Thank you so much to my researcher/beta Irritablevowel. Baby, you're on the level.
It was a slow day - which is sayin' something for my part of the city. I was sitting with my feet up on the desk, chewing gum and contemplating the blinking neon light from the hotel down the road, when the knock came at the door. Artemis was curled under my chair, asleep or pretending to be, I saw his ears prick up when I called, "It's open."
I sure didn't expect a dame like her to enter - not my office, not this neighborhood. She was definitely a high hat - made of money, diamonds in her ears and a dress made of silk that sounded like rain when she walked in. She was pretty, if not unforgettable. Like the kinda girlie you'd buy a drink with at the club and never see again except on the pages of the Society section of the papers.
"Are you... Minako Aino, Private Eye?"
"Says so on my door, don't it?" Minako straightened up, swinging her legs under her desk and reaching down to scratch Artemis once behind the ear. "What do you need? Cheating husband? Missing jewelry?"
The woman took a deep breath, moistening her lips. She sat down nervously, looking for a moment as if she wanted to lay down a handkerchief before taking a seat. Minako noticed and narrowed her eyes a bit.
"My name is Naru Osaka."
Osaka. The name was familiar, she knew they owned a chain of jewelry stores in the city. Now Minako realized she may recognize Naru's face from the gossip rags, out with other rich young girls and high society.
Naru continued. "It's ... my friend. From childhood. She's ... well, she's missing."
A pen spun through Minako's slender fingers and she settled the notepad in front of her. "Serenity."
Naru nodded and Minako sighed.
Serenity Von Mond's disappearance after a gala three nights ago had the whole city in an uproar. Serenity was heir to one of the biggest real estate fortunes in the country. Her mother, Serenity Sr, was known as the "Queen of Real Estate" owning the famous Silver Millennium hotel, and more than a few swanky nightclubs (and some less swanky), and had been beside herself since her daughter went missing. The newspapers were having a field day with the 'missing Princess of Real Estate' story and the police had most likely shelved everything else to focus on the case.
"The police have that case covered," Minako said, shaking her head with a smirk.
"I don't think they do," Naru insisted. "I don't think this is any ordinary kidnapping. I-" she cut herself off and bit her lip. "I have money to pay you," she said. "Look into it."
Try as she might, Minako couldn't get much more out of Naru, except a down payment in the form of a stack of crisp bills with a bronze money clip she didn't seem to want back.
As the door closed behind the client, Minako shook her head and looked down at Artemis, who regarded her with knowing eyes.
She shifted her gaze to the pile of papers beside her on the desk, pushing aside some letters and invoices to see the newspaper she'd dropped there yesterday, the younger Serenity's pretty face splashed across the front page, and an impassioned plea from her heartbroken fiancé to the supposed kidnappers to return her unharmed.
Artemis stretched, and jumped onto the desk, looking bewteen the stack of cash and the newspaper. "Looks like we are taking the Serenity case," he said.
The townhouse where Serenity lived was surrounded. The tabloid newshounds rubbing shoulders with legit reporters, one lone policeman standing by the door, waving aside passersby who lingered too long. No one was going in or out currently, so the journalists were relaxed, flashbulbs quiet while they chatted.
Minako recognized some familiar faces among the crowd, and saddled up to the most handsome of them. "Got a light?" she offered her cigarette out like she was flirting at a nightclub, not standing outside the home of a missing girl, fishing for information.
The man smirked knowingly in response. "Minako Aino."
"The one and only," she grinned. "How are things, Motoki?"
Motoki leaned back against a nearby car, shifting the heavy camera strap on his shoulder. "Right now a whole lotta nothing. Police searched the place two days ago, and haven't been back. The 'Queen' don't even live here out of the time, ya know," he took a drag on his cigarette and sighed. "Some of my guys are down there, staking out her second penthouse and office, but not a lot going on there."
"Anyone come and go?"
He nodded, "A pretty little jane with short dark hair went in bout an hour ago. Heard she lives here, the 'princess''s tutor or somethin'. Wouldn't say nothing 'cept 'I refuse to comment on this' over and over."
Minako eyed the building intently, when the flutter of some curtains made her eyes narrow a bit. "Keep me posted if you get a good scoop," she said, patting Motoki on the shoulder. He laughed a bit sarcastically.
"Right, Minako, sure."
Minako walked slowly down the block as if she meant to leave, only when she was out of sight of the group did she scale a fence and run back down an alley to the back of the house. Artemis was waiting.
"Well? Find anything good in there?"
Artemis grinned, as best a cat can grin. "The best possible thing. I found a way in for you." He licked a paw. "That is, if you don't mind some grime on that pretty blue dress of yours."
Minako smiled. "Don't mind at all, especially when the dry cleaner on Elm still owes me for solving that embezzlement case last winter."
