"Finally... I think I might have found an answer. It took far longer than I would have liked, but it's better late than never... Here goes."

CREEEEEEAK...

"It worked! Color me impressed... Ms. Fence? Are you in here? ... A fridge? I never heard anything about there being an appliance down here... Might as well get into it... Wait... Is that...?! No way!"

May 29

Morix Law Offices

10:25 AM

Cotoli Morix

It had been some time since the last case the agency had taken on. The harm done by Cormous was still present, but the wounds were finally starting to fade away. For one, everyone who had stopped coming by the agency due to the threat of a traitor had returned. Life at the agency was falling into the same routine it had been in back before the Emsthorpe case. At long last, I thought the universe might be tipping toward a state of normality after what felt like ages of tumultuous chaos.

I was sitting on the couch in the main collaborative workspace of the agency, doing some paperwork on a clipboard. As much as I liked being in my office, I needed a change of scenery every once in a while, and this seemed to be one of those times. The sound of the pen scratching was all I needed to hear, and it was the only noise piercing the silence. The scrawling of the ink on the paper could get a bit irritating to some people, but to me, it was comforting in a way I couldn't describe.

I wasn't looking forward to doing anything out of the ordinary when Victoria came out into the main space. She sat down beside me and frowned. "Mr. Morix, have you heard anything about a case involving somebody going missing as of late?" she asked.

I looked up from my work and nodded slowly. "Which one are you talking about?" Disappearances were unfortunately much more common than they should have been, and after a while of constantly hearing about a million different cases, it was hard to tell them all apart.

"A lawyer by the name of Dee Fence went missing a few months ago. She was apparently the lead attorney at an agency called Blocker Law. It's been quite some time since she has been seen, and I still get notifications every once in a while that the search is continuing for her. I was planning on talking about it after the Emsthorpe case ended, but... We all know how that turned out," Victoria said with an awkward laugh.

"And after we came back together, you got busy focusing on other things given that we missed out on so much as a group," I continued. "That's why you haven't brought it up until just now."

Victoria smiled and nodded. "You got it. I know it's a bit late to mention now, especially given that she went missing around the time of the nature preserve case all that time ago, but it's better to bring it up late rather than never," she told me.

"I agree... I hope the search for her is going well though. It's horrible when someone goes missing. Oftentimes, part of me fears they're gone because they have died... I don't like that my thought process works in this way, but I guess I've become jaded after so many years of working in the legal world," I frowned, shaking my head.

Part of me thought briefly of Pieter as I said these things. He had gone missing a few years ago, and nobody had seen him in ages. I didn't want to say for sure that he had died when there was still a question mark surrounding his current location, but my fears were catching up to me with each day that he was still gone. I didn't want to believe that something bad had happened to him, but it was hard to keep such thoughts at bay as the seconds, minutes, and hours ticked by. I knew Chrysalis didn't want to admit such was the case either, but I could tell that her hope was diminishing slowly as well.

Luckily, I didn't have long to dwell on such negative thoughts. I was snapped out of my trance when the door to the area burst open. I frowned to myself and turned around to see who had opened the entrance so forcefully. I set down my paperwork, pen, and clipboard on the nearby table before getting to my feet.

"Anton... And Ghastly," I remarked, my eyes wide in shock. Of all the people I had expected, they were near the bottom of my list. I walked around the couch to properly greet them. "What brings you here? I didn't expect to see you at this time of day ever. Did something bad happen?"

Ghastly looked down at Anton for a moment, and I saw tears welling up in his eyes. That told me all I needed to know about how bad the situation was. Even so, I bit my tongue and didn't say anything, waiting for Ghastly to fully explain it.

"Polly was arrested for murder," Ghastly told me after taking a while to ponder his words. "Obviously, she didn't do it, but... We need somebody to defend her from the charges, and I think you're the best person for the job."

I gasped in shock. Polly? I couldn't believe it. The last time I had seen her was two days ago when she said she was going to be investigating more into a case at the request of a high-ranking detective. After that, she left to take care of business, and I didn't think anything of it since that was just how her job worked.

Now, I was hearing that she had been arrested for murder. I wasn't sure how I was expecting her investigation to go, but this was far from what I could have ever anticipated. I didn't even know how to fully articulate a response to hearing about this so suddenly.

