Adventure in the World of Crimes

3.18 Murdered

"He's... murdered?" Martin asked, so shocked that it made him stepped backward. "How... who..."

"Go find something, there must be anything that could lead us to who did this that might be the mafia." Reign hastily said, going down the bed to look under, there was nothing there.

"But, I think we should follow them. They'll be mysterious about our disappearance." He hesitantly said, scratching his head as he looked over the door and saw no one else in the living room.

Reign stood up, still looking around, not paying attention to whatever the man was saying. When she got into something interesting, she tended to neglect everything around her and focused on that thing alone. So, upon the lack of response, Martin just shook his head as he tore his stares away from the persistent woman and started roaming his eyes around the room as he was told to.

His eyes darted at the back of the wooden door, there was something white peeking from the lower part of it, so he walked towards it and pulled it to a close. Reign also watched him closed the door, and as it traveled towards the frame, it had their eyes followed its move until the closing of the door made a loud, almost deafening slam, allowing them to see the entire back of it which certainly raised their hairs everywhere.

It was indeed worthy of the goosebumps.

"F-Flora..." He called, moving backward as his eyes fixed on the things on the door.

"I can see it." She muttered lowly, walking beside the man who picked one of the polaroids. "I knew it ever since something was wrong."

The mafia's typical signature of capturing the people he killed through a bunch of polaroids was there, pasted on the back of the door instead of surrounding the victim's body to probably mislead the people which he almost succeeded if not for Reign's intuition. She looked at the polaroid Martin was holding, it was the old man, face not shown on the camera as it was covered by the white pillow, it was seen there that the man was still clutching the side of the pillow, the part where she found there were creases, and obviously indicated that the old man was trying to free himself.

"One soulless criminal." She mumbled with every emphasis in every word through gritted teeth.

She didn't know why there were people who found pleasure in killing innocent people and to think that those people had a bright future waiting for them and even would receive their first recognition the day after only to cut off their lives, their dreams, their happiness, their future which all turned into pitch black as whoever this mafia was and whatever his reasons were, were not enough to justify his actions of killing these people.

"These are new, Flora. They are still developing." Martin said, pertaining to the polaroids which were still either black or still obscured that made it hard to see what the picture was about.

"Put them in your pocket and rub them through your hands. They need dark and warm surfaces to develop faster."

Martin took her advice and took the other polaroids with blurred pictures and put them inside both of his pockets and started rubbing his hands outside each of his legs eagerly which made Reign laugh slightly. They were both startled when a phone rang, it was not inside the bedroom but in the living room, by the chorus part of the song 'Hello' by Adele, it was her phone.

She immediately took it from her purse that she left on the single couch earlier and saw the manager's name registered on it.

"Flora, I didn't realize you're not with us. We'll arrange Mr. Koto's funeral, go home, and rest for the night, your schedule for tomorrow will be canceled, you'll be back on Monday."

"Is the driver here?" She asked, she couldn't dwell in her room at the hotel because Martin was with him, so either she would go with the driver or would go home with this man, yet again.

"Unfortunately, no. We used it to go here to the hospital. Just take the cab-"

"No, I'll make Martin send me home. No paparazzi or whatsoever with a camera outside, right?" The other line went silent for a while, but she could still hear her breathing, and her steps, followed by a door closing. "Manager?"

"Just take the cab, Flora. Don't hang-out with Martin anymore, do you understand?" She whispered with a low, mumbling voice as if she was hiding from someone and didn't want to be heard talking to anyone.

Her forehead creased, looking over the man they were talking about who was still rubbing his palm on his pants' pockets while walking towards the other side of the room, "Why? What's wrong?"

"I'll explain everything on Monday. For now, go home. Don't act weird towards him." She added and reminded,

"But I think you should call the police." She looked on her feet, "He didn't die of heart attack, he was murdered."

"W-what...?" The manager stuttered, her voice was back to her normal range as Reign dropped what they had just discovered, "He was what? What are you saying? Flora, stop behaving like you're some sort of an agent, this isn't a joke."

