Chapter 10

Before I could jump to a conclusion, a strong calloused hand pulled me backwards roughly.

"Wha—" I was cut off when Officer Hussein's face came into my line of sight. "What are you doing?"

The officer didn't say anything. He just kept dragging me by the arm further toward the exit, at the very back of the station. I was very wary of the weapon attached to the holster against his hip.

When the door opened, I was greeted by the bright afternoon light. Nobody seemed to notice us and it looked like he was trying to pull me deeper into the woods. I was very curious and alarmed at the same time.

"Officer, where are you taking me?"

Obviously, he was way stronger than me. But he was an officer, I can't just attack him; or could I? If a police were dragging you into the forest for an unknown reason, of course it would ring alarm bells in a rational person's mind!

Once we reached a secluded area hidden in a copse of trees, we stopped. I quickly pulled my arm from his tight grasp. I found his handprints had left a mark on my bicep in a pinkish red color.

"You hurt me," I murmured, rubbing my arm to ease the pain. He had a condescending air about him which made me realize that he had intended to cause me pain.

Officer Hussein crossed his impressive forearms over his bulging chest. "Detective Milady Sinclair," he announced, freezing me in place.

"I'd recognize you anywhere in an instant."

This is not good.

"You know who I am then." I shrugged as if that hadn't fazed me at all. "Well, I am famous in the criminal investigation department. So, why have you brought me here?"

"I just wanted to make sure I was right." His eyes travelled up and down my body as if to scan every bit of physiological detail. "I didn't expect the prodigious detective Sinclair to look like this."

My brows knitted together in an instant. "I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"You're a beauty, that's what I meant."

"I'll have you know that flaterry has no effect on me."

He shook his head, a smirk gracing his lips. "What I meant is that you will attract a lot of attention. In fact, you already have. A dead body just can't be ignored even by Sylvan's crooked police force. Instead of helping, you'll get in the way of the investigation and you shouldn't be hanging around with O'Neil. He's bound to get into trouble because of you."

"I see. You are just like most officers I've worked with." I gave him a hard look, letting him know I wouldn't back down.

Officer Hussein chortled. "You're adorable, little girl. Just go home."

I was sick and tired of hearing this line over and over again. "I know you don't like me officer." I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

"You think I'm just an amateur detective wannabe who doesn't have anything else better to do than stick my nose out with police business. You made that clear enough." He scoffed at me, but he didn't reply, so I added, "But you need me."

"Do we?" He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Tell me Sinclair, what makes you better than us?"

"I never said I was better." I shrugged. "You're not exactly clandestine; shoving your shiny badges left and right to everyone. Of course, they'd be wary of the likes of you. But with me, who blends into the crowd, they open up so easily. So let me do my thing while you do yours."

Officer Hussein shook his head in dismay and murmured something about stubborn damsels. "It's clear to me that you won't be leaving anytime. Though, I'll give you a word of advice; stay clear of the vice-mayor."

"Why?" I spoke through gritted teeth.

"Mr. Olive has a thing for blondes," Hussein said.

My eyes narrowed at that, but he then turned around to leave. I watched as he walked away from me surefootedly, noting how suspicious his statement sounded. When he disappeared from view, I suddenly heard rustling from behind, causing my head to whip toward its direction.

"Who's there?"

Has someone eavesdropped on our conversation?

My heart thudded loudly in my ears. I waited for a few minutes to pass until... something emerged from the trees.

The thing jumped from the bushes to my right, making me jump as my hand flew to the holster of my gun. It was just a rabbit. I exhaled audibly.

I really ought to be more careful next time.

Quickly, I follow the same path we came from and mentally organized everything I had to do.

As I did so, I couldn't brush away the odd feeling of being watched.

*****

Detective Michael confirmed that it wasn't Samantha's body. So, he went to speak with Mr. Olive in the meantime so as to have a grip on a lead or possibly a hard evidence. Mr. Olive, though a high-ranking town official, was still bound by the law. Mr. Olive is a suspect and therefore required to respond accordingly to the bindings of the law.