"You're as surprised as we were," Ghastly remarked, shaking his head. "Who do you want to bring with you on this case?"

I looked over my shoulder. Victoria had been watching silently up to this point, and our eyes locked. "Victoria? Do you want to come with me to work on this case?" I questioned.

Victoria smiled and nodded. "I would be happy to help. When are we leaving to investigate? When would we even be allowed to go investigate without getting in the way of the police looking around?" she asked.

"I can't say. I'm afraid I don't know much about the details of the case right now, but I'm sure that we'll figure it out at some point," Ghastly frowned. "Maybe check out the TV. If you turn it on, there might be some news channel talking about it."

The door opened behind Ghastly and Anton. I peered around them to see Chrysalis walking in, her phone in one hand. "Hello, you two. What brings you here?" she inquired, though I could tell she was busy thinking about other things. She practically had her phone in a death grip, her knuckles going pale under the pressure.

"They're here to ask that we defend Polly from a murder charge," I began. "She was arrested as a suspect for murder while out on her most recent investigation, though I'm not entirely sure what that investigation was all about."

"Well, maybe I can enlighten you," Chrysalis frowned. She held up her phone, worming her way around everyone to stand at the center of the room. She gestured for everyone to come in close around her as she pulled up a news article on the screen. I read the headline silently.

"'Disappeared Lawyer Resurfaces Dead in Cellar Below Her Agency'," Victoria read. "Dee Fence... Wasn't she a lawyer?"

I nodded. "She was, as a matter of fact... Following the incident that killed the previous owner of Blocker Law, Jackson Blocker, she took over from the chaos to offer some order. But now... I don't know what could have possibly happened to have her winding up dead below her own agency, but if you ask me, it had to be something serious if it had her killed... What has you bringing this case to us, Chrysalis?" I questioned, tearing my eyes from the phone to look at her.

"For one, it's Blocker Law. I feel like we're all a little interested about that place deep down," Chrysalis replied, looking up at me. Judging by the look in her eye, she was talking about how it was connected to Oracle, which Ghastly and I were fully aware of. "On top of that, somebody was arrested for the case. There's no name listed in the article, but if we went down there to check it out, we would be given a suspect. From there, we could decide on what we want to do with the case."

"Wait a moment... If the person Chief Prosecutor Bespoke wants us to defend was arrested after something happened during their investigation... Isn't it possible that the case Chrysalis mentioned is the one that she was arrested as a suspect as?" Victoria questioned. "I can't say for sure since I don't know exactly what she was investigating, but... I think it's possible."

"She n-never talked about it m-much..." Anton stammered, speaking up for the first time during the conversation. "I-I think she told m-me to b-be careful so I d-don't go m-missing too..."

"If you ask me, that sounds like a disappearing case. Since this headline describes a disappeared lawyer who resurfaced dead... It seems to me like it's very possible that she was investigating the disappearance of Dee Fence only to discover the body of the very person she was looking for," Chrysalis said, crossing her arms and frowning to herself.

"I have to wonder how somebody like her could have died... I mean, she was obviously missing for a long time, and if she was alive all that time, it's odd that nobody ever found her. If you want my opinion, there's some kind of foul play involved," Ghastly remarked.

"There has to be... Not many people can hide from the world for that long. It would be difficult at best and borderline impossible at worst. All we can do is get down there and see what this case is hiding," I told everyone.

"Something odd is going on here... Call it a gut instinct. Either way, I'm going to ignore that feeling for the time being, because we have business to attend to sooner rather than later. Anton, Ghastly... Thank you for your help in telling us about what happened with Polly," I said, looking to them and nodding.

"It's no problem. I don't want there to be any issues with her getting convicted of something she didn't do. I know she can be a little bit crabby at times, but she's got a good heart underneath all that, and we both know she would never go so far as to commit murder, regardless of what the circumstances may be," Ghastly declared. "I just wish I knew what was going on here in full. As it is, everything seems to be a messy buzz. I'm the chief prosecutor, and I still haven't gotten any major breaks in the case. I have to assign a prosecutor for the case still, but I don't exactly know enough to make a good choice yet. I know I tend to procrastinate a lot, but... It's frustrating when I'm on the receiving end of it."

"I never thought I would hear you say that," I remarked with a small shrug and laugh. "Part of me thought you would be a procrastinator forever, but I get the feeling this case might have you changing your tune regardless of how many years you've had that bad habit."

