Author's Note: Mello turns 18 midway through the chapter.

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* * * December 12 * * *

Bambi groggily opened her eyes before furrowing her eyebrows and glancing around in a daze. She found herself sitting in a chair in a strange room,manila folders scattered around her. There was an empty pizza box on the floor and a warm pack of peas next to her. On her lap was a folder opened to pictures of a bloody crime scene.

"Oh, right... the Deneuve investigation," she mumbled as she rubbed her eyes.

With this recalled, the teen noted that her head had finally stopped hurting. She scanned the room more thoroughly before her eyes landed a familiar redhead sitting at a nearby desk with his laptop open.

Matt looked over to her with a grin as he playfully greeted, "Good morning, sleeping beauty."  

Bambi yawned. "What time is it?"

"About nine thirty," he told her. "You fell asleep when you were sifting through the photos, and I figured I would let you sleep."

The brunette blinked owlishly in disbelief. That's past noon back in DC! How could I have slept so late? That's the total opposite of how my jet lag should be.

She shook her concerns off before looking around the room in search of the temperamental blond, brows furrowed together when she saw no one else.

Matt pointed to the bedroom door. "Mello's sleeping too, but on the bed." He closed his laptop and walked toward the kitchen as he added, "Anyway, we should probably get some breakfast."

Bambi stretched her arms over her head. "Food sounds good."

As she walked into the small kitchen, he instructed, "Just take what you want. You'll have to make it yourself, though."

The hacker nodded slightly before checking the refrigerator. After preparing herself a small omelet, she sat down at the dining table next to the other computer genius. Not long had passed before a leather-clad man joined the pair at the table. Mello brought a thick fog of tension to the table, so breakfast between them was silent. When everyone was finished and ready to start investigating again, Mello's phone began to ring.

The blond answered it and was silent as the person on the other line spoke. A few minutes passed before he assured the caller that he would be on his way soon. Bambi raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask the question on her mind.

Mello looked over to Matt as he explained, "They found two more scenes with encoded messages. They're on opposite sides of town, though, so we'll need to split up to cover them both."

Bambi furrowed her eyebrows, ignoring the men as they discussed how to get to the locations.Two messages on the same day? That hasn't happened before. Something's not right.

"I'll go with Bambi," Matt offered.

Mello's eyes narrowed. "What the Hell do you mean you'll go with Bambi?"

"Well, she can't go alone, and you're the reason why." The redhead gestured to the bruise on her head. "Frankly, I don't think you two would get along well enough to investigate a scene together. Besides, I want to see how well my intended-partner works with me."

The blond narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips before hissing, "Fine."

Bambi winced as he slammed the door shut before commenting, "Maybe you should have left that last part out."

Matt shrugged his shoulders. "It shouldn't be a big deal. It's only temporary – it's not like we're trading partners or anything. Besides, I'm allowed to be curious whenever I want."

"I get that, but it definitely didn't seem like Mello did," she pointed out.

"He'll get over it."

With that said, the geniuses left the hotel.

As Matt drove off he explained, "We have a deal with the police that whenever they call us in, they have to leave the scene alone for an hour to give us time to investigate unseen. By the time that we get there we won't have too long, since this scene is particularly far away."

Bambi waited for a moment as she processed the information. "That's great that they give us privacy to investigate, but leaving the scene unattended for so long is pretty dangerous – especially knowing that this Beyond person was a Wammy student."

"I'm sure we'll be fine."

The rest of the ride was silent as the hacker immersed herself in thought. After parking in front of a small house, Matt tossed Bambi a box filled with latex gloves and shoe covers. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"You'll need these," he explained. "You don't want to contaminate the scene and end up one of the suspects, do ya?"

The brunette laughed. "That would be a problem, wouldn't it?"

After the pair had donned the gloves and shoe covers, Matt pulled out a camera and stepped out of the car, followed closely by Bambi.

As she cautiously followed her companion inside, the brunette mused, "I'm almost surprised that we're not in an alley – he seems to kill a lot of people in those."

The young man let out a soft chuckle. "Actually, the other body was in one."

"Figures."

Bambi closed the front door behind her before looking around the interior of the front room.

Matt's voice drew her out of her head. "We won't be looking over every single detail-we'll let the forensics team do that. We are here just to get a look at the scene and the message or anything that we know would point to Beyond."

"Okay."