While the phone was being sent to a good tech savvy whom he could trust, I was being sent back to the hotel room like a teenage girl with curfew. He said I needed to rest and stay out of the radar for a while.

But he did ask me to gather some information about Mr. Olive's relationship with Samantha.

The elevator music was playing in the background as I typed back a response.

Sent!

On cue, the elevator pinged open from the ground floor to the first. It was a pretty short trip. My room was the third door to the left. The key jingled in my hand as I unlocked it, and just as I was closing the door, I found myself stepping on a folded piece of white paper, lying there on top of my rag.

Confused, I locked the door and stooped down to get it. There were the initials V.A. at the front part, written by hand in black ink.

So, it's a letter from some V.A. dude addressed to me. Must have slipped this under the door. I placed my messenger bag on top of the table and unfolded the paper to reveal its content.

Leave this town or die!

That's it?

Taking a comfy seat, I flipped the piece of paper back to back, wondering if there was more.

Maybe VA used some invisible ink to hide the rest of the message?

I sniffed on the paper, looking for any scent of lemon, coke or the familiar scent of invisible ink compound. Nope. No traces of invisible ink. But this was still good evidence.

I am still yet to deduce any amount of evidence I could extract from this single letter. V.A. should make more of these, so that I can have him arrested sooner.

I took out my magnifying glass from the bag and inspected the paper for any fingerprints. It was clean though. There were traces of dirt, but that could have been from my shoes since I had stepped on it earlier. Unfortunately, I found no fingerprints anywhere.

The penmanship was nice and legible, but upon closer inspection, I could see the lines zigzagging. The sender must have written the letter on an uneven surface— probably, he had not planned threatening me, but most likely came up with it as a sudden idea.

Because of Mr. X, I studied graphology as much as I could. It is the process of analyzing handwriting and is classed as pseudoscientific because there were debates about how accurate it can be at determining psychological and even physical attributes. It wasn't 100 percent accurate, but that's what investigations are all about— to find facts over theories, determine truths over lies.

Since I couldn't see any visible prints, I snatched my invisible inked bullpen. Turning off the lamp beside me, I flashed its UV light all over the paper, back-to-back. Still nothing. I flipped the switch back on and dropped the pen on the table, holding the paper with both hands.

According to the graphic, the size of someone's handwriting can determine the type of personality they have. Outgoing people who love attention have larger handwriting. But this was a threatening letter, the sender could have written the letters largely to emphasize his message.

The words are totally jammed together, which suggests that he or she might be intrusive or have the tendency to crowd people. He or she has a very heavy pen pressure which suggests a lot of tension and anger while writing this.

The words were written in narrow loops which suggests a person who tend to be skeptical of others. The letter 'o' with a loop or hole at the top of the letter; it means he or she is talkative and sociable.

All-in-all, according to my graphology analysis, the sender is supposedly someone who loves attention and is very sociable with an intrusive personality and high trust issues.

I sighed, reevaluating all the events that happened in the past two days. All of this seemed to lead to the vice-mayor and the Sylvan police officers, which reminds me, I haven't even met the sheriff and Mr. Olive.

I looked back at the door to my room, thinking how just a few minutes or maybe hours ago, there had been someone who slipped this letter under my doorstep.

Placing the letter inside my drawer, I stood up and placed my hands on my hips, looking for that thing I was looking for.

Hmm... I think I saw some ventilation shafts in here.

Aha!

The security room was on the ground floor just below my room in the first floor. I picked up one of Mr. Xs gifts for me— it was one of those flute-shaped thingamajigs used by ninjas with poison darts in them; only my darts weren't exactly poisoned but laced with potent sleeping drugs.

