June 21

Abandoned Building

3:45 PM

Chrysalis Starr

The start of the next stage of our investigation brought with it the knowledge that we were going to have our work harder than ever to figure out just what was going on with this case. I was glad that we had been able to see the video that was recorded by the victim of our last case, but the fact remained that we didn't have any ideas as to who the other person in the video could have been. When I first realized that I recognized the other voice in the video though, I was sure that I was making it up or somehow deceiving myself. But when Venus said that she thought the same thing, all the hope about me being dramatic was shattered in the blink of an eye, and now, I had no idea how I was supposed to handle all of this.

I kicked a small rock as I stared down at the ground, still not sure about what we were supposed to be doing from here. There were too many questions left vague and open for us to figure out what was going to have to be done from here, and that was the worst part of all this. We had no idea where we were supposed to even think about starting in a time like this, and yet, all we could do was follow through with it in spite of all the misery it was bound to cause us.

The rock that I kicked rolled across the ground before stopping at the feet of somebody that I hadn't even realized was in the area. I glanced up with a light frown on my face, seeing that it was none other than Mr. Middleton. He was the last person I could have expected to see in this place, and yet, there he was, standing tall and proud in the midst of the area.

"I didn't realize that I could expect to cross paths with all of you at a time like this," Mr. Middleton commented as he walked closer to us. His hands were shoved into his pockets, but even so, he looked as professional as it got. A light smile was playing at his face as he approached us, and I couldn't help but frown up at him. As relieved as I was to see a familiar face, the video's familiarity continued to play over and over in the back of my mind, a dizzying cycle that I couldn't seem to escape no matter how hard I tried to block it out.

"Mr. Middleton... It's nice to see you here," Cotoli said with a light smile in the direction of the newcomer. "I didn't realize that we could expect to run into you in a time like this."

"I was curious about the case, I suppose," Mr. Middleton remarked with a small shrug. "I didn't realize that it was possible for everything to derail to such a degree, and yet, here we are... The chief prosecutor truly has fallen upon hard times, hasn't he?"

"Yeah, he has," Venus agreed as she nodded. "But he wanted us to defend him specifically, so I would say that we're doing pretty well for ourselves if we were able to do enough for him to notice us. That's a pretty good thing in my eyes."

Something in Mr. Middleton's expression shifted, and he looked down to the ground. "I see... I was hoping to be able to take his defense, though I suppose I was bound to be a bit too late given how long it took me to get here," he murmured. A moment later, he looked back up to meet Cotoli's eyes, and I frowned to him as he did so. "Though I suppose it's best to take everything in stride when you can. As such... There's something that I wish to speak with you about, Mr. Morix."

"Oh? What is it?" Cotoli questioned, his eyes going wide with surprise that Mr. Middleton wanted to speak with him of all people in a time like this.

"I was hoping to speak with you in the aftermath of the last trial, though I suppose that didn't end as well as it should have," Mr. Middleton began to explain. "I truly was impressed by your performance in the courtroom when you were on the case at the gymnastics competition, and I was once again hoping to ask you if you would at all be interested in joining me by working at my law firm. I know that you declined my offer last time, but I really do think that it would be a great place for you. There are many cases given to us, and I think that it would be helpful for you to be able to expand your range in such a way. I can't just let such talent go to waste."

Cotoli looked down to me, and I was sure that the sheen in my eyes told him everything that I wasn't saying out loud to keep from upsetting Mr. Middleton. Cotoli got the message without any issues, and he glanced up to the man before us a moment later. "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to turn down your offer. I'm more than happy with where I am right now, and I have no intentions of doing anything to leave behind my current agency. Chrysalis, Venus, and I more than know what we're doing, and I don't think that it would benefit us much to join your agency. I do appreciate the offer, but... We prefer to work on our own terms, I'm afraid. Thank you again for the kind words of praise, but this is simply what I think would be for the best.

