Disclaimer:

Zulaykha belongs to kitty8688theonly from DeviantArt

Jake Hunter and the other characters belong to Detective Jake Hunter series

Comments From the Author:

This story was requested to be written and made a few months back...I had only just finished it and hopefully she'll like it...I wasn't supposed to go over 100 words...but I enjoyed writing this so much that I almost made it into a complete case story...

I do hope to make more requests like this sometime in the near future...

Kitty8688theonly has her own website where you can view drawings and stories of characters she has made. You can also send her a message if you would like to do any commissions for her, from drawing pictures to writing stories for any of her characters.

Just copy this and replace the actual DOT on the keyboard to go to her website...It might be a little heavy on the loading...

.com

Here's a list of my social accounts...

Youtube: Natnarf1 (With a Cedric picture)

Deviant Art : Natnarf

Blogger: Natnarf1

Ello: natnarf

Twitter: NatNarf01

Happy reading everyone! Enjoy!~

Until then...

This is Natnarf...

Signing Off!~

"Hey, Yulia." Mr. Hunter said. "What time is it?"

"Well..." She turns to face the digital clack face display on a cordless phone stand. "It's almost four, Sir."

"Damn." Mr. Hunter lazily slumps into his chair. "Two more hours before we can wrap up for today."

"You could always step outside and take a smoke. Zulaykha could always call you back in if we ever get a call." Ms. Marks says as she glances back from him to me and back.

"Yea." I said as I step down from the last three steps of the stepladder leaning against the wall bookshelf. "Yea, I could do that. Just be sure not to wander too far off, Mr. Hunter."

"Thanks, Dolls. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if you girls weren't here." He says as his holds onto the knob of the door and turns it open. "I'll be upstairs if you girls need me." and finishes as he firmly and quietly closes the door.

"Mhm..." Ms. Marks stretches her arms up above her head. "I think I might take a little break and have something hot to drink. Would you like anything, Zulaykha?"

"Some juice would be nice, please. Thanks."

I took off my dusty apron and hang it on one of the steps of the stepladder. I went and started cracking my neck from side to side without letting my cap fall off from my head. That felt very good after read old case files and dusting them off.

"It'll be officially a whole month tomorrow since you first joined us. How to do you feel about us and the job so far?" Ms. Marls walks towards a doorway from that has no door and enters through it to the kitchen.

"Hmm...I wouldn't say that's it's bad, nor is it all that exciting." I say as I followed behind. "I mean I've only been doing so much of the cleaning and the tidying."

I shouldn't be complaining. I mean, my last part time job was being a sales person in a bakery store just near here, but I didn't enjoy it as there was never enough customer in each day to meet the quota, and the manager blames me that businesses wasn't heading in the right direction just because I was of a different colored race. I decided to quit and headed straight for the local a supermarket. They had a bulletin board near the entrance where anyone could post anything on it: from advertisements of local stores, to tutoring services for children who needed extra help in their studies. I was going through the many ads when a piece of paper was floating up and into my hands. It read 'Assistant Needed In Detective Agency'. During that time Ms. Marks comes running inside the supermarket and saw me holding the paper. She told me that the paper blown right out of her hands by a strong gust of wind and she chased it all the way. It was then on I have been coming into the agency, reading file after file of many interesting cases. I might finish the rest of the shelves by the end of the second month. Being paid to read and sort out pass case files, not a bad job, but I do need to exercise or I'll be in bad shape.

"Expecting a little bit of adventure and excitement, right?" She says as she pours preheated water from a two liter sized sealed tumbler into one of the two porcelain handled held mugs.

"Yeah." I answered honestly. "Can't lie about that."

She puts down the tumbler and closes it with its lid. She hands me a mug of orange juice, almost filled to the brim.

"The store didn't have any fresh Kiwis or Kiwi juice today. They said they'll have some stocked up at the store by tomorrow."

"This orange juice is just fine." I said as I brought the cup to my lips and took a mouthful. "Mhmm! This tastes really good, Ms. Marks." I said with a smile as I lick off any juice residue left on my lips.

"Glad you like it." She says as she sips in her drink while leaning against a counter opposite of the entryway. "And please, I told you to just call me 'Yulia'. We are the only ones working in this agency, so there's no need to be so formal."

"I'd rather be formal than to be too comfortable. It helps me remind myself that there are people that should be respected rather than to be too friendly with everyone since I usually don't stay or work in one place for too long." I finished and took another mouthful. "What branded juice is this? I might buy a couple of cartons of this on my way back home later."