I tied my hair into a high ponytail, tucked my dart weapon inside my pocket and snuck through the ventilator shaft. I had a pretty good memory, mind you. So, the interior algorithms of the hotel hadn't made it that much challenging to locate the said room. I reached the reception area and paused, looking through the holes.

From above, I got a good view as the receptionist logged herself in to a dating app, biting her lip in an attempt to hold in her excitement as a new guy loved her photo.

I shook my head. I knew victims in the past who died because of using these dating apps; meeting some random guy you don't know, could seriously result to dire consequences.

I moved on, using my forearms to crawl toward the right passage. I thought I heard that mundane elevator music in the background that I found was quite pestering.

There were dust particles I could see in the dim lighting inside the shaft. I forgot to wear a mask. I just hoped I wouldn't sneeze on the way though. I crawled further on all fours until I reached another air filter.

Through the small gaps, I could see two security guards on their swiveling chairs. One of them was already dozing in and out of sleep from the borish daily routine of watching unsuspecting people through the security cameras. The other man, meanwhile, was eating a cheeseburger, his well-stacked belly protruding.

Slowly and quietly, I removed the lid, discarding it to the side. I took out Mr. Xs birthday gift and aimed.

I shot the eating guard first and the dozing one was next. The shooting darts immediately took their effect, injecting their bloodstream with potent sleeping drugs. What they felt was just a mosquito bite knocked them out like a light.

Perfect!

I made my way down stealthily, swinging to a backflip and releasing my grip to land swiftly on the ground. Moving quickly, I locked the door first to ensure no one would step in while I was here, before heading back to the screens.

Whew. It's just like watching tv in my living room; only everything's in real time.

Security Video F1 A and B had a perfect visual on my door to room 6. I put the video on rewind, keeping my eyes on the screen to the moment I stepped out of the room at 7:30 a.m.

At around 9, I paused the video. There was a lanky man garbed in baggy clothes too big for his size. His back was turned to the camera after getting out of the elevator. He looked like a garbage collector rather than a hotel guest.

In slow motion, I played the video again and saw him glancing around before slipping a piece of white paper under my door.

I played it again on close up and noticed he had worn a gardening glove on. The dirt must have come from his gloves.

When he turned his head to the side, I instantly punched on the pause button to memorise his profile.

Hmm... I don't think I've seen him before. So, what's his motive?

As I contemplated this, the guard to my right snored noisily, startling me. I shot him a look even though he wasn't conscious of what was happening around him.

I made one last look into the security videos to see where the man had gone to after he delivered the letter. He didn't go back to the elevator as I had assumed he would. Instead, he went to take the stairs.

Quickly, I tried to find him through the cameras from the ground floor but found no sign of him. I fast-forwarded it, but still nothing. I tried looking for him from the second and last floor up in case he chose to make some detour.

There was nothing else. It's like he just disappeared. I did a double check in case I missed something else but to no avail.

Frowning, I made sure to clear my logs and set everything back to present time. I pulled out the darts from the two guards' necks before evacuating.

It was really hard work to get back the way I came. You'd think that being detective was all cool stuff-shooting guns, cracking codes and solving mysteries in a leather chair with your chin propped up on one hand.

Nope. At least not all the time.

I returned to my room and took a bath to remove all the dust I've collected from my little adventure in the rabbit hole. As I got out of the shower, I felt my stomach growl the same moment my phone pinged from the bed.

I was suddenly reminded that it was way past lunchtime and I had forgotten to fill my stomach due to the successive turn of events.

At 5 am, I had chased a strange man in a mask and hoodie. At around 9 am, I found a dead body near decay. At around a quarter after 2 pm, I received a threatening letter from a man whom I don't even know.

Which reminds me...

I read Detective Michael's message.

He gave me the witness' name and asked me to find the woman, saying that he was currently taking care of Mr. Olive, trying to gather intelligence and proof despite all the hindrances.

I quickly replied, updating him with all the recent occurences I had forgotten to tell him about.

Mikee replied then.