The Retirement Life of a Runaway Desperado

Christine smiled at Arthur, stretched out her fist, and looked at him.

Her father had an expression of "Who on earth did you learn this kind of ruffian habit from?", then reached out and fisted her, celebrating the victory.

The girl smiled brightly, and he smiled too, which was completely different from the smile he greeted people at banquets or on the street. This smile was shallow, but it was undoubtedly gentle and pampering.

Christine went to fist-fight with Chris again to celebrate the victory, and Lynn found it really difficult to connect this Arthur with the man in the interrogation room.

Seeing Arthur look sideways in his direction, Lynn held out her fist and said, "Shall we celebrate too?"

Arthur gave him a look of "You're out of your mind, we're not friends"—he's always steady and refined, but he's expressive enough, Lynn thought—going in the other direction past.

Well, he's still pretty annoying.

In the hoop game, they got all the presents they could, and then returned most of the stuff to the students who set up the stalls, Chrissy kept a brown monkey and Christine got a red one The toy boomerang looks like he is very interested in learning.

And her father was explaining to her how the boomerang worked as carefully as if he had used it before.

Maybe he did.

Fishing for goldfish they met Edith, one of the best caterers in town, whose eyes lit up when she saw Arthur.It was no news in the town that she had a crush on Arthur.

She raved about the two children as beautiful as pink daisies in the morning, and invited Arthur to her house for supper.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure I have the time," said Arthur.

"I haven't said what day yet," Edith said.

"I've been busy lately," Arthur said.

Lin En thought to himself, just talk nonsense, you have nothing to do all day long, and it's not like I haven't been following you.

"We'll make veal roast, which is my favorite, and apple pie, which is Christine's favorite, isn't it?" Edith said.

They talked harmoniously for a while about how to make a certain dish, and Arthur sounded very professional.Lynn wondered if Edith thought of him as someone with similar interests, but regardless of whether Arthur could cook or not, he was sure he was definitely not the type to share her interests.

When it came back to the dinner conversation, things got a little awkward. "We can talk, it's not easy living alone in the town with a child," Edith said.

"I think it's easy. It's not a high crime area," Arthur said.

"I mean, it's hard work raising kids," Edith said.

Arthur looked at Christine and said, "She's easy."

"Uh," Lynn said, "I live in town with my daughter, too. When can I be invited to the dinner party?"

"Oh, of course, and you're always welcome, Officer," Edith said.

"I have to see if I have time in the evening. If I have time, I will definitely go there." Lynn said, pressing on Arthur's shoulder, "If nothing happens, I will take Dr. Arthur there."

Arthur was obviously not used to the way he hooked his shoulders, but he stiffened his body and held back, while still smiling gracefully.

Everyone’s distress is the same. Lynn said that the people here are too... enthusiastic. They seem to think that it is normal to have a little "communication" occasionally. In fact, it is indeed normal.But this man, like him, found it difficult to adjust.

They can work and live, but when it comes to building intimacy, it sounds like a fantasy, like putting a gun on a Christmas tree with sequins, or a knife sprinkled with sugar and baked in the oven, let People just want to stay away from this thing.

After a while, several other residents came over and talked about the upcoming art exhibition and the newly opened chain store, so it took three to ten minutes for this terrible greeting before the enthusiastic people dispersed.

Lynn put his hand down, and Arthur looked cold.

"They have real energy," Lynn said.

"I hate it here," Arthur said.

These were obviously not friendly words, but Lynn almost laughed out loud.

Christine rolled her eyes. "Be gentle, Dad," she said.

"I don't want to be subtle, your mother would say the same," Arthur said.

"Not even a female mosquito will come near you when she's around," Christine said. "Now the women in town think you're public property."

Lynn laughed, and Arthur turned to stare at him.

"You know you too, Officer," Christine said to Lynn.

"We two public bachelors, go get the goldfish. While we still have time," Lynn said, "That prize looks good."

──They scooped up all the fish they could with a spoon, and the kid in charge of the stall looked like he was about to cry, so they had to put them all back and bought ice cream to comfort him.

Arthur had no desire to play three-legged games.

But Christine looked at him expectantly, and the aristocratic father struggled for a while, sighed, and went to get the sack.

Christine smiled brightly from behind.

The two little girls cooperated very well. If you didn't know it, you would think they were twins.Lynn was delighted that his daughter had found such compatible friends, and when he saw the way Arthur looked at them, he suddenly realized that his sworn enemy was obviously the same.

He came to such a small town by a man with a child, no matter what kind of person he is, it must not be easy.

Lynn often recalled that game later, perhaps because he had never imagined any physical contact with Arthur before, and if there was any, it was of the fighting type-he couldn't even imagine fighting him.The man seemed almost incapable of any physical violence.

