Page 98 of Signed, I'm Yours!
A car swerves around the block and comes to a screeching halt by our feet. Bob gets out and shakes Seojun’s hand.
“What have we got?” he asks.
“We found the serial killer,” Seojun says.
“No, we have not. We don’t know what we’ve found. For all we know, The Phantom is innocent in all this, and it just happens that all our victims were found in his buildings.”
“What buildings? I thought we didn’t know who they belonged to.”
“Oh, but we do.” Seojun smirks and I give my partner the rundown on what happened. Keeping out incriminating information about Kevin.
“So what are we waiting for? Let’s go find out what this guy is all about.” Bob crosses the street and walks to the concierge. Just as he’s about to flash him his badge, Seojun steps forward and signs us in, and the concierge naturally lets us through without informing The Phantom we’re coming.
Seojun is all smug about it until the elevator takes us up to the top floor, and the doors slide open to reveal a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows leading out to a patio with its own swimming pool.
“Fucker,” he mutters under his breath, and I choke down a laugh because, of course, only he’d be upset by things like that when he lives in a literal palace. Sans the pool.
As we step into the living room, we hear a flush, and moments later, a tall white man with huge round glasses, bushy eyebrows, and a thick Super Mario-level mustache walks out, holding a newspaper.
“Who are you?” he asks and sounds so Italian American that I can’t help but feel as if I’m staring at a caricature rather than a real person.
“We’re your worst enemies, mister,” Seojun snaps.
I raise an eyebrow, but Bob pulls out his badge and shows it to The Phantom.
“We’re with CREEP,” he says.
Seojun snorts. “You guys seriously need to change that name.”
“Not now,” I mumble beside him, and he mimes zipping his mouth and throwing away the key.
“I’m afraid I don’t know who is a creep and what that badge means,” The Phantom says.
“Cut the bullshit, Phantom!” Seojun shouts.
I clear my throat. “I thought you threw away the key.”
“Well, I found it.” He shrugs.
I shush him and look at Bob, who raises an eyebrow before he turns to The Phantom.
“My name’s Bob White. This is Jack Lewis, and we’ve been investigating a series of gruesome murders that we believe are linked to?—”
The Phantom screams with both hands on his mouth, turns around, and runs away from us. We all chase after him onto the patio and watch The Phantom jump into the bushes surrounding it, only for him to fall back and into the pool.
Seojun approaches the water’s edge and crouches to glare at his previous idol as he comes up for air.
“Seriously?”
The Phantom shrugs, wiping the lenses of his glasses with his fingers as if they’re wipers.
“I had to try.”
“And how did that go?”
The Phantom shakes his head. “Not great.”
“Was the scream necessary?”
