"How did this happen?” Rehan asked Maria.

Maria looked at him silently for a while and then spoke in low voice.

“He didn’t…”

Rehan didn’t hear her and asked again.

“Sorry? What did you say?”

Kevin waved at him and said, “Come, I’ll show you.”

Kevin walked towards the room and Rehan followed him. He was still astonished seeing his wife alive who was seemed to be very quiet. As Rehan and Kevin reached the room, Kevin pointed towards the roof that had some small holes. Rehan realised after a while that these were gun shots. Kevin waited for Rehan to respond.

“So, he actually shot in the air.”

“Yes.”

“But I remember that after those gunshots were fired, Maria had stopped screaming. It seemed as if she was dead.”

Kevin bent down and picked up a piece of clothe that was stuffed inside Maria’s mouth and handed it over to Rehan.

“I see.”

Rehan rushed towards Maria and hugged her as tightly as he could. Maria didn’t hug back as her arms ached but she smiled with her eyes closed. Kevin looked at them. He was smiling as he was happy for them.

“Thank you Mr. Rollins. Thank you for everything,” Rehan said.

“No problem. Now, we’re safe and free from any kind of trouble.”

“Are we?” Rehan asked.

“Yes, we are Rehan. The two crime partners shall be exposed anytime soon.”

“Can we please leave this place?” said Maria.

“Yes, let’s go out,” Kevin replied looking towards the exit.

********

Next morning, Rehan gently woke Maria up.

“Are you ok?” Rehan asked.

Maria smiled sensing his concern. “I am… are you going to work today?”

“No, I’m not. I’ve informed my colleagues that I will stay at home with my wife,” said Rehan with smile in his eyes.

“I’m happy about it,” Maria reciprocated.

“I think you’ve slept for more than ten hours.”

“Yes, I must wake up now.”

Rehan walked towards the door and said, “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

Rehan left the room and made a phone call. He dialled Kevin Rollins’ number but his call went unanswered.

“Why isn’t he answering?” Rehan wondered. “Must be sleeping or something.”

Rehan kept his phone in his pocket and walked towards the kitchen to have a glass of water. He then went back to the lounge and waited for Maria to show up. As she came, he made a room for her to sit with him.

“Thank you,” she spoke before sitting.

Now as they were seated together, there was a moment of awkward silence. They both were waiting for each other to begin the conversation but it wasn’t happening. So Rehan began in order to get out of the awkward situation.

“Maria, the thing is that…”

He stopped for a while, and then continued after a moment with a different angle.

“Since two days we have been in a lot of trouble. And I know that I am the one who is responsible for it. I put your life at stake for my own obsessions and I am feeing very guilty. And from the bottom of my heart, I…”

“…Don’t go there please,” Maria interrupted him. “Please, please don’t be guilty. You are not responsible. I don’t want you to think like that.”

“No Maria, you have to hear me out,” said Rehan.

“I don’t want to, please Rehan, let’s move on from this,” she said in a firm tone.

“Move on? Are you going to just let that bad episode get away like that?” asked a confused Rehan.

“We have no other option,” she answered. “Talking about it will make things only worse and complicated for us and I do not want that, you know. You were overly involved in that case but that was not your fault. Had you known that matters would get this worse, then I am pretty sure you would not have opted to investigate the case.”

“Alright, good. That’s all I wanted to say. And I’m glad that you understand it.”

They both felt relieved. Maria offered her hand for a handshake and said, “From now on we will not discuss anything about this case. Regarding who was right and who was wrong.”

Rehan reluctantly shook hands with her.

“Good,” she smiled as she said.

Hours later after clearing the matters up with Maria, Rehan dialled Kevin Rollin’s number again. And this time, the call was answered.

“Hello Rehan?”

“Hi, how are you?”

“I’m good, so what’s up?”

“I just wanted to ask about Zafar and Moiz.

“Don’t worry about them. They shall be exposed and they know about it.”

“Really? How come? Anyways I wanted to know about how did you manage to get hold of Abdul Moiz? I mean how did you manage to grab his gun?”

“Oh, well let me tell you briefly. I knocked on his door. As he came out, I kind of busted inside pushing the door. He was hit in the head and fell.”

“Oh no, really? Then what happened?”

“What happened then was that he ran to get hold of his gun. The moment he grabbed the weapon, I held him from behind his neck and then I started my mesmerism process. I just made him drop the gun. It wasn’t so hard. And the moment I picked up the gun, it was all too easy from that step onwards.”

“Right. Great man, you’re a genius. You’re so smart.”

Kevin didn’t respond to this.

Continuing the conversation, Rehan said, “So anyways, what about the two? What will happen to them?”

