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Chapter 9: Searching

It was 7:30 pm and Thalassa still hasn't come back to the agency. Trucy was getting really worried and was pacing around the house, asking Phoenix the same question every few minutes.

"Daddy, where is she?" Trucy asked for the umpteenth time.

"I don't know Truce," Phoenix glanced up from the law book he was trying to read. "Tell you what, if she isn't back by nine o'clock then we'll go look for her."

"But daddyyy!" Trucy whined. "She left at eight-thirty in the morning! She should be back by now! Waiting until nine o'clock is too long. That's an hour and a half from now!"

"Trucy," Phoenix sighed. "She's a grown woman, she knows how to take care of herself."

Trucy stopped her pacing and spun around to face him, her hands clutching the fabric of her cape. "Don't you care about her?"

Phoenix sighed and set his law book down on the coffee table. "Of course I care about her, but as I said before, there's no possible way to control anybody; whether it's for their good or not. Trust me, I know from experience."

"B-But, I need to make sure she's OK..." Trucy replied quietly, her eyes glancing down at the carpet.

Phoenix got up and walked over to her. He sighed once again, he hated seeing her so sad. She was usually a bright ball of energy, but whenever she showed sadness he himself got sad. Sometimes he thinks that he wasn't cut out for this whole "parenting" thing. "Alright Trucy, if she doesn't come back in half an hour then we'll go look for her. Alright?"

"Okay, thanks daddy," Trucy said, giving her father a hug. Phoenix returned the hug but Trucy quickly pulled away. "I need to go upstairs and make sure I look OK! I'll be right back!" Trucy ran up the stairs and Phoenix went back over to the couch and picked up his book.

"Girls."

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Meanwhile, Apollo entered his dark apartment and switched on the lights. He let his eyes adjust to the brightness before opening the fridge to find something to eat. While pulling some ham out of the fridge to make a ham and cheese sandwich, there was a knock on the door.

"I hope it's not Trucy again..." Apollo muttered to himself. He opened the door and no one was there. "Ugh, I hate it when people ding-dong dit... Huh?" Apollo stopped and bent down, picking up a letter off of the doorstep. He looked around and saw nobody. Shrugging, he unfolded the paper.

"For your own safety, kill her now before it's too late," Apollo read off the letter. Below was a picture of Trucy. "What the hell? What kind of sick joke is this?" Apollo muttered to himself. He looked up, figuring that whoever left the letter on the doorstep was hiding somewhere. "No, I won't kill her, and I won't kill anyone else for that matter!" Apollo yelled. He stepped back inside and slammed the door.

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"Come on daddy! Let's go!"

"In a minute Trucy," Phoenix said.

"But it's already eight o'clock! We need to go look for her now," Trucy insisted.

"Alright, alright," Phoenix chuckled. "Just let me put on my jacket." Phoenix shrugged on his jacket and Trucy ran over and zipped it up for him. She then grabbed him by the elbow and brought him outside. "Gee Truce, we didn't need to be that fast," Phoenix remarked, looking at Trucy.

"Yes we did! Anyway, where is mommy's house?"

Phoenix looked away for a moment, trying to hide the brief look of sadness that crossed his face when she called Thalassa "mommy." "To be honest, I don't know her address..."

"What do you mean that you don't know her address? Daddy, how are we supposed to find her now?"

"Hey hey, calm down. I don't the number to her house but I do know the street. I guess we can knock on people's doors and ask them where the new neighbor lives..."

"OK... So what street is it?" Trucy asked.

"It's Hope Street. Y'know, where they have that Hope Diner that has some weird slogan that's like 'Don't be a dope, eat at the hope!'" Phoenix explained.

"Ohh, that place! OK! That's not too far from here. Now come on, let's go!" They started to walk down the street. "Daddy, what's going to happen now?" Trucy asked as they were crossing the street.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Y'know... Am I going to stay with you, or live with mommy?" Trucy asked curiously. Phoenix looked away for a moment and looked back at her, the light from the street lamps framing her face.

