Race With a Heart
Chapter 135: Lights in the Darkness

Chapter 135: Lights in the Darkness

Jack paled. He looked at the photo again. A cute, innocent, and really pretty face looked at him from that picture.

"This is the girl from behind the dumpster who the newspapers wrote about?" He asked. "And your trail leads to our stable? To one of the drivers? No, it’s just ... "

For Jack, this information was totally unimaginable. How could any of them be involved in her death?

It definitely wasn’t Jack, unless he has a second personality he doesn’t know about, but he wasn’t losing time. Steve was quick-tempered, had a temperament more affectionate than nitroglycerin, but he was also kind-hearted. Lambert just couldn’t imagine him as a murderer. Only Don was left, but aside from being an arrogant idiot who suddenly got hot at Martin, Jack couldn’t imagine him hurting any woman, much less killing anyone. Impossible. All three were clean, and Jack would have had his arm cut off for it.

But wait, it was an information leak, not a murder.

"I don’t know what information you are talking about, but I don’t understand what information could leak to a prostitute, and why?" Jack shrugged. "I don’t think she was a competitor spy," he grimaced. "It’s terrible what happened to her, but I doubt she has had any contact with any of us."

"We have evidence otherwise. Your friend has already confessed. "

"What?!" Lambert was surprised. "Which?"

"Both."

And Jack thought he knew everything that had happened in that stable!

***

Don Alston’s throat was tight. He knew both policemen questioning him. It was them that he gave his testimony about the attempted murder of Paxton.

But that case has been resolved, so why...?

The answer came more disturbing than he had expected, though he might have expected it. He was prepared for this situation, yet he felt deeply uneasy.

"Yes, I slept with her," Don admitted. "I went with the guys from my old stable to the bar. I got drunk, ended up in bed with the hooker. I am not supposed to be proud of anything, but I will not be ashamed either. "

The policemen looked at each other knowingly.

Nelson instructed Alston that if they asked about Rite, he was to tell them the truth - at least to some extent. There was too much evidence and too many witnesses for Don being at the bar using her services. If Alston dodges and lies, the police will suspect him. If he told them the truth, he would only be one of her clients. Many men have had adventures similar to his. He was drunk, playing with his friends in the strip bar - was it really that weird that he ended up in bed with a ’working girl’?

"What were you talking about?" Sullivan asked.

"What were we talking?" Don was surprised. "I didn’t go to bed with a hooker to talk. Anyway ... I was so drunk that I don’t remember much about that night. "

’I don’t remember’ was the easiest explanation. It was also very realistic. Which drunk guy will remember what he talked about in bed with a prostitute? Which guy is going to talk to her at all? After all, the vast majority of men go to bed with a woman, especially a woman of this profession, for one purpose only.

"Did you see Rita often?" the younger policeman asked.

Don considered.

"I saw her twice," he admitted glumly. "The second time was when my girlfriend dumped me. I also drank a lot then. But then we didn’t go to bed. She said she was busy. It looked like she was in a hurry to meet another client. "

"Do you remember her mood?"

"As if she won a hundred million in lottery. She must have caught someone really rich. "

"When was it?"

Alston gave the date. He knew perfectly well that the girl had died that night.

Then the younger policeman’s phone rang and he went out to answer it. The older one, Sullivan, asked him more questions, all of them very standard, and Alston was prepared for all of them. Although nervous, he replied with the greatest possible calm ...

***

"Why do you suspect Alston?" Kevin Moore asked, looking closely at Steve.

"Because it couldn’t be Jack," Paxton said simply. "Anyway ... I know that I am not an easy-going person and I’m not a popularity master, but Don ..."

Steve shook his head slowly. Moore understood perfectly well what he meant by that. Sometimes two people just don’t like each other, and it’s hard to say exactly why. Just as it is often impossible to say why you love someone. Either there’s chemistry between them or there’s no chemistry.

"Do you think," Kevin asked, "that he might have something to do with your cases on the track?"

Paxton looked at him curiously but did not ask how Moore knew. Yep, Jack was a talker.

"I’m sure of it," he replied. "I have no evidence, I can’t connect it, but ..."

"But your guts tell you Alston is your enemy."

Steve clenched the hand that was trembling before into a fist and covered it with his other hand.

"I think it’s more than just a business," Paxton said. "I don’t know why, I just ... think so."

Suddenly Steve looked at Moore with his dark eyes and Kevin felt himself piercing by the darkness and loneliness of the cosmos. It was the gaze of a man whose heart saw the deepest darkness that can exist in a human heart. The eyes of a man whose heart was in a place where no human heart should have been.

Those eyes were scary but appealing in their own way.

Darkness is alluring and magnetic.

A man with such eyes was capable of anything. Even to a cruel crime. But for some reason, looking into those eyes, Kevin made absolutely certain that Steve was not the murderer.

The darkness in Paxton’s eyes wasn’t wild and untamed. This darkness Steve knew well and knew how to control it. He could free her at any moment and close her again at any moment. Steve was the master of his darkness.

Kevin had read about people like this but had never seen one. People who were aware of the beast growing in them and instead of fighting it, they tamed it so that it would serve them.

How much time and how much superhuman effort did it take to control this darkness?

Suddenly, two lights flashed in the darkness, giving Paxton’s gaze a new, breathtaking impression.

What fascinating eyes!

"Martin trusts you," Steve said, and Moore knew those lights in the darkness of Paxton’s heart were a young mechanic. "Even Jack... Martin has the keys to my car. I have a camera in my car. I parked so that my meeting with this girl was recorded. I think this will be decisive proof of my innocence and no reason to get involved Martin in this case, right? "

"You have proof and you didn’t say ...?"

Of course he didn’t, because when he started talking, Sullivan couldn’t hold back and turned into a brainless bully.

"You parked that on purpose?" he asked instead of ending the previous question.

Paxton nodded.

"I got a blackmail message," he announced. "I didn’t know who or what to expect. It could be a joke, it could be a media provocation, or it could be really serious. Whatever it was, someone was trying to gain an advantage over me in an illegal and unethical way. I am not a saint, but I will not allow myself to be used. If this was a journalistic provocation, I wanted proof that I was framed. If the blackmailer exceeded certain limits, I too would have something against him. I couldn’t let that person want to use Martin too ... "

Again, at the sound of that magic word, the darkness in Paxton’s eyes was torn by two glowing lights.

Looking at Steve Paxton and knowing his story, Kevin felt less pity than admiration. Many people experience suffering and fall into nothingness, but Steve broke through this nothingness and made his existence meaningful. It was not an easy task, it required a great deal of courage, but Paxton found it within himself, and although life again prepared for him new, nightmarish experiences, he had the strength to fight them and to overcome them.

Part of that force, perhaps quite powerful, was Martin.

Kevin had previously thought that Jack was treating Steve like a little brother because of his real brother, whom he lost in his childhood. He felt he was compensating for the lack of a family of his own by this family in the Fergus Stables. Today, however, while talking to Paxton, Moore found himself beginning to feel warm, brotherly affection for Steve.

Steve was inaccessible and hostile, but not because he was afraid of people, despised them, or disliked them. He had an immense darkness in his heart, the presence of which influenced his life, but could also affect others. Paxton stayed away from people because he didn’t want to pollute them with his darkness.

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