by Keya Jay
***
Skylar walked into the D.E.A.N Investigation Inc. main office where Ethan, Ava and Naveen sat at a big office desk.
She sat in the chair in front of them and waited for one of them to speak. Ethan spoke first which didn’t surprise her none, he was always the one who called the shots, even when her dad was here he was always in charge; she didn’t think it’d change now that he was gone.
“Ms. Royce,” he said as he folded his hands in front of him. Though Ethan was her uncle respect was everything to him, they were still partners and so he treated her like he would anyone else.
“We hadn’t had a case in over a week,” he continued. “Now it has come to my attention though that you’ve been hard at work lately.”
Skylar didn’t like where this was going, not one bit but she decided to say nothing until directly asked a question.
“What is it you’ve been working on?” he asked trying for casual conversation but there was nothing casual about him.
“What makes you think I’ve been working on anything?” she asked in return. Better safe than sorry right? If she talked first she could possibly be inserting a foot in her mouth, it’s better to let him do all the talking. She didn’t want to possibly reveal something that he knew nothing about.
“Well Ms. Royce, Mr. Henderson has been working on something, he tells us it is of no importance but it doesn’t seem to be that way. So I ask again what are you working on?”
“What makes you think it has to automatically be me?” she asked a bit hurt that he’d immediately single her out, though it was true…but that was beside the point.
“Skylar honey you can tell us.”
Now this was Ava speaking, the soft spoken one, the one that acted more like a friend rather than an Aunt or business partner.
Skylar huffed knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep it secret for long anyhow.
“There’s a man…or woman,” she was quick to fix.
Number one rule in investigating is to never single anyone out, never pay attention to gender or age ‘cause anyone can be capable of committing a crime.
“Targeting Whisperers,” she said softly so as not to freak them out, “and kidnapping and killing them. I can’t just ignore it I am one and so if I’m not careful I could be kidnapped or someone I love could be,” she said defensively before anyone had a chance to argue with her.
“Calm down,” Naveen said, speaking for the first time sense Skylar had come in.
Naveen has a kid and is married to a wonderful man; she was one of the ones against the whisperers—though she is one. She wanted to leave it behind for her son and husband because they’re not one. She just wanted to live a normal life. Skylar never got that though, if you’re not normal then why pretend for someone else?
“I don’t think this is our concern,” she continued.
“No it’s not your concern because you’re so hella bent on being “normal” I’m not normal and I’m not pretending to be. Whisperers are being kidnapped and killed and quite frankly it is my concern and it should be all of yours as well,” Skylar said looking at all of them as she spoke.
“So Ms. Royce what have you done up until now?” Ethan asked.
“Well I have been keeping an eye out, looking into the victims past to see if any of them happened to cross paths. I’ve also looked into Aaron Fields as well on a false belief,” she added to see if she’d get any reactions, and if the shocked-white expression on Ethan’s face was anything to go by she’d be safe to assume he knew Aaron.
“Umm…” Ethan stumbled dropping the casualty for a moment before getting himself together.
“Aaron Fields? Why him and who gave you this so called false belief?” he asked.
“Well you and I both now I can’t give you the name of the source but yes Aaron Fields is correct. For some odd reason he seemed to have known all of our victims.”
“Ok well it’s a start,” Ava said.
“Wait a minute we aren’t actually considering looking into this are we?” Naveen asked.
“Naveen I know how important your normalcy is to you, but a case is a case and from what Mr. Henderson has already told me this is a case that has been brought from the grave and it’s only right to correct the wrong are we at some kind of understanding here?” Ethan asked as he got to his feet.
“Wait, you’ve talked to Hank?” Skylar asked hoping he didn’t see the immediate jump in her pulse from fear.
“Yes we’ve discussed the case briefly I just wanted to know if you had anything to add. He left a bit quickly and so I wasn’t sure if he was finished or not with his forlorn tale.”
“Forlorn tale? Ethan you have got to be fuckin kidding me, there whisperers! I’m pretty damn sure if they wanted to be free they could achieve as such; they’re not normal remember? So why the hell do you continue to treat them as such!” Naveen argued.
“Naveen you act as though you’re not one of them, I know how much you wish you weren’t and all of the times you’ve invested in making sure you’re not seen as such but you have to realize you’ll always truly be one. You need to come to terms with that,” Ethan said as he rounded his desk.
