So, here it is, the final chapter, just in time for Halloween.
Thanks a lot for all your reviews, they really made my day :-)
"That's strange," Kono said pensively, furrowing her brow as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
Chin looked at his cousin, wondering briefly whether she was talking about the two dead bodies they had just found in the second Miller house or…
"Neither Steve nor Danny is answering their phones," she interrupted his musings, giving him the answer to his unspoken question.
"Maybe there's no reception," Chin replied, slightly shrugging his shoulders when he noticed the hint of worry in Kono's eyes. "Or they got caught up in one of their famous arguments," he added playfully, grinning brightly when he heard Kono snort in amusement.
"Why don't we head over there and see what they're doing," Chin suggested, nodding his head toward the neighboring house that Steve and Danny were searching right now. "Then we can tell them face-to-face what we found."
"Okay," Kono agreed immediately, throwing another worried look at her cell phone before she stowed it away with a little sigh. She had a bad feeling about the whole situation but maybe her cousin was right and Steve and Danny had a good reason why they didn't answer her call. Looking back at the dead body in front of her feet, she asked hesitantly, "What about them?"
"I guess they are not going anywhere," Chin answered drily, his comment eliciting another snort from his cousin.
Contrary to Steve and Danny, Chin and Kono had started their search outside the house where they had quickly checked the backyard and the small tool shed for any usable hints about the Miller brothers. John and Jack Miller had not only lived next-door to one another, their houses were in fact completely identically constructed.
The first thing the cousins had noticed when they had finally entered the house was a cadaverous smell and they had soon found not one but two dead bodies.
The corpse of John Miller was lying between the small corridor and the kitchen, his skull clearly smashed and his face maimed almost beyond recognition. Chin was not an expert but judging from the smell and the state of decay he estimated that the man was dead for several weeks.
Knowing that the Miller brothers were nearly inseparable, it didn't take Chin and Kono long to find Jack's body. The door to the cellar was wide open and when Kono switched on the light and carefully headed downstairs she almost stumbled over the second body. Jack Miller was lying at the bottom of the steep staircase with no visible injuries except of his clearly broken neck, leaving the question open whether he had fallen or had been pushed.
"Why didn't we know that they were back on the islands?" Kono asked her cousin while they were walking over to the other house, sighing in frustration when Chin just shrugged his shoulders and slightly shook his head. "Their mug shots are posted all over the country and every police officer is watching out for the Miller brothers." She agitatedly waved her hands through the air in a way that would probably make Danny very proud. "And why did they come back here?"
"I have no idea, cuz," Chin answered quietly as they approached the front door. Holding the door open for the young woman, he entered behind her as he added, "Maybe Steve and Danny have found…"
"Oh God!" Kono suddenly interrupted him mid-sentence, rushing toward the kitchen without further explanation. Chin furrowed his brow at her sudden terrified outcry but then he saw what she had already seen and he followed her hastily.
"It's Steve," Kono explained unnecessarily, throwing a brief, horrified glance back at her cousin before she knelt down next to McGarrett's prone form. Steve was lying motionless on the floor between the kitchen and the corridor, a large pool of blood beneath his head. The blood apparently came from a large cut above his right temple and from his clearly broken nose. His face was deathly pale and even his lips seemed to have lost all their color; his mouth was slightly agape but Kono wasn't able to tell if he was still breathing.
Kono was distantly aware that Chin was talking somewhere behind her, probably calling an ambulance, but she didn't pay further attention. Gathering all her courage she slowly stretched out her hand and placed her visibly trembling fingers on Steve's neck to search for a pulse.
"He's alive," she breathed out a sigh of relief, smiling shakily when she felt Steve moving weakly beneath her hands. Steve groaned softly and his eyelids began to flutter when Kono placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and repeatedly called his name.
Turning her head, she looked up at her cousin, frowning in confusion when she noticed the stern expression on Chin's face. "Chin?" she asked hesitantly, hunching her shoulders when a cold shiver ran down her spine. "Chin? What's up?"
"Don't you think this is strange?" Chin replied hoarsely, his gaze briefly flickering toward the open cellar door. He raised his hands, pointing at the kitchen and at Steve's position on the floor. "His injuries…" his voice trailed off as he forcefully shook his head. Surely it was just coincidence that Steve was lying in the exact same place where they had found the first body in the other house and that his injuries were almost identical to John Miller's.
Drawing in a sharp breath, Chin locked eyes with Kono who slowly seemed to catch on to his thoughts and looked back at him open-mouthed.
"Where's Danny?" the cousins suddenly exclaimed with one voice, staring at each other for the blink of an eye before they both turned their heads toward the cellar door.
"Stay with Steve," Chin instructed breathlessly, already racing through the kitchen.
"Danny?" he shouted as he switched on the light and hurried down as fast as the well-trodden stairs allowed. He was unable to see anything down in the cellar because the dim light didn't reach the end of the staircase. Hitting his fist at the second light switch at the bottom of the stairs, Chin blinked rapidly in the sudden brightness when the lonely light bulb flared to life.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his teammate lying on the dusty floor of the cellar, unmoving and in almost the same position as they had found Jack Miller's body in the other house. Not allowing himself to ponder over these strange similarities, Chin quickly recovered from his initial shock and rushed to Danny's side. Placing a hand on the younger man's shoulder, he breathed out a relieved sigh when he saw Danny slightly stirring.
