EPISODE FIFTEEN

' in reference to a murder novel '

MY PARENTS DIDN'T question my disappearance apart from a few cursory queries that felt as if they did realise the excuse was less about the job and more about doing a girls trip out of Little Hodge.

But I couldn't stay cooped up in the house, especially now that Estelle was too cold to go out and mingle with the townspeople - relating the most with housewives and new parents - and was bored enough to seek companionship with her stepdaughter.

Which would've been fine if my head wasn't so wrapped up with the case. And she's second to the last person I'd want to toggle back and forth with about dead bodies and getting kidnapped by a suspect in Brighton.

I stayed for that night I went home with my parents, then the very next morning I was off to a place of solace and nurturing.

"Well..." Elizabeth Bath took a sip of her warm tea, standing stiff and proper in the middle of her living room where Elizabeth Warren, her granddaughter and I have pushed back her coffee table full of books and mugs - pulled out a whiteboard from the back of her old chicken coup where it was now more storage for the overflow from her house - and was staring with her usual nonplussed expression at the murder board we've made from my stories and recollection.

Eliza, the granddaughter, had printed out photographs from the internet of most of the suspects - blurry photograph of the Moretti grandfather, but that was the best we could find - and have made a physical imitation of the mess of suspects, as well as the mess on Dominic's body, and the events of the past few days.

Elizabeth, the grandmother, then tilted her nose down where Eliza and I were both sitting, mostly just marveling at our work and was now thinking through what could happen after the small bit of free time we were given before the engagement party.

"I assume then, that at this engagement party of both these horrid people - " Elizabeth swung her finger between a photo of Aoi and Enzo, " - that you'll meet the last of the suspects. The grandfather, the engaged couple, and the doctor?"

I nodded. "Leon's sister assumes that since the day of the dinner, the Moretti family has pulled strings to tighten their forces, afraid of what was about to happen. She also configured that they'll soon realised that Leon and I have met up with most of the suspects now and will tighten their reins further, keeping the doctor within their grasp."

"If we're going with that, why not just kidnap the man entirely?" Eliza asked. She tilted her head up at the board again and shrugged. "Would be easier, don't you reckon?"

I shrugged. "Although that's dark, maybe they can't keep the man entirely out of the grid? Maybe they're afraid of who might notice his change of routine so they're just keeping a tight leash and eye on him? From what I got from Cordelia, they're still unsure of everything so they don't know how to proceed. It's just they're cautious."

Elizabeth hummed. It was well known that Elizabeth was a quiet person, though loud in how she moved in life, she kept mum on her lips and never make even an out of bounds sigh or squeak. If she made a noncommittal hum or grunt, it was more or less she was demanding to be noticed.

So Eliza and I turned our full attention to her. "Yes, Elizabeth?"

"Your victim. This Dominic Prince. If they knew that his death was going to result in the collapse of their small society, then why kill him?" Elizabeth shuffled closer to the board and traced each red thread we put around Dominic's picture, landing each finger to a suspect. "If you look at it like this - it certainly doesn't look like murder. This is a suicide of the cleverest intent. A self destruction with one trigger pointed to himself - then all the rest of his fingers pointed to each and everyone of these people. This was planned. Carefully. I doubt in just a year, but more. A revenge of the tallest order, made by a man who - if he's holding this much grudge and resentment, and he did, if his murder is this so cleverly intricate and detailed, pointing out to the fact that it's even planned to be linear - this man is psychologically pointed out to have grown an almost psychopathic one track mind of destroying each and everyone of these men and women."

Elizabeth leaned back, plucking the picture of Dominic whilst Eliza and I sat cross-legged and chilled in our skins.

"This man is cunning, callous, and was hurt so badly that in all the years he played as Dominic Prince - as you've so graciously put up here, isn't even his real name or profile - he was planning all of this. Waiting for his master play to come to fruition, where all his key players are put where they're all supposed to be, then killed himself for the curtains to open.

I can't see the ending to it, young miss Cain. And that itself tells us the pain he must've went through was bone deep and he held it, cradled it so close to his heart that he did nothing but nurture it."

