Chapter 301 - In Which Sounds Are Haunting
Guns had always scared Angela, probably more than lightning and thunder if not equally. She could write a bloody and horrifying scene in her books, but her heart would always be racing whenever she did.
While she was on the phone with Gael, she heard noises from outside the front door. It sounded as though they were fighting in the hallway. She halted in the middle of the sentence when the commotion caught her attention and walked towards the front door. But just as she reached the entryway, a shot was fired. She flinched and froze in place, her mind racing as she stared at her door, wondering what was happening behind it.
Angela was so stunned; she didn't even notice that her phone had slipped from her hand and had dropped to the floor. What was she supposed to do? Her stare fastened at the closed door while abruptly imagining that whoever was outside might get to her. 'No. That's not possible. The door's locked,' she reminded herself. There was an incomprehensible shouting again, and then another shot was fired. From the first to the second shot, everything happened in five seconds.
She instinctively dropped to the floor, and her hands flew to cover her mouth, afraid that they would hear her. A faint voice coming from the phone by her feet pulled her out of her state, and only then did her attention goes back to the phone call that she had with Gael. With trembling hands, she picked up the mobile phone and pressed it to her ear.
"Fûck. She's not answering!" Gael cursed, and another man's voice was heard on the other end of the line. Giovanni's, maybe.
"Gael…" she whispered. Her hand covered her mouth and the phone's microphone as she spoke. No one could possibly hear her from outside, but she didn't want to risk it. There was more shouting.
"Angela! Shît. What the hell's happening? Those were gunshots!"
"I-I don't know…"
"Are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you right now?" he asked in a hurry.
"I'm fine… But something is happening outside… like outside my door."
"Why are you whispering? Did you lock your door?"
Her eyes shifted to the door lock, and she remembered that she definitely heard the chime earlier. "Yes. Gael, what do I do? They're outside."
Just then, someone banged on her door and impatiently rang the doorbell. "Angela? Are you here? Please help!"
Angela's eyes widened. Her heart rammed against her chest when the familiar voice registered in her head. It sounded like Mrs. Robinson.
"Who's that?" Gael questioned.
"I think it's Mrs. Robinson knocking at my door…" She got to her feet and checked the smart panel on the wall where a camera feed of the person outside was displayed. She recognized the face right away. "It's her."
"What? What does she want?"
"I—" Angela gasped when she looked at the feed carefully and noticed that Mrs. Robinson had very messy hair and something was smeared on her cheek, neck, and the top of her white blouse. It was blood. The older woman kept looking to her left as if she was looking at something or someone.
Mrs. Robinson knocked and rang the doorbell once again and cried, "Please, Angela. Help… Our phones are out of battery."
"Oh, my god. She has blood all over her. She needs help!"
"Fûck," Gael cussed. "Whatever happens, do not open that door! Stay inside!"
Angela was torn. Mrs. Robinson could be in trouble. What if something worse happens to her?
"Angela, please… My son…" Mrs. Robinson pleaded; the tears on her eyes hadn't stopped flowing.
"I have to answer," Angela informed Gael and heard him protest, but she ignored him and pressed the button on the smart panel. "Mrs. Robinson? What happened?" she probed.
Mrs. Robinson broke into tears, her hands tightly clutched on her chest as she looked to her left again. "My son…and my husband…they fought. He… My son threatened his father with a knife… I… I…shot him."
Angela hit the mute button and choked up. She tightly gripped the phone that was still pressed to her ear. "Oh, my god."
"He's bleeding so much… I don't know what to do. My husband has a bad back, so we can't carry our son to the hospital," said Mrs. Robinson in desperation.
"Angela," Gael called. "Don't open the door."
"Then what do I do?"
"Call the police."
"But—"
"Call the police, Angel. I'll send Rick over. Keep your doors locked until then. Let him in and not anybody else. Do you hear me?"
Breathing out, Angela nodded. "Yes. Okay." Her finger shook when she pressed the answer button on the panel and told Mrs. Robinson, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Robinson, I can't open the door, but I'll call for help. Just stay with your son."
Mrs. Robinson squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. "Thank you," she mumbled before rushing away. Angela imagined that the older woman must have gone back to her son and husband.
Angela immediately called 911 to report the incident, informing the operator to send an ambulance. The operator told her that someone had also called for help from the same floor of her building just before she did, so the police and ambulance were already on their way. There were four units on her floor and three of them were occupied, so the other neighbor must have called.
Rick arrived a few minutes later. She rang him up, and he reached her floor when the paramedics and emergency medical technician, and two police officers also did. Angela tried not to look at the scene in the hallway, but she had to open the door when Rick was already outside. A pool of blood and red footsteps stained the marbled floor just several feet away from her. She happened to meet Mrs. Robinson's eyes before the police took her. The older woman wasn't handcuffed, but she was escorted when she insisted that she had to go with her son to the hospital.
***
Angela's head was muddled as the event replayed in her head over and over. She wasn't in the scene when Mrs. Robinson shot her son during the fight, but she could feel and see it happening in her head: From the time she arrived on her floor, the shouting when she passed by their door, the yelling outside her door while she was on the phone with Gael until Mrs. Robinson banged her door for help. It. Was. Haunting.
She couldn't believe that someone as sweet as the older woman did that to her son. It just didn't make any sense.
Rick made Angela a cup of cappuccino and set it on the coffee table while she sat on the floor in front of the sofa. She hadn't asked him to make her one, but he did it anyway. "Thank you." She smiled and took a sip of the warm drink.
They hadn't spoken much since he arrived, yet he was the one who patted her out of her trance when she lingered at the door and brought her back inside her apartment. Wordlessly, Rick did a quick sweep inside her unit and checked outside through the windows like he was looking for something probably out of the ordinary. She'd ignored his presence when she took a breather at the foot of the sofa.
Angela called her brother to tell him what happened, and Oliver said he and their father were on their way. They should arrive in about half an hour.
Staring at her screen, she wondered what Gael was doing after he hung up earlier to contact Rick. She called his number, but it went straight to voicemail. Her brows drew together as she looked up at Rick who was standing by the tall window and staring outside. "Are you able to contact him? My call doesn't go through."
He turned around, checked his phone for a second, and then shoved it back to his pocket as he casually answered, "Boss has probably boarded."
"What do you mean boarded?"
The doorbell rang, and Rick took long strides towards the security panel. "The plane. He was on his way to the airport when he called me."
"The airport?" Angela was thoroughly confused. Was Gael flying somewhere? She followed Rick to the entryway and saw two police officers outside her door. When Rick asked what they wanted, they said they needed to ask some questions about the Robinson family.
Angela let the officers in. They started asking her questions, but she couldn't concentrate as she constantly thought about Gael who was possibly coming to see her.