Boxes & Smoke

Box 3

Alexei

Xios drove her to the address. The road was filled with Paisley telling him about the murder of the drug lord done by their organization. She told him about the man's whereabouts, he was the last acquaintance her grandfather had met before getting killed. And they had also tracked in his records that the drug lord attempted to poison her grandfather's secretary to get a hold of a passcode vault owned by their family. 

When the Schleifer mafia killed the drug lord, they found contacts that lead to the suspects of her grandfather's killer.

 

As absurd as it may sound, Carver listened to all of it and managed to lose the tail of Paisley's guards at the same time. He didn't know, but the thought of playing detective may not be as stupid as the thought of Melissa planning things in a rational way.

 

They arrived at a house near the lake. The night is about to fall and so they hurried inside the lone structure surrounded by plain grass and dark trees.

 

Carver trusted his guts more than anything, when he stepped outside the driver's seat he sensed no eyes nor guns directed at them. He didn't know how, but he could feel it when danger was coming close to breathing on their deathbed. It might be a sniper's instinct or whatever stupidity they call it.

Paisley was the first one to enter. The door wasn't locked and the inside was dark.

"Do not turn the lights on," Paisley said, even if Xios haven't even stepped inside. She turned her phone's torch light and began to scan the room.

 

Xios followed behind her. And he had thought that this Paisley is different from the one earlier. Is there some sort of a switch on her head for her to be this serious about this kind of stuff? Because if there's an existing one, he wouldn't hesitate to press that switch every damn time.

 

Xios' eyes roamed around. The room is just a simple living room with a TV, couch, and a small table. "A drug lord lives here?" he muttered under his breath. Paisley heard him.

 

"It's his safe house. He went here when he had a word that the Schleifer was hunting him down," Paisley said.

A safe house that's open to the world. Is that drug lord expecting the squirrels to take down his killers?

As if reading his mind, Paisley continued. "The peaceful atmosphere surrounding it conceals its true nature. It was heavily guarded before. But the Schleifer knows better"

 

He saw the lady smile underneath the light on her phone. And Lacroix knows best.

They stopped on their feet when Paisley reached for his wrist. "This is where they had killed him," She said, kneeling over the floor and touching it. Though there was nothing there, it was clean and dry. Paisley placed her hand on her nose. "Great," she said. "They concealed the smell of blood"