The closest contact with him in his imagination was in the interrogation room. He sat across from him, staring at the suspect, trying to squeeze something out of the suspect, while the other side stared at his fingers expressionlessly, separated by a distance. A table is the distance between two extremes.

Then he raised his eyes and said in a cool, refined tone, "Can I go back, sir?"

But now, they were at a boisterous garden party, surrounded by young housewives, students, and children, and Lynn bent over to tie their feet together.Their legs were pressed against each other, and the touch was the warmth and strength of normal living people.

Arthur watched his movements suspiciously.

"You know how to play two-and-three, don't you?" Lynn said.

"I've seen it on TV," Arthur said, "but in my wildest imagination, I never imagined that one day I'd play it myself."

Lynn recalled his tangled expression when he was watching the game, and he was really reluctant, but under the eyes of Christine, he would agree to anything. Lynn was a father and knew that kind of expression and communication. At that moment, he Think, this guy is actually a nice guy.

"It's easy, just keep pace," he said, looking at the watch on his wrist. "We have to keep pace."

Arthur held out his hand and met him professionally.

Neither of them fell once.

Their arms are close together, remembering the strength and temperature of his stretched body, remembering the frequency and rhythm of his breathing, and the touch of the fabric of his clothes.

They didn't go fast, but No.1 reached the finish line, and was called the most understanding parent for a while.

I love working with him, a voice inside Lynn reluctantly admits that he has superb physical coordination and a sense of strict self-control rather than sloppy and inattentive.

It was a pleasure working with him.

They won the prize, two giant teddy bears, he with Chrissy's white one and Arthur with Christine's pink one, his detached delicacy, reluctantly It's funny to hold a big pink plush bear, but, Lynn thought, it's very harmonious.Probably because he was a father.

At noon, they had played all over the stalls in the fair, accumulating more than five times the score of No.2. Lynn suggested something to eat and continue playing in the afternoon.

Arthur looked at the chocolate cake on the table, sniffed it suspiciously, and put it back dismissively.

"My dad is a picky eater," said Christine.

"Too much flavoring," Arthur said.

"I think the taste is pretty good." Lynn said, finishing a cake in one bite. This is the taste of the usual cake, but the people next to him looked at him suspiciously.

"What's that!" someone yelled.

Arthur raised his head and stared at the opposite teaching building, Lynn turned his head and saw the people on the floor with their backs to the sun.

It was a woman, ageless, standing on the top of the building, over the railing, the sun almost melted her, leaving only a small shadow.

Lynn stood up abruptly.

The garden party still seemed cozy and cozy, only a few people found out here and there, and someone was saying, "That's a person──" "Who is it?" "What is she going to do?" "My God!"

Lynn pushed the waiter away and rushed over, but seemed to be entangled, and everyone huddled together to have a pleasant and relaxing garden party.He just wants to be with his children, instead of standing in the worst place without hesitation and looking directly at the worst possibilities like before.

Everything happens only in the blink of an eye.He didn't seem to have even taken a step, when the figure jumped down from the top of the building.

He heard a huge "boom", although in this happy atmosphere, it didn't seem real, but he knew that it was the sound of a flesh and blood body falling on the hard ground, and it was the sound of a life ending completely , he could almost feel the ground shaking.

The music of the duck-fighting game next to it rang cheerfully, and the sound of children hitting the target and giggling could be heard from time to time.Just in this small area, like a lesion on an apple, fear and silence spread quietly.

Lynn turned quickly and turned the wide-eyed Chris in the other direction, so that she was facing the food on the table instead of listening to what had just happened.

"Don't look that way, honey, I'm afraid something happened, and Daddy has to deal with it," he said.

He looked across to Arthur, another parent was sitting there, his facial features were as quiet as ice sculptures, Lynn said, "Help me take care of Chris."

"Of course," said Arthur.

Lynn ran towards the scene of the accident, calling the officers at the station.

As I ran past the crowd, a little voice inside said, Are you crazy, Arthur is a dangerous man, you've known it since a year ago, and you let Chrissy stay with him?But he still ran over without hesitation, and there was a kind of peace of mind deep in his heart that if Chris stayed with him, there would be no danger.

He pushed through the crowd and ran to the body.

There is nothing attractive about a corpse that committed suicide by jumping off a building. It usually looks very miserable, no matter how beautiful it once looked.This woman, to be precise, was a girl, and she looked very beautiful.

Even though she has fallen badly, you can still tell that she is young, maybe sixteen, seventeen, or younger, with long blond curly hair and a petite figure. She wears a long red dress, jewelry, and makeup. Delicate, as she has always been, flawless.

Lynn knew her. This was Emma. She was a student at the town high school.She also has a good personality, and is in charge of the chocolate pudding stand at the garden fair.

