Torn Shadows Part 4

Lydia passed the next hour in a blur. She remembered being lifted away from her father's body and being taken to a car. After that was a blur. When she finally became fully aware of her surroundings, she was in a police station and an officer with a note pad was trying to get her attention.

"Miss Edmont, can you please tell me what your father's attacker looked like?" he asked very impatiently.

Suddenly she was wide awake. " He was not overly tall, but not short either. He was by no means bulky but almost slight. However, he carried himself as though he were six inches taller and fifty pounds bulkier." Slowly her voice began to loose its malicious tone. "He had dark hair. Black. It was short but somewhat shaggy so that some of it fell into his face and cast a shadow across his eyes. His eyes..." A pause. "They were a dark brown. He stared at you as if he could decipher the very depths of your soul." She glanced at the officer who was now giving her a peculiar stare. She composed herself, "He also claimed to be a lieutenant representing Captain Dellam."

"Did you get his name?"

"Aiden."

Then the door to the small room opened and in stepped a young soldier, in his black ceremony uniform. "I think that is enough questions for tonight officer. She has had a long night."

"Yes sir." replied the officer grudgingly.

She left with the soldier who took her to his car.

"I will be taking you to General Cauldwell's home. He and his wife have agreed to take you in for the time being, at least until your father's funeral." He stopped, for he realized he had been tactless. They road down the empty streets, the moonlight illuminating the space not glowing with light from the street lights. Lydia was deep in thought, and yet was not thinking at all.
They arrived at the general's home where she was lovingly welcomed, but she felt no love. Her father had been the only person she really knew since her mother had died years ago and all other family lived in other parts of the country. She felt alone, as if there was no more love left for her in the world, as if with a few bullets Aiden had shattered the glass walls of her old world and they had fallen to reveal this empty place. She gasped. She had referred to him with his first name. That man, no that monster had killed her father and yet here she was thinking of him as if he were another one of her acquaintances. She went straight to bed after changing into clothes supplied to her by her hostess and there she lay awake. She yearned for sleep to keep the image of her dying father out of her head, to keep his dying breath from echoing in her ears. But sleep was a fiend that night and did not grant her the rest she was seeking.

Across town a group of policemen found Captain Dellam dead in his home and two uniforms missing from his house.

To Be Continued