"I don't know."

"Aww, are you sad daddy?" Trucy asked.

"...Honestly Trucy, I am," He answered.

"Don't worry about it, everything will work out."

"Yeah, sure..." Phoenix answered, unconvinced.

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Apollo was eating his ham and cheese sandwich and was interrupted with a knock on the door.

I hope it's not another letter...

Apollo went over to the door and swung it open. Klavier was standing there, the look on his face was one that Apollo never seen before.

"K-Klavier? Are you OK?" Apollo asked, concern filling his eyes.

"No." Klavier said. Apollo just stared at him for a few seconds looked at him expectantly. "Apollo, can I come in?" Klavier said with an annoyed tone.

W-What? He didn't say 'no' in German? He didn't call me Herr Forehead?

Apollo shook his head and Klavier raised an eyebrow.

"S-Sure. Come on in."

Klavier brushed passed him and went into his apartment; Apollo shut the door and followed him.

"So, what's wrong?" Apollo asked.

"You know what's wrong!" Klavier's reply came quickly.

"...I know, I was just there. But why are you back here now? Did you find something new? If you did you could've just called me..."

"This cannot be discussed over the phone! You never know who can be listening!"

Apollo rolled his eyes. "You're just being paranoid."

"I am not!" Klavier argued.

"Alright, alright," Apollo sighed. "Just tell me what you wanted to tell me in the first place."

"Right..." Klavier sat down at the table and Apollo went back to his sandwich. "Alright, we found more fingerprints, and they were Trucy's-"

"Oh no..."

"But," Klavier glared at him, "we found someone else's fingerprints."

"Really? That's good then!" Apollo grinned a little. "Whose were they?"

"I don't know yet. The people down at the lab are analyzing it now."

...I wonder why he is so upset and worried? This isn't related to him. At least with me, Trucy is my... Sister. There's something he's not telling me.

"Anyway," Klavier continued. "We cannot tell Herr Wright or Trucy anything."

"But-"

"Nein. It'll just be for now; until we really know what's going on."

"But Trucy-"

"Will be fine," Klavier finished Apollo's sentence.

"No, what I was going to say is that I think someone really wants to get rid of Trucy right now," Apollo glared at Klavier.

"...What do you mean?" Klavier asked suspiciously. Apollo dug out a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, handing it to Klavier. Klavier's eyes quickly read over the words on the page, his eyes opening wide at the end. "Herr Forehead, where did you get this?" He said slowly.

"I was sitting here eating my sandwich and there was a knock on the door. I went to go open the door and that letter was on the doorstep," Apollo shrugged and looked away.

"Hmm, I think we should ask meine lie- uh, I mean Ema to fingerprint this."

Apollo shrugged again. "You can if you want, but I doubt you'll find anything. Since the person didn't even leave us any of his handwriting he wouldn't be dumb enough to touch the paper with his bare hands. I don't think fingerprinting paper would work anyway."

"Better to be safe than sorry..."

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"Hello? You guys better not be any of those brats who always try to sell me chocolates."

"Uh, hi. We're not here to sell chocolates," Phoenix said awkwardly and scratched at the back of his neck. "We were wondering where the-"

"Hey, you look pretty familiar..." The man who opened the door squinted at Phoenix.

Damn, I was hoping this wasn't going to happen.

Ever since Phoenix had gotten disbarred seven years ago, everywhere he went he at least saw one person gave him dirty looks and whispered to whoever was nearby about the "rotten lying ex-lawyer."

"Ahem, I'm sure it's just your imagination. Anyway, me and my daughter here were wondering where the new neighbor around here liv-"

"Hey! You're Phoenix Wright! Yeah, I saw you on TV a few weeks ago!" The man scowled and pointed at the street. "You don't know how much I hate hypocrites and liars like you! I wouldn't help you if my life depended on it," The man gestured at Trucy. "That girl deserves a better father than you, hmph." The man backed up and slammed the door. Phoenix and Trucy stared at the door for a few moments in shock until Trucy tugged on the sleeve of Phoenix's coat.