"Kono, I found him," Chin shouted upwards to inform his cousin. "Can you call a second ambulance?"
"Stop… shouting," Danny groaned hoarsely, his eyes still closed and his face contorted with pain. "Head's killing me…" he added in a pained whisper, swallowing forcefully against the rising nausea.
"Sorry," Chin replied, lowering his voice to a mere whisper as he gently squeezed Danny's shoulder. He couldn't prevent the amused grin that spread across his face; if Danny was able to complain about his situation Chin was sure that his injuries weren't too bad. "How are you feeling?"
"As if I fell down the stairs," Danny answered without hesitation, biting back a groan as he blinked his eyes open. Swallowing again, he tried to take a deep breath but soon regretted his decision when a wave of pain rushed through his chest. Pressing his left arm against his ribcage he squinted at his teammate, "What happened?"
"I have no idea, but it looks like you really fell down the stairs, brah," Chin explained apologetically, quickly giving Danny a helping hand when he noticed that he tried to sit up. "Why don't you stay down and wait for the ambulance?" he suggested, seeing the deep lines of pain on Danny's face.
"Not fallen…" Danny forcefully shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut when the movement spiked the pain in his skull. "Pushed."
"Pushed?" Chin repeated, grabbing Danny's elbow when the younger man stubbornly struggled to his feet. "Who pushed you?"
"Don't know…" Danny answered hesitantly; gratefully accepting Chin's help as he heavily leaned on his friend. "T'was too dark…" he slurred, dangerously swaying on his feet before his knees gave way. His head dropped to his chest and he would have collapsed if not for Chin's fast reflexes.
"Whoa, Danny, I really think it's better you sit back down and we wait for that ambulance," Chin repeated his former suggestion, placing Danny's right arm around his own shoulders to keep him upright. "Are you still with me, brah?"
"Where else would I be?" Danny whispered back, breathing in as deep as his injured ribs allowed and weakly raised his head. "Just get me out of this damn cellar," he insisted grimly, throwing Chin an almost pleading glance out of unfocused eyes.
Chin had no idea how he had managed to steer Danny upstairs but after what seemed like an eternity and at least a dozen breaks they had finally reached the kitchen. Slightly shaking his head when he saw that Kono had similar problems to keep Steve down, he quickly guided Danny through the kitchen and made him sit down next to McGarrett.
"And now you both stay put until the paramedics are here," Chin said sternly, throwing a worried look at his two teammates. Danny was breathing shallowly, pressing his left arm against his ribcage; cold sweat was covering his deathly pale face and he looked like he was ready to keel over at any moment. Steve seemed to be even worse off; he was equally pale as his partner but with all the barely dried blood that covered his face, his neck and half of his clothes, he looked like something that was coming directly from a horror movie. He breathed laboriously through his mouth and the fact that he also had trouble focusing his eyes clearly indicated a severe concussion.
But both men were obviously satisfied to just be in each other's company and they obediently followed Chin's instructions without showing their usual stubbornness. Exchanging a brief look, Steve and Danny slightly nodded their heads before they simultaneously closed their eyes and leaned back against the wall.
"Chin, what the hell happened here?" Kono asked in a low whisper, making sure that she didn't disturb the two injured men on the floor. Her voice trembled noticeably and she nervously knotted her fingers as she waited for an explanation.
"I have no idea, cuz," Chin answered hesitantly, shrugging his shoulders as he let his gaze travel across the corridor and the kitchen. Except Steve's injuries there was absolutely no evidence that someone other than the Five-0 team had been inside the house and he hoped that Steve and Danny were able to shed a little light upon the case once they were back on their feet. Sighing heavily, Chin turned toward his cousin and repeated gravely, "I have absolutely no idea."
Once Steve and Danny had recovered from their injuries – a concussion and three broken ribs in Danny's case respectively a concussion and a broken nose in Steve's case – Five-0 tried with all their might to find out what had happened inside the two houses. But as much as they searched, they found literally nothing; no fingerprints, no footprints, no traces of DNA. No evidence why and when John and Jack Miller had returned to Hawaii and certainly no traces of the stolen jewelry.
It would probably forever remain a mystery who had killed the Miller brothers and if that someone was the same one who had attacked Steve and Danny. There were lots of theories, maybe the brothers had come into conflict and killed each other, maybe there was an unknown accomplice who wanted to keep the swag to himself.
There were questions upon questions but frustratingly little answers and eight months later the Five-0 team was forced to close the Miller case once and for all when the real estate company that had bought the two houses decided to pull them down. Nobody wanted to rent or buy a house where two people had been killed and so it was a logical step to take them down and build a new apartment complex instead.
But these plans were also destined to fail because the contracted building company made two very interesting finds.
To begin with, the construction crew stumbled across two large steel boxes full of jewelry and diamonds, buried deeply underneath the position where the two small tool sheds had been located.
And secondly they found at least two dozen human skeletons that indicated that the whole area was probably an ancient Hawaiian Heiau. Analysis of the bones confirmed that they were indeed several hundred years old, which caused the building company to immediately stop their project.
The Kahu who had been called in to cleanse and bless the ancient burial site wasn't too surprised when he heard about the two unsolved cases of death that had occurred here. The white-haired Hawaiian just shook his head about the stupidity and arrogance of the human race – when would they ever learn not to disturb the ancient spirits?
THE END
Happy Halloween! :-)
See you next time...