"I am not joking, Manager. The other side of the pillow was crumpled and wet with his saliva, the polaroids which were the mafia's signature when he kills his victims were hidden at the back of the door that's why you didn't notice! You should-"

A loud breaking sound of the glass simultaneous with the breaking of the bowl of soup and the ear-piercing sound of the stainless pitcher had stopped her from talking, she flinched as she looked at her back, she saw Martin looking down the broken glasses.

"Flora? What happened? Are you okay? I'll call the police."

"I'm fine, but yes, call the police." She ended the call and marched towards the man, her eyes squinted, and brows furrowed. "What happened? What did you do?"

"I'm sorry, I was fixing the bed and didn't remember that there are glasses on the table so my long limbs accidentally hit it and it happened." He explained quickly, about to pick up the broken pieces of the glass that made a mess on the floor but Reign was quick to stop his hand.

"Are you trying to wound yourself?" She asked in annoyance, "Let's just have the janitress clean it, let me see the pictures on your pocket before the police come."

She looked at the floor, a little disappointed as the glass would be one of her possible pieces of evidence. Jeremy said that he only waited for the soup, and the glass of water and pitcher might have been there already by the trace that someone had drunk on it when she looked through it by the light, and the possibility that the Mafia might hold the glass as there were traces of fingerprints was high, however, it was a bummer that it was broke.

"Here, look at it, this one was creepy."

She was pulled out by her train of thoughts when Martin talked, she tore her eyes away from the broken pieces on the floor to the four polaroids on his hand. She picked up the one on his left hand which the polaroid that caught her attention the most.

She scoffed and mumbled, "The audacity of this man to take a picture of himself."

It was a selfie picture of himself, he dared to take a selfie since his face was covered with a full black mask, he was also wearing a black shirt, and his eyes were not shown as he had his eyes closed.

"How'd you know that the mafia was a man?" Martin asked, staring straight at Reign's face as he asked and waited for her answer. "There was no lead if the mafia was a man or a woman, how'd you know?"

Reign froze for a moment, but then she feigned a confused look. "Wasn't it what most of the people think? I'm basing on what I was hearing, plus, look at this, this confirmed that a mafia is a man, he is buff."

Martin looked at the picture, he saw what Flora was talking about, it was obvious in there the huge chest built of the mafia. He slowly nodded, "You're pretty observant. Are you sure you're not an agent?"

"No. quit it." Reign rolled her eyes, she gathered the polaroids back and walked towards the door, "We should paste this back before the police arrive, I don't know where did this mafia get his tape."

"I think I have in my bag. We used it on our vlog earlier." Martin said, running towards his black backpack on the other couch and looked for his tape.

Reign busied herself with looking through the pictures again, she didn't know what this man's motive to murder, as far as she could comprehend, the rising stars awardee for the past few years all came to Mr. Koto's company, and he didn't know how had that happened when there was a lot of stars that were worth the nomination for the award.

Could it be possible that the people behind the award show had something to do with it?

"Here it is. I heard the police coming here so hurry." Martin said, tossing the tape to her which she immediately caught, and started attaching back the polaroids on the door.

Just in time that she closed the door of the room, the police arrived, with the janitress, Victoria, but that didn't make her surprised, Reign couldn't help her brow raised as she saw who were these police.

"Oh, it's you! The one in the coffee shop! How come you vanished without us noticing? Anyway, I commend-" The policeman who was good at observation too was cut off by the woman whom she remembered as the police detectiv before he even started another long admiration of what Reign had shown in the coffee shop.

"What happened here?"

"The owner of this hotel was murdered by which we think was the mafia. You see the room for yourself, we didn't hold much of things except for the soup and glass that were broken on the floor. We need to go."

The police just nodded at Martin's words, he pulled Reign out of the place and walked towards the elevator silently. But was stopped when a voice called them, or Reign specifically.

"Ma'am, isn't your room here beside this room?"