The Curse Of Eden
Chapter 5- Happy Funerals

Jonathan Smith Everglade 30-year-old male, father, teacher, and a Holer.

It felt like Collette was being sent back in time to when her father died. There was no one attending the funeral except Mr. Everglade's wife and three children. And it would've been this way till the end if it wasn't for Adam, Collette, and Ken's presence.

Collette wanted to meet the Everglade's herself. The people who were in her same position for God knows how long. She felt connected to them and knew that a simple pat on the back will be more than enough. She remembers well how badly she wanted that soothing hand on her shoulder when she stood solo at her father's burial with no one but a woman from child services while her mother slept in the hospital.

The service was quick, empty, and hallow. It didn't take time for the Everglade's to be back home, free to answer the questions Adam and Ken had.

Déjà vu hit Collette hard once she stepped into the house and she suddenly felt dizzy. The ground beneath her shook violently and an earthquake hit her senses.

"Hey, you okay?" Adam asked as he steadied her with an arm.

She nodded her head, trying to clear her mind and swallow the lump in her throat.

"Yes. It's just all so similar."

"You can leave. You don't have to be here."

"No. I want to be. I have to face this." She took in a deep breath and detached herself from her husband's support.

Adam, Ken, and Collette sat down with Mrs. Everglade in what appeared to be a living room, housing nothing but a single couch and a chair.

Mrs. Everglade sat down on the chair, leaving the couch for her three guests.

Adam took the place closest to the chair, Collette sat and few spots away while Ken was more comfortable standing.

"First of all, I'm so sorry for your loss Mrs. Everglade." Adam started.

The woman only nodded her head in constrain. Collette knew her expression very well. It was one she saw in the mirror a lot for a while. An expression of relief mixed in with fear and confusion of what to come. The question swirled 'what now?', but it was a light one. A one for new beginnings.

She couldn't show her true feelings in front of the police lest they suspect her of murder.

"Can you tell us more about your husband Mrs. Everglade?"

She looked up at Adam with her weak face. Her bones showed at places they weren't supposed to. Her skin looked like they have never seen the sun and the dark circles under her eyes were like a deep void of black.

But her eyes were coming back to life.

"Well, there's nothing much to say detective. He was a school teacher all his life but suddenly resigned a year or so ago and has been doing odd jobs till-" She fell silent.

"What kind of odd jobs?" Adam asked but she shook her head.

"I don't really know. He wouldn't tell me when I asked him. He stopped sharing anything lately all together. I don't even know why he resigned from his job as a teacher." She lied and Collette knew that as much but didn't have the answer to the 'why' part.

Adam too, knew that she was trying to hide it but he didn't understand why, yet he remained silent.

"Can I use your bathroom please?" Ken cut in and Mrs. Everglade agreed with a nod of her head.

"On the second floor, down the hall to your left." She navigated as she looked towards the staircase, keeping her gaze on it for a couple of seconds.

Collette looked towards it too and shuddered.

That was where they would get tied for days on end. Mrs. Everglades too must be having a flashback of some sort.

She quickly turned her head to gaze down on her entwined hands that nested on her lap.

"What about the Holers Mrs. Everglade?" Adam dropped the bomb. "What did you know about them?"

The woman almost jumped from her place at the mention of them. "The Holers?" she gaped out with a dry throat.

"We know about them ma'am." Adam tries to calm her but he only made it worse. The widow stood up from her place and took a couple of steps around the place.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"He's gone Lucy. He can't hurt you anymore." Adam tried to calm her down and give her a sense of trust by using her first name.

"And that's all there is." She stated plainly.

Ken was making his way downstairs as Lucy made her way towards the front door.

"There. Your friend came, now you can leave. I'm sorry I have to be with my kids now." She opened the door and gestured with her hand for the trio to leave. Adam sighed as he looked at his wife who in return, stood to her feet.

"Here's my number Mrs. Everglade if you ever needed to talk." Adam handed her his card as he left the house, Collette, and Ken following in his tracks.

"Well, that went well." Ken noted sarcastically as they got into the car.

"She's afraid of something." Collette added from the backseat.

"She got the jitters once the Holers were mentioned." Adam chipped in the obvious.

"Maybe they're threatening her or something." Ken suggested as he started the car.

Collette couldn't help not stare back at the house they just left. It was all the same. The lifeless walls. No tv, no carpets except the one under the living room coffee table. No pictures, little lights and heavy curtains that prevented the sun rays from making an entrance.

Sins, sins, sins. They were all sins. And she was sure if she got a full house tour, it would've looked exactly like her childhood one. And Mrs. Everglade was a replica of her mother.

"Can you drop me off at home Adam. I'm a little tired." Collette asked, making her husband look back at her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just a little knocked up." She smiled at him.

"You did good holding it in there Collette." Ken added with a smile, making his partner's wife grin widely at the compliment.

"Thank you." She blushed red.

Ken drove to Adam and Collette's house to drop her off.

"You sure you'll be alright?" Adam asked his wife as she stood outside his seat's window.

