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    Chapter 26

    tab "Let's sit down first, though, shall we? My legs are killing me." He showed me to a square table with two chairs poking out either end. I couldn't help it and said,
    tab "What? You stand for two minutes, and your legs are--"
    tab "Look, John, please stop saying things like that. Or would you rather stand?" I gave him a scowl, but sat down.
    tab Kyle stretched down his hand under the table, and took into his hands a Budweiser bottle. You could imagine that suspicion swelled up inside me as I remembered what happened last time I drank a Budweiser.
    tab "You're trying to trick me. That drink is poisoned..." With ease he opened it, and I went on,
    tab "See?! It was already opened! You poisoned it!" Slowly, he poured the beer. First into his glass. Then into mine. He sat down, and replied,
    tab "No trickery here, Chad."
    tab "Oh yeah?" I said, slamming the table. "Then why don't you drink it first?" He nodded, and said confidently,
    tab "Ah...Of course..." Quietly, he started to sip, and then quickly chugged it down.
    tab "Now...Please," he said, placing the glass only now rimmed with bits of leftover beer. "Drink. Relax." I shook my head, hold the glass to my lips, and said,
    tab "I won't relax. But I will drink." The cold beer bit the edges of my throat as I swallowed it down.
    tab "Now...your questions." I set down the glass down, and said,
    tab "What was Charles role in all of this? You told me he drugged me. Was that all?"
    tab "That's all I told him to do."
    tab "Then what about the phone call during the murder? And the--the attempted murder of Sarah and I...And Elizabeth's body in Charles closet!"
    tab "Slow down there, Chad. None of them were part of my plan for Charles to do."
    tab "So Charles wasn't supposed to hide my wife's body inside the closet..."
    tab "No," Kyle said quickly. "John did that. The day before the murder, I gave him Charles' spare keys. The object was for you to think Charles murdered your wife."
    tab "You almost got me there. But then--" I stopped. I couldn't tell him about my meet
    tab "Then what?"
    tab "Nothing." I averted my eyes to the nearby window. It was the middle of night...No cars. Nothing. Just a black street. No one to help. I was invisible to the rest of the world. It was just me...and Kyle.
    tab A quick slamming of the desk woke me up as Kyle proclaimed loudly,
    tab "What were you going to s--" He left his mouth wide open as he suddenly stopped talking, and slumped to the floor.
    tab I rushed over to him and kneeled down, shaking his cool shoulders.
    tab "What?! You poisoned yourself?!" He looked at me weakly, and whispered through coughing and wheezing,
    tab "A...stupid mistake. Ah...Just a small...little...stupid mistake."
    tab "What are you talking about?!" Blood gurgled down his mouth, as he went on slowly,
    tab "The poison. It was my...custom poison. The poison...powder...would lift to the top...of the liquid. I was...supposed to fill yours...first, but...I...didn't."
    tab "So the poison floated to the top. Then only the first glass qould get poisoned!" Kyle gave a struggled, small grin and whispered,
    tab "Yes, Chad. Very...very sharp. But don't...feel...too...lucky, because..." With all the strength he could muster, he pulled out Charles gun and finished,
    tab "I have backup." I looked at the gun, perplexed as to what to do. I didn't say anything.
    tab "No...sudden moves, Chad."
    tab "Kyle..." I started, but was immediately cutoff,
    tab "One more thing, though. Remember...remember when I told you...I told you Sarah being at the murder...was a mistake?" I nodded with quivering, nervous lips.
    tab "I lied. You...see...John never murdered your...wife. Sarah...did..." Suddenly, the flaps of my lips opened large and wide as I exclaimed,
    tab "No! You're lying! John was your assassin. John murdered my wife!"
    tab "That's...what he was hired...to make you believe. But...Sarah was the one...who really killed her..."
    tab "I don't believe you! Your trying to trick me...like you tried to make me think Charles murdered my wife!"
    tab "Chad. Did you ever...question why Sarah broke free...on the very...day...I was released? And...why she even...had to 'visit' your wife...in the first place...on the very night...of your dear Elizabeth's murder?"
    tab "She wasn't drugged enough..."
    tab "She wasn't drugged enough...because I told Charles...not...to drug her enough."
    tab "What?!"
    tab "And then...after that, I called her. Told her...the plans...for the murder."
    tab "And why the heck would she follow though?!"
    tab "Because...she hated her."
    tab "You're lying...You're a liar!" He was trying to get me angry. I knew that. But, man, it was working.
    tab "Your wife...was spreading secrets about...her and our gang."
    tab "No! No, she wasn't!" Kyle's smile grew wider.
    tab "Ah, Chad. Poor...you. You see, now...you see you're worse than me. You just killed...an innocent man. John...never...laid...a finger...on your wife. So consider...consider what I'm about to do...justice." A crack. A horrifying crack. Deafening. Terrible. But just a crack, I figured out, because as I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the worse, I found myself fully alive.
    tab "No...no bullets?" Kyle seethed, aggrevated. "No bullets?! But...how?" I thought back to what I knew.
    tab "John...He emptied the bullets from the gun."
    tab "Gah...I'm...surrounded by...miscreants..." He shook his head and went on,
    tab "But...remember...this is not...the end. You will fall...you and then the rest. Like...a line...of dominos..." His his eyes rolled back, and with one last sputter, his head rested on the ground.
    tab Kyle was dead.