Mr. Middleton's expression slipped into disappointment. "How unfortunate... I was hoping that you would have changed your mind since the last time we met, though I suppose that I allowed myself to get a bit too optimistic," he murmured under his breath. He looked up a moment later with a smile on his face, though I could tell that he was straining to try and maintain the facade. "Though I suppose that it's quite alright. Either way, I'm going to be able to look after your performance in the courtroom tomorrow, and I'm more than looking forward to seeing what you're going to be capable of when it comes to showing what took place at the time of the crime."

"It's going to be an interesting trial, that's for sure," I told him simply, keeping my wording as vague as possible as the reminder of the video continued to echo in the back of my mind. There was a lot that we still had to figure out, but I didn't want to let too much information slip. Something about the idea of the person who we were after being a man who we knew from somewhere was unsettling me, and I couldn't help but make a mental note that I couldn't quite trust him yet. In fact, I couldn't entirely trust anybody yet due to a combination of my own trust issues and what we had learned from the video. Even Ghastly (since he had requested that I drop the title as long as I was the younger sister of the one he was dating) was someone that I had been slow to reach out and trust. Ironic, wasn't it? A defense assistant that couldn't have any faith in people.

"Well, I have faith that you'll find a way to unearth the truth one way or another," Mr. Middleton told us with a bow of his head. "If anyone can do it, then it would be you three. You've already been more than impressive up to this point. I took the liberty of investigating your past cases after the last time that we crossed paths, and I must say that you truly do know what you're doing. You're incredible the whole way through a trial, and I have full confidence that you'll be able to go places in the near future."

"We're just doing what we can for the sake of the truth," Venus told him with a light shrug, but her face made it clear that she appreciated the compliment much more than she was letting on. Her smile made it seem like she was glowing with enough joy to perhaps even block out the sun, and all I could do was stare for a long moment before I tore my gaze away by force. A moment later though, she was able to adjust her expression as she looked to Mr. Middleton with something solemn in her eyes. "So... Did you only come by here because you were hoping to defend the chief prosecutor? Did you happen to see anything on the night of the crime?"

"Me? See anything?" Mr. Middleton asked, his eyes going wide. He shook his head a moment later. "I'm afraid not. I wasn't anywhere near here on the night of the crime, you see. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the only reason that I'm here is because I was curious about if I would be able to defend the chief prosecutor. Aside from that, I'm uninvolved with this case."

"I see," Cotoli said shortly, but I could tell that he was fully aware of everything that was taking place behind the scenes of this moment. His hand had drifted to his pocket as he rubbed at his Magatama. He was suspicious about what was happening here as well, and I could see it in his eyes. He could tell that there was something amiss about this situation, but he was holding back his thoughts for the sake of not making Mr. Middleton suspicious. "Well, it was nice talking to you regardless. We should get back to our investigation to see if we can figure out just what's going on in this case. After all, the start of the trial isn't going to be waiting for any of us."

"Of course. I would hardly want to keep you from your investigation. I'll be speaking with you another time then," Mr. Middleton smiled. He walked away with a light wave of his hand, and from there, he disappeared from view. I watched him until he vanished from my line of sight, and judging by the silence that fell over the area, I could say easily that Cotoli and Venus were doing the same thing.

We were quiet for a long moment after Mr. Middleton left, and from there, I turned to face my two companions. "What do you think?" I asked, not wanting to say anything to make the man seem suspicious unless one of them agreed with me first. The last thing that I wanted was to come off as a bit too prickly given my general distrust of others, though I supposed that these two of all people would be more than used to that up to this point.

"I think that there's something he isn't telling us," Venus remarked. "I know that it seems kind of weird, but... I don't know. I just felt like he was lying to us about something when he said that he wasn't anywhere near the crime scene on the night of the murder. I know that I'm probably jumping to conclusions just because the video freaked me out, but... I don't know. It's just a lot, and I don't think that I'm going to be able to let it go right now."

"It wasn't just you," Cotoli assured her. "I could tell that there was something he wasn't telling us on that note as well, and as much as I hate to say it, I feel like there's something that he doesn't want to share with us. Something happened here at the scene of the crime on the night of the murder, and Mr. Middleton is fully aware of it. He doesn't want to tell us for some reason or another though."