She nodded her head assuringly. "Yeah I'll get some rest and maybe prepare something for dinner. You'll be coming home for dinner right?"

"I'll try my best. Plus, we'll be looking into that lead you have for me." He rose his eyebrows at her playfully and Collette laughed.

"Sure." She knew he wasn't in for just the lead.

They exchanged goodbyes and soon, the two men were on their way towards the CIB.

Collette watched as their cars vanished around the corner before getting back on the main street and hailing for a cab.

She knew it was bad enough that she was breaking her promise with Adam about not doing anything impulsive or crazy, yet she managed to lie to him, knowing how much she had to do what she had to do. She was part of the team after all and where she's going isn't really very dangerous.

After a thirty-minute car ride, she was getting closer once again to the Everglade's.

She knocked at their door gently and after a moment of waiting, Lucy Everglade was gazing into her eyes, her door only slightly opened.

"Why are you back? I've got nothing more to say." She immediately said as she attempted to shut the door again.

Collette was fast to place a foot, preventing Lucy from closing the door.

"Lucy wait. I'm not a cop."

"Well, you're related to them somehow." Lucy retorted smartly as she tried to push at the door more. For an abused wife, she sure still had her attitude.

"My father was a Holer too!"

That was enough to make Lucy loosen her push against the door and open it so she looked at Collette.

"What did you say?"

"My father was a Holer too Lucy." Collette repeated. "He abused my mother and me terribly that I was on the verge of death. He died too. Seventeen years ago." "Why are you telling me this?" Lucy asked with a pained voice.

"To show you that I understand. That everything is going to be okay. I only want to help."

"I'm so sorry. I-" Lucy's voice broke as she gazed down anywhere else but Collette.

Collette took a step forward, engulfing the tearing up widow into her arms. She felt a couple of rogue tears slip her eyes too as they both shared their relief.

Lucy invited Collette in and Collette soon found herself on the same couch she just left a while ago.

Lucy came in from the kitchen with a tray of teacups on it and offered Collette one as she sat beside her.

"I thought it would never end." Lucy started with a sigh. "And my fears only grew with the realization that my babies were in constant danger from the one man that should be the person protecting them." She continued, referring to her three children.

Collette placed a soothing hand on Lucy's. "He's gone now."

"May I ask you how- no, what happened with you? How did you get out of it?"

Collette sighed. "Unfortunately for me, I was in that hell for five years straight."

Lucy gasped in horror as her eyes glazed. "I'm so sorry. And here I thought we've been through much when it has only been going on for a year." She scoffed at herself.

"No. No one deserves anything like that. A year is like five. It's all bad and you had every right to be scared, and fed up with it. You are a mother after all."

Lucy wiped the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "But you were so young."

Collette nodded. "But he died. And I'm free now." Collette said, knowing that she wanted to hear those words more than she wanted to console Lucy with them. "Was he killed by E too?"

Collette's eyebrows moved slightly closer at Lucy's knowledge of E but kept quiet. She shook her head with a smile. "No, not by E. But he too was killed. The police found nothing and the case froze after five years. Nonetheless, I'm actually grateful for the one who did that. He saved my mother and me. For all I know it can even be my own mother." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Us too." Lucy said. "The police are after E but actually, we owe him our lives."

"Was that why you wouldn't cooperate much with the detectives?"

Lucy nodded. "But not only for that." She stood up from her place and went towards the hooks by the door that had a handbag hung from them. She rummaged through it before slipping out a white, small, folded paper. Taking the note from Lucy, Collette carefully opened it. She gasped in shock as she read what it said.

'Your husband may be dead but we still live. Say a word to the police and you'll be joining your husband for a family reunion.'

The note was written with letters that have been cut from several places and glued together.

"It doesn't really matter much though." Lucy shrugged her shoulders. "It works well both ways since E is on our side and I honestly wouldn't want to be of any help to his capture. You don't know how many families need that salvation from him."

"And what makes you sure that E is doing this to save you? What if he's doing this just for the kill?" Collette said, even though she knew that E was only targeting those abusing Holers.

"This." Lucy replied with confidence as she handed Collette another note. This one however, was computer typed.

'You're safe now. He won't hurt you anymore.'

Collette felt her breath get caught in her chest as she quickly stood to her feet. She felt her heart pumping in her head as if that was its original place. Her hands shook vigorously and she felt dizziness take over. "Collette are you alright?"

She could hear the faint sound of Lucy as she tried to shake her away but it was too distant for Collette to make anything out.

"I- I have to go." She managed to breathe out, yet she couldn't hear her own voice. She doesn't remember when she left the Everglades or when she reached her house or when exactly did she open the box that has been lying dead under her bed for as long as she remembers, never seeing sunlight.

All she remembers was how she looked at the two papers in her hand. Two papers that looked so similar, housing the same set of letters yet are seventeen years apart.

And when she was sure of what her eyes were seeing and her mind was forming, she started feeling very lightheaded. Black spots dotted her vision as her mind went hazy.

But only one thing was sure and that was E was the one who killed her father seventeen years ago and the note she had after his death was proof.

It only took her a second more to fall into unconsciousness.