Chapter 225: Why Do You Get to Be So Happy?

Chapter 225: Chapter 225: Why Do You Get to Be So Happy?

Hearing the knocking at the door, Aunt Wallace couldn’t help but tremble again.

"Auntie, are you awake? It’s me, Leo. I have something important to discuss. Can you please open the door?" When no one came to open the door, the killer couldn’t help but pound harder.

"Aunt Wallace, it’s okay. Go ahead and open the door. We’re here," Zoe Sawyer said, squeezing Aunt Wallace’s hand. "We’ll keep you safe. Please, don’t worry. Trust us."

Aunt Wallace looked at Zoe Sawyer, squeezed her hand in return, and nodded. "Alright!"

Just as Leo grew impatient and was about to force his way in, the lights on the first floor suddenly flicked on.

The moment Aunt Wallace flipped the switch, the officers quickly ducked out of sight, ensuring the killer wouldn’t spot them in the room.

Aunt Wallace took a deep breath, threw on a coat, and walked to the living room door. She pulled it open a crack. "Leo? What brings you here so late? Is something important going on?"

Perhaps he was too excited, but the killer, Leo, didn’t notice the tremor in Aunt Wallace’s voice or the faint shadows of several people lurking behind her.

With the big yellow dog not there to stop him, Leo stepped forward, wedged his foot in the doorway, and slowly drew a kitchen cleaver from behind his back. He grinned at Aunt Wallace. "Something important? Of course. I’m here to send you all to the afterlife!"

Leo then shoved the door open, grabbed Aunt Wallace by the throat, and slammed her to the ground. He raised his other hand, cleaver held high, but just as he was about to bring it down, he found his wrist seized. He struggled, but he couldn’t move it an inch.

"Police! Don’t move! You’re under arrest!"

The sound of a tranquilizer gun being armed instantly cleared Leo’s overexcited mind.

He looked up to find himself surrounded by police, all pointing their guns at him.

Two burly officers had his cleaver hand in a death grip, and he couldn’t muster an ounce of strength against them.

Sean Hughes and Ben Miller quickly rushed forward, helping Aunt Wallace up from under Leo.

"How did you know I was coming?" Leo asked, his expression incredulous.

’This was a last-minute decision. I took the cleaver from my own house, and I came in the dead of night. Logically, no one else should have known!’

And yet, here he was, surrounded by a swarm of police before he’d even had a chance to act.

"Never you mind how we knew. Let go, hands on your head, and get on the ground," Evan Keller snarled, kicking the half-crouching Leo flat onto the floor.

A nearby officer moved in swiftly and handcuffed Leo’s hands behind his back.

"It’s alright, Aunt Wallace. You’re safe now." Zoe Sawyer emerged from her hiding spot and came to Aunt Wallace’s side. She helped the visibly terrified woman over to a sofa, trying to comfort her.

’That hand on my neck... and that cleaver held high.’

Each memory dealt a massive blow to Aunt Wallace.

"Our family never treated him poorly. We always invited him over whenever we made something good to eat. Why would he do this? Could it be... that we did something wrong?" Aunt Wallace’s voice was rambling as she looked at the handcuffed Leo in utter confusion.

She knew she had never wronged him, yet he had treated her like this.

Aunt Wallace couldn’t understand.

"You didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t be so hard on yourself, Aunt Wallace," Sean Hughes said, pouring a glass of water from the coffee table and handing it to her, his voice gentle and comforting.

The big yellow dog also emerged from Aunt Wallace’s room and came to lie across her feet.

The warm sensation helped bring Aunt Wallace back to her senses a little.

Then, Aunt Wallace remembered her daughter-in-law waiting for news upstairs.

"I have to go up and tell her, or she’ll be worried sick." Aunt Wallace shot to her feet, but her legs felt weak, and she immediately sat back down on the sofa.

Aunt Wallace looked at Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes sheepishly. "My legs are a little weak. I’m afraid I’ll need you to accompany me upstairs."

"Of course, that’s no problem," Sean Hughes agreed without hesitation.

After a quick word with Heath Hale, who was nearby, Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes helped Aunt Wallace upstairs.

Barry Quinn and Monkey exchanged a glance, then nodded in silent agreement and followed them.

There were enough officers downstairs; they weren’t needed.

Besides, they were in an unfamiliar area. They needed to stay by Zoe Sawyer’s side to protect her properly.

On the second floor, Aunt Wallace’s daughter-in-law heard the commotion below. She held her child, trying to soothe them, while anxiously waiting for her mother-in-law to come up and give word.

Before long, Aunt Wallace came up and knocked on her door.

Aunt Wallace briefly explained what had happened downstairs, and the two women hugged, both looking as if they’d just survived a disaster.

Thank goodness the police had shown up in time and subdued him.

Otherwise, based on their past interactions, they would have had no defenses up against Leo at all. If they had just let him barge in, the outcome was too horrific to imagine.

Zoe Sawyer recalled the scene she had witnessed through the door: after the killer murdered the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and the baby in her arms, he had then ransacked the entire second floor, saying there was another child.

"Aunt Wallace, do you have another child? Where are they?" Zoe Sawyer asked.

Aunt Wallace slapped her forehead. "Oh!" She then pointed to the building behind them. "I have a granddaughter. After dinner, she said she was going to sleep over with the neighbor’s daughter and ran over there."

"Thank goodness she wasn’t home. Otherwise, what happened tonight would have absolutely terrified her!"

Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes followed Aunt Wallace’s gesture just in time to see two shadows peeking out from a window before quickly vanishing.

"No, this won’t do. I need to call my son and have him come home right away." Now that her lingering fear had subsided, Aunt Wallace took her daughter-in-law’s phone from the nightstand, handed it to her, and gestured for her to make the call.

With something like this happening at home, he had to come back immediately.

Aunt Wallace’s daughter-in-law didn’t waste any time and quickly dialed her husband’s number.

Upon hearing that Leo had snuck over in the middle of the night to murder his entire family while he was away, Aunt Wallace’s son was beside himself, insisting over and over that he was coming home immediately.

"Aunt Wallace, if you could get your things together, we’ll need you to come to the station to give a statement," Sean Hughes said, after confirming that both women were alright.

Aunt Wallace nodded repeatedly. "Of course, of course."

By the time they had gathered their things and gone downstairs, officers from the local precinct had arrived and were already taking Leo away in a squad car.

Ben Miller then led Zoe Sawyer and her team toward the precinct.

He was caught red-handed. There was no way for Leo to argue his way out of this.

Perhaps knowing excuses were useless, he simply met Aunt Wallace’s furious questioning with a grin.

"Why? Because I can’t stand the sight of you. What gives you the right to be so happy?

Making me come over and work like a dog whenever you feel like it?"