"But I doubt he expected us to be able to see through his facade," I pointed out. I shook my head with a light sigh. "All of this is just getting exhausting. It seems like we can't find a break in times like these. Everything is happening all at once, and... We don't know where we're supposed to start in terms of figuring out who the culprit is. If it isn't Chief Prosecutor Cristopher, then that means that there's someone else who was at the scene of the crime before he arrived with D and Q. If the writing on the ground truly wasn't there when D and Q did their initial investigation, then..."

"That means that we're going to have to figure out just how it got there and who wrote it, and I think that we can all agree conclusively that it's going to be much easier said than done to find that answer," Venus said as she let out a hefty sigh of her own. "I have no idea where we're supposed to go from here. The murder weapon isn't at the scene of the crime, and aside from the writing on the ground, it's like we don't have anything to use as evidence. I don't think that the writing accusing D and Q is going to be too much help to us either. Unless the two of them killed the victim and are using one another as alibis, then... We're kind of stuck at square one with no way to access the rest of the board."

"I don't think that they're lying," Cotoli frowned. "Call it a gut instinct, but I get the feeling that they're telling us the truth when they say that they aren't the ones who did this. Besides, they made a compelling point when they said that they had no reason to kill the victim. At the end of the day, they truly don't have a reason to want the victim dead. If anything, they would want to be able to meet with her alive because she was investigating the same dark case that they were looking into. This evidence forgery incident is something that we're going to have to consider from here on out. I just get the feeling that it's going to be important."

I nodded my agreement. "But it's going to be much easier said than done to figure out what was happening with it on the night of the crime... I think that we should try to hear some outside theories about all of this, and there's only one person who would be able to fill in the gaps for us in full," I declared, my arms crossing over my chest. "What do you say that we go off and see what Ghastly can tell us about the time of the crime? He has to have something in mind about what's going on here."

Cotoli was quick to nod, and he gestured for us to follow after him as he started to walk away. "I agree. If anybody is going to be able to help us with this, it's going to be him." With that, he began to weave his way through the crowd of police officers still gathered around the building, and I glared at those that dared to get too close along the way. I was already in a bad mood given the circumstances, and I somehow doubted that was going to change until after this case had been taken care of and sealed away. Something about this entire situation was weird, and I was determined to figure out what was bothering me to such a degree.

It was surprisingly easy to locate Ghastly from there, and he was standing with Cassidy as they discussed the case. I could tell that he was frustrated, his head tilted back so that he was staring at the overhead sky. He only pulled himself out of it when he realized that he was being watched by me, Cotoli, and Venus, glancing down to us with a weary smile on his face. "Oh, there you are," he started simply. "I didn't think that you would be able to get down here so easily."

Cotoli nodded. "It wasn't that much of an issue. As soon as we were able to get Chief Prosecutor Cristopher to agree with us that this was what had to be done, the pieces kind of fell into place on their own," he explained.

Venus let out a light snort as she shook her head. "If only the case itself had the dignity to help us work out quite so easily," she muttered under her breath. "It's getting annoying just how little we know about all of this, though I suppose that's part of the point. There's a lot going on here, and it's really starting to get on my nerves."

"You can say that again," I agreed in a tense whisper before I glanced up to Ghastly and Cassidy. "So? How's your investigation been coming along? Have you found anything that you think is going to be able to help us out during the trial?"

Ghastly hesitated before he shrugged. "I don't know. There's still quite a bit that we still have to figure out, and I don't know if we're going to be able to get the full picture to come together easily," he admitted. "We're doing what we can, I suppose."

"We were able to speak to the witnesses on this case briefly, but they seem to want to continue their own investigation without being watched over the shoulder," Cassidy said as she shook her head. "I guess I can't say that I'm particularly surprised. Given the fact that they're Interpol agents, it makes sense that they would want to operate on their own terms."

"Do you think that they're involved with the murder on its own?" Cotoli questioned. I could tell that he really was curious about this, not that I could blame him; nothing about this case seemed to properly fit together, and that wasn't even factoring in the quiet whisper in the back of all our minds that there was something more, something darker, going on behind the scenes of this murder.

