Jacqui’s Nemesis

Rubbing her eyes to get rid of the sleep which made her eyelids heavy and barely able to open, the first thing Jacqui became aware of was how quiet everything was.  It felt as if she had only slept for an hour or two, yet her room was filled with light, and she immediately assumed that it must be rather late. Giving up on trying to open her eyes, Jacqui dropped back onto her pillow and listened. It was unnaturally quiet.  Where were the servants whose chatter and clanging in the kitchen normally filled the house? With her eyes still closed she contemplated the events of the previous evening.  Jacqui got home in the early hours of the morning.  She attended a party at the home of one of her friends.  It was a jolly affair and the tightness of her calve muscles bore evidence to the number of times she danced in those very expensive and ridiculously high heels. Although she only had two glasses of wine all evening, her head throbbed in a painful but steady rhythm. Forcing herself to sit up in bed, Jacqui reached out and fumbled in the drawer of her nightstand. She extracted a bottle of painkillers and shook two tablets into her palm. The water glass on her nightstand was however empty and with a sigh she swung her legs off the bed.  Stumbling towards the bathroom Jacqui bumped into the chair which was usually behind her desk in her study. “What the…?” The minor incident had her wake up fully.  It was painful to open her eyes properly and the sharp light of the overhead chandelier worsened her headache. Immediately aware that something was the matter Jacqui glanced at the wall clock.  It was only six am.  She had indeed only slept for approximately two hours. Slowly she also became aware that something else was wrong, indeed very wrong. When and why did someone switch her light on and why was the chair in her bedroom and not in its place in the study next door? Deciding to deal with her headache before dealing with the puzzle she was presented with, Jacqui made her way to the bathroom, filled the glass with water and swallowed the two tablets. Sitting on her bed again Jacqui listened intently.  The house was still quiet.  Knowing now that it was only six in the morning, this was not unusual.  Anna, the cook, would normally be in at six, but as it was Saturday, it was quite possible that she could be a little late.  They normally had breakfast at eight, but on Saturdays, the family had breakfast informally and at any time as from nine am. Jacqui had been studying architecture when, two years into her studies, she decided to leave university and join her father’s firm as a real estate broker. At twenty-four she was as successful as her father was in his youth. After a spot of bother with a jealous ex-boyfriend Jacqui’s father turned her old bedroom and two adjoining rooms into an apartment for her. With her own entrance, she still had the privacy she wanted, along with the added advantage of having access to servants who cleaned and prepared meals for her. Jacqui did not hesitate; she furnished the apartment according to her own taste and moved back home.  Her parents both had busy schedules and she saw little more of them than she did when she lived in the apartment in the city, except for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays, when they would mostly all be home and enjoy their meal together on the patio. The chair stood in the middle of the floor, directly underneath the chandelier, almost as if someone had used it to climb onto it to clean the chandelier or to change a light bulb.  But who would do so in the middle of the night, or rather, in the early hours of the morning?  And then leave the light on? The servants all went home at night, apart from Jackson, who lived in the garden cottage and who served as groundskeeper, pool cleaner and body-c*m-security guard for the family. Therefore, the only other people on the premises would be Jacqui and her parents.  Jacqui could not imagine Jon Bruckner standing on her flimsy office chair to change a lightbulb.  Her father was well over six foot tall and had the physique of a body builder. At fifty-four he had barely started greying at the temples and looked not a day older than forty. Jacqui doubted that the chair would hold her father’s weight even if he was so inclined as to change a light bulb at night. Jon Bruckner worked hard as from an early age and now that he had all the money he could wish for, he felt that he and his family deserved the luxury they had and could now afford. He would thus be more inclined to leave a note for Jackson to change the light than do so himself. A sudden crash followed by a piercing scream jolted Jacqui out of her fond lamentations. Rushing to the connecting door between her apartment and the rest of the house, Jacqui found the sliding bolt firmly shut. Leaning her weight against the door she finally managed to open it and turn the knob to open the door. A scream escaped from her throat.  On the floor, less than a few paces from her door, was her father, his hand stretched out in front of him as if he was reaching for her door. Blood which had earlier gushed from his head and multiple other wounds had started to dry and his white shirt clung in crimson ugliness to his back. Anna, with the tray still in her hand and broken plates and cups strewn over the floor, had sunk down on her haunches and buried her head into her knees while sobbing loudly. Jacqui could not move.  She stood rooted to the spot while scream after scream escaped her mouth. Jackson arrived on the scene shirtless and with his hair still wet from a shower. It was immediately obvious to him that Jon Bruckner was quite dead.  Treading carefully so as not to step into the shards of glass or the blood on the floor, Jackson moved over to Jacqui. With his hand around her waist, he guided her back into her room and forced her to sit down on her bed. “Please stay here Jacqui…” he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Jacqui could not remember exactly how long she sat there before she finally heard the sirens approaching the house. Voices filled the corridor in front of her bedroom door, yet she was still unable to move. Somebody knocked on her door and entered before she could answer. “Jacqui Bruckner?” Jacqui could not answer. “I am Detective Lowe, and this is my partner Detective Blair. May we sit down?” Without waiting for her answer Detective Lowe moved the chair closer to her bed while Blair sat down hesitantly on the opposite edge of the bed. “Miss Bruckner, I am afraid we have bad news. Your father, Jon Bruckner, was declared DOA by the coroner, there was nothing we could do for him. I am so sorry to tell you that we also found your mother… she had been killed while asleep in their bedroom...” “No!” The single word of denial escaped from her mouth, hoarse and raw with emotion, before Jacqui slumped over her bed.