After scanning the room and deciding that there was nothing to find, the young woman took a left into the kitchen. She froze in the doorway as her gaze locked onto the scene. There was blood everywhere, soaking the floor and the walls. Her stomach churned as she felt her own blood draining from her face, unable to so much as draw in breath. A hammer was placed on the only clean counter with a sheet of paper neatly tucked underneath. Bambi placed a shaky hand against the door frame to stabilize herself.

Matt frowned before snapping up the camera. "Smile~!"

The flash drew the young woman out of her stupor and she looked up at him. 

He smiled softly and reassured her, "We won't be here for long. I just need to get a few pictures and we can go."

The brunette smiled weakly and nodded. She stepped aside, letting the redhead into the kitchen and took a deep breath to clear her mind before joining Matt in looking for any important details. After he finished taking his pictures, the pair of hackers returned to the car and left.

When they got back to the room, Matt immediately plugged the camera into a computer and printed the pictures. Mello returned with his own camera shortly after and did the same. Once both sets of images were printed, the trio of investigators gathered around the dining table to sift through them.

The blond was the first to speak up. "Both messages are the same, but they are in a different format than usual." He then turned to Matt. "Hey, see if they can be translated by the same key."

The redhead took the pictures as he stood up. "Can do, my friend."

As he walked over to his laptop, Bambi noticed that he printed the picture that he had taken of her. The young woman frowned as she plucked the picture from the pile. Why did he have to print this? She scrunched her nose at her sickly-pale complexion, unhappy to have such an embarrassing moment caught on camera. A light blush came to the teen's cheeks as she realized that she was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. Just when she was about to toss the photo in the trash, her eyes caught something unusual in the background.

Is that...?

She asked aloud, "What does Beyond look like?"

Matt looked up, brows furrowed. Mello reached across the table and snatched the photograph from her grasp.

"Hey!"

The blond paid her no attention as he stared at the background of the image in his hands. Sure enough, passing by the window in the room behind Bambi was the escapee himself: Beyond Birthday.

Mello tossed the photo aside as he grabbed his keys and sprinted out the door. Several minutes later, Matt's program translated the new message. When he and Bambi looked over it, they realized just how different this one was from the past ten. Rather than sentences, this message translated into an odd code.

one-four-three
six-five-five
ten-five-three

four-twelve-one
two-six-two
three-eighteen-two
nine-four-four

one-two-two
five-ten-four

eight-one-six
ten-three-four
three-fourteen-one
seven-seven-one

* * * December 16 * * *

Days had passed, yet no progress had been made. The only new piece of information was that someone had stolen the car from the scene that Matt and Bambi had gone to, but there were no clues as to who had done it. Frankly, Bambi was frustrated. She was frustrated at the lack of progress being made in the case. She was frustrated at the attitude that Mello kept giving her. Most of all, she was frustrated that she still couldn't think straight.

Later in the day, while Mello was out again and Matt was on his laptop, Bambi changed into a bathing suit and made her way down to the indoor pool to cool her rising temper. Rather than joining the people in the pool itself, she carefully stepped into the smaller hot tub off to the side. The young woman immediately felt the therapeutic heat relax her troubles away.

Not even five minutes had passed before she heard stomping feet approaching her, followed by the familiar growl of Mello. "What do you think you're doing?"

Bambi pinched the bridge of her nose to subdue her rising temper. "Relaxing."

Mello took a step closer, so he was right behind her. His voice was low and stern as he commanded, "Get out. We have work to do."

Her eyes narrowed as she snapped, "No, I'll be up in a bit."

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and began to pull, trying to drag her out. Just as quickly, Bambi reached back and latched onto his shirt before flipping him over her head and into the hot tub in front of her.

He stood up, soaking wet and fuming, as he roared, "What the Hell is your problem?!"

Bambi followed suit, standing up and getting in Mello's face just as he did to her on that first day. His blue eyes widened as he looked down at her.

"I should be asking you the same thing!" she retorted. "I haven't done anything to you and all you have done the past week is give me a hard time. I'm sick of it!"

Without another word, Bambi stepped out of the hot tub, grabbed her towel, and headed for the elevator, leaving Mello behind.

As he stood there, fully clothed in the hot tub, one of the lifeguards piped up. "Sorry about your girlfriend, pal."

The blond narrowed his eyes and roared at the man, "Shut the Hell up! That was none of your damn business!"

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Author's Note: You have all of the information needed to solve the puzzle of the message if you want to give it a shot. The answer isn't revealed until chapter six.