Ghastly shook his head. "I don't think so. It wouldn't make sense for them to kill somebody that they should have wanted the help of. I'm sure that the person who did this was a person involved with the evidence forgeries on their own who was trying to make sure that nothing was exposed to the rest of the world," he said with a light shrug. "As for who that person could be specifically... I have no ideas. I'm just as confused about all of this as you are, let me assure you. This entire case... Something feels wrong about it."

"Good to know it isn't just us then," I told him with a light frown. "I don't even know how to describe it. There's just something that's... Wrong here. Getting into detail is impossible when I don't even know what's striking me in such a weird way."

"I have to admit that I'm confused about why Chief Prosecutor Cristopher would want us of all people to defend him," Cotoli said as he glanced down to the ground. "I don't know. Something about it just seems odd. He's the chief prosecutor of the district, so you would expect him to be able to pick any lawyer that he wanted. Even if we haven't lost a case yet, we've only taken on three thus far, so I doubt that's the most convincing track record out there."

"I don't know why he would make that choice either. I was just passing on the message that he wanted you specifically to defend him," Ghastly said as he offered a shrug to my brother. "I don't know what's going on in this case either, but I get the feeling that we're going to figure it out sooner or later whether we want to or not. It seems like that's how things like this go." He gave us a humorless laugh, but nobody was up to returning the gesture, sensing just how empty and detached it truly was.

"I think that getting into the courtroom will do us a significant amount of good," Cassidy chimed in. "That would help to make sure that we were able to figure out the full truth of what's going on. Plus, it's harder for anybody to lie in the courtroom. That's got to be just the place for us to figure out everything that's going on and expose it to the world at large."

"I do have one other question for you two, speaking of lies and truth," Cotoli told them as he frowned deeply. "Do you know anything about the writing in blood that was at the scene of the crime? We heard from the witnesses that it supposedly wasn't there when the crime scene was first discovered and investigated, but it appeared at some point during the search for evidence. Did you hear about that too?"

"We most certainly did," Ghastly replied with a nod. "But I can't say that I know how that could have even been possible. The crime scene was under pretty close scrutiny, so somebody would have noticed if an outside figure snuck into the area to write on the ground in blood."

"If an outside person couldn't have done it, then..." Venus trailed off for a long moment, glancing around the area in desperation, praying that we would be able to say something to disprove what she had to say.

"It must have been somebody involved with the investigation," I finished for her. It was unfortunate that I had to be the bearer of bad news, but by this point, I was sure that all of were fully aware of the truth. We just didn't want to have to be the one to say it.

"There's more that we're going to have to look for then," Cassidy murmured, her gaze falling to the ground. "I don't know who would have a reason to write that on the ground though. It just... Doesn't make sense."

"Did you figure out what it said?" Cotoli asked. I could tell that he was starting to get antsy under the weight of all this, and I was confident that he wasn't the only one. He certainly wouldn't be the last either.

Ghastly nodded. "Yeah... It just repeats Q and D over and over again, though it's written so sloppily that it would be hard for much of anybody to figure out what it said unless they were staring at it for a long time. Cass was the one who found out what it was saying for us, and even so, it took her much longer than it should take anybody to read anything," he told us.

"I don't understand how this could even be possible," I declared. "The victim wouldn't have been able to write any of that in blood before she was killed. The multiple bullet wounds to her body killed her instantly, and that means that she wouldn't have been able to write anything, much less a message that would potentially point to who the culprit was. There's something else going on here, and I think that there's more wrong with this case than right."

"You can say that again," Ghastly agreed with a puff of a sigh. "But that's not going to change the facts of the case. We've got a lot to look into so that we can figure out just what happened on the day of the murder, and I don't think it's going to be easy. We'll give it our all in the courtroom. That's about all we can do at this point. I don't think that we're going to be able to figure out the truth by doing anything aside from that."

