Gwyneth said to Alfred,

“I will begin by showing you these two papers.”

She took out two pieces of paper, one large and one small. Alfred looked at the two papers and asked,

“Okay, what are these?”

“I want you to look at these carefully.”

“Okay,” Alfred said holding the two papers.

“The entire truth will be revealed before you once understand this.”

Alfred looked at the small paper and saw that it was some appointment with a psychiatrist. He further saw the other paper and realised that it was a rough draft of some business plan. He asked Gwyneth,

“Alright yeah, these two do ring a bell. Both of these were mentioned in the narration.”

“No Alfred, you’re not examining them close enough. You have to pay more attention.”

Alfred then looked again at the papers. He first looked at the psychiatrist’s appointment and saw that Ronald’s name was written there. He was a bit confused. So anyways, he turned and looked at the business plan paper. He saw that instead of Ronald’s name, his own name ‘Alfred’ was written with Frederick’s name.

“Wait, this is not right!” Alfred uttered.

He looked up at Gwyneth and stated further,

“As far as I can recall, I was the one who had psychiatrist’s appointment and Ronald was the one who started his business.”

“Yes, now what do you make out of it.”

Alfred shut his eyes and tried to replace the pieces of puzzle in his mind. He was getting multiple thoughts and so he asked her,

“Can you help me out please?”

“No, I want you to figure this out on your own.”

He guessed after a moment,

“Alright, all I can make of it is that it was I, who had a business plan and Ronald was the one who actually went to the doctor.”

“You’re not there yet.”

Alfred realised immediately and uttered,

“Oh, my God! Does this mean that in the entire narration, our characters were replaced with each other?”

“That’s right!”

“So, you’re telling me that the character I knew as Ronald in the story was actually me and the character Alfred was actually Ronald.”

“That’s right. Good, now you’ve reached the truth.”

“Oh, my God!” Alfred said bringing his hands closer to his mouth.

Alfred was more than just shocked.

“But why?” he asked. “Why would you do that, why did you make up the story like this?”

“I didn’t. I’ll tell you about that later but…”

“…You lied to me,” Alfred interrupted her angrily.

“I did not. Listen to me first.

I have to make things clear before you.”

“No, I just want to know one thing for sure. Is Hannah still alive? Is that part also false?”

“No, that is not false. In fact, everything that you’ve been told is absolutely true. The truth has been fabricated with the characters. The two characters who were brothers were replaced.”

“So, in this case, it means that it was actually Ronald who wanted to kill Hannah and earn her money.”

“Yes, that is absolutely correct.”

“And who did it actually? Ronald?”

“I’ve been told that she died a natural death, but I suspect that my husband made it happen.”

“But why did you lie in the narration?”

“Look, I can explain the entire story from the beginning, but what you need to understand is that we do not have much time. Ronald knows that I have revealed you the half-truth before you. Now, he is coming after me. He is angry and he might get violent.”

“Oh,” Alfred understood looking at her bruise, “so this is why Ronald hit you?”

“Yes, we don’t have much time.”

“Okay, can we go somewhere else?”

“No, we are winding this up here. Now please stay quiet and let me explain from the beginning.”

“Alright, go ahead!”

“Nobody except you and me knew that Ronald was involved in Hannah’s murder which looked like a natural death.

I was under his command but you were against him. And you were warning him that you won’t let injustice happen to her. The day Hannah died, just few weeks after that, you had a severe accident in your car. You were taken to the hospital and the doctors told Ronald that you were suffering from retrograde amnesia. That moment, Ronald realised that since you had no memory of the past few weeks; so he grabbed that opportunity and devised this devious plan. His plan was to plant this murder on you. So what he did, he came to me and he asked me to narrate whatever he wanted. I recorded the entire narration replacing the two leading characters; you know, Ronald and yourself. What he did next was that he found Hannah’s personal diary somehow. In that diary, he erased the names himself and in place of your name he wrote his own and vice versa.”

“Oh, my God!” Alfred said getting shocked. “Wait, stop here for a moment. I have to see this on my own.”

“Sure!”

Alfred stood up and looked out for Hannah’s diary. He added,

“What happened further, I’ll ask you in a minute.”

Alfred found the diary lying on the floor. He sat back on the chair and opened some random page. Gwyneth snatched the diary from him politely and said,

“Let me help you.”

She opened a particular page and then she showed it to Alfred saying,

“Read the first two lines of the second paragraph. If you look closely, you’ll come to realise that your name has been erased here and name Ronald has been over written here.”

“Oh, yes, you’re absolutely right. Even the handwriting is different on this spot.”

The librarian came running towards them. He was quite panicked and he spoke out without taking a single breath,

“Ronald has found out that you two are here. I just received a call from him. He is coming here and he seemed very angry.”

“Oh, no!” Gwyneth said while standing up.

“Let’s move. Let’s get out of here!” Alfred suggested her.

“Yes.”

“I have opened the back door for you guys,” the librarian said. “you must leave immediately.”

