CHAPTER 4
HEY GUYS I'm ANN1AMOUR, FINALLY BACK WITH THE UPDATE OF UL,
MISSED ME? WELL I SURELY DID AND I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY FOR SUCH A LATE UPDATE, RIGHT? I'M REALLY SORRY BUT GUESS WHAT THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHAPTER OF THIS SERIES SO FAR, HOPE IT WOULD BE WORTH THE WAIT, BUT BEFORE THAT, REVIEWS ARE WAITING TO BE REPLIED.
Guest#1: thanks and yeah they did finally meet, sorry but it took 2 months for them to resume talking, blame it on Ann1amour and his school XDXD
Hydra-G: thanks, glad you reviewed this story too; hope you'll like this new chapter.
(Where are you Guest#2?)
Anyway up with the chapter, enjoy reading and the next update will, as usual take a while, you know (This boy here will keep pluggin' away his school studies, to give you one more chap the next month, but I can't promise okay?)
A/N: short interrogation.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon
After being entranced by her beautiful appearance for more than half a minute, Ash responded, rather weakly, forcing the words out of his lips,
"Oh great…..so yeah…um it's nice to meet you too."
'Focus Ash.' He shook himself from his zoned-out state.
"May I help you with something sir?", her voice was a delicate sugar rush, but Ash had to use her presence for the best.
"Actually there's a lot you can help me with right now, Miss Yvonne, and that's just Mr. Ketchum, if you please." She smiled at his reply and appreciated his inspection which he now started to go on with again.
Ash could find nothing except loads of cobwebs under the bed as he stood back up, facing the honey blonde woman once again.
"Okay so…..to start of with, can you exactly remember the time when your mom returned from her work that day?"
Her initial state of cheerfulness immediately turned to a frown as Ash could possibly see through her forlorn and fragile aura.
"Well, um….maybe not exact, but she did return from her work every day at 6 almost."
Ash opted to continue this short but important interrogation,
"Was she a bit more tired than usual? And I mean headache, breathing issues or something."
She took slightly more time to answer the next one,
"Well I'm afraid I was in my room that time and I…. actually no one but Mrs. Mary checked up on her before… you know." She stuttered to finish her speech as Ash seemingly understood.
"Oh I get it."
The woman, perhaps of 26, as predicted by Ash's invincible assuming skills, passed him a sad smile, as he could see a tear well up in her eyes. Before Ash could ask more or console her,(The latter was not a likely option), she spoke up, hesitation clear in her voice,
"I regret not having one last heart-to-heart talk with her." Tears started to lurch down her pink cheeks; she wiped them off her face. Ash decided to use this emotional side of her to his advantage,
"When did you do that last?"
With an empty glum look she said,
"I don't know." Ash moved closer to the window sill, and leaned down a bit, staring at a good 30 feet drop off then looking at the bricks of the wall.
He as if a bit amused, and intrigued, jabbed
"So you loved her so much that you didn't care to talk to her since time you've lost track of?"
This would stab her heart right into, Ash knew. It did eventually. Her face showed restless anger; she wanted to rant on, bad, out of grief. She tightened her fists and gave a composed answer.
"We had a fall out for some weeks."
Ash raised his eyebrows initially not buying her statement, but it was her eyes…. Which bespoke the truth.
It had a unique sparkle, mixed with tears that spoke honestly, perhaps. He tried to believe it.
"What was it all about?"
"Personal issues." was the straight reply.
Ash showed signs of disgust as he countered,
"And I AM here to solve a 'personal' case miss. So don't treat me like a commoner." He paused before adding,
"At this point of time, ignorance and hiding is no less of a crime let me tell you. And you are doing the exact same thing now."
Maybe such harsh words was too much for her to withstand,
She wailed,
"What do you know?" And burst out in tears, crying.
Now this was getting really hard for him to continue further,
Should he treat it as claptrap? As a false pretention to deceive him? Or is it really that painful. He couldn't figure out, but he just couldn't let her cry like that and add insult to injury.
"Hey now, it's okay. I understand it's a sensitive issue, but please, miss, I need to know it. I am intruding not because I want to but because I have to. Please." He placed his hand on her shoulder just when he heard an angelic voice from behind.
"Mommy? Who is there?" he did not have to cross-check to say that it belonged to a five-year old girl, Kayla.
To be weak and vulnerable to her daughter was the last thing Serena wanted to do. She shrugged her shoulders instantly, forcing her tears off her face while the stains remained. She said,
"Yes sweetie, it's just a…. uh an uncle. Remember I told you he will come?" she turned to hold her little hands as she walked in,
"Is he the one?" her little eyes seemed concerned to face a stranger.
"Yes, Kayla, he's the one, say hello to uncle Ketchum."
The girl squeaked a delicate, "Hello!"
Ash almost squinted to hear it as he could not help but chuckle a bit before adding,
"Hello ma'am, May I say I'm graced by your presence."
The little one tilted her head, clearly not understanding his heavy sentences, as she asked her mother instead.
"What'd he say?"