"There are so many questions surrounding this case," Venus muttered. "First, I want to know why the chief prosecutor asked us to defend him. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we're going to be able to help him out of this situation, but... We're all still new to this. We've been doing a great job for ourselves thus far, but the past cases that we've been involved with haven't directly involved evidence forgery, back alley dealings, and the chief prosecutor. We're playing with fire here at the forefront of the city's attention, and I don't think that's the best thing to do with a law firm that's so new to the scene."

I nodded my agreement. If I was being honest, something about Chief Prosecutor Cristopher still bothered me. Perhaps I was being dramatic or jumping to conclusions, but I could tell that there was something going on behind the scenes that he wasn't telling us about. I wanted to force it out of him, but I knew that it wasn't going to be that simple. He was able to get as far as he was by using his head in and out of the courtroom, and I somehow doubted that he was going to yield his secrets to a trio of newbies to law enforcement quite so easily. We were going to have to figure it out on our own terms, and as far as I was aware, that task sounded just as daunting and impossible as finding out what the hell was happening with the rest of this case.

"Then there's the matter of the writing in blood," Cotoli continued. "I think that we're right about somebody involved with the case having written it, but... Why? It doesn't make any sense. There has to be something going on here behind the scenes, and... As a matter of fact, there's something else wrong with that too. The victim and the two witnesses don't seem to have met. I feel like we would have heard about that during our investigation. If that's the case, then..."

"She couldn't have been the one to write the message in blood," Cassidy finished for him. She was frowning deeply now, her eyes cast down to the ground. "We already knew that she wasn't the one who wrote it, but this just proves that somebody else must have been involved with trying to pin the blame on somebody else. The culprit was already long gone by the time that the crime scene was found as far as we're aware, so... What's going on here?"

I shook my head, at a loss for an answer and not sure about how we were supposed to find it. Instead, I simply glanced down to my phone, checking the time. I could see that it was getting later into the afternoon. The trial was still slated to take place the next day, and unfortunately, that meant that we were going to have to start preparing. I hated the way that everything was turning out for us, but I knew we ultimately didn't have much sway in it. We were just going to have to find a way to show the world all that we were thinking about what took place at the time of the crime.

Cotoli glanced over in my direction before letting out a hefty sigh. "I think that we're going to head back to the agency so that we can start trying to get our thoughts in order. There's a lot going on in this case, and it's going to be a while before we're able to figure out what we're aiming to accomplish in the trial tomorrow," he said. For a long moment, he was quiet before he glanced up to Ghastly. "You... You really think the chief prosecutor is innocent, don't you?"

Ghastly nodded. "Chief Prosecutor Cristopher is many things, but he isn't a murderer. I'm confident that he wasn't the one behind this case. I know that there are a lot of questions flying around right now, but you can have faith in the fact that your client is innocent," he assured us. He was quiet for a beat before he turned to Cassidy. "Right, then. I guess it's time for us to be on our way too. It was nice talking to you all."

Ghastly turned on his heel and walked away a moment later, Cassidy offering Venus a small farewell accompanied with a statement that she would see her sister. Venus returned it, but I wasn't exactly focused on those words. Instead, all I could do was wonder just what in the world was going on with this case. I knew that figuring out the truth wasn't going to be easy in the slightest, but I was still hoping that we would wind up lucky enough to at least have something pointing us in the right direction.

Cotoli was quiet for a while before he let out a sigh. "We're going to have to think through the facts quite a bit before we're ready for the trial tomorrow, so I suggest we go on and get a head start on it," he declared. "Let's go back to the agency and see what we can figure out. Even if it isn't much, it's got to count for something."

I nodded my agreement, sharing a brief look of concern with Venus before I trailed after him away from the scene of the crime. We all had the same sinking feeling that there was something wrong with this case, but we didn't know where to begin in terms of figuring out what the problem could have been. In a way, it felt like everything was an issue in of itself, and I had no idea how we were supposed to deal with something like that. I bitterly wondered when everything had gotten to be so complicated, though I supposed that there wasn't an easy answer to that question. There was simply the fact that we were going to be defending Chief Prosecutor Cristopher in court the next day, and when we did, we would have to figure out how to reveal the truth one way or another.

I typed this chapter in an hour collectively what the hell

-Digital