“Now it has been brought to my attention as well that this case is a copycat. Damon, Skylar’s father and our beloved brother would like nothing more than for us to solve this case not for us but for him. Skylar did the right thing by feeling so strongly about it but I don’t agree with the fact that she has kept it from us and I will talk to her about that,” he said as he looked pointedly at her. “But now that we know what is going on we can contribute…all of us,” he added as he looked at Naveen. “We’re a team and we will work as such. Now if you all will excuse me I have other matters to attend to. Shall we start bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning,” he said as he exited the conference room.
“Thanks a lot Skylar, you can’t help but to open up your big fuckin mouth when your words aren’t needed. If you were so damn sure about the case then you should have had it solved by now,” Naveen threw over her shoulder at Skylar as she walked out.
“Don’t listen to her Sky, I actually think it’s a good thing you wanted to do this for your dad she may not see it that way but we all know,” Ava said as she took the seat beside her.
“I actually feel bad for Naveen; she’s changing for someone she might not spend the rest of her life with. She shouldn’t have to change for anyone but herself.”
“Yea but you have to understand Naveen never liked being a whisperer she was always weaker than the rest of us, but as a human she feels stronger than everyone else.”
Skylar wanted to laugh at the idiotic reason but this was Naveen they were talking about she was never truly capable of thinking for herself.
“And about that not spending the rest of her life with her now husband Jeff, I don’t want to spread rumors but she’s been seen spending quiet a lot of time with Mr. Henderson and I don’t think that’s someone she wants to get caught up in.”
Hank? Aw hell what was he doing now?
“Umm Ethan said Mr. Henderson had to go right?”
“Yea, he was in some kind of rush,” Ava said as she shook her head as though she couldn’t understand why.
“Ok well umm if you need me I’mma be in his office I just need to—”
“No need to explain I got you covered if he comes back early you’ll be the first to know,” she winked as she left the conference room.
Skylar grabbed the set of keys from off of the key rack and walked down the hall toward Hanks office. She looked around her to make sure she hadn’t been followed before slipping inside and locking the door behind herself. She knew though that it wouldn’t really matter whether the door was locked or not because Hank had a spare key; they all do so if someone wanted to get in they could, but she liked the sense of protection locking the door gave her.
Skylar went straight for the big desk that sat against the far wall. She sat
behind the desk and looked down at the four drawers that inconveniently had pad locks on them.
She huffed not knowing what to do; his desk was clean nothing sat on top, not an ounce of littered paper or anything of the sort. She ran her hand underneath the desk and her hand hit a piece of index card that seemed to have been taped to the underside of the desk.
Skylar carefully removed the card and peered down at the words or better yet numbers that were sprawled there. : 05A09L72F
“What does this even mean?” she asked herself as she tried to study every individual letter and number on the card. She looked around the room and then right in front of her, at the only thing that sat on top of the desk.
Skylar clicked on the computer monitor and sure enough it was password protected. She entered the code and wasn’t surprised that it had turned out to be the password. She placed the card underneath the desk where she had found it after taking a picture of it to save in her phone, never knowing when she’ll need it.
Skylar clicked through Hanks History and hadn’t found anything remotely interesting. She opened every document she came across and still found nothing of importance.
“What am I missing?” she asked herself as she leaned back in his computer chair and stared at the monitor. The fact that Hank has 6 jobs popped into her head. Skylar sat back up and went through the recorded files until she found Hanks.
It says here that Hank has been working here for 6 weeks.
Skylar scratched her head; there was something not right about this information. If Hank has only been working here for a month and a couple days then how did he know so much about her father? According to this documentation Hank didn’t even work for her father nor was it possible for Hank to know him as well as he claimed he had.
Skylar went through Hanks child birth History, they usually didn’t keep those kinds of files around so that anyone can just stumble upon them but seeing as though her father was good at what he did he taught her everything she needed to know which included developing personal information.
According to the document Hank’s family lived right here in Coconut Grove, a beach house not far from where she lived.
Skylar wrote down the address and the names of his parents—for safety measures of course—and scrolled down and almost chocked on the air she was trying to force down her wind pipes.
Apparently Hank has an obituary.