Gwyneth started running towards the back door. Alfred picked up his sister’s diary and while running after her, he wondered in his thoughts,

Thank God! Thank you God! Thank you for proving that I’m not a killer. I knew there was something wrong. I could never kill my own sister.

The two of them ran until they found the exit.

“We don’t have a car,” Gwyneth said with panic, “what are we going to do now?”

“I say, let’s hide somewhere around and mislead him.”

“Oh wait, I think the librarian’s car is parked outside.”

“Can we take it?”

“Wait here,” she said as she walked back in, “just let me get the car’s keys.”

After sixty seconds, she returned holding the car keys and exclaimed,

“Let’s go!”

Two minutes later, the two of them were seated in a Prius. Gwyneth was driving the vehicle as usual. They drove past the building and reached the signal. Alfred asked her,

“There’s one thing that’s still bothering me. I want to ask that since you were with your husband all along, what changed? I mean what exactly compelled you to…”

“…I’ll answer that briefly. The next night, I was feeling very uneasy. You were provided with the recordings and I suddenly felt that night that what I had done was terribly wrong. My conscience was burdened, and I had to do something about it.”

“Oh!”

Alfred felt a bit awkward.

“We better leave quickly.”

That moment, another car came and parked on their right side. Gwyneth turned to look at it and saw that her husband was in that car. He was staring at her angrily.

She got startled and yelled,

“Oh, my God! He’s here.”

Alfred turned and saw him. He was also scared for a moment but then he spoke,

“You know what? I think we should not be scared. We should fight back.”

“No, Alfred!”

She accelerated the vehicle as the lights turned green that moment.

The car was in really high speed, Alfred yelled out,

“Gwyneth, Gwyneth, listen to me. I think we should calm down here. Just let me talk to him.”

“You don’t know him Alfred. You don’t know what he is capable of.”

“Look, let me handle this. He has been my brother for years, I know him.”

“But you haven’t seen him in the last few years,” Gwyneth argued. “I know what he has become.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Alfred, you can clearly see that this man is headed to

kill us.”

Alfred turned to see the backside. He saw that Ronald was literally chasing them with a furious look.

“Now, please don’t distract me,” Gwyneth instructed.

Alfred was worried and confused at the same time. He wondered,

Ronald can’t be that bad. He cannot murder me, we were good friends. He might be angry on the outside, but I think he will cool down.

They both heard the honking of the car horn. They realised through the tone of the horns about how angry he was.

Alfred then asked her,

“Alright, tell me something. How long are we going to keep this? How long are we going to run like this? He will confront us someday.”

“I’m going to the police station. I’ll bring an end to this misery right now.”

That moment, they were at some bridge on quite a height. There was river water under the bridge. The railings of the road were made of wood which could be easily broken.

Alfred pulled the handbrake of the car and the vehicle stopped creating a noise of huge screech.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hannah yelled out angrily.

“Just, calm down! I’m going to reason this like an adult.”

“You can’t!”

“Dial his number, please.”

Ronald’s car was parked right behind them. He was about to step out of the car until he heard his cell phone ringing. He answered the call angrily,

“Hello?”

“Listen to me Ronald,” Alfred said from the other line, “just calm down. I will hand myself over to you.”

“No! I don’t want you. I’m here to kill my traitor wife. She sold me out.”

Surprised Alfred kept the phone aside and said to Gwyneth in a low voice,

“He doesn’t want me. He wants to kill you.”

“I knew this. But he can’t be trusted.”

Alfred placed the phone back to his ear and asked,

“What exactly do you want?”

“Right now, I want Gwyneth to step out of the car.”

“Okay, okay she is coming. But don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m waiting.”

Alfred kept the phone aside and said to her,

“He wants you to step outside. Just do it, we will try and negotiate.”

Gwyneth stepped outside immediately. She then, walked towards the other side of the bridge and leaned against the wooden railing.

Alfred saw all of this and then turned to look at Ronald. He thought of stepping outside as well, but before he could, he saw something horrifying.

Ronald turned on the car’s engine and accelerated the vehicle in maximum speed turning its direction towards Gwyneth.

“Oh, no!” Alfred exclaimed seeing this.

The vehicle went straight towards Gwyneth and hit her straight on her legs causing the railing to break. As a result, Gwyneth along with the entire car fell off the cliff.

Ronald had attempted murdering in the process of committing suicide.

The two of them fell in the river water.

Alfred rushed with all his speed to see what was happening. As he watched them drown, tears fell off

his eyes.

*****************

One Week Later

Alfred Watson was standing on the highway of Los Angeles. He was looking at the city and was thinking,

This city has given me plenty of pain. I’m leaving this place forever now. I will start my career in Chicago now, hoping I’ll never have to see this city again.

He picked up his bag and started walking towards the spot where his bus was expected. He continued speaking in his thoughts,

I will continue approaching a life of merit. My father’s money was never an attraction for me. And I’m glad that it turned out to be true. What I’m really glad about is that I was not involved in my sister’s demise.•