Third Death's A Charm

Joel's body was lying on the bed.

Dead.

"Not another dead body," Marcus cried out.

"Quick! Close the door," Luis told Marcus.

Their horrified faces moved closer to the dead man on the bed. His eyes were still open, void of any life in them. They seemed like they were staring beyond the roof as if the dead man would suddenly wake up any time and strangle the both of them. There was a bullet hole on his skull, above and in-between his eyebrows. Their eyes extended to his hands when they realised that he was holding a gun, still firmly held in his hands.

"Did this man just... kill himself?" Luis asked, unable to take his eyes off the body.

Marcus kept quiet for a moment. He sighed to himself.

"No, he didn't," he replied, suddenly wearing a serious face. He suddenly didn't like how this game was playing out; it was turning out to be a dangerous one.

"What do you mean he did not? The evidence is literally screaming in bloody hands!" Luis shrieked.

Marcus rolled his eyes.

"Shape your hand into a gun," he ordered Luis.

"What?"

"Just do it."

Luis folded his hands into a gun.

"Now, place it on your forehead."

Luis obeyed.

"Now, tell me if you can shoot yourself with your hand in that position?"

"Ooooh!"

Marcus was correct. The angle at which the hand was bent didn't provide enough room for a finger to pull a trigger. Luis stared in awe at Marcus.

"How did you figure it out?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Quite weird actually. I just asked myself why he would shoot himself at the front of his head?" Marcus answered.

"So what does this mean?"

Marcus didn't like what he was about to say.

"It means that this man didn't kill himself. Either he had someone shoot him, or worse, he was shot by someone."

"But who would want to kill him?" Luis was full of questions. He took his eyes away from the dead person, nausea hitting him hard.

"Someone who knew he was after the necklace. Someone who knew that maybe he was so close to finding it, and maybe he or they were afraid that he could get to it first," Marcus tone was low and threatening. He was confused, countless questions in his mind too.

"Marcus, we should not be here. What if that murderer called the police?" Luis' voice went to a frightened whisper, "What if the killer is still here?"

Marcus' eyes shot up as he scanned the room hurriedly. "You might be right. Perhaps we did a wrong thing coming here. But we are already here so I don't think there's any use trying to leave; we'll have come here for nothing."

Marcus extended his long sleeve t-shirt to cover his palms.

"Quick, we need to find something that will give us a clue about where the progress he had made concerning the Dragon Pearl. You start checking the table, I'll check the wardrobe."

Luis agreed and also covered his palm with his shirt sleeves. They both went out to their agreed places and started checking things out.

Marcus had not even reached the wardrobe when Luis' shriek got him turning back fast.

"Dude, what don't you understand about silence?" he asked him, but he got concerned as soon as he saw Luis' eyes staring in horror at a piece of paper on the table. He crept up to him and saw what Luis was staring at—an old picture. It was showing the outside of an old house. There were three people standing in front of it; two girls and a boy, presumably the boys' ages.

"Why are you shrieking about a picture?" he found himself asking.

Luis pointed to the girl in the picture, His face still staring at it in horror.

"That... that girl... is my... my Abuelita," his voice was no more than a whisper.

"Wait. You mean your grandmother?" Marcus was shocked.

"Yes. But I don't get it. What role does she have in this?" Luis was now scared.

"Seems like this paper has the answer to that question," Marcus answered, picking up a paper from the table.

Nothing could describe the fright in their faces as soon as they saw what was written in that paper. The two girls were circled, and above the circles were words; words enough to make the two boys almost drop in shock.

Luis' grandmother had the following words:

KEY TO FINDING THE DRAGON PEARL

That was the least shocking one. The other girl had the following words above her circle:

MACARENA: DAUGHTER OF THE EXPIRAVIT OF MIDDLEWOOD. LIVED IN 'REFUGIO SEGURO'

"What in the actual fuck is Refugio Seguro?" Marcus exclaimed.

"It's Spanish for Safe Haven," Luis replied, his tone soft and scared.

"What does a haven have to do with any of this?" Marcus was still bewildered.

"Our ranch wasn't always a ranch," Luis revealed. "Before that it was a boarding house, and I think that this... this woman used to live there."

"Your ranch was a boarding house?"

"Yes, it was. But it got shut down. Abuelita says that they weren't making any profit at that time. Although I don't know why this man thinks that she is the key to finding the Dragon Pearl," Luis responded.

"Maybe she was good friends with this Macarena woman," Marcus suggested.

"I don't know, but it seems to me that we need to go and talk to her," Luis spoke.

"So, do you need us to come or can you handle it by yourself?" Marcus questioned.

"No, I need all of you to be there. She won't believe me if I'm alone. Besides, I think I may need Jeff's help in talking to her,"

"Oh! I see you've met Jeff's superpower," Marcus remarked, his face still on those words.

They continued staring at the picture, each one with his own thoughts. Marcus looked back at the dead man on the bed.

"I still don't understand one thing. If someone had killed him because of the Dragon Pearl. Why would they want to leave such kind of information in the open?"

"Yeah, that's strange," Luis replied.

"Strange indeed."

Something was still bugging Marcus about the whole dead man situation. He looked at the corpse, its open eyes still staring at the ceiling. His mind was telling him that there was something which they hadn't figured out yet; something that was still in that room. His eyes riveted back to the wardrobe. A certain curiosity was sparked in him and he proceeded to open it. He scanned the inside of the wardrobe, upset that only clothes were inside. However, his attention was soon diverted to one particular detail.

"You have got to be kidding me!" he cried out. Luis rushed to him, wondering if there was another body secretly stashed in the wardrobe.

"What is it?" he asked him, looking at the few piles of clothes hanged, asking himself whether Marcus was exclaiming due to the bad smell the clothes were emitting.

"These clothes. They don't look like they were made to be worn by that size of a man," Marcus pointed to the man on the bed.

Luis' face lit up in shock as realisation dawned on him. The clothes in that wardrobe were definitely not the size of the dead obese man, they looked like they would fit a normal average skinny man. Luis stared in horror at Marcus.

"Please don't tell me that you're thinking what I'm thinking."

Marcus looked back at him; the shock photocopied on his face too.

"I'm afraid that we may be thinking of the same thing."

He stared at the body.

"The man on that bed is definitely not Joel."