The Innocents, Nathan Senthil [best life changing books .TXT] 📗

The last image burning into his soon-to-be-dilated pupils induced a pain so severe that it hurt his very soul.

His strong, superhero mom was holding the white bowl, taking a mouthful.

Chapter 51

May 18, 2019. 09:49 P.M.

 

Gabriel unlocked his room and shouldered the door open, holding a plastic bag that contained the things he had on him when they’d wheeled him into the ICU. He dropped it on the table and collapsed on the bed. The sudden motion made his abdomen throb.

“Goddamn it.” He cupped the part of his belly where the suture was and pulled out a pill holder from his jacket. With his thumb, he flicked open the cap and shook a blue pill into his mouth.

The SNOM procedure benefited Gabriel in many ways. Hospital stay reduced to only six days, shorter bill, and most importantly, lesser scar tissue as they skipped laparoscopy.

When they discharged him, the attending physician had said, “You’ll heal in weeks. But until then, stomach the pain, pun fully intended.”

Gabriel did not lose an organ or have enough time to develop peritonitis because he was quickly taken to Level 1 trauma center. Thanks to Ryatt, Gabriel got off relatively and improbably scot-free. He had later learned that Ryatt had left his dead friend behind in Bugsy’s mansion, to get Gabriel to hospital on time. Maybe, just maybe, there was a fraction of good in that heartless murderer after all.

Too bad he couldn’t salvage that good in Ryatt and help him in some way. He was dead. The SWAT team that burst through Iris’s candy store found both her and Ryatt lying dead on the floor, side by side. The pathologist wrote it down as ‘homicidal poisoning with ethylene glycol’, a common ingredient in antifreeze.

The SWAT team also found a letter beside Iris. It read: Please donate the reward money to Detroit Public School.

Since she was blind, it was written in a slanting line but the text couldn’t be more intelligible.

Iris, even in death, cared about community service. Not only had she killed her son and made the world safer but also used the $500,000 bounty on his head for children’s education.

Gabriel felt his eyes prickle. Why the emotion gushed out, he did not know. Could be the drugs kicking in. Or could have been Iris.

As the painkiller benumbed him and turned his head as light as a balloon, he made a rash decision.

He reached for his rucksack under the bed. Rummaging through it, he fished out the burner, which was still alive. A miracle as it hadn’t been charged for six days.

When he entered the Swizz bank website, the browser remembered his credentials; so logging in was no problem.

He opened another tab and searched for the libraries in Detroit that were shutting down due to lack of funding. Once he notated them all, he switched back to the bank website. Without a moment’s thought, he transferred the necessary amount to each one of them. And he still had almost a million dollars left, which he donated to the same public school Iris had.

When he finally crushed the burner into pieces, Gabriel had not a penny left of Bugsy’s blood money.

Feeling good, he lay back and rested his eyes.

Just as he slipped out of reality, his cell phone rang, its ringtone muffled inside the hospital bag.

He grabbed the bag and took the cell phone out. To his surprise, it was not crusted with blood or grime. In fact, he observed that all his belongings were cleaned and smelled good.

Gabriel answered the call.

“You safely reached the hotel?” Conor asked.

“Yes, Mom,” Gabriel said.

Conor chuckled. “Alright. Guess what? The DPD got the Camaro. It was abandoned at the back of Goodwill. A bunch of kids called 911 and reported that the key was still in the car.”

“Hm,” Gabriel said.

“I would’ve thought that the car might have gone missing.”

“Not only you. Ryatt would’ve counted on it too when he left it there. Seems like you’re both wrong about the world. At least about Detroit.”

“Are you seriously lumping me with that sociopathic bank robber?” Conor asked.

“Sometimes you seriously talk like a sociopath.” Gabriel yawned.

“Whatever,” Conor said. “Anyway, the Camaro isn’t the reason why I’ve called you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Conor’s tone became grim. “I’ve gone through your psych eval.” He cleared his throat. “Y-you have a genius level IQ but… um…”

“Don’t mince words. What’s up?” Gabriel asked innocently. But he thought he knew what was up, and it jittered him.

“You have trouble communicating?” Conor asked.

“I used to stutter, yes,” Gabriel answered. “But I’ve worked through it. I haven’t stuttered since high school.”

“Come on, Gabe. You know we do backgrounds.” Conor paused. “We talked to Victor.”

Victor was Gabriel’s captain from the 122nd precinct.

“What did he say?” he asked.

“That you had a breakdown during the Mr. Bunny investigation. You lashed out and… uh… you’ve had a hard time communicating.”

“Mr. Bunny videotaped shooting my friend in the face and sent it to me. Try not stuttering after seeing something as traumatic as that,” Gabriel said. “However, that was the only time I stuttered in my whole career as a homicide detective, because I lost so many people close to me to that animal.”

“Yes, I agree. But you had some psychological problems as well. Substance abuse to be specific, and during that period, you were negligent of your health.”

“I recovered and haven’t drunk in a really long time,” Gabriel lied. He mourned his dad’s murder with cheap vodka.

“It’s not just that,” Conor said. “You know, our department has ways to put things together.”

“What did they put together?” Gabriel asked, hoping they knew nothing about his little setback.

“Your problem with speech, your self-destructive behavior that borders on suicidal, and according to our research, you had late motor skill development. And you have poor sociability.