Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and all related characters do not belong
to me.
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Web of Lies - Chapter Two
The house at 44 Elm Street was a small one, with a messy, un-kept front garden and muddy-white paint flaking off the walls. It had one floor, and the only thing visible beyond the wildly growing plants and trees was the blue front door and the roof towering above. It looked as if no one had been here for a very long time, an eerie silence hovering over this place.
Heero Yuy raised an eyebrow at the house in front of him. He didn't know what he had expected this Barton to live in, but this was definately not it. He decided to dare his way inside, armed with a little hair pin to pick the lock, and of course, a small gun in his pocket. The door gave in easily, creating a quiet 'click', as it blew ajar.
The inside of the house was a huge contrast to the mess outside. Cautiously stepping in, the detective let the door close behind him again. The room he was in now was sparely decorated with a couch, a coffe table and a tall lamp, all facing a TV set proudly standing on another low table. In the middle of the coffe table sat a small cookie jar, but other than that, the room was left cold and undecorated. It looked as if it belonged to one of those IKEA show rooms - everything perfectly placed. Heero shivered.
There were two more doors, one at the end of the room, and one opposite him. He decided for the latter first, and made his way across. Again, he slowly opened the door, and found himself standing in a blank-white kitchen, bright surfaces flashing in the sunlight, which penetrated the room through big, revealing windows on the side. The kitchen, too, was too unpersonal for Heero's liking. It looked as if it had never even been used. On his left, white painted cuboards were nailed to the wall above the cooker and the kitchen benches that crept along that wall. On the opposite were the said windows and a small, blank-white kitchen table with three chairs underneath it.
Detective Yuy checked each cupboard, which were all equipped with crockery and the sort. Nothing out of the ordinary - nothing out of place. The only sign of someone having once lived here was a lonely plate sitting in the dishwasher. Even the fridge was completely void of food or drink.
Heero sighed impatiently. His search in this house wasn't going as successful as planned. But he still had one room left; Trowa Barton's bedroom.
He entered the softly lit bedroom, and found the same expected perfection that send shivers down his spine. Again, it was sparsely decorated with no personal belongings in sight. A bed, a desk and a chair were the basic layout. He checked under the bed, under the covers and the pillow for any clue as to what was going on, but he found none. The desk's draws were empty, too, and there was no trash in the paper-bin next to it.
Heero bit his lip. There had to be something he had missed. A clue of somekind... a hidden message...
He kicked at the floor miserably, only to uncover part of the floor that was hidden by a plain, blue rug.
'Yuy, you idiot!' he thought to himself scornfully. 'Of course! The rug!'
He quickly knelt down and rolled the blue cloth aside. Underneath was nothing too much out of the ordinary, yet Heero tried to pry open all the wooden planks, hoping for something that would help him along in this mysterious case.
"Ahah!" he cried triumphantly, as one of the planks easily pulled open. Conceiled behind it was a little hole, hiding a stack of letters, and various other papers. He carefully placed them in his pockets, and replaced the plank and rug. After losely searching the room over without success, Heero Yuy made his way back to his office to see what was so important in these letters, that they had to be hidden so well...
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"17th August 2001
Dearest Trowa,
I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, since this
subject is a painful one for the both of us... Our parents... Our Mum,
your dad... I keep thinking... Why were they murdered? Why were they targeted?
I just can't get my head around the fact that someone willingly took their
lives, and I don't even know why...
But you do, don't you? When you saw mum and dad lying there in the
living room... you didn't look surprised or shocked at all. I know you,
Trowa. You're hiding something. Please. I'm probably making horrible assumptions
here, but just... return my letters or calls, will you?
I'll write again, soon,
Catherine."
Heero set the letter down, as he thought about what he just read. Trowa Barton's parents were murdered? Was this even relevant to his case?
The detective decided that drawing conclusions too soon would not be a good idea. There were thirteen more letters in the pile that he had taken with him, all of which were written by Catherine, one each month, so the best thing to do now, would be to read them all. He picked out the next one, written in September, and swiftly read the tear-stained piece of paper.