"Daddy, why was that man so angry at you? You were proven innocent of that stuff!" Trucy questioned.

Phoenix shook his head. "I don't know. Some people just never learn to accept the truth. C'mon, let's go ask the people next door." Trucy was about to say something else but Phoenix already turned away and began walking to the house next door. Trucy frowned and followed him. Phoenix walked up to the door and knocked. A woman with a red hair in an afro opened the door.

"Alright, what do ya'll want? You better not be no Jehovah Witn- Aw hey, it's you! The spiky-haired lawyer!"

"L-Lotta?"

"That's right! I'm glad ya'll remember me!"

Well, you're pretty hard to forget with that big afro and thick accent of yours...

"Hey, so who's that gal you've got there?" Lotta asked, gesturing at Trucy.

"I'm Trucy Wright!"

"Wright, eh?" Apparently, she made no connection to Phoenix's last name. "Surprised, you ain't no Fey. Hey, whatever happened to that Maya gal anyway? I've never seen ya' without her, well not since she got kidnapped, y'know?"

"Uhh," Phoenix looked away for a moment. "She had to go back to Kurain and be master and... yeah. Anyway, we would like to know where-"

"Oh, I see how it is! Don't want to talk with the southerner, eh? Hmph, fine! So be it!"

Sigh, still the same old Lotta.

"Lotta, please, it's really important!"

"Alright, alright! What do you take me for, anyway?" Lotta pouted.

"...Right. We would like to know where the new neighbor lives."

"New neighbor...? Oh! You mean the one with all those ruffles and frilly stuff on her dress? Sure, she lives across the street, a few houses down, y'know? Oh, and het house is the only one with a red roof; as red as my hair!"

That's one red roof!

"Alright, thank you Lotta," Phoenix waved his hand and began to walk away.

"OK, bye for now! Make sure ya'll come back to visit!" Lotta called.

Oh, yeah. I'll be sure to visit.

"Bye!" said Trucy, and Lotta closed the door. Phoenix and Trucy were crossing the street when Trucy asked, "Daddy, how do you know that lady?"

"I know her from my lawyer days, I had to deal with her for three of my cases," Phoenix replied.

"Wow, she sure got around!"

"She's a photographer and wanted to get a bunch of weird scoops."

"Hee, well I want to visit her again! She seemed nice!"

"Yeah... Nice... Oh, look we're at Thalassa's house," Phoenix said, pointing at the red roof.

Trucy looked up and ran toward the front door, knocking on it eagerly. "Mommy! Are you there? Please open up!" Phoenix walked toward the door and waited before knocking again.

"Thalassa, you there?" He called out, giving three short knocks. Nothing.

"D-Daddy? Can we do something...?" Trucy pleaded.

"I can break the door down. I've done it a few times..." Phoenix glanced up at the door and slammed his body against it until it broke free from the hinges. Trucy ran in, switching on the light and gasped in shock. There was blood- old and fresh blood, stained all over the floors. A few items like toasters and flower vases were strewn about and also caked in blood. Phoenix came in rubbing his back and winced when he saw the scene. Trucy began to cry and Phoenix took out his phone.

"Yes, hello. I have an emergency..."

This hiatus was brought to you by, Professor Layton! Yes, I've actually never played any of the Professor Layton games but I figured that if Professor Layton VS. Ace Attorney does get released to America (it better) I should play the Layton games to. Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do! OK, so maybe I do but that's beside the point. I'm on Unwound Future now... Ahem, anyway so this is the longest chapter by far! 2,076 words! By the way Ivyclan Moonblossom, how's you know that I was going with the whole kidnap Thalassa thing? :) Haha, thanks for reading and please review!