Dirk Lützelberger - Murder in the first life

His excitement quickly subsided, and he single-mindedly realized the next steps he still had to take as Priscilla. In no time the pictures were copied from his mobile phone to his computer and an electronic message was sent to Miranda_1989.Gore@gmail.com. Relieved, Sven shut down the computer, disposed of the bloody paper tissue and put the cleaned knife back into the kitchen. Then he lay down in bed with his wife and stared at the ceiling. What will the next tasks be, Sven rejoiced and fell asleep thinking about them.

Gwen sat at her son’s bedside. How could she tell him? How would she answer him if he wanted to know what was going to happen? On her return from the hospital, Beth had reported that Phil had only fallen asleep early in the morning. Now it was almost Sunday afternoon and the low November sun was flooding her house. It was time to get up, Gwen pondered and gently stroked her son over his head. He grumbled and blinked sleepily at her. As the memories of last night made their way through his mind, Phil jumped up and was wide awake.

"Where’s Daddy?"

Gwen held her breath. She didn’t think he would get to the point so quickly. Slowly she began to report. "We were in the emergency room last night. The doctors all acted very quickly, but Dad had no chance. "Daddy won’t be coming home, sweetheart. Now it’s just you and me."

"You lie! It can’t be! Daddy’s only had his birthday, and he’s only forty-six.

"Phil, it’s as hard for me to accept this as it is for you, but Dad is really … dead." Gwen swallowed to keep from crying out of desperation. She had to be strong now. Phil couldn’t get out a word and pressed his face into his pillow. Gwen put her hand on his shoulder.

"Leave me alone! You should have saved him. You were in the hospital with him. Phil was sobbing deeply. "Your doctor-friend was there, too. Why did you let him die?" 'Doctor-friend' Phil had called Michael. There was nothing between them. Why would he think that?

"Darling, Michael had acted immediately. You mustn’t blame him. And Stefan even drove ahead of the ambulance to clear the streets. "We all did everything we could. We never had a chance. Please understand that."

"Go away! Leave me alone!" Gwen gave her son a worried look and stood up.

"I’ll make us a nice breakfast. If you’re hungry, just come down to the kitchen." Phil didn’t say anything and just buried his face deeper into his pillow.

Gwen sat emotionlessly on the couch in the living room and stared at the display cabinet on the opposite wall as Phil stepped out of his teenage bedroom and crept down the stairs. With red puffy eyes he glanced at his mother and went wordlessly into the kitchen. Gwen considered for a moment whether she should speak to him but decided against it. He should calm down first. She heard a clatter in the kitchen and saw Phil walking back toward his room with a slice of bread and heard him closing the door behind him. As if paralyzed, she continued to sit on the couch and thought about what to do next. The hours passed agonizingly slowly, and Gwen couldn’t motivate herself to do anything or even think a clear, concentrated thought.

Around 6:00 pm, Gwen decided to make another advance. She knocked tentatively on Phil’s room door. When she received no answer, she carefully opened the door.

"Phil? How you doing? What are you doing?"

Phil sat at his desk at the computer and played. He didn’t look up when his mother entered the room.

"Honey, let’s talk, please."

"That won’t bring him back either!" mumbled Phil in return. "And I don’t want to live without him either."

"You mustn’t say such things. We must now stick together. The two of us, you and me. We’re the team now, and we’ve got to stick together. I need you!"

"But I don’t need you. I want my father back. You can’t help me."

"But that’s not possible" Gwen replied tenderly and continued. "You know that, too. What can I do to show you that I am always here for you?"

"I don’t want to talk about it today" Phil replied resignedly, without looking up from his game. "I am tired and have to go back to school in the morning. I’m going to bed soon."

"OK, please let me know if you need anything, and if I can do anything. I love you."

Gwen left the room to curl up in a blanket on the living room couch again. Tired and introverted, she stared at the display cabinet again, thinking about tomorrow. She fell asleep.

The display showed 06:45 am when the alarm clock woke Mark up, first quietly and then increasingly louder. Determined, he started his computer and then freshened up in the bathroom while the computer was booting. The symbol for new mail appeared and brought a smile to Mark’s tired face. As he hastily devoured a slice of bread, he opened the new message expectantly.

Priscilla had done the job properly and sent him a photograph. Now he’s hooked, thought Mark, saved the picture on his hard drive and printed it out.

"Let’s see if you’re familiar with technology" Mark murmured softly to himself, invoking the extended properties of the image. A mischievous smile played around his mouth as he found what he was looking for. Cell phones often stored the coordinates of where they were taken. As helpful as this might be later in assigning the images to locations where they were taken, if you didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on this information, it shouldn’t be in the images. Priscilla obviously hadn’t thought of it or hadn’t understood it that far. Well done, Mark thought, copied the location data from the image and pasted it back into the search mask on Google Maps. Just fractions of a second later, the map view opened with the location of the picture marked. Perfect! Mark grinned. It was a detached house near his own home.

He’d deal with that later. Now he had to hurry to get to his work and help the people there. He noticed that he was still sitting in front of the computer in his undies. Mark laughed, turned off the computer and dressed in his work clothes. He didn’t need to comb his short light brown hair as it almost fell into shape by itself. He quickly packed some more fruit for the day and hastily stepped out into the hall. The way to his garage was very slippery as the floor was still frozen. But these were good circumstances, thought Mark, because that way he didn’t have to worry too much about the police finding the tire tracks he had inevitably left at the scene. He was very curious to see how long it would take them to find his work and locked the front door.

Gwen’s alarm clock also showed 06:45 am when the alarm started at full volume in the bedroom. Awake by the alarm clock next door, Phil staggered out of his room, drowsy, and disappeared into his mother’s bedroom. He turned off the alarm clock and only now realized the empty bed. Probably she had fallen asleep in the living room in front of the TV again, as so often. Phil crept into the living room on the ground floor and saw his mother lying on the couch.

"Mama! The alarm clock rang!" Phil was not yet able to do more in the early morning. He staggered back upstairs and into the bathroom.

Gwen was terribly tired. How long had she been asleep? She’d dreamt about the hospital and about Paul dying. Was it just a bad dream? She regained consciousness and was hit with all the force of reality. She was a widow, a single mother of a teenage son. Why had fate been so serious with her?

"Mum, you have to get up too!" cried Phil from the upper floor, who had finished in the bathroom by now and disappeared back into his room.

"Yes, my love, I’m awake. Thank you."