"I still can't get over how you figured that out, Lainie!" Kingsley proclaimed, giving Lainie a good-natured pat on the back Well, good-natured may have been a bit of an understatement as his hand lingered a bit longer than was necessary. "I knew that if anyone was going to figure it out, it would be you."
"Would you knock it off already, Kingsley?" Jameson said with a stern glance. It had been two days since L had announced Lainie's discovery and his plan to the two other team members. Kingsley had been singing Lainie's praises and finding opportunities to innocently touch her as often as possible and it was beginning to grate on Jameson's nerves.
"What, I can't congratulate Lainie in the office?" he asked, turning his gaze from Lainie to the blond man.
"If you were simply congratulating her, it would have been over and done with two days ago. I would think the fact that she's not responding to any of your advances should tell you to back off. Besides, she's way too young for you."
"It's only a seven year difference," Kingsley stated defensively. "Plus, she's really mature for her age. That makes up for it."
"Oh please. Being mature doesn't make up for the fact that she's only twenty and you're twenty-seven. Besides, she's obviously not interested in anything but the case right now. Let's face it; we'd be sunk without her help. If you distract her from working on the Techno case, who's going to solve all those bloody riddles? You?" His tone was blatantly skeptical and mocking.
By this point, the two men were glaring daggers over Lainie's head, making her feel extremely uncomfortable, especially as she was the main reason for the argument. "You know what, guys? I think I'm going to head home for the day. We don't have anything else to work on right now and I'm beat. I'll see you both tomorrow!" With that said, she extricated herself from the arm that had surreptitiously worked its way around her waist and headed out into the welcome late autumn sun.
She quickly located and entered her car and sat back in the seat with a sigh. It was so wonderfully quiet and she was grateful for that. While Kingsley's sudden attentions were not entirely unwelcome, their abrupt onset and unceasing continuation were a bit of a nuisance in the office. Not only did they lead to constant commentary and the occasional dirty look from Jameson, but they were also a huge distraction to making any productive headway on the case. At least in her car, she was safe from forward advances and speculative office conversations.
Lainie was the proud owner of a lime green and black Lamborghini Gallardo SE, her one guilty pleasure in life. She revved the engine and made her way to her house, stepping inside only long enough to change out of her work clothes and into something more casual before getting back into her car. She was a woman on a mission and she didn't want to draw undue attention to herself.
After a full half an hour of driving, she brought her car to a stop in front of a large hotel. She pulled a small piece of paper out of her purse and double-checked the address, nodding to herself in satisfaction. This was the place. She pulled up the hood of her jacket and walked inside.
"Hello, ma'am?" she asked, stepping up to the desk in the lobby. She raised her head from her book to acknowledge the red head. Lainie noted with glee that it was some sappy romance novel. "My boyfriend checked in here a while ago but I was away. He doesn't know I'm back in town yet and I wanted to surprise him. It's been ever so long since we've seen each other. That and…" she allowed a small pause for dramatic effect, "we didn't part on the best of terms before and I want to make up with him. I miss him so much!" Her voice quivered with emotion at that last statement, causing the already emotional woman at the desk to begin crying in sympathy.
"What's his name, sweetie?" the woman asked, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll tell you what room he's in and give you an extra key."
"R-ryuzaki," Lainie sobbed.
"Ryuzaki," the woman murmured, looking through the clientele log. Lainie crossed her fingers behind her back. "Here he is! Room 1031. Here you go, dear," she said, handing Lainie a small plastic keycard. "It's on the top floor. You can use that elevator right over there."
"Thank you, ma'am," Lainie said, managing a shaky smile.
"Good luck, darling!" the woman called tremulously as Lainie entered the elevator.
The doors slid shut silently, allowing Lainie the privacy to wipe the crocodile tears from her cheeks and eyes. That had been way too easy. She had really lucked out, getting a romance obsessed woman like that as the desk clerk. And getting a key to his room! She hadn't even considered that as a possibility. The best she had been hoping for was just to see if L was registered as Ryuzaki and was still in the hotel. Things were going better than she could have hoped for!