“hey will definitely get arrested.”

“Really?”

“Yes, don’t worry about them now. You are free now.”

“Great… Thanks to you

Mr. Rollins.”

“No need to thank me,” said Kevin disconnecting the call.

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

Next morning, Rehan went to office and was greeted by his colleagues and friends.

“Hey Rehan where have you been?” one of his colleagues asked.

“How are you?” the other one asked.

“Why weren’t you answering your cell phone?” the third one added.

“I’m good,” Rehan answered altogether, “everything’s fine. I was just stuck in a middle of murder mystery.”

“Yes, about that,” one of the colleagues asked, “I happened to ask that who was that guy who wanted to murder you? We came down the other day and you ran after him.”

“I know, I remember that.”

“We kept his car in our custody for few hours then we left it.”

“Really? Then what happened?” Rehan asked remembering a forgotten issue.

“As we all left for home, somebody came after us and took the car away.”

“Must be Abdul Moiz,” Rehan spoke in low voice.

“But do not worry. We took away all the important documents including the driving license.”

“Good. So what was the name of car’s owner? Rehan asked impatiently.

“Moiz something.”

“Good, great, perfect. I’ll need that.”

“Sure.”

They further talked for a while and then got busy in work.

**********

Two days later, Rehan was watching a movie and Maria was busy in household chores. Rehan heard his cell phone ringing. It was Kevin.

“Yes? How are you?”

“I’m good. Rehan what are you doing right now?”

“Nothing much, what is it?”

“Can you turn on to some news channel?”

“Ok I will” Rehan answered picking up the remote.

“You’ll be happy Rehan.”

As Rehan turned to news channel, he saw Abdul Moiz and Zafar Mohsin’s picture on the screen as if they were talking to each other at some public place.

The headlines narrated, “Zafar Mohsin revealed as the actual criminal behind the murder.”

The news further revealed, “A YouTube video has gone viral and trending umber one since it was posted about two hours ago and has revealed a

lot about Maimoona

Alam’s murder.”

Rehan was quite shocked to see this.

“Oh my God”

At the very moment, Maria also joined him.

“Rehan, you’ve got to see this YouTube video,” she put the laptop in front of him.

Abdul Moiz and Zafar Mohsin were standing at some public place. They were talking as if they both were in panic.

“Alright, listen to me,” said Abdul Moiz. “Whatever I spoke on the phone, I didn’t mean it.”

“I thought so,” Zafar replied.

“It was Kevin Rollins, he made me say everything. So anyways, the issue is that he has captured enough pictures and videos of ours that he is planning to leak them on YouTube and then expose us.”

“Oh damn it.”

“Tell me what did you do with Rehan and his wife?”

“I didn’t harm them. They are at my place. I can’t kill them. That’s your task.”

“If only we can get to your place before he does then we can out power him. And he won’t be able to blackmail us.”

“What do you mean before him?” Zafar asked seriously.

“He had a gun on my head. He demanded their whereabouts. I had to give in.”

“You fool! Couldn’t you have misdirected him by giving some wrong address?”

“I couldn’t, he has the documents. He would have returned anyway. And I wanted those documents any how.”

“You know what?” Zafar spoke furiously. “Helping you out in Maimoona Alam’s murder mystery was the stupidest thing I have ever done.”

The last seven seconds repeated in the video three times making it clear and evident for everyone that it was the two of them who

were involved behind

the murder.

Rehan paused the video and looked at Maria with amazement.

“Wow, can you imagine?”

“Yeah, I’m shocked as you are. Who would have shot

this video?”

“Exactly! I’m wondering the same. When Mr. Kevin Rollins was with us at that time then who could have?”

“Maybe it was someone he knew,” Maria suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he must have brought some guy along.”

“Right. And that guy must have followed Abdul Moiz.”

“Definitely.”

“Well, anyways,” Rehan spoke, “the two crime partners have been exposed.”

“Yes, and they shall be hanged soon as the video is a confession of their crimes.”

v v v

Three days later, Rehan just returned home from work. He had some documents. As he saw Maria, he asked, “Guess what I have.”

“What?” Maria answered smiling and feeling delighted.

“Next week we are going on a holiday trip.”

“Oh my God! Really?”

“Yes, we’re going to Swat.”

“Oh, I’m so happy. I really wanted to leave the city for a few days.”

“And I also got leave from work.”

“That’s great. And you know what I have a little good news too,”

“Really? What is it?”

“Abdul Moiz and Zafar Mohsin have been arrested.”

“That’s a great news!” Rehan got delighted.

They both laughed out and Rehan finally said, “Lets’ start packing for the trip!”