With a practiced smile, David Tapp greeted the secretary as he took a seat in the waiting room for his therapy session. Settling into the old, dusty chair cushions with a sigh, Tapp glanced at the end table next to him for any good reads. Of course, by “good reads,” he meant a news article or two on the Jigsaw Killer.
Just because they fired him, didn’t mean he couldn’t keep investigating.
Suddenly his eyes caught the corner of a magazine, poking out from the bottom of the haphazard stack on the table: “Jigsaw.” His hand shot out and snatched it out on impulse, causing some of the other magazines to slide out of the stack and onto the floor. He slyly looked around the room to see if anybody had noticed, and was very pleased to learn that even the secretary had her nose buried in a book.
Deciding that what the people didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, Tapp left the fallen magazines on the floor and eyeballed the cover of his magazine tentatively. “Jigsaw...” he muttered to himself, finding the key word and proceeding to read the full title...
“’Depression and Obsession’...? Former Jigsaw Killer detective gone mad?!”
The sudden shout had certainly caught the attention of everyone in the group and Tapp looked at them all with as much intensity as he could muster.
A few heavy breaths later and he shook his head, lamely tossing the magazine back onto the table and not caring when it slid off as well. He could feel them staring at him. In the corner of his eye he saw the secretary with her hand tentatively held above the phone, fingers twitching anxiously. Everyone’s judgement filled the room, engulfing him, suffocating him-- but it wasn’t overbearing enough to the point where he couldn’t see the young man in the doorway, looking anywhere but him and twiddling his fingers.
“Do you have a problem, son?” He broke the silence that everyone else seemed to want to stay, staring the boy down. He was wearing a bright red uniform, with a pizza in the center and a name tag pinned proudly in the upper left corner. Even with the waning quality of his sight, he could vaguely read the name printed on it...
“Dwight,” whispered the former detective to himself. Nodding, he went on to get out of his chair and crouch down, gathering the fallen magazines and setting them back on the table. With a gesture to the now free chair: “Dwight, you can sit right here.” And with a nod to the secretary: “Tell my therapist that I cancelled for today. I can handle the fees.”
He walked up to the doorway and looked down at Dwight. “Excuse me, son.”
theartofmadeline
titsay
2087
tangentwithtanner