"Oh. I actually hand squeezed the juice from fresh oranges when I came into the office this morning, also bought from the same store where I'd usually buy your Kiwis. The carton juices in these areas are usually not to be trusted as some have weird odd artificial flavors in them."

"Eh?! Really?!" I stared hard into my mug as I imagined her doing all of the preparations in as part of daily morning routine every time she comes into work. "You didn't have to actually go as far as to make freshly squeezed juice just for little o'l me!"

"Don't worry about it. It's just a tiny chore compared to everything I'd usually do in the office." She says as she continues to take few sips from her mug. "Listen, Zulaykha. Even though it looks like Jake doesn't do much, but there's always a lot more going on in his mind. He usually doesn't share his thoughts with anyone, but when the time he does it usually means that he has a lot of trust placed in them, and-"

But she was cut short as the phone from the main office room starts ringing loudly.

"Haa. What a way to ruin the moment." She says as she places her mug down to one side of the counter. "I'll just go take it." as she walks away with her usual positive smile.

Ms. Marks is amazing. She can manage the office with or without Mr. Hunter; she takes care all of the documents in this office; she manages phone calls and sets up and arranges meetings and schedules for clients, whether of small importance or high priority; and she knows how to manage energy saving just to maintain the bills and salary. If ever I were to look for another firm to work in, it would be in an office run solely by her.

I quickly drank down my juice while savoring as much of its delicious sweetness.

"Ah!~ Delicious!" I said as I let out a satisfied breath.

"Hold on a second, please."

I heard Ms. Marks' voice getting louder as comes towards the doorway. She then appears at the doorway with her hand covering the speaker of the phone.

"Can you please get Jake, Zulaykha? He left his cellphone at his desk. Tell him that the Inspector is looking for him. Urgent."

"You got it!" I said and quickly made a a couple of largely paced strides towards the front door and out.

The main building is rather large, but with my hidden capabilities as an Elf, I easily jogged my way up the long spiral staircase leading towards the rooftop without the slightest hint of fatigue.

I finally made it to the rooftop door. I turned the knob of the steel-fenced door and nudged it open. As soon as I stepped onto smooth floor tiles of the roof I see Mr. Hunter smoking towards the cloudy sky whilst his back is facing me. I can never picture this lazy fool as a professional. Maybe Ms. Marks' pulling on my strings and just making me believe the things she says so that I wouldn't leave the office. Well, it's a good thing that I only took this as a part-time job. By the end of today I will leave this fool's detective agency and go off to find a more respectable agency that actual takes this job more seriously.

I silently, but angrily, walk my way towards with even paces, and stop just two paces away behind him. I breath in deeply as I prepare a list of things that I wanted to say to him. I'll make sure that he gets a piece of my mind and-

"Phoow..." He interrupts my thoughts just as he blows out a breath of smoke. "...Lemme guess. King's on his way here about a pair of high pride parents who are both on high social status and have been divorced for four years, and their only four year old child has vanished without a trace from the mother's highly secured private home with more than fifty security cameras installed and about twenty professionally trained and selected security guards placed and scattered all over the property."

"Wha-" I was confused at what he was talking about.

"I've always been keeping tabs on many missing person's cases every time the local papers print these poor folks out, and I usually throw the papers out that are found by the cops, which is usually three days later at most. This particular one, however, has been missing for almost a week, any longer and the kid's gonna get his throat slit, if he hasn't been starved and dehydrated to death first." He says as he drops his cigarette bud into a clear glass ash tray that was sitting on the wide flat metal fence railing that was up to his waist. "And if this day passes by, there will be another urgent search on a missing disabled teenager who needs to take her medication regularly to maintain her antibodies in her blood system. Not kidnapped so to speak, but because she was left unattended by her nurse-caretaker when taking her out on a stroll to the hospital gardens. Only then will private eyes like myself would be able to touch on the matter. The cops don't have much information as they failed to protect their computers from hackers who definitely wanted the case to be forgotten. Hopefully King won't give me all of these cases at once, unless these two cases will be connected in some way or another." He says as he takes the glass tray with his right hand and turns around. "Let's go, Babe. Yulia might start to worry." He walks pass me.

