Past Crimes: Part I

I was unpacking my things at my new house when I noticed that a floorboard near my bed was a little out of place. I sat down and slowly pushed it to a side, only to find a hollow underneath it; and inside it were several photographs. Curious, I took them out, but what I found made me frown and squint. The pictures were of a toddler who looked a lot like me with a woman who wasn’t my mother. I went through the other photos, and one of them grabbed my attention even more: my favourite rabbit soft toy was also in it. I knew it couldn’t have been just a similar one because its right ear and eye were damaged—just like the one I had.

“Is this me? Then who’s the woman in the photo?”

As I went through more photos, a newspaper cutout fell from my hand. It was a death notice of the woman in the photographs. I didn’t know what to think, or even where to begin, so I decided to pay my mom a visit. I gathered all the photographs along with the newspaper cutout and rushed to the car. When I arrived at her place and began to ask questions, mom kept saying it was probably someone who looked like me, but I knew she was lying. I pushed her a few more times until she stopped denying it and opened up. Mom said that she wasn’t my biological mother.

“So, what? You kidnapped me?”

“No, hon, I was asked to take you away by your mom.”

“And why would she do that?”

“Because your father was abusive.”

I didn’t know what to say. I leaned back on my chair and sighed as she continued to explain what had happened back then. She said my biological father used to beat my mom almost every day, and that my mom didn’t want me to grow up in an abusive home. She couldn’t do anything against him because he was a politician with many connections. In desperation, my biological mother had asked mom to take me and disappear; and two days after mom took me and fled from our hometown, she had seen on the news that my biological mother had been murdered. Mom says there was no doubt in her mind that my father had killed my mother. She never contacted anyone in our hometown since then; she knew it would have been too dangerous.

Knowing that my mother never faced justice and that my father was never punished for his crimes made my blood boil. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists at the thought of him living his life somewhere out there, so carefree. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Capturing and putting criminals like him behind bars was my job—and he was going to be my next target.

To be continued...