“Lilly, I told you not to – Lilly! What did you do?!” Aria surveyed the room, taking in the pillows leaking feathers, the paintings askew on the walls, and the stain blossoming on the carpet.
“In my defense, he was already dead when I got here,” Lilly said, raising from a crouch next to the crumpled human form on the floor.
“We were supposed to confront him, get him to confess, not kill him!” Aria’s voice shook.
“Aria,” Lilly said, walking over to her friend and grasping her shoulders. “I didn’t kill him. He was already dead.” She looked into Aria’s eyes, watched the panic be replaced by resignation.
“Well,” Aria said, shaking her head slightly and moving away from Lilly, “it looks like we’ll need to find the proof some other way.”
“I think that’s what someone else was trying to do.” Lilly gestured to the ripped up pillows, the books flung from the shelves, the open desk drawers. “It looks like they dug into him first, but he wouldn’t give them any more information than he gave us.”
Aria ran her eyes over the room, assessing. That was her specialty – Aria could read people, could figure out their weaknesses, their needs, their thought patterns, could find the right leverage for the right situation. Lilly stepped in when Aria couldn’t quite break someone, or when the person they were after decided to stop their investigation, violently.
“Okay,” Aria said, tapping her finger against her chin. “You’re arrogant. You think you are always the smartest person in the room, always three steps ahead of everyone else. You know where people usually hide their secrets, because you dig them up for a living.”
“Are you talking about the corpse, or about yourself?” Lilly asked innocently, and Aria glared at her.
“I’m talking about him, obviously.” She shifted her attention back to the room, and missed Lilly’s small smile. “You wouldn’t hide anything behind a painting, or stuffed under the couch. Too easy. Everyone looks there. You might hide something in a book, but that wouldn’t feel the safest. Desk drawers are too obvious as well.
“But you also aren’t as smart as you think you are. You haven’t come up with something new, you’ve copied someone else’s hiding place. Where’s that humming coming from?”
It took Lilly a moment to realize the last question was directed to her. “I think there’s a minifridge behind the desk.”
Aria’s eyes lit up. “Didn’t he drink that horrid diet soda all the time? Something that he had to get imported, right, that they won’t sell here?” She scurried over to the minifridge, opening it and peering in. Bright purple cans filled the shelves, along with a few plastic containers that looked like they had been there a while. Aria wrinkled her nose, moving the boxes out of the way, and started sifting through the cans.
“Maybe he hid something in the back of the fridge?” Lilly suggested, leaning over Aria’s shoulder, watching her shuffle the cans back and forth.
“No, that’s too easy. If someone looked, it would be too easy to find,” Aria murmured, still moving cans around. Her head cocked to one side suddenly, and she grabbed a can that looked just like the others.
“What?” Lilly asked, intrigued.
Aria pulled the can out, testing its weight in her hand. “There’s something off about this one,” she said, and ran her hands along the side. She grinned, and with a flourish she twisted the top and bottom of the can in opposite directions, pulling them apart in two pieces. The top was sealed off, and had some sort of liquid in it to mimic a full can. The bottom half was hollow, and nestled inside was a bright green USB drive.
“How on Earth did you figure that one out?” Lilly asked, scooping up the drive and putting it in her pocket.”
“I told you,” Aria grinned. “He’s not that original. I’ve seen this before.”
“Where?”
Aria laughed. “You know those escape room games?”
“No.”
“Yup. I’ve seen that trick in a few of them.”
Lilly shook her head. “Well, this job is lucky you are such a dork. Watch it!” Lilly yelped as Aria took a playful swing at her.
Aria glanced at the body still leaking on the floor. “We should call someone about this, right?”
Lilly huffed, then picked up the phone, dialing three numbers. She waited, and then squeaked when someone picked up on the other line.
“Oh my goodness, please help! Someone’s been really hurt here! I think he’s dead. You gotta send someone, fast!” She hung up, and dropped the phone next to the body.
“All right, let’s get outta here. The response time in this neighborhood is faster than you’d think.”
They skirted the body on the floor, careful not to track any blood behind them. The descended the stairs quietly, so as to not draw attention to themselves. Once they were out of the building, they walked calmly up the street. No one would suspect where they had just been, or that they had been doing something which was mostly illegal.
“How pissed do you think the person who killed him is, not being able to find the drive?” Lilly asked.
Aria grimaced. “That’s why I wait to have you step in. Sometimes people are smarter than we give them credit for.” They kept walking, even as police cars flew by them, sirens wailing. It wasn’t their concern anymore. They got what they needed, and knew trouble was unlikely to follow them.
–
“Next time you get to be the dead body,” Erik groaned as his sister lifted him off the carpet.
“Quit whining. They called the cops, so we have to move,” Katrina said, grunting. “And quit eating so many burgers. You weigh a ton.”
“They found the fake flash drive, right?” Erik asked. He was still slightly groggy from the drug they had used to fake his death.
“Yes, yes, they found the flash drive. Phase two is ready to go. Hurry up, we need to get out of here,” his sister hissed, and they stumbled from the office, down the back stairs, and away from the sirens bearing down on them.
Inspired by a writing prompt from The Character Comma’s prompt generator.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020