Ghastly sighed. "Perhaps my stubbornness towards my procrastination is finally going to come to a close... I can't say for sure, and I would suggest that none of you hold your breath. Only time can tell what I decide to do with that, and I think deliberation on it can wait until after we've finished working with this case," he said, yawning to himself. "We have bigger fish to fry at the moment, don't we? Besides, Polly wouldn't want to miss everybody nagging me about breaking my procrastination habit when she's been trying to do that for as long as either one of us can remember."

"Is she going t-to be back soon...?" Anton asked, looking up at me and Ghastly with concern and fear in his eyes.

I nodded. "Don't worry at all, Anton. She'll be home before you know it. I'll make sure she's back soon," I told him. I placed one hand on his shoulder and pulled him in a bit closer. I could tell that he wanted a hug in that moment. In fact, he needed it. I let one hand rest on the back of his head while the other stroked his upper back slowly.

Anton wasn't sure about it at first, but a few seconds later, he threw his arms around me and started to cry openly. He couldn't get any words out, but I didn't need to hear anything from him. I just wanted to help him feel a little bit better, and that didn't require any verbal communication.

Ghastly gently pulled Anton away from me to hug him tightly. I watched with a small, tender smile. I felt bad for Anton, but I was incredibly happy that he had a support system full of people who cared about him so much. Even if I had other business to take care of to save Polly, Chrysalis and Ghastly had time to spare to help him out.

"I'm going to go and investigate the case to make sure that Polly comes home soon, okay?" I told Anton. When he nodded silently, face pressed against Ghastly's torso even still, I looked to Victoria and nodded. She followed my gesture and walked out of the room, and I started to follow her, though I kept one eye on the three people we were leaving behind. I wanted to see what they were going to do.

Chrysalis saw Anton wasn't going to be stopping his tears anytime soon, and she walked up to where he was standing with Ghastly. She wrapped her arms around them both and rocked Anton back and forth gently to calm him down. His cries slowly got softer until they were barely audible.

I smiled to myself. He was in good hands. I trusted Ghastly and Chrysalis to take care of him, and while they were busy, I was going to make sure Polly was okay. A lot had happened, but I was going to stop it before it got too out of hand.

May 29

Blocker Law Offices

11:00 AM

Victoria von Graye

When we got to the agency, I glanced around and frowned to myself. There were so many people here that it was almost suffocating. I didn't know how we would be able to walk around if there were this many police officers. Part of me feared we would be stopped at the door and asked for our badges, so I looked up to Mr. Morix. He didn't seem to be bothered by this at all, so I swallowed and stowed my fear to the best of my ability. I let my hands clench into fists as we walked closer, praying nobody thought I was acting weird. After all, if they thought I was being weird, they could get suspicious of me when I didn't do anything wrong.

All in all, I had already learned one thing since arriving here at the crime scene. I had already taken on one case, yes, but my confidence certainly didn't match what a lawyer with a successful case under their belt should have.

By some miracle, nobody stopped us on the way into the building. I took this as a silent victory and watched as Mr. Morix opened the door for me. I thanked him with a small nod before walking in side.

Oh, boy. If I thought the outside was crowded, the lobby was even worse.

I could hardly contain my surprise at seeing so many people crammed into such a small space. The little voice in the back of my head told me how hot it had gotten all of a sudden. I liked being around people, yes, but it got to be too much way too quickly when there were so many people in this small of a space. The combined heat of every person in the lobby felt like it was attacking me. I focused on digging my nails into my palms to keep from stressing out too much. I was an adult now. I couldn't let myself get bothered by a hot lobby when there were clearly other, much more pressing matters to think about first.

I followed Mr. Morix away from the lobby, thankfully enough. However, we seemed to be going to the source of all these people. There was a door nearby with a set of stairs heading down below the level of the entrance. Underground? What in the world were we going to be doing down there?

That was when it hit me. The headline we saw talked about how the body was found below a law agency. I wasn't entirely sure what that could imply, but it seemed to me now that there was a basement or other bottom floor that had the body stowed away in it. I couldn't help but wonder what all this meant for our case, but I got the feeling we were going to be finding out soon enough, whether we liked it or not. Even if the facts about this case changed drastically from what we originally expected, one thing would never change: my eternal, debilitating anxiety.

