Disclaimer

The characters used in this story belong to DC comics and Warner Bros. I have used them in this story which is a product of my own imagination

Any other names and characters created in this story do not have any resemblance with the original persons or characters, if they exist.

Chap 25

In the meantime…

Lisa's apartment

Flash was the first to enter the apartment once GL figured out the right key make for the door. Hawk Girl suggested that they should break open the doors, but for obvious reasons, they decided against it.

"Nope…nothing…no use…nothing….none…naah!" Flash commented as he swiftly covered the place in one go. The others paused momentarily and then took to their own plan of action. GL flooded his work area with the aura of his ring to catch even the subtlest clue. Hawk Girl, on the other hand, did not prefer to show what she believed as unnecessary sophistication in her methods. She felt free to move the furniture around, break open the closets and even smash a cookie jar containing unusually fresh cookies.

"Cookies! One for me!" Flash almost pulled one away from her nose as she tried to smell them. He gobbled it and let out a satisfied belch. "Yummy"

"Those were her favorite!" Diana remarked. She was at her wardrobe.

Hawk Girl narrowed her eyes in disgust "Filthy!"

"Nope, not filthy! Fresh!" Flash corrected her.

For some reason, that charade seemed to attract more attention than it would've deserve d under ordinary circumstances.

"Give me one!" GL let out his hand.

"Comm'on John! You too!" Hawk Girl shook her head in disapproval.

"It's not about that! Just give me one!" GL demanded. He regretted raising his voice almost instantly, as Hawk Girl frowned. But she handed him the cookie.

"Strange!" GL said as he sniffed it, and then took a bite. "Unusually fresh!"

Diana almost ran to GL. "What about it?"

"You said that no one has lived in this house for three months. Yet, these cookies seem too fresh to be three months old, or older." GL explained as he handed the cookie to her.

Diana sniffed it too, and took a bite at an area significantly away from GL' s bite. She nodded in approval.

"Jonn, can you tell us how old these are, exactly?" GL called up to Jonn who had made his way straight to the bed room.

"May be! But look at this first," he said, pointing to the screen of an ordinary desktop.

The others made their way to Jonn. Flash, who was about to put another cookie in his mouth, dropped it on his way to Jonn.

"Why, that's Mark Smith!" GL remarked, "A Mark Smith wall paper!"

"Wow Di! Your sis was head over heels in love with Marky!" Flash commented. Diana shot a gaze at him, and he simmered down.

"That's not the only thing! Firstly, I'm surprised she owned a computer!" Jonn said.

"I believe it was a gift from Mark!" hawk girl said, pointing to the etching on the key board. It read From Mark

"Well, I'll buy that! Now, look at this folder! It contains about a thousand pictures of Mark, most of them repeated." He opened the folder to show its contents.

"Someone had given an explanation to this!" Flash cooed. This time, Diana didn't respond. She looked a bit shocked.

"Also there is a folder which has been encrypted. I don't presume decryption should be a hard task. Nut look at its properties. It has been last edited 3 days ago!" Jonn added.

"What do you suggest, Jonn?" Hawk Girl asked.

"Nothing as of now! But I believe this is the only worthy evidence I can perceive of , in this entire house." Jonn said.

"May be we should take it back to watch tower!" GL suggested.

"What about the cookie thing?" Flash reminded.

"Ah, of course! Jonn, what do you say, how old this cookie can be?" GL asked, handing him the twice bitten cookie he took back from Diana.

Jonn seemed to look into it. The he sniffed and took a bite too.

"It's about 8 days old!" Jonn concluded.

"You know what this means!" GL raised his eye brows. Diana looked from one to another in anticipation.

"Someone must be living here! Or maybe someone is occasionally visiting this place, and using this computer," Hawk Girl said thoughtfully.

"And eating up cookies!" Flash added. Hawk girl frowned at him.

"No…no…I think that's important. The fact that the trespasser put the cookies in the jar suggests that he/she is actually spending a considerable amount of time here!" GL said.

"Hey, we can get some finger prints from the cookie jar and the computer!" Flash suggested.

"Terrific Flash!" GL nodded in approval and went back into the living room to scan the remnants of the jar. Jonn looked for fingerprints on the keyboard.

"No luck!" GL came back, shaking his head, "I see the prints of ten fingers on the broken glass, formed at almost the same time, and bet they are hawk Girl's"

"I can see the pressure applied on the keys, but no fingerprints here either!" Jnn said, as the yellowish glow in his eyes faded.

"I see our adversary did not want to leave a trace. He/she must be wearing gloves" Hawk Girl said.

"But what I don't understand is, if the evidence is already with Mark, then what else can someone be searching for, here?" GL said thoughtfully.

"May be they suspect something is in the computer, may be that encrypted folder!" Flash suggested.

"No, Flash! The folder has been last modified three days ago. And now I'm seeing the entire log of this folder and I see this has been modified more than a hundred times in the last three months. Coincidentally, this folder was created exactly one day after Lisa was murdered. So, obviously Lisa didn't create it! It must be someone else, and that someone else must be around something else that we either do not know, or are missing!" Jonn said.

"When you say modified, Jonn, does it mean its contents were written into?" Diana asked, breaking her long silence.

"Yes, most of the time!" Jonn nodded. "It may also be deletion of files or creation of new files. We will come to know once break the encryption code of this folder. But there is no reason why we shouldn't assume that someone has been fiddling with your sister's computer."

Just then, the clicking sound of the door knob is heard. Someone was trying to open to the door which was latched from inside. The clicking was replaced by furious knock and a hoarse voice - "Who's in there!"