wearing a blue knee-length dress under her lab coat, her crimson hair in disarray. Her face was blotchy from the cold and anger, and then his eyes rested on her bare feet longer than he planned.
He watched as her whole body shook, her lips trembled as she looked up at him with her big green eyes, tears streaming down her face. Sam wiped them away with her hand in frustration, never tearing her eyes away from the blond.
She felt so mad that it drove her to tears, yet she felt so much relief looking back at his familiar hazel eyes full of life; that she started sobbing in front of him.
Levi tensed, taken aback by her state; why she was sobbing, he didn’t understand. But he wanted her to stop.
It was hard to be angry at her when she looked so broken.
Her hands grasped her coat closer, her shoulders shaking, and hot tears burned her cheeks, and she did not care who saw. She didn’t care if she looked foolish in front of him. She didn’t care at all. Her eyes stayed on him while she gasped for air, looking at his familiar-memorized-features.
Her breathing hitched, and her knees grew weak, struggling to get a word out properly. "I thought---I thought you--" she said, tears blurring her vision.
She’d seen a lot of things, terrible things, death, gruesome butchered bodies. She could list down the names of the people who died that week in chronological order. She can recall all their faces, but the thought of him on top of the autopsy table drove her mad.
It was one thing she never wanted to see. She will never be able to live with the horror of his lifeless eyes staring back at her, haunting her.
"Stop that," Levi said, tearing his eyes off her delicate state. His face creased, unable to endure the look on her face, so his eyes fell anywhere, but. And he can’t possibly say the words he was planning to say when she was like that.
Her hand found its way on his sleeve tightly, tugging, and Levi faced her. With sorrowful eyes, nose red, eyes puffy, she forced herself to him in an embrace, body shaking against his. Her arms snaked around his waist tightly, fingers digging behind his back, face pressed on his chest. Tears soaking his suit, she didn’t care if he’d get mad at her for staining it with her makeup.
"I’m so glad you’re okay--" she said, causing Levi to scowl in confusion. He was absolutely perplexed, and parts of him wanted to get away. He didn’t like being confused; he didn’t enjoy not knowing. She was texting a man, saying she would rather be with him. But there she was, sobbing in his arms--out of relief that he was ’okay.’ That he was not in any physical harm like she was previously informed.
He sighed, and his chest moved in synchronized with hers as her body calmed down. Initial anger turned to relief. But why was he relieved? Because she was worried? Because she cared?
"Please--please, don’t joke around like that---" Sam pleaded, not liking his practical jokes at all. He shifted his head lightly in the form of a nod, an arm wrapping around her gently. "...I didn’t like it...at all." She said, burying her tear-filled face against his chest, finding comfort from his beating heart, pounding against his chest and radiating to her body.
Finding solace that Levi Jackson was safe.
Marco emerged from behind Mrs. Whitehall, standing halfway in the stairs,
"Mrs. Whitehall?" he whispered. Mrs. Whitehall turned to look at him, "Shh!" She shushed him and gestured for him to go back down while she tiptoed, unnoticed.
"Is Sam?" Marco inquired; a nod was Mrs. Whitehall’s reply. "What did you two do, Marco? she was yelling profanities in every language. She was furious." the older woman informed him.
"Well---" Marco started, swallowing his saliva before he continued. He told her what happened, earning a few slaps in the arm from the older woman. Soon after, the bearded man headed home, and a furious Lisa greeted him by the door.
Of course, Mrs. Whitehall tattled to the wife.
Sam didn’t go back to work after that; she sat on the blond’s sofa drinking the tea Mrs. Whitehall made half an hour later. She didn’t go back to work, not because she didn’t have cash or her shoes with her. She didn’t go because she couldn’t possibly concentrate on work after that.
Levi sat beside her, watching her in the corner of his eye, and he’d decided not to speak about the messages he’d read on her phone and decided that it wasn’t his business. He was in no position to be angry at her for that, after all. And why he was mad in the first place, he blamed on his recurring urge to gamble. But couldn’t.
That night, after thinking things more thoroughly with a clear head. The Irishman called Marco, telling him not to speak a word about him going through her mobile phone. The bearded man asked him what he found out as he lay on the living room couch. Lisa had kicked him out of the bedroom as a consequence of what he had participated in.
The slicked blond simply said that it wasn’t either of their concerns and ending the call.
Levi thought that if Sam wanted to date, she could date. And she did from his observation; she continued to see him, two of them, for several more weeks. And he could tell it wasn’t like her and Daniel’s arrangement.
This was not sex at all.
He could tell they’ve NEVER even had sex, which was odd considering sex was the only thing Sam liked about omen.
The only good thing that came to that little episode, though, was that she’d never been late since. And she remained oblivious to the truth behind the incident; Sam believed it was a horrible joke Levi did to get back at her for being late twice. And the slicked blond let her believe it.
