“What about the other guy that you were watching for so long? What happened with him?”
“I wasn’t watching anyone.”
Eddie smiled. “Of course not. I do see, however, that his car is still parked on the road outside. I wonder how long it will take for that to be found. Him being the son of a politician and all.” Ness’ eyes widened reflexively. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Eddie smiled sinisterly. “You and I both know that he didn’t make it to his car last night, Ness.”
Ness’ vision went blurry, and her eyes hurt against the sudden brightness of the lights in the place. She could barely hear above the drumming in her ears, but she managed to control the surge and remained seated on her stool.
“If you want to find out what happened, come to this address at 9:00 P.M. tonight, and don’t be late,” Eddie scribbled an address on the back of a business card. “How do I know that you’re not dangerous and that you’re not going to hurt me?” Eddie leaned forward across the bar and whispered, “You don’t.”
The next several hours went by at a snail’s pace. Ness had no idea what she was going to do, but if there was any chance in finding out what happened to Martin, then she needed to go for it—no matter how insane it seemed. It was still a while until Ness had to meet up with Eddie, but the address that he had written down for her was in Northbrook, which was around a 30-minute drive from Eddie’s Bar in downtown Chicago. She decided to drive toward the address and have a look around the area before nightfall.
Ness was caught in traffic on her way to Northbrook, and the 30-minute drive took her three times longer than she expected since she had to pump in gas along the way. It was 7:00 P.M. when Ness pulled into the road that Eddie wrote down for her. She parked her car across the street from a very nice-looking house. Northbrook was definitely one of the nicer suburbs in the Chicago area, and Ness wondered if Eddie owned the house at this address. It was a two-story, modern A-frame house with nicely manicured rose bushes and a pristine lawn—definitely not the type of house she was expecting. Ness stayed put in her car as she waited for 9:00 P.M.
At 8:45 P.M., Ness still hadn’t noticed Eddie approach the house, and she hadn’t noticed any movement within the house. She felt as though she was walking straight into a trap, but she knew that she didn’t have any other choice. 10 minutes later, Ness exited her vehicle and walked toward the house. Her heart pounded in her chest as she approached the dark house. She went to knock on the door and could see that the door was slightly ajar, but she knocked anyway. No response.
“Hello? Eddie?” Ness called out, but still there was no response. Ness strained her ears to hear anything on the other side of the door. Nothing. Ness took a deep breath and pushed the door open gingerly. There were no lights on in the house. She took a step inside and allowed her eyes several seconds to adjust to the darkness.
“This is ridiculous,” Ness whispered to herself. “Not that ridiculous,” a voice from the doorway beside her stated loudly. Ness screamed and jumped away from the voice, and the lights in the hallway came on. Ness trembled as she tried to support her weight against the wall as she stared at Eddie standing next to her.
Eddie crossed his arms over his muscular chest, “I hope I haven’t overestimated your capabilities.” “W-W-W-What are you talking about?” Ness stuttered. “You seemed to have a real knack for killing, but there’s a lot that you need to learn and work on if you want to stay one step ahead of the police.”
“Who are you?” Ness straightened herself. “We’ll get to that later. You hungry?” Eddie started walking toward the kitchen. “What?” “Are you hungry? I figured that was a simple enough question,” Eddie frowned.
“What is going on, Eddie?” “Well, I’m hungry because I haven’t eaten. Ergo, me heading to the kitchen and offering to make you something to eat, too,” Eddie took a few more steps toward the kitchen and then turned back at Ness, “Well come along. We don’t have all night.”
Ness stood with her mouth ajar. She blinked several times and then followed Eddie in haste. They entered the kitchen, and Eddie walked straight to the fridge and started grabbing ingredients. “Have a seat at the table over there,” he said as he pointed to a small table at the kitchen window. Ness did as she was instructed and watched this very strange situation unfold.
“Is a sandwich good?” Eddie asked as he started unwrapping the packaging on a loaf of bread. Ness shrugged, “Yeah, sure.” Eddie started cutting lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and sliced thin slices of Swiss cheese. He worked in complete silence. Ness was tempted several times to break the silence, but she just held her tongue. She waited for Eddie to make the first move.
“Do you like mustard?” Eddie asked. “I do.” Ness responded. Eddie nodded, and spread whole grain mustard on two of the slices of bread and piled thin slices of smoked ham on top of the mustard. He topped the sandwich with the rest of ingredients before cutting them in half and grabbed two beers from the fridge. He walked to the table and placed the sandwich and beer in front of Ness as he sat down across from her.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Ness asked without touching her food. Eddie had taken a large
