MURDER

A shrill sound rang loud in the air, jolting Sylvia out of her yoga session. She groaned, unraveling out of a child's pose, and stretched her limbs before reaching for her phone on the bed.

Swiping her mass of golden blonde hair away from her face, she frowned at the name displayed on her phone's screen.

"Why's Dad calling?" She mumbled. He rarely called her. And considering it was almost ten at night, she had known he wouldn't be coming home that night. "Papa?"

"Hello,"

The voice that replied was not her father's! Alarmed, Sylvia rose to her feet. Her hazel eyes were wide in fear.  "Who the hell is this?"

"Is this Sylvia Bakers?" The man who had picked up the call asked, ignoring her questions.

"Yes, this is Sylvia Bakers. Who are you and what the hell are you doing with my father's phone?!"

"Calm down Mrs. Bakers-"

"It's Miss," she bit out. The more evasive the stranger was, the more she got nervous. Something had happened. Her father wasn't careless. He would not have lost his phone.

"Sorry, Miss Bakers. I'm calling from the Wells residence. Your father... Your father is uh..." The man cleared his throat awkwardly and Sylvia felt her stomach drop in fear.

"What about my father?" She whispered.

"He's dead, Miss Bakers. I was asked to contact his family. So I went through his phone..." The man rambled on but his words were lost on Sylvia.

Her phone slipped from her hands and landed on the yoga mat with a thump. The world faded into a blurry mess as she tried to process the man's words.

Dead. Her father. Her father was dead. Her hands clasped over her ears and she let out a scream.

"No, no.  It's not true!" She yelled, scrambling for her phone. "You're lying!"

"I understand that this is hard for you, Miss Bakers. And I'm sorry. He'll be taken to the morgue tomorrow morning, Mr. Wells ordered an autopsy-"

"No! I want to see my father!" She screamed but a beep told her the man had cut the call.

Without a second thought, Sylvia dashed out of her home, dressed in yoga pants and a cotton shirt. She got into an old Audi parked in the driveway and swerved out of it.

Her mind raced with a gazillion thoughts. Her father could not be dead. They were mistaken.

"He's not gone. He's not dead. They're lying," she cried as she sped to the Wells Mansion. She had seen him that morning. They'd had breakfast together and he had joked about her coming to work with him so she could cook for him. He looked so well and alive. "He can't be dead!"

Her car skidded to a halt when she reached the gates of the Wells Mansion. The gates were opened and a body was being wheeled on a stretcher into an ambulance. Jumping out of her car, she sprinted towards them, wishing, hoping that the man on the stretcher was not her father.

"Wait!" She yelled.

A man standing by the gate, dressed formidably in a black suit and flanked by bodyguards, frowned when he saw the young girl running towards them.

"Stop her," he ordered, retreating into the mansion. "Make sure she does not follow the ambulance."

"Yes sir," His guards replied, running towards the approaching woman. "Ma'am, you need to relax-"

"Get away from me!" She spat, shoving one of the men who had blocked her path aside, and gasped.

Her father's white sunken face stared back at her. His eyes were closed, water droplets clung to his lashes and despite the way the stretcher jostled as they carried him into the ambulance, he remained still.

He was dead.

The realization knocked the wind out of her. With the guards holding her back, she screamed like a woman possessed until darkness enveloped her.

****

Constant beeping sounds roused Sylvia from sleep. Her head pounded heavily and with a groan, she turned on her side. The smell of disinfectant was heavy in the air, it filled her nose, tickled it, and made her nauseous.

"Sylvia!" A familiar voice called, and she felt someone shake her lightly.

Another groan slipped from her lips as she opened her eyes. Eleanor sat before her, a worried look on her face. "Are you alright?"

"Ellie?" She mumbled and struggled to sit up. The pounding in her head intensified. "What the hell happened? I feel like shit."

"You don't remember?" Eleanor asked, her blue eyes glistening with tears.

Sylvia frowned and looked around her. She was in a hospital ward. The beeping sounds had come from a machine attached to another patient in the ward. What was she doing here? How had she-

A flash of her father's ashen face streaked across her mind and she clasped a hand over her mouth. A sob tore low from her throat. "Ellie, Dad..."

Tears spilled down Eleanor's cheeks. Rising to her feet, she pulled Sylvia into a hug. "I'm so sorry Sylvie. I'm sorry."

"Where is he? They wouldn't let me see him, Ellie. They wouldn't... What do I do Ellie?" She cried.

"He's at the morgue. Some guy came here all dressed up, he said your father's in the morgue now."

Sniffing, Sylvia pulled away and struggled to get off the bed. "I have to see him."

"Sylvia-"

She ignored her friend's protest and yanked out the drip that had been attached to her. A sharp pain drifted up her arm but she ignored it and ran out of the ward. She would see her father, no matter what it took.

*****

"Here he is," A male nurse announced with a bored look on his face. His hand was stretched out to a bed in the morgue. The bed where Ben Baker lay.

Entranced, Sylvia walked to the bed, her hazel eyes rimmed red from the many tears she had shed. Her father was dead. She was alone. All alone.

"Dad," she croaked, reaching for his cold clammy hand. His face, wrinkled from age and many years of work looked placid and serene. "Don't leave... Don't leave me," she sobbed, grasping his hand tighter.

He had been all she had. All she had ever had. Her mother had died during childbirth and Sylvia had lived her entire life with her father. He had worked so hard to create a wonderful future for his little girl. And now? He was gone before he could enjoy it.

"What do I do now dad? What do I do," she sobbed, pressing his hands against her face. He felt cold, a harsh reminder that he was truly gone and no amount of crying would bring him back.

Leaning down to place a kiss on his forehead, Sylvia paused. Around her father's neck were bruises and purple bluish streaks that resembled fingers. She gasped, peering closer at it. Someone had wrapped his hands around her father's neck. No, she realized,  Someone had strangled her father.

A clearing of throat jolted her out of her inspection and when she turned around, her father's boss, Leonard Wells stood by the door to the morgue in all his glory.

His green eyes stared blankly at her. No remorse, no guilt, nothing. Sylvia glanced at her father's neck and then at New York's most ruthless CEO. Something was not right. Something was not right.

"Miss Baker," Leonard Wells said stiffly. "A word, if you will?"

A word if you will? Sylvia scoffed mentally. Of course, he would say something as high-minded as that. She trudged out of the morgue reluctantly towards him. Eleanor sat on a chair in the hallway, watching the scene surreptitiously.

"My condolences," He said, handing her a brown file.

"What... What is this?" She asked, opening the file. A single document lay in it. An autopsy report.

"He died in my mansion. I took it upon myself to find out what exactly happened." Leonard explained. "Your father drowned, Miss Bakers."

"That's... That's not possible," she muttered frantically, shaking her head. Her father was a good swimmer. There was no way he could have drowned just like that. In the pool no less. He had worked for Wells for twenty years. If he could survive that long without drowning in a pool, why now?

 The fingers. A tiny voice whispered in her ears. Her eyes closed as she recalled the bruises around her father's neck.

"He was a loyal employee. A good man," Mr. Wells said, but his words barely brushed through the ears of the trembling woman before him. "I'll see to his funeral arrangements. If ever you do need anything within reason, feel free to ask Miss Baker."

Sylvia watched Leonard Wells walk away, fresh tears slid down her face as she squeezed the report in her hand.

"Sylvia?" Eleanor called rising from the chair to approach her friend. "Are you okay?"

Sylvia shook her head, crumpled the paper in her hands, and tossed it in a nearby waste bin. "He was murdered. Dad was murdered. There's no way that autopsy is true!"