Page 63 of The Fighter
“So, you think they were murdered too?”
Inhaling deeply, I let my chest rise and fall. “The first rule of investigating is to never rule out anything.”
For the next few moments, Raven and I stood in her room not speaking any words but still communicating.
“Yes or no, Raven.”
“I didn’t invite you to be part of this investigation.”
“When I leave your room, we will have reached one of two possible decisions. Either we do this together, or I’ll report you for not following an order.”
“So now you’re blackmailing me?”
I shrugged. “At least I’m giving you a choice.”
Raven’s head fell forward and her hands clamped into fists. “Fine!”
“Good. Then take me over what you’ve learned so far.” I lifted pictures of what looked like logbooks. “What are these?”
“Dina had a crush on a guard. I’ve been searching through old logs to find him and it turns out he still works at the Manor.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes.” She explained about every suspect and clue and I listened. “So, you see, I’m curious to see what I can find in Marcus’ box.”
“All right, then let’s open it, but I’m warning you. It’s not like you’ll find a diary with a list of all the people he murdered and the reasons why. Small girls write diaries, but not Nmen.”
Picking up a pair of scissors, she began breaking through the sealing of the box. “You don’t know that. Maybe there are some who do it. Hmm, I wonder what you would write in your diary.”
“That you have to be the slowest person to open that box. How about you give me the scissors?”
Raven kept cutting the box open with her right hand while pushing away my hand with her left. “I’ve got this.”
When she finally opened the flaps, we almost banged our heads together to see what was in the box.
Mostly, it was things that I guessed had been in his office once. A framed picture of Marcus, Erika, Khan, Magni, and two dogs. Another with his friend Mr. Zobel.
I picked up a heavy marble bust of Marcus Aurelius. He looked as serious as he had in every picture I’d ever seen of the man.
Some old electronic products came out of the box and I took one of them from Raven, who asked, “What is this?”
“That’s a burner.”
It was the length of my underarm and the width of my wrist. “This will print out anything you need by burning the letters or symbols on the paper.”
“Oh, I have a burner, but it looks different.”
I turned the burner around in the air. “This one is at least twenty years old.”
“So is this, I think.” Raven gave me a wristband and when I checked the model number online it turned out to be from 2414.
“This is thirty-four years old.” I chuckled. “The rumors were true then. Old Marcus was a technophobe.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he died in 2433, Raven.”
Raven bit her lip like she still didn’t understand.
