The Thin Line of Love (part eight) (The Cartoonist 3)

Recap- “The Cartoonist and his girl go to Miami and find a dead person in their hotel room. The Identity of the murder victim…His own Sister. The Cartoonist gets confirmation. He finds out that she was a troublemaker. She was Daddy’s Little Girl… though and though. After some research he finds an address in which he finds a surprising secret His own sister not dead at all, but she has a secret of her own. The identity of the victim is her own sister. A fellow orphan who was into some tough stuff. The Cartoonist also had another secret. She runs a underground casino. When the Cartoonist and his girlfriend visit the casino, they find the missing piece to this whole thing. 

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So apparently this whole thing comes together. 

The person who I believed killed Rita is standing across the room from me and Cidra. I whisper to Cidra and she looks at him. She has a look like she’s going to be sick. Gina looks at us both. “Are you guys, Ok? It looks like you’ve seen a ghost” She’s not that far off. I tell her that the man she claims is Rita’s boyfriend is none other than our hotel receptionist/ Concierge Jose Vargas. Gina turns around and a look of worry is plastered all over her face. “Umm…Ok you believe he, did it?” I nod my head yes because words can’t leave my lips at the present. We all turn to the bar hoping not to be noticed. After a few minutes I got the courage to tell her about how he’s works at the hotel we are staying at. She gives a look of surprise. I then ask why he is here. Doesn’t Gina have final say on who comes in here. “Look I don’t know. I believe that one of his friends works the door. I will handle this” I tell her no because I rather not tip him off that we know. 

We all agree that me and Cidra need to leave as soon as possible and go straight to the police to give them this new information. Since he’s on the other side of the room it’s easy to walk around the room to remain unnoticed by him. Besides he’s too busy at the craps table to notice us. As we walk to the door, Gina stops us and tell us she will be staying to keep an eye on him. She promises that she will give us a call if he decides to leave. We exit and call a cab. Waiting there in front of the warehouse, it seems like an eternity even though it’s only like 5 minutes. We tell the cab driver the address of the police station and he nods. This whole thing is nerve racking. It takes about 20 minutes to get to the station and I give the driver a good tip. We enter the station and ask for Detective O’Reily and that we have information on a murder case he’s investigating. We get escorted upstairs to a waiting room and after an excruciating 15 minutes he finally comes in. “So, what have you got for us today?” It’s in a very sarcastic tone which normally would bother the hell of me but considering the circumstances I’ll pass. 

We sit down and then tell the whole story. That my sister’s best friend was the victim, which I imagine he already knows, and that she had a boyfriend that according to my sister is a very bad dude. Shifty is my word for him. He interrupts “So that does make him the killer? There’s a lot of shifty characters out there that haven’t killed anyone” I tell him yeah, but he also works at the hotel we are staying at. He is startled by this. “So, what is this shifty guy’s name again?” I tell him Jose Vargas and that he is the front counter receptionist at the hotel. He writes this down in his notepad. And then leaves the room. Cidra seems to be a little unnerved by this conversation. I feel sorry that she’s in the middle of this whole mess. Hopefully after this thing is resolved I can make it up to her. I just hope we make it out alive. The detective comes back in and tells us that an APB has been put out on Vargas. “So, you can go back to the hotel and wait for us to call, and I will let you know when it’s safe” I ask is it safe to go back to a place where a murderer is. “It should be fine. The guy shouldn’t know that you are on to him. It’s best that you play it cool so not to spook him. It will be harder to catch him otherwise” He then escorts out of the station. 

We leave the police station and travel by cab to the Hotel. As we walk through the lobby, it feels very tense. Looking over, above and below our shoulders. You can’t be too careful. We don’t feel safe until we get into our room and lock the door. We put on some music to lighten the mood. It doesn’t work at first but soon we lay down and its Relax City. After a while we get hungry. Luckily, we have some cold cuts in the mini fridge and some bread that we got for late night snacks. Unluckily for us we have no ice and that means warm drinks. I hate drinks that are warm. I say to Cidra that I will go the ice machine down the hall. No worries. I highly doubt that there will be any trouble. Cidra says “Don’t worry about the ice. We shouldn’t take any chances at this moment. At least until we know Jose is caught” I tell her it will be fine, there is nothing to worry about. I will leave my key in here and she can let me in when I come back in one piece. She agrees. 

I leave the room a little nervous. More nervous than I let on. Some Male pride working in these veins. As I walk down the hall with my ice bucket, my nerves start to calm down and become a little braver. A little cocky even.  I go through the door where the ice machine and some vending machines are. I get my ice through the machine. Plus, I get a Twix out of one of the machines. Hey I’m hungry. As I am about to head back to the room, I hear a click from behind me. It was definitely not a good click. It was a click of a gun. I turn around and it’s not the person I expected.

It’s my sister. Gina Fox.

TO be Continued…

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