It wasn't the fanciest way Minako'd ever entered a dwelling, but it would do. Artemis unlocked a utility door in the basement and Minako made it up through back, following Artemis to the room he'd surmised belonged to Serenity. Minako's gaze was calculating as she regarded the room before her. Serenity certainly didn't seem to want for a much, everything from the furniture to the dresses spilling from the closet, to the make-up and perfume bottles strewn across the counter spoke of privilege and wealth. And a certain sloppiness, as well, although Minako couldn't be sure what was due to the police searching the joint.
A silver photo frame caught her eye, and she picked it up and looked closely at a photograph of the missing girl, alive and smiling on the film. Her arm was on the elbow of her fiancé, who was looking seriously into the camera. The frame had been face down.
"Can I help you?" a cold voice behind her made Minako whirl. "Who are you?" the stranger demanded. "What are you doing here?"
Minako decided to go with the truth, explaining her profession and who had hired her. Once the other woman heard Naru had hired Minako she seemed to relax - if only a bit.
The young woman in front of her - she'd given her name as Ami Mizuno - took a breath and looked at Minako with no small amount of annoyance. "I still don't know how you managed to get in here," she said, eyebrows knitting together slightly. Minako ignored the implied question and started with her own.
"Someone said you are Serenity's private tutor?" Minako said.
"Was," Ami said. "Now I'm her social secretary and assistant."
"Aren't you a little young? You must be her same age."
"I graduated university at sixteen," Ami said, flatly. "With two degrees. I was more than qualified to teach Seren- Miss Von Mond advanced subjects. And now I handle a good deal of her business training."
Minako tried not to look too impressed.
"You all must be worried sick about her," Minako ventured and Ami nodded again, her lips forming a tight line.
"Mrs. Von Mond especially," the blonde continued, tapping her pencil on the end of her notebook. "Did they get along? The Serenities?"
"Well enough," Ami said. "Miss Von Mond admires her mother. They rarely argue."
"Can I talk to Mrs. Von Mond?" Minako continued.
"I don't think so," Ami said, shaking her head with a frown. "The police already spoke to her. Really they should be handling this. I don't know what Miss Osaka was thinking hiring you."
"Did you like her?"
"Naru?"
"Serenity. The 'Princess' of Real Estate. Are you on friendly terms?"
Ami met Minako's eyes directly. "She's my best friend," Ami said.
"So a good student then?" Minako flipped open her notebook.
"I didn't say that."
Minako wasn't surprised. The room's appearance did not suggest a very studious girl, although that didn't mean Serenity wasn't clever. It'd probably take a clever girl to be friends with someone like Ami.
Being a gumshoe meant she had a certain idea of when people were feeding her lines, and when they were being truthful. Ami wasn't lying. But she wasn't exactly forthcoming either. Minako needed to speak to more people in Serenity's life.
"If I can't talk to Mrs. Von Mond, what about him?" Minako picked up the photo again, tapped a fingernail on the glass.
"Not a chance," Ami said. "He's one of the most prominent stockbrokers in the city. He's at work."
"At work? When his intended is missing and possibly dead in an alley somewhere?"
Ami glared at the wording, but gave a half shrug, her face still unreadable. Her eyes were slightly red-rimmed, Minako noted, but dry. And she still spoke of Serenity in the present tense. Worried, but... not...
"Anyway," Minako said, clearing her throat. "What can you tell me about him?"
"Police cleared him as a suspect," Ami said quickly.
Minako knew that already of course, she'd done her research. The man had a rock solid alibi - the night of the gala he'd said good-bye to Serenity in front of twenty witnesses, saw her into a taxi and then went into a meeting with six prominent businessmen - that lasted well until morning. Besides, no discernible motive existed either. By all accounts, he seemed desperately in love with his coquettish fiancé, or at least that was the image he put forth to the gossip rag back issues Minako had read through. Although Minako knew that love itself could be as dangerous as hate, if not moreso.
"That's not what I asked," Minako said and Ami shook her head.
"You should probably go now," she said, firmly.
Scoffing, Minako put the photo back, taking one last look at the man beside Serenity in the photo. "Demande Blackstone," she murmured. "What kind of man are you?"
"Talkative one, wasn't she?" Artemis quipped, as he and Minako walked back down the street.
"Real hard boiled, that one," Minako said. "Tight-lipped. Should work for the mob." She sighed. What Ami didn't say was almost as enlightening as what she did. Still, would've been helpful to get some actual information on Serenity.
"Her friends at the club might be more loose-lipped," Artemis said, "Especially after you get some hooch in them."
"Club?"
"I found a matchbook under Serenity's bed," Artemis said, "Club Lune. Up for a field trip?"
Club Lune. I knew what that meant. Speakeasy for the rich and famous, backroom where the staff and riffraff mingle (and maybe do a bit more than that). A Von Mond property, their closest one to the shady side of town. I know a girl who sings there sometimes, voice of an angel with the temper of a devil. Luckily, she's on stage Fridays, and that's tonight. If the little princess hung out at this joint, Rei would know. Whether she would talk, well. That's another story.
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