A Twist Of Noir 232 - Des Nnochiri

INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT - DES NNOCHIRI

No question. Carla was going to be late.

If she hadn’t stepped into the living room...

But, of course, she had to. That’s where she’d left her purse.

And if she hadn’t spotted the crayons on the coffee table...

But, she couldn’t really miss them. After all, this was, like, only the three thousandth time she’d told...

“Ramon!”

The culprit slunk into the room, chocolate (God, he’d been eating Hersheys again!) smeared all over his face. A weird, goggle-eyed expression.

That’s when Carla noticed the drawing. It was done on the back of one of those flyers from the Shop-n-Save. Not in Ramon’s usual, semi-stick figure style, but in a manner that was... altogether more adult. And the subject matter...

“Honey?” she asked. “Why’d you draw this?”

In reply, Ramon, still silent, stared intently at his mom’s computer screen.

She’d gotten the laptop from her brother, Miguel, on her last birthday. He’d gotten it (so he said) as “a bonus” for a job he did in Reno. She didn’t press for details. Maybe she should have.

Her screensaver was on. She hit a key. Looked at her desktop with an expression almost as dopey as Ramon’s was...

And immediately dialed 911.

Now, two hours later, the two of them sat in an interrogation room, rehashing their story to the two detectives for, like, the three thousandth time.

How Ramon got access to her computer.

Easy: She’d been working the night shift. Babysitters cost money. Mrs. Jensen across the hall looked in, from time to time.

How Ramon had gotten onto those social networks.

Easy: She didn’t have any of that “child-proofing” software installed.

How he’d hooked up with The Grinder, a vicious serial killer who’d been baffling the cops with his hideous crimes for the better part of a decade.

Umm...

How much had The Grinder revealed to Ramon? His real name? His location?

It was too much to take in.

Struggling for a purchase, some kind of handle on this new reality.

“Can I call them at work? Tell them I’ll be late? My shift started, like, two hours ago.”

The best Carla could do.

It was too much to take in.

BIO: Desmond (Des) Nnochiri spent his early years traveling with his parents, and was educated in England, the USA, and the Republic of Ireland (Eire). He writes freelance now, and has taken his first steps into the world of screenwriting. He has contributed stories to A Twist of Noir, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and Powder Burn Flash. He has just started blogging, at Des Nnochiri's Write to Speak.