When we got there, I could see two figures that stood out against the crowd. They were the only ones not wearing the regular uniform of the police station. Mr. Morix regarded them with a small smile of familiarity, but he didn't take to talking to them immediately. I couldn't see the two people completely due to the swarm of police officers covering the room, but I did my best to peek my head in between figures when I could. After realizing this was pointless, I let out a small sigh of sadness and frustration before following Mr. Morix's silent direction to look around the room.

It was crowded, to say the least. The paint on the walls was a brown color, and it was peeling rather horribly. There were pipes sticking out of the floor and walls, something I hadn't originally expected upon walking in. There was a small hallway leading deeper into the floor, but I couldn't tell what was inside it. A secondary door blocked the way into the hall, and all I could get a glimpse of was the black paint that covered the entrance. A voice in the back of my head told me to worm over there and see what was going on, but I couldn't do that given how many people were around. Instead, I let Mr. Morix take my hand and guide me through the crowd before settling down next to the pair of odd figures in the clump.

"Detective Erikson. Detective Hayes," Mr. Morix greeted, nodding to them both.

I gasped upon looking up to the taller of the two figures. I knew him well from the case that had divided us a few months ago. Realistically, I knew it hadn't been too long, but it had felt like ages in my time of sadness.

"Detective Erikson!" I exclaimed. "It's nice to see you again." I bowed my head with a small smile.

Detective Erikson smiled in return and nodded to both me and Mr. Morix. "I'm glad to see you two here. Ms. von Graye, I don't think I ever thanked you for what you did for me a few months ago. Thank you again," he told me.

I flushed at the sudden attention. "Oh... It's nothing... I just did what anyone else would have done. I'm happy that I was able to help you out of a tight spot. That's what we do as lawyers, right? I would be pretty bad at my job if I wasn't able to get you away from that situation," I said in response. I could tell my mouth was running for a lot longer than I wanted, but I somehow couldn't get myself to stop talking. In the end, I had to clap my teeth down against my bottom lip to keep from going on. If not for teeth, we would have been there all day. For the first time in my life, I am thanking evolution for teeth.

"Speaking of our duties as lawyers, we're here because we're considering defending the defendant on this case. Could you tell us who it is? We weren't exactly told before coming here," Mr. Morix said. It took me a moment, but I realized why his language was kept ambiguous. He wanted to make sure the option to back out was still there in case our gut instinct about Prosecutor Burke being the suspect was wrong. If he was right, then he had a claim to say he was on the case as well. How smart of him.

"Polly Burke. You've met her before," Detective Erikson replied. "She was the main investigator looking into the disappearance of the victim, Dee Fence. She wound up finding what she was looking for, but not in the way you would expect... In fact, a lot about this case is unexpected or otherwise strange. I don't even know where to begin on explaining everything we've learned so far in our investigation."

"How about you tell us how the victim died? That's something important for us to know, right?" I started, tapping my chin with one finger. "Do you have the autopsy report yet?"

"The victim was stabbed in the chest once with a knife. She died instantly as far as we're aware since her heart was pierced by the knife," Detective Hayes answered. "It's the autopsy report that's giving us a bit more trouble though... How exactly do I say this...?"

"You can do it," Detective Erikson told him, nudging him gently with one shoulder. A small smile of encouragement was on his face, and I'm not going to lie, it was heartwarming to see."

Detective Hayes nodded. "Yes... The autopsy report hasn't been made yet. In fact, it can't be made for quite a while," he explained.

I looked up to Mr. Morix in surprise before focusing my attention back on the pair of detectives standing before us. "What do you mean? Is something wrong?" I asked. I don't know why that question was the first one to come out given that it was obvious something was wrong. If the autopsy report couldn't be finished, there had to be something going on, and I doubted whatever it was could go in our favor.

"We can't get one key part of the autopsy report written down. We know name, age, and the cause of death. We're missing the time of death, and the forensics team doesn't want to release the autopsy report until they have all the details they need. If they have to go on without it, that's alright, but they don't want to do it until they think they have no choice," Detective Hayes told us.

"The time of death... Is there something that's making the time of death so difficult to figure out in this case?" I asked. Wanting to avoid getting weird looks, I spoke again, my pinks tinted lightly pink. "I don't know much about forensics, so you'll have to excuse me for needing an explanation..."