He'd run into her before, when she was smiling brightly, selling him food, and she didn't look suicidal at all.

Of course, you can't always see the suicide. In his career, Lynn has seen too many incidents that run counter to the surface. You can never know the darkness and misery in his heart just by looking at a person's smile. .

He leaned over to look at the dead body. Her make-up was exquisite, and her clothes were too expensive and formal for her age. She might look like she was about to commit suicide. When people commit suicide, they usually want to maintain their most beautiful appearance.How ironic.

He touched her head and turned her face away. On one ear was a bohemian style earring, the exaggerated style that little girls like, but it also complemented her style.

But her other ear was empty, and a trace of blood leaked from the hole.

The security guards nearby have already come over to maintain order, separating the crowd from the corpses, and the police officers from the conference bureau will also come over later.

Lynn stood up and looked at the top of the floor. It was empty, and the sunlight washed everything away.

He talked to the security guard, asked him to maintain order, and then ran upstairs.

This is an old building. Most of the buildings in the town are old. After several renovations, it looks like a brand new one.

When he starts working, he concentrates on it without a single distraction.

He hasn't been able to do this for a long time, and when he left Chrissy to his wife, he could devote himself to work and take it for granted.But since she died in a car accident, he has never been able to relax for a moment.

Protecting the safety of that little girl is the most important thing in the world, the voice in her head said, she lost her mother, he is her only family member, and she must not be allowed to encounter any accidents again.

But now, when he starts working, he doesn't think for a moment like he used to, that she might hurt himself, or run into a gangster or something--he knows how dangerous the world is, so he can never help rest assured.

Instead, he felt that he had put her in a very safe place, that Arthur would take good care of her, that he had the power to make the person he wanted to protect extremely safe.

He didn't think about it any more, Arthur was the most dangerous person he thought, he still had those dark and obscure parts in him, he couldn't just because of a little garden party, some game of ducks and goldfish, Just change course.

He ran all the way to the top floor, and the place was empty, as if it had just been washed by water, without leaving any traces.

He stood for a moment where Emma jumped, checking his surroundings.

Was the earring pulled off by someone else?Or did she take it off herself?It was probably herself, roughly, but her hair wasn't too messed up and her ears weren't torn.

He walked around the fence, and beside a railing, on the concrete floor, a small rhinestone shone.He recognized it as the small gemstone inlaid on her earrings. It seemed that it hit the railing and a rhinestone fell off.

She threw the earrings out before she died, why?He poked his head to look, and there were some sparse woods below... There was no one there.

He rushed down to the attic and walked towards the woods.

He hasn't been this busy in a while.

He found earrings in the woods with the jewels thrown to pieces. When he picked up a ruby ​​in the grass, he held it up to the sun and looked at it. Too deep and gorgeous.

The rest of the afternoon was so busy that he only had time to call Arthur—checked it from the Bureau's registration information—and said that he would try to go to the evening school dance.

The kids sounded fine and were having a great time, and the murder or their absence didn't interfere with their fun in the slightest.Arthur would take care of them and nothing bad would happen to them, Lynn thought, though a part of him still called it ridiculous.

The case is not difficult to investigate, the deceased has already left clues.

Maybe she just wanted to show determination and anger, but if she didn't throw away the earrings, no one would notice a high school student's fancy jewelry, and if she didn't lose one, the standard thing to do in town was Enter the evidence bag and wait for the family to take it home directly.

Didn't find it worth millions.

This is the message she wanted to leave--Danner said whether it was gem smuggling, of course not, the earrings are not cheap, but to the rich people in this town, they are just a drop in the bucket-- Lynn quickly found it on the Internet Where it was sold, this item was not designed by a serious jeweler, but made by Emma herself.Storefronts offering this service aren't too hard to find.

Of course, the other party stated that customer information should be kept confidential, but if he got a search warrant, he was willing to cooperate.

And Lynn didn't even need to wait for a search warrant. If you look up Emma's working experience, you will find the only family with enough money to contact her—she is working part-time as a nanny for Mr. Caviezel's children.

Mrs. Caviezel is schizophrenic, and although she is generally quiet, she certainly can't care for a three-year-old.Mr. Caviezel is the CEO of a large group. Although he is a man who cares about his family, he has to fly around the world from time to time. It is quite understandable to find a trustworthy girl as a nanny to take care of his family.

The anonymous purchaser is obviously inseparable from the Caviezel family.

The matter has been investigated to this point, and the truth is ready to come out.A love murder caused by an extramarital affair, the girl threatened to tell the truth, the man with a head and face did not want the matter to be exposed, the girl threw away the earring to show her anger, and there was no room for relaxation.One of them was murderous.

Typical small town murder, sure to be a hot topic for a while.

