Undefiled Queen

Stephen’s POV

Work was sprawled on my glass desk in the form of various documents requiring my attention. My personal assistant came inside the room after a knock.

“Sir, the private investigator Mr John wants to meet you.” An unwelcoming intuition raced inside my heart. John often called before he came to my office and most importantly it was unlikely that he would disturb me when I’m at work. But today he had failed both his routine practices which said the situation was grave and immediately required my attention.

I looked through my Rolex and noted, I just had ten minutes of time before I head to my next meeting. It was crucial congress that was mandatory about our new expansion project at Dubai. My company was spreading its wings and now to other countries too. What was the thing which was so important that John wanted to meet me this urgent? “Send him in!” I commanded my personal assistant.

“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at work but this is the information of pivotal importance. Since the day after your brother’s accident and you ordered me to pursue the case my eyes stayed vigilant and had been guarding everywhere including the police and judicial custody.”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

I nodded leaning back on the high class executive chair. “Take a seat John.”

He wiped the droplets sweat covering his forehead pulling out the handkerchief from his pant pocket. I looked at the air conditioning of the room and found it was good and before I could ask him the reason for his anxiety, he started speaking. “Sir, I am sorry to say this. But justice prevails with the other party. And we have to be cautious that the actual reason for the accident doesn’t leak out to the paparazzi which endangers the reputation of Radiance Industries.”

My legs took me up from the chair in their own accord. I got up from my seat in a rage and stamped my palm on the glass desk before me. “That should not happen at any cost. Give the girl whatever she desires for, to keep her lips sealed. She is not going to open her mouth before the media at any cost. They are after all a middle class family. How dare she?”

He had been a friend of mine and helping in the company’s cases for over a decade. John for the first time in our professional relationship dares to stop me between my sentences. It felt insulting But at the same time it was like a warning of something very unacceptable and perilous about to happen.

“Sir, these middle classes are the most dangerous people. They refuse to get sold for money as they are people with a lot of self esteem. The girl did not accept the money though we offered her a fortune, a property in prime locality of Minneapolis, her home town along with the stack of notes filled in a briefcase she wouldn’t have ever seen or ever imagined in her life. But she refused to surrender. On the contrary she demanded justice for the death of her parents.” I shut off the air conditioner and opened the window, to light a cigarette.

“Though we tried to stop her, she filed an FIR with the police. We are just one shot away to get exposed to the paparazzi. With a lot of persuasion I stopped the police from investigating her parents’ case but I doubt if we could stop them for long. The corporal seems to be a sincere man.”

“Damn it! Then kill her.” It did not take me a second to announce my decision. I am ready to pay whatever cost  it takes to bury this case under the age-old pending cases in court diaries. Nobody can dare to meddle with the reputation of my family and business. My mother is sick and this stupid ass woman dare not prickle with the sensitivity of the situation I am in.”Sir?” John was taken aback by the sudden unexpected storm that came out of me. He stared at me flabbergasted for more moments but I was in no form to take upon his mood swings. “I said bloody kill her.”

He cleared his throat, preparing himself to face the crucial situation which may probably also cost him his job. “Sir, your decision might pull us deeper into this oasis. As such we are in a lot of trouble now. As a business man of international reputation you must take your decisions judiciously.”

How dare he? This guy worth two pennies tries to give me advise? “Then what are we going to do now?” I was two ticks away to lose my sanity.

*****

Four years had passed since her parents left the world. Merlyn avoided visiting the graveyard. She was that sort of a person who would suffer a breakdown whenever she would visit the burial of her parents.

The doctors called it emotional stress and exhaustion. Pathetic her boyfriend Max called. Though she knew he was a womanizer somehow Max had won 10/10 marks in behavior and manners before her uncle and aunt and uncle Peter wanted her to marry Max by any means before December when she would finish her graduation in physiotherapy.

Just like her dad instrucructed she had been staying in her aunt’s place with her brother. Her aunt was like a caring mother to her and her brother. And uncle Peter was no less in showering affection though he was not blood related.

Both aunt Hana and uncle Peter were childless and they brought up her and her brother like their own children.

She was finally there, all alone, gathering up all her courage to pay her final respects to her parents before she joined the physiotherapy college in California.

Merlyn stood on very sodden soil, constantly having to move her feet, listening to the incessant quenching clamor her black boots made in contact with the mire. She repeated the annoying movement over and over, in order to stop them being consumed into the ground. The very ground that held her dad and mom for the last seven years.

All the while, she was struggling to choke back the tears, which threatened to fall. Continuously she rubbed her hands together, to keep them warm. Although it was August, the weather was obviously unempathetic and probably had the same thoughts and emotions as her. The skies continued to darken over and slowly one after the other, rain drops fell in a slack deluge.

Merlyn wrapped in a heavy coat dwelling in her grief. Audibly sighing, her eyes ran over and over the words on the headstone. Samuel James Born 31/10/66 Died 31/10/09. Beside it was her mother’s Rachel James Born 13/7/69 Died 29/09/09.

Her eyes repeatedly blinked to curtail the tears reading the date 31/10/09. It was her birthday, the same day her father died because of a certain someone, whose unknown face kept haunting her dreams till the date. She hated people who are rich.

Placing a bouquet of roses on each of the head stones, Merlyn caught her breath, trying to swallow the sob. She looked up to the sky and watched the clouds travel unhurriedly over her head. Closing her eyes, the droplets fell; they hit her face and grouped together, finally running down her neck in rivulets.

The sadness she felt matched with the climate.  In a way it was good nobody could find out the amount of tears her eyes shed in the memory of her parents.

From behind her, two hands came forward. They gently rubbed up and down her arms, trying to formulate a soothing sensation “Sweetheart, you know we are here for you, don’t you?’ The gentle voice of her aunt came through to her.

She turned to her, her aunt and uncle collected her in their arms. They stood, clustered together for several minutes before the tomb of her parents.

“Come on, Merlyn,” she heard her brother speaking who stood beside uncle Peter. He was lucky, too young to remember anything. All he knew were their aunt and uncle who brought them up like their own children.

Uncle Peter pulled her tight against his side. “Let’s go home, honey. We need to take a flight and go back to Newyork. Don’t you remember your last minute packing to the college is still left?”