Three is a crowd: Katosi, the straw that finally broke the camel’s back

(Continued from last issue)

David and Diane have been married for years; then there is Julie, the young secretary whose axis collides with the couple’s in ways none of them saw coming.

DAVID

Thankfully, I did not have to work hard at my promise to Julie to keep Diane away from her, as ever since her impromptu appearance at the site, Diane had stayed away on her own.

She had not called or texted even once, and when I went to the house to see the children the following Sunday, they were there, but she was not, which suited me perfectly. Not that any of that had helped reassure Julie; she was convinced that Diane was secretly plotting her revenge, even though she had nothing more than a ‘feeling’ to support her theory.

“Think about it; when has she ever backed down from anything?” she argued.

I did not have an answer to that; so, I shrugged, and feeling vindicated, she went on exuberantly: “Exactly! Never! And I don’t think she’s going to start now! She’s planning something; I’m sure of it!”

I understood Julie’s unease; Diane had given her plenty of reasons to be wary of her, but she had been carrying on about this conspiracy theory of hers that Diane was plotting some elaborate revenge for days now, and I was over it.

“Can we please just spend one evening without talking about Diane and her supposed revenge plot! I’ve had a long day at work, an even longer drive back home, and the last thing I want to hear is Diane this, Diane that!” I snapped.

I had not meant for my tone to be as sharp as it was, and the effect on Julie was instant; she jerked back like I had struck her, and I could see the hurt in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap; it’s just that after all our hard work and sacrifice, we’re finally here, in our own place, with work on the lakeside unit right on schedule; we made it, now I want us to enjoy it, without worrying about Diane, or anyone else for that matter,” I tried to smooth over my initial outburst.

The hurt remained in her eyes, but she was always ready to forgive and choose to make up.

“You’re right; I’m sorry I kept harping on about her; I won’t anymore,” she promised.

Ever the peacemaker, yet another reason that I loved her, I thought to myself as I smiled down at her. “Thank you,” I answered softly, and then lowered my head, until our lips met.

JULIE

Although I tried to push David’s wife out of my mind, I could not shake the feeling that she was planning something bad. I could not put my finger on what exactly it was that felt off, but something definitely did.

The first major red flag was her complete radio silence after David kicked her off the site; according to him, she had not so much as texted him, and that was not at all like her. I would have felt a lot better if she had been calling and texting non-stop, making threats and yelling obscenities.

This silence, on the other hand, was eerie, not just because it was so unlike her, but also because it gave no hint of what she was thinking or doing.

The uncertainty of not knowing played with my mind and I began imagining things; once that I had seen her car parked by the side of the road when I was taking Junior to day care, but it was gone when I came back after dropping him, and the guards at the gate said she had not been there while I was gone.

Another time, I thought the window to the lower office was open wider than I had left it when I went down to check on work at our lakeside unit, but the burglar-proofing grill was still latched, nothing was missing, and the guards said no-one but a supplier going to see the engineer had been there.

It was random, apparently unrelated incidents like this that on their own might not seem like much, but when combined, gave me that sense of unease that I just couldn’t shake.

David, on his part, thought I was paranoid; that I was imagining things, and was obsessed with his wife. It hurt that he was so dismissive outright of my suspicions, especially since he knew how dangerous his wife could be, but for fear of getting on his nerves and driving him away, which I sensed I was already beginning to do, I decided to keep my fears to myself, before he started to think that I was the crazy one.

I, nonetheless, kept my guard up, cross-checking to make sure all the doors and windows were properly locked each night, and that the cameras were on and working, even though David had already locked and checked them, and when I eventually fell asleep, it was so lightly that the quietest of sounds was enough to wake me up.

DIANE

Over the course of the next week, I staked out the site for hours at a time, until by the end of the week, I had memorized every aspect of not just their routine, but that of the entire site too.

I learned that there was a pedestrian gate at the bottom of the property that was latched during the day, but that the padlock on it wasn’t actually locked until the end of the day; so, it would be easy to switch during the day and no-one would notice when they pressed it shut at the end of the day.

Besides that, I learned that she didn’t close a ground window at the back of the office block when she went to pick their son from day care. Since it had burglar proofing, she probably thought it was safe to leave the window open for the short time she was away; what she didn’t realise, was that it was long enough for me to discreetly stuff the lock, so I could open it later.

I collected this information with cold, calculated, military precision until finally, ready to put my plan into action, I stole out of the house in the dead of the night and drove to the site.

On any other night I would have been terrified driving down a poorly lit dirt path in the middle of nowhere, but tonight I felt nothing as I turned off onto the dirt path to the pedestrian gate, or when I unlocked the padlock on it that I had switched that morning and slipped onto the property grounds.

I had smuggled a small gas cylinder onto the site a few days ago when I pretended to be a supplier there to see the engineer, and had hidden it in a thick bush by the window I had jammed.

I now connected a pipe to it, slipped that through the window and opened the gas valve. I then knotted one end of a rope through the burglar proofing and unwound the rest as I retraced my steps to the service gate.

It run out just short of the gate, and taking out a lighter from my back pocket, I hesitated for the first time that night. Was I really about to deprive my children of their father?

The answer came swiftly: that whore had deprived them of their father the minute she got her fangs into him, not me. With that clarity, my hesitation vanished, and I lit the rope.

I had calculated that it would take about seven minutes for the flame to burn through the length of the rope; enough time for me to rush back to the car and get away before it reached its target.

My calculations were accurate; the night sky lit up behind me in a ball of orange as I got to the end of the small dirt road. It was over; David had started this, I had ended it.

The End. Thank you for following Diane, David and Julie’s story.

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