"It's alright. It takes a while to get to understand at first," Detective Erikson assured me with a small smile. "I know that it took me a long time to comprehend what was going on when the forensics team started to talk."

"In all honesty, I still don't understand what they're on about half the time," I heard Detective Hayes mutter under his breath with a shake of his head. "It's okay not to get it. Besides... Detective Erikson is happy to explain this to you. Isn't that right?"

Detective Erikson stared at him for a moment before letting out a small chuckle and shrugging loosely. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I told you. The time of death can't be determined because of the state the body was found in. If a body is found in overly warm or cool temperatures, it's nearly impossible to determine the time of death. In order to estimate a time of death, the forensics team looks at how long it has been since the body was at its regular temperature. The corpse in this case was found inside a fridge, meaning the temperature it would be at otherwise is impossible to determine. There's no way of saying how long it was in there, which is leaving the forensics team at a bit of a roadblock. It's hard to determine the time of death when there's no concrete temperature to look at in the investigation," he explained.

"I see... I assume the same applies the other way around. If the body is in overly hot temperatures, it's hard to figure out, I would assume... It's not like I can say for sure, so I guess I'll just leave it up to the experts. They obviously know a lot more about it than I ever could," I shrugged.

"Since the body was in an incredibly cold environment, it's impossible to figure out when it was last at a regular temperature. That means the forensics team is stumped, and if they can't figure this out, then that means that we can't get the autopsy report out. Without the autopsy report, it's hard to figure out much regarding what happened at the time of the murder. We'll simply have to go on without it until the forensics team is ready to release it. It's best not to pressure them. We want to stay on their good side," Detective Erikson told us.

"What had the body in such cold temperatures? I wouldn't have expected to find a body hidden under a building in such extreme cold. It must have been incredibly chilly in order to distort the work of the forensics team that much," Mr. Morix frowned.

"These cold temperatures were below freezing. The body was found inside of a fridge deep underground. It's down the hallway from where we are now, actually," Detective Hayes explained. He got on his toes before looking around. Eventually, he located the door, allowing him pointing at it.

"If that's the case, I suppose we'll have to get in there sooner rather than later to see what's inside. We can't waste too much time. When is the trial going to start?" Mr. Morix asked. "I have a feeling I already know when it's going to be, but I guess I can hope for a little while."

"Your gut instinct is likely correct. It's tomorrow. You know how the legal system is. It seems to want to push cases through as quickly as possible before moving on. I mean, there's nothing we can do about it, but it is a bit frustrating," Detective Erikson replied.

"Well, if that's the case, we shouldn't stick around here. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can start this investigation. Given how little time we have, it might be best to start it sooner rather than later," I said. I didn't like the idea of having such a tight time limit. We had just gotten here, and now, we were finding out we only had a few hours to finish all of our business? It was a tad too constraining for my liking, but I didn't really have any options. That was simply how it was to be a lawyer in this environment.

"Is there anything out here that's particular noteworthy?" Mr. Morix questioned.

"Not really. The main part of the cellar is rather small, and we can't fit everybody inside. We can barely fit a few people in here to investigate, and that place is even tighter than this. If we get in there at the right time, hopefully not many people will be inside, but there's no way to say for sure until we get inside. Apologies in advance to those who don't like tight spaces much, because we aren't going to have much space to move around," Detective Hayes told us.

Mr. Morix sighed. "I guess it can't be helped... Let's go on and get in there. I suppose we should get this over with sooner rather than later. Putting it off is only going to make us more anxious, and that's the last thing we need on such a tight time limit. Come on, Victoria. Let's get right into it," he said.

I nodded my understanding. "Let's take care of things. We've totally got this under control. I'm sure everything will be fine," I grinned. I hadn't looked at the finer details enough to decide if I was confident in our skills for this case, but it was best to go in with confidence, right? I might as well fake it until I make it.

Detective Erikson nodded as well and gestured for us to follow him through the crowd. Detective Hayes followed him next, with me trailing behind him and Mr. Morix taking up the rear. This room we were in outside the crime scene was tight enough, and if the actual place was even more cramped, I was not going to be looking forward to that at all, but I would have to put up with it as much as I didn't want to.

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-Digital