Project “30” [Beta 2.0] (Mature / Closed)

The employee gave a shocked expression before he nodded and went to sit with Iris for a bit. “Well… I don’t know what else I can tell you. There’s not much else I know about the man… well— I remember him talking on the phone about his family business slowly descending to bankruptcy and all that, but I’m not sure…”

With a gentle nod, Iris made a note of that in her phone. She promptly got up and found a napkin and pen, taking it back to the table where she neatly wrote down her number. “Please, if you hear or see anything don’t hesitate to drop me a message or call. Doesn’t matter what time of day, I’ll answer.”

With that, she picked up the suitcase and bag and made her way to the door, looking back over her shoulder with a small smile. “You shouldn’t have had to find out this way, I do apologise.” She left the building and made her way down the street, taking out her phone with a sigh. “Right, what do you know about his family’s company?”

After a moment of silence from Aki, an email came with a voicemail again. There was also a picture attached. It seemed to be the picture of an anvil and other smithing tools.

“He’s the CEO of a really great cutlery and kitchen equipment company. However, something even I don’t know, happened within the family and three days later, this Connor disappeared without a trace. If I were to guess, I would think someone from his own family killed him but I’m not sure myself,”

“Well whatever the reason, he’s missing. That’s all that seems to matter at the moment as far as the talk of Connor Lewis is concerned.” Iris glanced down at the closed suitcase and sighed. “I need to know the rest of the digits, I don’t think the number ‘5’ is enough.”

It was like Aki knew what she was about to say, as given by the location that came attached to a new mail sent to her. Another voicemail, too, was attached to it.
“The next two numbers are at his old workshop. The location is attached. I’ve already organized everything for you, you just have to piece it all together,”

Taking a deep breath, Iris made her way to the given location. It was on the other side of town, which was at least a half hour walk, but since no one bothered her on the walk there it was actually rather enjoyable. Walls were always enjoyable when she was by herself.

Iris arrived at the workshop, checking on her phone’s map to make sure it was definitely the right place. Thankfully it was. “So do I just walk in or do I have to knock…?”

“No one is in there. Just walk in. All the cameras are dead and even if they weren’t, the dust would’ve covered their lens anyways,” he said in a new voice message with a rather confident tone.

As Iris would walk inside, she would find the workshop in extreme disarray. Most of the things in the place were dusted and some of the metallic equipment even started to take on a rusty exterior. On the other end of the workshop, covered with a surprisingly clear cloth, was a painting of Hephaestus, the God of Blacksmithing. On the painting frame seemed to have been a red envelope, sealed with a withered golden wax seal.

After entering the building, she quickly covered her nose and mouth with the collar of her t-shirt. The dust was so thick that it would probably disintegrate her lungs if she breathed it in. She looked around the workshop, trying not to disturb the settled dust too much, and made her way towards the painting.
“Hephaestus?” Iris spoke softly to herself. “You never did make that connection with him. No, you didn’t. You can not work with all the gods you choose, after all, it is the god that chooses you. You had to find out the hard way and I have to admit it was pretty funny.” There was a moment of silence as Iris realised she was talking to herself, then she sighed and picked up the red envelope, looking at the contents.

Inside the red envelope, packed densely were letters regarding the business. Whether they be letters from commercial banks about claiming taxes and interests, several organizations writing out about him owing them thousands in debt, and so on. The last letter in the envelope was a…

”Hey, if you’re seeing this, I did it.
I reached the other side of town safely. About our business, let’s leave it in shambles. We all know it was coming. Everyone knew. Except me. I know that I’ve done something wrong since I killed that kid a month ago. You remember, right? The thirteen year old who knew about our drug trades. Yeah, his parents are still trying to find me. Thank the gods I didn’t leave anything for them to find. Anyways, I’ll meet you here soon mate.
Good luck.

Lewis, Connor”

The woman read and reread the letter before taking all of the documents with her as she left the workshop. “Aki, we’re going on a trip back to where we started. I swear this guy needs to stop moving around so much.” She turned back to look at the workshop, hoping there was nothing else she needed to find in there. “He killed a kid, why doesn’t that surprise me anymore?”

Soon, another message came.
“Of course, we didn’t come here for nothing though. You did ask about more numbers after all and I did say you’d get two here,” the voicemail gave with a small laugh by the man before he started talking again.
“Anyways, by the other side of the town, it’s not too far away. You’ve been quite close to where he is as well,” that was where the file ended.
With the voice file was another location, somewhere really close to the market Iris had gotten Gavin’s shirt from.

“You’re really making me do a lot of exercise today, aren’t you?” Iris groaned, glancing at her phone as she received a warning notification. “Twenty percent, well let’s see if we can make that last.” She started making her way back towards where she had obtained Gavin’s shirt, her breathing rather heavy as she was pushing herself to walk quickly. The location she was looking for was somewhere nearby, but nothing really stood out and screamed ‘Connor is here!’.

It was a long moment, but eventually, an email came.
“Sometimes things just aren’t in your favor. What you are looking for could be in a form you don’t expect it to be in. Like life, some things can seem predictable, but come as a surprise… there is a warehouse not too far away from here, that’s a good starting point,”

With an exasperated groan, Iris made her way to the warehouse. It wasn’t the most pleasant of locations by any means, and the dirt and dust made her more than a little nauseous, but with a firm expression in her eyes she continued and slipped into the warehouse with her back against the walls. “If he’s not in here,” she whispered, “I am not going to be pleased.”