I turned to stare at him whilst he was walking towards the fence-steeled door that I had absent 'minded-ly' left opened. My mind goes into a turmoil while trying to understand what he was talking about. I took a moment before my feet finally decides to move and ran down along the long spiral staircase with the fastest speed that I could do. I got to the floor of the agency when the elevator rings its arrival. Mr. Hunter steps out with a dumbfounded look as the elevator doors close behind him.

"How did you get here before me?" He says in a slightly surprised tone with a calm profile.

"I'm just used to being quick on my feet, Mr. Hunter, Sir!" I said as I stood in position pose. "I did use to work in the Fire Station a few years ago."

"I know about your past experiences, but all the way from the fortieth floor to the third floor, it's still kind of impossible for anyone to just run down as fast as the elevator would." He said with an unchanged expression.

"I have a hard time dealing and trusting with most technological related things. Even just going here to work I never commute with any sort of transportation, only will I take the bus if I ever run short of time."

"Uh-huh." He raises a brow on that note.

'Ding!' The elevator announces its arrival as its doors open.

"Ah. Just the man I came looking for."

An older man, a little bit chubby but healthy for his age, wearing a brown suit and pants that show his experience with aging faded color on them, his tie simply tied and his white collar of his shirt shows the effort and love poured into making it clean and wrinkle free. He walks onto the floor with a subtle smile.

"Hey there, King." Mr. Hunter says in a nonchalant tone.

"Ho ho ho!" The man named King lets out three old cheerful laughs. "What's everybody doing out here? Did Ms. Marks finally kick you out to search for some cases to crack?"

"You wish." Mr. Hunter says looking back at him in a slanted position.

"And who is this young fine and bright looking young lady?" The man's old eyes squinted as he looks at me.

"I'm Zulaykha, Sir! I've been employed as a part-timer in this agency, Sir! A month by tomorrow, Sir!" I stood in standing position.

"Ah. Such a fine young woman indeed. I'm Kingsley, an Inspector of the police department in this local area." He says with a calm tone.

"It's an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Sir!" I said in a strong military manner.

"Ho ho. At Ease, young lady." He giggles. "We're just in an ordinary office building. No need to get very formal."

I relax instantly at the command. Then something creates a sound and we all turn to face it. Ms. Marks stands with the door wide open.

"I wondered what all the noise was." Ms. Marks says as she opens the door wider. "Let's not let our poor visitor stand any longer after traveling all the way here just to see you, Mr. Hunter, sir. Please, come inside, Inspector."

"Oh. I'm alright, Ms. Marks. I'm just not stretching as much as I used to or needed to, that's all."

"You all just sit in the waiting room while I go make some coffee. Strong or mild?"

"I'd prefer one with lots of milk in it. My doctor's pestering me to take in more calcium." Inspector Kingsley chuckles lightly.

"Alright. The usual, sir?" She faces Mr. Hunter.

"Nah. I'll just have some of those dumplings if you still have any." He answered as he walks Inspector Kingsley towards the waiting room.

I followed suit the two men as Ms. Marks closes the door and goes off to the kitchen to prepare their requests. I go and lean against a wall in the room, in the corner of the room where I could see the two men in their seats facing me. As Inspector Kingsley gets comfortable and faces me.

"So, what's your job in this office?" He asks me as he gestures me to take the empty space next to Mr. Hunter.

"I just do some of the odd jobs that Ms. Marks usually does around the office, but I spend most of the time cleaning and sorting out all of the old case files on the shelves." I said as I gently sat down with poise. Legs closed and hands on top of each other on my lap.

"Ah. It would be nice to have you in our department."

"Sorry, King, but I need her here." Mr. Hunter cuts in the conversation. "She's got skills we need that could help us greatly, far more than you can imagine."

"I can tell, Jake, or you wouldn't have accepted her here."

"Make some room, please."

Ms. Marks announces her arrival as we made room for her to lay down the tray. I helped her take the delicious delicacies off the large tray and place them onto the clear glass coffee table just in front of us.

"Thank you, Zulaykha." Ms. Marks sits opposite of Inspector Kingsley. "Hope that these two old men didn't harass you too much with question after question."

"Who are you calling 'old', Babe?" Mr. Hunter says as he stabs his fork into one of the many Chinese styled dumplings cramped together in a decorative plate. "Anyway, your visit?"

"Ah. Right." Inspector Kingsley shuffles as he puts his hand into the inside of his jacket. Then takes out a piece of folded paper. "This came to us, delivered by a young grade school student."

"Hm. Did it come in an envelope? Do you still have it?"

"It's here." Inspector Kingsley slightly shifting his fingers slides as an envelope slides out from the bottom.

