It was evening and Priscilla carried her bags to the living room. Donald was there as well and seemed to want to persuade her to stay for a little longer but gave up.
He knew how stubborn Priscilla could get sometimes. He had spent the better part of 15 years persuading her not to do things but she would always go ahead and do them. He tried to convince her to not join K9 but she did anyway. He tried to talk her out of joining the Fillers, she did anyway. She always seemed to do the opposite of what he advised. He sighed, this was what she wanted.
"I'll miss you." he said after a long period of silence.
Priscilla chuckled. "You make it sound like I'm leaving the country."
She gave him a warm hug and patted his back. "Will you see me off?"
Donald scratched his head a bit but then shook it. "I have to be somewhere right now."
"Where?"
"Clair," he replied with a sigh. "Bobby was buried today."
"I see," Priscilla nodded in understanding. She could vaguely guess why Donald wanted to go and see her. She only hoped that Clair won't react badly when he approached her.
She took her things and got a taxi and headed to her apartment. She sighed heavily as the taxi moved along the road. She couldn't tell Donald about the plan to infiltrate the military base the next day. She didn't want to stay in his house in case things went out of hand.
She closed her eyes and let her body relax a bit. She needed it. The next day was going to be tough—she knew that.
….
Donald paced around the living room for a few seconds before quickly grabbing the envelope that lay on the table. He checked the content one last time before leaving the house.
He drove towards the cemetery he knew Bobby would be buried. He figured that Clair will still be there. The moment he arrived, he noticed someone standing by a grave. She wore a green dress with a brown jacket over it. It was Clair.
He walked towards her with slow but steady steps. His heart began to race as he didn't know what to say to her. He reckoned that she still blamed him for his death; after all he did say that he'd kill Bobby just to get her.
Thinking about it now, he felt like slapping himself for using such words. He reined in his thoughts and took a deep breath before calling out to her.
Clair turned around slowly when someone called her name. Her face, Donald noticed, was pale, her eyes were red and puffy, her hair was messy and she had lines that ran down her cheek. Those were—Donald was sure—lines of dried up tears.
His heart twisted as he saw her like this. He gulped down a huge lump that had grown in his throat and slowly said, "I'm sorry about him."
Clair kept staring at him intently. She didn't move or say a word. The only thing that made Donald sure that she was alive and not a statue was her constant sniffling and the rising and falling of her chest.
After a while she looked away from him and back to the grave stone. Bobby's remains had been packed into the coffin and buried. He was murdered like an animal! Her heart sank as these memories rushed back at her.
She wiped her eyes a bit and asked, "Why are you here?"
Donald stepped closer and his eyes also swept across the grave stone. "I came to find you."
"What for?" she turned to look at him.
"Because I know that you may think the worst of me and believe that I had a connection to his death. I want you to know that I had nothing to do with this."
Clair nodded. "I believe you."
Donald was taken by surprise at her words. "You do?"
"Do I have a reason to not believe you?"
"No," Donald frowned a bit finding it strange that she didn't lash out at him—something he had been anticipating. "It's just that at one point I did say that I would kill him—though it was only a joke!"
"I know," she said again then turned back to the grave. Ever since she had found that uniform and the gun in Bobby's box she began to look at things in a different perspective. She always thought that Bobby was busy with his garage but now she thought otherwise.
He had a gun and also a strange uniform that certainly belonged to some cult group or something similar. It was obvious at that point that he was involved in something very shady and it might have come back to bite at him.
Since then she started to think of the possible things that Bobby might have gotten himself involved in. Having a gun was no small deal.
Then again it could be possible that whoever killed him planted the gun and the uniform there to mislead any investigations but for what reason? It would be foolish to leave behind a uniform that could point out the groups' identity. This was something she had to look into but so far the police didn't have any lead.
Donald noticed that her face was pulled into a frown as if she was considering something seriously. He didn't bother to figure out what she was thinking about. He pulled out the envelope from his trouser pocket and handed it over to her.
"I also came so I could hand this over to you." he said.
Clair looked at the envelope for a while. She was reluctant at first but she finally reached out and took it. She ripped it open and brought out the contents. There were two photos inside.
"After the incidence, I had someone look into Bobby's dealing for the past few weeks. Those photos were taken by someone just a few days before he was murdered."
Clair was dumbfounded as she looked at the photo. In the photo, Bobby was holding onto another man—dragging him along—as they walked towards a building that wasn't really clear. It looked like some sort of bar.
Bobby was holding a gun to the man's head as he dragged him forward. It was the same gun that she'd found in his box!
The next photo was Bobby waiting outside the building with his cap pulled down. One thing was that he didn't have that uniform. She looked at the other man's facial features but she couldn't recognise him.
"Where did you get these?" she asked.
"Does it matter?" he asked. "I had someone investigate what he'd been doing and this photo came up. He was in Cruderia and he was involved in something bad. I think this is what got him killed."
"Cruderia…" Clair muttered. When had he found the time to leave the country and return without her knowing? She sighed. "Thank you. This will help a lot."
Donald nodded and turned around and left.
Clair nodded deeply. At first she only had an idea that Bobby was involved in something bad but now, she was sure of it. The good thing was that she knew where the next clue could be found—Cruderia!