Lynn checked all these things all afternoon and found out the truth.This is an extremely fast case-solving speed in a small town, but it is not a problem for Lynn, who used to specialize in vicious cases.

Arthur didn't call once, and Lynn didn't need to worry about the baby getting bruised, lost, disobedient, or returning calls from time to time whether she was allergic to something.At Arthur's place, nothing seemed to happen.

In the evening, although I didn't actually find Mr. Caviezel to talk to and arrest him—he kept refusing to answer the door, and they didn't have a search warrant yet—I made time to go to a school dinner.

Formal attire was required for the party, and Lynn went back to find a formal attire, only to find that it had been buried under a pile of dirty laundry and had been forgotten to be washed.When it was taken out, it was wrinkled, like pickles just out of water.

But he didn't have another formal suit, so he had to bite the bullet and put it on.Feeling like I looked awful along the way, I just hope Chrissy doesn't feel too ashamed.

As soon as he entered the venue, he saw Arthur holding a glass of drink and talking to someone, looking infinitely impatient.He smiled.

But when he saw Arthur like that, he suddenly thought that in this case, he should hand over Chris to a teacher he knew well, and let her take care of him as before.Instead of handing her over to Arthur, he is also a single father who is not good at his job. This is taking care of two children for a day.

Arthur turned to see him, without a smile on his face.

Lynn ran over and said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, I can take care of it," Arthur said.

"I shouldn't have just thrown her away like this..." Lynn said.

"Perhaps you can say hello to the murderer. Don't kill people at the elementary school children's garden party. It's too immoral and harmful to the physical and mental health of elementary school students." Arthur said.

"How do you know it was murder?" Lynn said.

"Oh, that's quick, you found the killer?" Arthur said.

"Basically... how do you know I found the killer?" Lynn said.

"Otherwise you'd think I did it," Arthur said. "I'm your number one suspect."

"I don't think you're suspicious enough to let high school girls off you," Lynn said.

"That's hard to say, the devil will not let a flower or a grass go, they are evil in nature." Arthur said, "But this banquet, I'm afraid that's what hell is like."

As he spoke, he smiled politely at the caterer.

On the matter of the banquet, Lynn felt the same way with him on the one hand, but he didn't say it out loud.

"I thought you were used to social situations," he said.

"I hate parties," Arthur said.

But he stood there, smiling at the person facing him, probably as much as he hated three-legged games, Lynn thought, and he understood the feeling that you didn't live in the environment you were most used to and liked.

"Dad!" came a yell from behind, Lynn turned his head, and Chrissy threw herself on top of him.

Lynn hugged her and turned around. The children didn't care if their father's clothes were worse than others', as long as he was in front of them.

"I thought you weren't coming," she said.

"Of course not, I promised you, honey," Lynn said.

"You said you were going to work and would come back later, but you never came back," Chrissy said.

Lynn didn't know what to say for a while, he talked a lot without knowing what he was talking about, and comforted Chris, although he didn't know what he was talking about, but the child seemed to understand, she patted his arm comfortingly, Run to play with Christine.

Lynn turned to look at Arthur with a grin, and the latter made a toast to him.

Lynn thought reluctantly, I like being with him very much.

He knew what it was to socialize with neighbors, and he met some people who got along better, but never like Arthur.

When he apologetically leaves the child in someone else's care, or is forced to spend the day at a school fair with a parent who is completely different from his type, or wears a crumpled suit at a party Gossiping with decent people, he's been through it, but that's not what it feels like.

The process of communicating with Arthur is neat and straightforward, it's like... It's like borrowing bullets from your companions during the raid, it feels real and simple, without any of the subtle interpersonal relationships that make him dizzy.

He warned himself that there was enough of this affection, that even though Arthur was doing well today, he was still a danger.He is familiar with blood and gore, hides too many secrets, and shows some anti-social tendencies in his behavior, and most anti-social people are very charming.

He asked Arthur, "You haven't answered me, how do you know it was murder?"

"Miss Karina just said that Emma asked her to get her nails done tomorrow, and she found a very good shop, and she doesn't like the current nails." Arthur said, it was the customer who was chatting with him just now. In the small town, everyone chats with each other.

"I think that before Miss Emma decided to go to hell, she must also hope to see her beautiful nails along the way, otherwise she would not jump off the building rashly." He said.

"Hmm, makes sense," Lynn said.

"Thanks for the compliment," Arthur said, bowing his cock.

Lynn laughed.

He really shouldn't think this guy is nice.

He has seen many high-intelligence criminals, some of whom are very attractive, but he knows how to avoid them, and pays more attention to observing the dark and broken parts of the soul, and the beauty is just the appearance.

Could it be that he has been in the small town for so long that he lacks vigilance to this extent?