"Who else touch these with their own bare hands apart from you and the student?"

"No one else." Inspector Kingsley replied without hesitation.

"Alright. Please lay them separately down onto the table."

Inspector Kingsley does so and opens them.

"Alright. Do your thing, Babe." Mr. Hunter looks at me.

"Sure can do." I said and stand up as I go to my satchel, attached onto the side of my hip, and start searching in it.

"Uh...Jake?" Inspector Kingsley sounded concern. "What is she do-"

"Just watch the works, King." Mr. Hunter said. "Just watch."

I take out a pair of new latex gloves in a vacuumed sealed plastic pack, and a piece of sterilized liquid cleaning wipes to clean my hands. Must always start out with a pair of clean hands before you deal with anything that involves DNA analysis.

One of the main reasons that Mr. Hunter hired me, without any doubts, is that I specialize in the forensics area, and I have the necessary tools on hand to do the basic tests like dirt and liquid type analysis. Anything else that are a bit too complicated, like blood type comparison or dissolving mixed up chemicals to tear them apart, will have to be sent to the forensics laboratory.

I wore on my latex gloves and stood up quickly, scurrying over to Ms. Marks' desk and take a new white sheet of normal paper off from a pile in a tray filled with them. I come back to the coffee table and lay the paper flat on the other end of the table away from the drinks and snacks. I set the wipes and the broken plastics to my left and got the two paper objects and placed them to the right side of the paper. I dug into my satchel again and take out my most trusted tool in the whole world: my magnifying glass.

"A Magnifying Glass?!" Inspector Kingsley starts off in an odd tone in which I wouldn't know to describe. "You know, Jake. I've always placed my full trust in you, and I've never once regretted my decision, ever." He then pauses for a second. "Until. Now." He stresses strongly on the words.

But Mr. Hunter only places a finger to his lips, his pupils moves towards my direction and nods his head once, telling me to proceed.

I kneel down to the floor facing the table and the paper as I take the letter and place it over to the white paper. I hovered my magnifying glass over the letter and press the nib end of the handle.

My magnifying glass has two main functions: taking pictures and creating 3D visualizations, that could carefully analyze and save data for later and/or future references into the SD cards in the handle. A copy of all of the data would also be sent to my computer at home automatically in case something happens to my magnifying glass. But nevertheless, I've never been without my trusty tool.

It makes a 'beep' noise and a horizontal blue light appears onto the paper, which is the camera's scanner installed, as I scan slowly from top to bottom, then flip the paper over and scan that side as well.. Done with the letter I set it aside, took the envelope and start scanning it back, front, and the inside. Done with the scanning, I press on the nib twice and a shot of light emits out from the one side of the lens. I lay my magnifying glass with the emitting light facing up onto the paper, then stood up and went over to the light switch panel near the front door and turned off all of the lights.

"What in the-" I heard Inspector Kingsley start and hush. "...Ooooh. One of those of hologram-visual tech things. I'm not too fond of these kinds of things, but I have to admit, this is very fascinating." He chuckles.

I return to the 3D holographic image that is displaying at normal eye level height as I sat back down onto the sofa next to Ms. Marks.

"I'll check for any prints left on the paper." I start to explain as I begin my procedures. "If you see anything that seems out of place, please don't hesitate to stop and tell me."

I move my hand over to the 3D image and start moving and rotating it around to show how I could manipulate the object in any way I want it to. I start pressing buttons to one of the screen and it starts going into a hard mix layer of color, like a sort of neon x-ray glow. After two seconds, a couple boxes of texts appears on the left side of the screen. With my superior speedy reading skills, I read all of the texts and got to the important key words. I set that to one side and start pressing buttons again, then the image data of the envelope appears. I repeat the whole scanning process and got another set of boxes filled with texts.

"It says that there are two kinds of finger prints scattered all over the paper while there are three on the envelope. All of them genetically to be male: a juvenile, a middle aged, and a senior. We can safely assume that the senior's are your prints, Inspector Kingsley." I gaze at him for a moment and back. "And the juvenile, which are the student's, didn't touch the written letter itself. The report also show that there are some particles of dirt with glacial and sulfuric particles smudged on the paper."

"Dirt with ice and sulfur?" Ms. Marks says with a curious tone. "I know sulfur can come from volcanic mountains, but with ice or frozen water..." She says as her voice drifts away.