"He said he's extremely happy to see you!" now her eyes opened wide and sparked up. She replied,
"I am too!" she had a toothy grin radiating delight and eyes with glistening innocence. This was obviously the first time he was meeting her. Yet he felt strangely connected to this small girl with honey hairs, as if he had known her forever. He realized, he has already started to have some sort of weakness for her. Ash has always been drawn to little kids but Kayla was someone special,…. Deep inside his heart. He swore that he won't let his emotions get the better of him this time, but, then again….
'Wow what a start!' he thought.
"Okay Kayla," her mom interrupted, "We'd talk with him some other time, hm? Now will you go back to your room?"
She nodded and waved Ash a silent adorable 'bye' before heading back.
"Uh, she was my five year old daughter, as you know, Kayla Yvonne."
Ash was too busy to wave back her 'bye' that he half-listened her sentence. Once he was again 'himself', he implied,
"Miss, she is one of the sweetest and charming girl I've ever seen, if not 'the most'."
Serena was taken aback by such a sudden remark by someone who has just acquainted with her once.
"Well, thank you . But she can have a meltdown sometimes. Else she's all fine."
She laughed at her own address and so did he. This broke down their previous tense arguments,
'Enough of trash talk.' He thought.
"Okay so back to where we started. Um, sorry if I did unintentionally hurt you. But you have to say it, Miss Yvonne."
She was unsure to trust him in this or not. But if there was anything she could do to aid him in his work, she has to step up. She finally decided to bite the bullet.
"Okay I'll say it." He gave her a grateful smile,
"Go ahead."
She sighed and turned her gaze away from him, looking down to the floor,
"Mom was getting a bit frustrated lately due to this overwhelming paparazzis, as she wanted to put her acting career on hold and focus on her recent works, where she was currently working. It was some kind of business deal which I had no idea of, but of all odds, she wanted me as the new spotlight for all the attention."
Ash listened intently, hands sliding down his pocket,
"So she wanted you to be an actress?"
"Yes. And I did not want to. I had my own dreams to live up to."
"And that is photography?"
She stared at her in shock as if she had seen a ghost,
How could he know that?
"Well, don't worry I just found out numerous photos of your family and other stuffs, all around the house, vacation pictures, animals, family outs, many are in this room too, but most of them did not have you."
Striking observations, she was impressed, with a little smile, she said,
"Yes, your right. And I'm determined to do it. This was not what mom wanted, because she was petulant to make me what she wanted me to be, an actress. This created a sort of rift between us till a day we had a heated argument on this and stopped talking since."
Ash hummed response before speculating every inch and corner of the room, which did make Serena upset for him clearly not paying attention to her anymore.
"So I get that I can leave now?"
"Uh, yeah sure, but one more question."
"Oh, okay."
Just in a flash Ash did find something on the floor which triggered his twitchy reflex, as he decided to switch to a more relevant question for her.
"How much do you believe your house members and say it with respect to every individual, except Kayla of course." Her name brought in a familiar sense of giddiness in him, but he remained stern and stoic.
"Well I don't believe anyone in our house would be involved in the crime to begin with. Mrs. Mary is more than reliable in this case after working for more than 30 years in this house, she ain't the one for me. Clemont might seem a bit sadist in the first place, but he's good enough to do something like that. Uncle Moore has just come a while ago so-"
She was cut off by Ash, "Hang on a sec, who's this Moore?"
"Oh it seems like you don't know him yet. He is our relative, mom's brother. He arrived in here yesterday afternoon, a while after the cops left."
Ash was barely controlling his anger right now. HE DID SAY NOT TO LET ANYONE ENTER TILL HE WAS HERE! Stupid cops! Useless, pathetic oafs!
He was seething,
"Okay so he was allowed in when USDA had strict orders not to."
She was feeling uncomfortable given his present behavior,
"Oh was it the case I-"
"Stop, just stop. It's past now, you can't help it. Anyway who gave him the news?"
He calmed himself for the time being,
"Oh I guess it was Clemont." She replied.
He had to talk further in the living room. It was getting all the more important.
"Okay, thanks for the info, I really appreciate that."
Serena mustered a smile, before staring at him and saying,
"You are our only hope to find those murderers, Mr. Ketchum, don't let us down."
Ash assured her, "I won't I promise."
She was about to leave when Ash hailed her once again,
"Serena?-er-Miss Yvonne, did you say that your mom had asthma?"
She wondered for a second.
"Yes, she did," smiling more added,
"And it's Serena, if you are okay with it."
Ash nodded with an enigmatic smile as he informed her to go and sit in the living room, in the first floor.
He turned to close the door, whispering to himself, "Thank you."
BAM! THAT'S IT. WORTH THE WAIT? LEMME KNOW.
ANYWAY GUYS WANNA KNOW ME MORE? FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER THEN ( 2003AnnG) BUT I GUESS IT'S GOODBYE FOR NOW, TILL WE MEET AGAIN,
R&R. AND AM ALWAYS READY TO REPLY.
BE SAFE AND KEEP READING
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