As Iris would make her way into the warehouse, the silence of the place would’ve sent her all the wrong signs and plus all the red flags. It was eerily silent. As she would continue making her way into the warehouse, though, she would come across who she was looking for. Connor, lying on the floor, his throat slit open and his face pale. The blood beside him was already dry, as if it had been untouched since the man had gotten here. In his right hand was his phone, in his left was what looked like a small bag of white powder.

Iris’ face paled and she looked like she was about to throw up as she dropped her belongings and covered her mouth— hopefully there was nothing fragile in the suitcase. Cautiously, she made her way over to the corpse and knelt down, reaching out with one shaking hand to close Connor’s eyes. “This is just typical…” she whispered, frowning sadly. “Just when I thought this was going to be easy.”
Raise him, raise his corpse.

The woman simply stared at Connor before taking his phone and the bag, slipping them both into her pocket. “Raise the corpse, I can do that?”
An image flashed in front of her eyes of a bloody field full of corpses that moved, seemingly under someone’s control. “No, I can’t do that… I don’t have that kind of power.”
You have all the power you could ever want— if you can think it, you have it.
“Stop it.”

When Iris started seeing those images, Aki seemed to know that Iris was in a bit of a fearful state. He ran into the warehouse and immediately knelt down to hug her gently from behind. “Shh… shh… Calm down precious, it’ll be alright…” he spoke with a whispered and calm tone. He looked at the corpse for a moment before breathing out. He was clearly as surprised as Iris was, but he remained calmer, perhaps it was because he’d seen much worse.

“Why do I have it in my head that I can raise the dead?” She mumbled, her eyes wide as she continued staring at the corpse. “It’s probably just my imagination running off again, yeah that’s it.” Iris curled into Ali’s embrace, not taking her eyes off Connor for even a second. Who had killed him, and why? “Aki… Aki let me inspect his body, please?”

The man thought for a moment before nodding. “Go on, I’ll be here, waiting,” he spoke as he slowly let go of her body, allowing her to take a closer look at the corpse. He stood back, watching her work.

Taking a deep breath, Iris leaned in to inspect the wounded throat. “8 inches, clean cut, definitely a knife. Similar blade style to those of Sakai Takayuki, oh that’s a very clean finish.” Iris smiled and leaned back. “Killed by his own craftsmanship, how typical. Only question now, is who and why?”

Aki smiled under his mask, seeing her and how she had been able to guess the kind of knife correctly just by looking at the cut and how clean it was. He looked at her for a moment before stepping backwards a bit. “The warehouse is pretty big, and there are boxes around. Maybe try searching those for clues and whatnot,”

“Will you help me?” Iris looked at him, hopeful that he would agree. “You’re the one who got me in this mess after all, it would be rude not to help me with the physical stuff sometimes.”

The man eyed her for a moment before sighing. “Alright, I’ll help you,” he spoke, with a gentle laugh under his mask as he now started to walk around the warehouse, looking inside the boxes and containers in case he found something worth mentioning. Eventually, he did. With his gloved hand, his fingerprints wouldn’t be present on the knife he had brought back to Iris. One, which had blood on it. “This might’ve been the weapon,” he spoke.

“It would seem likely.” She agreed, looking up from the box she had been searching. “Seems a bit silly for the murderer to leave the weapon where it would be found though, doesn’t it? It’s like they want to be caught.” Iris fell silent for a moment before frowning. “There are three other parties involved here: Connor’s family, the person he had written the letter to, and the family of the child Connor killed. All of them are suspects.”

“That would be correct. Though interrogating all of them would be downright impossible to do as we don’t even know who would have an actual motive to kill him… that is unless a motive is not needed and that the person killed him because they could,” with a gentle sigh, he shook his head. “That is just speculation though. If we want to start interrogation, we should start with the person he wrote the letter too. He seemed to know the most about this man,”

“That would make the addressee…” she snapped her fingers as a light flicked on in her head. “The old guy he worked with at the school, Arledge something-or-other.”

The man smiled before shaking his head. “The addressee could and could not be him. It depends. I found that Arledge had helped Connor in his family business but it was never confirmed what position he played. If we can figure that out, we might have things to start to work with. Oh and… you asked earlier for numbers…” the man took the suitcase and put in two numbers; ‘1’ and ‘3’ in that order from left to right, leaving thousands place. “Thirteen was the age of the murdered child… though we don’t know whose child it is,” he smiled up at Iris, laughing behind his mask. “What I just said was a hint, by the way. Now, shall we go question this Mr. Arledge?”

“Either this is the most cliché thing that’s ever happened, or the child was a descendant of Arledge and he killed Connor.” Iris rolled her eyes, picking up her belongings with a frown. “This headache won’t go away. We are going to interview Arledge, and when it turns out that he was Connor’s advisor or secretary whatever, but he also turns out to be related to the murdered child and made his act of vengeance— I am totally gonna say that I told you so.”

The man looked at Iris for a moment before pulling her back. “Then stay here,” he reached into his coat and got out a neatly folded sheet of paper which had information about the child who had been killed. The name of the child, James Esmond, had the same family as the other teacher at school. The fact that Aki had that sheet of paper to his disposal all this time, but never pulled it out had to have signified something. This project had something more to it than just this real-life investigating series. Or at least, it had some sort of deeper meaning.
“You didn’t want to walk too much, didn’t you?”

Iris stared at the piece of paper before looking up with a scowl. “First of all, I told you so. Secondly, you mean to say that you have had this on you the entire time yet you allowed me to speculate? Why didn’t you just tell me, what’s the purpose of all this?”
Her voice rang out for a while, fazing into nothing more than a high-pitched flat note that caused her to wince. “Aki what’s going on?”