"Mount St. Helens, Washington, is one of the best bet." I said. "There are many other mountains with ice and sulfur, but according to the data here, the sulfur is still freshly heated and burned, and it was the only one that erupted just a few years back."

"Oh! So the kidnapper, with the child, are either hiding somewhere nearby or on St. Helens!" Inspector Kingsley says exictedly. "That's insane!" and worryingly.

"If we don't hurry, the child is going to have his lungs filled with sulfur particles, which is not looking too good." Mr. Hunter says. "Anything else we should worry about that can be found on those items?"

"Not exactly on these." I said as I quickly walked over to the light switch and turned on all of the lights. "But about St. Helens herself. There have been reports on the monitoring scales lately and the scientists said that there seems to be more fumes erupting and smoking up from the ground, and fast!" And turned off on the nib of my magnifying glass.

"Which means...Oh no!" Ms. Marks says as she stands up. "The child's not gonna have much time left before his lungs are completely filled with dangerous chemicals and start to decay and erode!"

"Then I better start runnin'!" Inspector Kingsley jolts up and starts moving his chubby legs towards the front door. "Let's go, my boy! We haven't got much time!"

"That fool better watch his footing." Mr. Hunter says and he stands from the chair.

"Why don't you bring Zulaykha along?"

Ms. Marks smiles as I look back at her. Surprised.

"And you?" Mr. Hunter asks her back.

"Someone's gotta look after the office and take the phone calls, they can't answer back themselves." She says and places her hands on her hips. "It'll also be a good opportunity for her to see you working in action."

My boss then looks at me. Probably waiting for me to reply back. I nod once in response.

"Alright. Take your wallet and what you really need. We don't know how long or how far this trip's gonna take." He says.

"Everything I need is right in here." I said as I gently pat my precious satchel.

"Really prepared." He nods. Impressed. He immediately heads for the door and opens it.

I start to follow, but felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Watch over him for me while you're both out there." Ms. Marks say. "He tends to be too focused on these cases that he tends to forget about his health and safety." and I felt her hand let go of me.

I raise my hand to the brim of my cap and adjust it to snugly fit down on my head carefully while still hiding my ears under my hair.

"Will do." I raise my right hand and walk through the door.

I hear the door close shut behind me and start walking down the steps, as I got closer to the ground floor I could hearing the conversing sounds of the two men just beyond the last flight of steps. But I stopped midway upon of hearing a zipper sound opening emitting from my satchel. I looked around to check that no one was around looking or eavesdropping on me before I looked down to check on my satchel. From the gap between the zipper I see a pair of bright circles staring up at me.

"Now, now." I whispered. "What did I say about opening the zipper before I allow you to come out of the satchel? We've just got a new case and there's gonna be a long trip ahead of us. So I need you to lay low for a while. Can you do that for me?"

The bright circles emits a cute little sound as they disappear further into the depths of m satchel.

The little creature is my satchel is a Coal Sprite. I bring him with me from time to time and he always hides in the satchel since it's better than hiding my clothes or my hair. He's somewhat conditioned to do 'servant duties' for me like my personal little butler, but he does them of his own will. Nevertheless, I treat him as a friend and that's not gonna change in any other way.

I close my satchel and quickly sprint down the rest of the steps. I arrived at the bottom of the steps, went out of the building and was on the pavement, or sidewalk if some would call it. On the edge of the pavement is my boss's personal car. I see the Inspector already sitting in the front passenger seat, talking on his own cellphone. Mr. Hunter was holding open the back passenger seat door as he looked inside, then to me.

"Did Yulia hold you up?" He said.

"Kinda. She just told us to take care." I smiled.

"Well then, better get in and get comfortable. We have a long road ahead of us."

I nod and got into the back seat. Mr. Hunter firmly closes the door and goes around the front of the car to get into the driver's seat on the left. I shift over to the side left side of the back seats and strapped myself down with the seat-belt.

"Let's get going." Mr. Hunter says and turns on the key in the ignition.

We speed drive and head off for Mount St. Helens, Washington. I do hope that we'll be there in time to save the poor child.

"By the way, Zulaykha," Mr. Hunter spoke up without looking back at me. "Did you have something to say to me earlier back at the rooftop?"

I paused for a second, but I just shook my head instead.

"I just wanted to surprise you. Thought that your head was way up in the clouds to notice me."

"Hm." He hummed.

It was then that I was glad that I never got to tell Mr. Hunter that I wanted to quit the agency. I should really learn how to be more observant from now on.