Then she shrugged. "And I guess, he's also a magnificent storyteller. What a shame of such a brilliant yet disturbing man." She set the photo back, then picked up a few books from one of her human-sized piles towering all around the house. If you weren't careful, you'd find yourself underneath and unable to breathe, much less scream for help. "Best get the young Song here. I'm sure he'll like what you two have come up with. Though I would like to meet that sister of his. Sounds like a distractingly dangerous girl. I'll be upstairs writing my new book. Please keep yourselves quiet and entertained. Carry on."

- - -

So I did.

Leon frequented Elizabeth's house now since coming here for the first time, agape and marveled by the extremity of Elizabeth's own existence that seeped slowly and surely in her house. But this wasn't the usual visits. With the case hanging over his back, he looked worse for wear. Even his best, most charming smile looked strained.

After excusing his sister who had gone straight back to London after she dropped him off at his manor - and Elizabeth nodding along to her disappointment, then pointing at a random mug for tea and disappeared back into her office nook.

Now the three of us were scattered along the carpet with notes and fused up brains. More or less, we were just drinking tea and refusing to absorb the board in front of us.

When Eliza made a quip of missing Quinn Fong, one who could bring up the mood in a murder investigation, Leon sat straight and put his mug down.

"Speaking of Miss Quinn, have you got in contact with her since my sister recruited her?"

I shook my head. "I've tried a few times since yesterday. No answer at all."

Leon frowned. "Same with Mor and Jimmy. I've tried their offices too, but their people are being cagey about it. Said a top-secret work from some higher ups, which in my conclusion is Cordelia twisting people to give her permission to move them."

"So Cordelia has Dr. Hamel, James, and Quinn working for her?"

Eliza slid up beside me. "Cordelia's his sister, right?"

I nodded.

Leon sighed. "I don't know what she's up to. The best I could guess is that it's got something to do with this case."

"An odd group pairing, don't you think? A forensics doctor, a cop, and a video game developer."

"You can also look at it another way," Leon said, raising his fingers. "A man who knows the human body inside out, another who knows how to use a gun and understands and upholds the law by the skin of his teeth, and a woman who understands computers, algorithms, the works..."

"That makes it sound they're working on something important," Eliza pointed out. "Information, perhaps? Acquiring or leaking, though?"

"Acquiring for us or leaking for the enemy? Clues and evidence or red herrings?" I asked.

Leon shrugged, closing his eyes whilst he leaned his head back on the sofa. "Maybe. I'm too tired to think. I want to go on a long sleep."

"A long sleep is a coma," Eliza pointed out.

"That sounds magnificent."

I chuckled. Then I looked up at the board again, my eyes finding all the red thread leading up to one person. "Who do you really think Dominic is?" I asked quietly, more of rhetoric than anything else, but Leon opened his eyes and tilted his head back, fixing an intense stare to the smiling photograph of his best friend.

"He's a liar. That much is known. And he's selfish and cruel to put this all on me, to put me in this spot of picking apart his murder like it's a game and an interactive sort of art. He's manipulative. And a victim of a sort but..." Leon leaned forward, frowning at the board. "If they're all murderers he intended to kill him and this charade of his murder is about getting revenge... then all these people have one thing in common."

"Apart from the intent of killing him?" Eliza asked.

I nodded, slowly grasping. "Yes. It can't just be because he did something awful to them - it can't just be coincidence that among everyone in the world he's interacted with, most of those he's probably pissed off one point or another - he picked these seven people. Like what your grandmother said, it took him years, creating and cultivating this Dominic Prince persona, it can't just be to piss of some important people then to get killed by them in the end? Revenge. They did something to him. Something they can't remember or something they've already forgotten."

Leon stood up fully now. "Someone with blue blood - a man of importance and stature." Milo Cavendish.

 " -  A model softened by drugs and alcohol, who barely remembers most of things that have happened to her. One with a prominent and terrifying mother." Cassandra Bernault-Arjenios.

" - A woman who held a grudge against her own lover for killing her husband." Genevieve Rothschild.

 " - Then the doctor who is... the less of importance, whose family were killed because of Dom." Dr. Westley.

" - Another woman who is engaged to someone Dominic was adopted into, a woman who he said held the deepest grudge against him." Aoi Nakamura.

" - A cousin who hates him to bone because he's not really family, because he shadows him."  Lorenzo Moretti.

" - And a man who is an important and entirely shady figure, who Dominic sought out to be adopted by." Matteo Moretti.