The door to room 1031 swung open easily and Lainie pocketed the keycard before stepping inside. The lavish room showed signs that it had been inhabited until recently but, to her dismay, it was completely devoid of human inhabitants. The large window was open, allowing a cool autumn breeze to blow the curtains about. The trashcans were full to the brim with sweets wrappers and empty sugar packets. The refrigerator was host to a score of cakes and cream puffs, all reeking of future diabetes. It seemed like this man ate nothing but sugary sweets!
Lainie let out a sigh. Apart from discovering that L had some seriously strange eating habits, she hadn't found anything. Not a single goddamn thing. What a complete and total waste. She was on her way back out the door when something brushed against her leg. She whipped around in alarm only to find a piece of paper attacking her ankle, probably blown her way by the breeze from the open window. She almost tossed it in the trash with the candy wrappers, but something-call it a woman's intuition, well honed detective skills, or just plain old dumb luck-stopped her. The chicken-scratch message shocked her beyond belief.
"Miss Quinn,
Did you really think I would fall for that? I'm not the world's greatest detective for nothing. We will have to discuss your most unprofessional behavior.
L"
As if on cue, her cell phone rang.
"Miss Quinn."
"L," she returned. "If it's within my rights to ask, where are the cameras?"
"Everywhere." She nodded. It had been far too easy to not have been a set-up. She should have seen it coming, should have been more careful in entering the ritzy hotel room.
"So…am I under arrest?" Lainie asked, eying possible escape routes from the room. The fact that she was currently on the tenth floor was severely limiting her options. She may be a member of the MPS, but she was a techie. She definitely wasn't equipped for a ten story plummet.
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "I see no need to have you arrested for failing to trace my computer. You keep doing your job and I'll continue to do mine. I'll expect a report of what happens at the airports. That will be all for now." The line went dead, leaving Lainie standing in the abandoned hotel room in silence.
She contained herself all the way down to the lobby, ignoring the desk clerk's excited questions as she passed. She rode back to the Metropolitan Police Service Headquarters at Scotland Yard in complete silence, not even turning on the radio or the stereo. She didn't say a word to any of the people who greeted her as she entered the building, didn't return a single friendly nod or wave as she made her way to the tech department and rummaged through the contents of the room until she found what she was looking for and made her way back out to her car.
Fifteen patience testing minutes later she stood outside her car with a pile of discovered and removed electronics at her feet. Seventeen cameras and five microphones, and that was just her car. Debugging her flat was going to take hours. She let out a strained sigh as she threw the bug sweeper in the back of her Lamborghini before speeding to her house.
The task was a grueling one, lasting several exhausting hours until Lainie was certain that every last bug and camera was removed from her home. There had been one hundred fifty three cameras in all, an indecent amount being found in the bathroom. Most of the cameras and microphones were the same as those she had removed from her car hours before, but a number of them were of a completely different make. It seems L was not the only person who had been keeping tabs on her. If her assumptions were correct, and they usually were when it came to analytical thinking, then the second set of cameras had been placed there by Techno. She didn't know how or when, but it certainly made a few things fall into place in her mind.
It finally made sense now how L had happened to call her almost as soon as she had decoded Techno's binary message; how Techno's message had appeared once she was alone with her computer; how Ryuzaki had known to approach her that first day by Big Ben.
Bearing those thoughts in mind, Lainie loaded the bug sweeper back into her car and drove to both Jameson's and Kingsley's houses, explaining her sudden appearance by telling them about the bugs in her own home and the fact that their houses had most likely been wired as well.
The sweeps of their homes took a surprisingly short amount of time compared to how long she had spent cleaning out her house. What shocked her the most however, well, sent her into a trembling combination of rage and nervousness, actually, was that none of the cameras in her coworkers' homes belonged to L. She was the only one who had been under constant surveillance from the illustrious detective. That realization paired with the newfound knowledge that Ryuzaki was L chilled her and could only mean one thing.
L considered her a prime suspect of this case. He suspected that she either was, or was working in collaboration with, Techno.