I stood up to, seeing something. "Genevieve, Aoi, and Dr. Westley... Dominic pointed out that they wanted revenge against him. Milo because he knew his secret. Lorenzo because of a petty feud. And Matteo because he knew too much... But these three... they have deaths in them, not secrets."

Eliza pointed at Cassandra's photo. "What about the model?"

"She was... she..." I closed my eyes. Daisy. Innocence. I exhaled. "She's innocent. Dominic said so himself, to her. He drugged her. She knows something, something she perhaps can't remember anymore. Remember, Cassandra has memory lost from all the drugs and alcohol in her system... what if that was intentional?" I turned to Leon. "Was she always into these things?"

Leon closed his eyes, squirming to remember. "I don't... really notice her at all, but I don't think so. No. No. All my memories of Cassandra when she was younger was just... happy. Shy even. But she's blurry in my mind, the most I can remember is her mother. The few times I've been at parties and her family was around was Cassandra's mother. You can't think of Cassandra without thinking about her mother. She's a domineering woman, controlling... controlling everything Cassandra did." Leon opened his eyes in horror. "That can't be, can it? Mathilda Bernault... she's. She's always been the picture of perfection."

"If she was..." I echoed the thoughts in his head. "Why did she never fully stop Cassandra's addiction? A woman who's a public figure like that, with a daughter that's almost... susceptible to move, to carelessly take a drink and be kidnapped at a hotel room..." Cassandra who was easily swayed to drink, who was fenced with bodyguards when she entered the hotel but was left completely alone in the club...

"Are you telling me that this girl - " Eliza pointed at Cassandra's picture. " - was being drugged by her own mother? Being forced into memory loss with the excuse of her recreational addiction?"

"It's a terrifying theory," I admitted. "But Leon..."

Leon was gone, he was not in the same space as us anymore. He was staring at the pictures, the red lines, everything.

I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Leon."

He exhaled, closing his eyes again. "I feel like I'm so close... We need to talk to the doctor. Apart from Cassandra, he's the only one that doesn't seem right. There is a reason why Dominic was adopted into the Moretti clan, they're known arms dealers who do more shady business than they let on. If it's about their family, then it's about their business. He chose to be part of their family. Genevieve and Aoi... they're part of his past who have deep-seated grudges against him. Genevieve with her husband and Aoi with... something about herself."

"... who also found herself in the Moretti clan, being married to Lorenzo," I said. "Dominic said she's part of his past. What if it isn't just a past? What if they went through the same thing and followed their revenge by... joining the Moretti clan?"

Leon nodded. "That makes sense..."

Eliza crossed her arms, her mouth twitching with a notice that she was thoroughly enjoying our... brain-spasm. "Then about Dr. Westley? What's different about him?"

"He's not rich," Leon answered simply. "He's not an elite but the Morettis are keeping an eye on him? Just because he was there at the night of the murder? Dominic gave them all drugged tea, something to fuzzy up their memories of that night. So why would they need to keep an eye on the man? He feels just like Cassandra to me. Innocent in some way. Like they just... know something about him. About his connection to all of them."

"Well..." Eliza sighed, tugging her braid and musing up her disarray of red hair. "This all and well right now, but these are just theories at best. They're not conclusive."

"The engagement party is in two days." I turned to Leon who mirrored my grim expression. "We can do more there. For now, we were told to sit tight."

"Sit tight and relax," Leon corrected. Eliza snorted because this was certainly not relaxing. I could attest

It was still a tall hope. We have nothing but ideas, sketches and blurry memories. Every suspect is drugged, with the victim himself, hidden underneath a persona to extract revenge with his death.

To say this case was hurting my brain would be an underestimate.

A victim is important.

But if your victim is also the suspect?

And if he is, what would be his inherent motivation to extract this much vibrancy in a complicated murder?

- - -

NEXT

EPISODE SIXTEEN

MINGLING WITH DEVILS

- - -

So I brain-farted their brain-fart. Get it? I brain-farted this chapter of them brain-farting the case. It's like... beyond fourth wall breaking. We're sixth wall breaking.

If you don't get it, it's just them theory-diving since they're doing nothing. It's a good chapter for them to set back and think through all of it so far, with the re-entering of my favourite Elizabeths!

I love this trio too, surprisingly. If Quinn was here, this would be an interesting sleuthing group!