THIEF! Chapter 10
Drawing the Line
"This emergency meeting has now begun. We must decide what we are going to do."
Liana knew a secret when she saw one. These men were trying to hide something. She didn't yet know what, but if it drove these men to meet in a private home during the deepest hours of the night, it must be something big. Something wrong. And with Dragon recording the conversation, she could catch them all, if it turned out she should. If it was nothing, she would merely tape over it. But she didn't think it was nothing.
"All right," said one of the men. "What are we going to do about Josen? He's threatening to expose us to the public."
"Can't we just buy him off?" This came from a weak-looking man with sandy hair and blue eyes.
Allyssa's uncle responded "This is a quote of what the man told me: 'I cannot allow this disgusting act of extortion to continue; I will stop it no matter what!' It doesn't sound as if bribery will work here. We might have to kill him."
Liana's eyes widened. Killing? No, not if she had something to say about it! But actions must come later; for the present all she could do was keep listening.
Apparently others shared her dislike of murder. "Let's not be too hasty. That would be extremely difficult to cover up, and could raise others' suspicions no matter how well we hid it. Besides, every man has his weakness. If we can find Josen's, we can own him."
"So bribery is out. I don't know how much it would take to pacify him. What does that leave us with?"
"We could threaten to pin this on him. Such an idealistic man, being falsely accused would be a living hell for him."
"Can we actually forge the records enough to do that?"
"Perhaps not. But we could merely threaten to kill him and his family. Most men quail under such a menace."
How could these men sit here so calmly discussing such horrific things? Were they monsters? Liana suddenly noticed that Noctowl was gone. She hadn't put it back in its pokeball, and she was sure it had been on the bookshelf with her. Where had Noctowl gone? When had it even left? One thing was for sure: it wasn't anywhere around in the room. "Noctowl, I hope you know what you're doing," Liana whispered to herself.
Allyssa's uncle spoke up again. "No, he won't. We can try to bribe, threaten or blackmail him, but I doubt any of it will work. I've seen men like Josen before, and they are so full of blind righteousness, it sickens me. He cannot be intimidated in any way."
"You mentioned blackmail. Do we have anything that we can use on him?"
"Nothing. He's either quite upstanding or very discreet."
"So then, gentlemen. It seems we have two options. We can try to threaten, or we can kill. Personally I would like to avoid having a murder on our hands if we can help it."
"I think we may have to. That man is insufferable on moral and ethical issues."
"Well, how about this: We try threats first, and if he doesn't comply, then, and only then, we kill him."
"That sounds reasonable to me. Do we all agree?" They all nodded acceptance of this idea.
"Yes," Allyssa's uncle added, "But in the event that we do need to kill, we must sort the details out now, so we can move quickly if the time comes." No! How long would they keep talking? Every second more, they could be discovered. They had already been here so long. Liana could see that Dragon was getting tired. The little girl looked haggard, as she tried to keep perfectly still. And Liana was getting cramped as well. If they didn't get out of here quickly, something bad was bound to happen!
"That would be prudent. We should hire someone in that line of work. Hey, what's that noise?" They could hear something outside, and all the men rushed to the open window. "It's a Combusken chasing a Noctowl. That pokemon looks pretty mad."
Noctowl! By now Liana could see the jets of fire Bobby's Combusken was shooting in the air. None of them came particularly close to the bird, though. "Thank you, Noctowl," Liana thought. It had gone to get Combusken, and was giving them a diversion. Quickly and quietly, she jumped off the bookshelf, ran to Dragon, and had Kirlia Teleport them outside. They were suddenly surrounded by bushes, just barely under the same window that the men were looking out of. She prayed none of them would look down.
But they had no reason to do so. Noctowl and Combusken were putting on too good a show. As soon as Noctowl saw that Liana and Dragon had gotten safely out, it led Combusken, still lighting up the night, away from the house. "Ah, it's out of sight now," they heard someone say. "Let's go back to business."
Liana and Dragon walked away from the house, towards where the two pokemon had gone. The young girl still had the camera on, and she pointed it at Liana. "So what do we do now? You didn't get to steal anything."
"That doesn't matter anymore. Turn that thing off." Dragon did so. Then, they found Noctowl and Combusken, waiting for them. "Thanks, you two," Liana said. "You really helped us out of a tight spot there." She stroked Noctowl, and returned it to its pokeball. Then she turned to Dragon. "Now we go home and get some rest. Then tomorrow I'm calling an emergency meeting of my own. We're going to think up a way to stop them." Liana's eyes were cold and hard as she said this. "Such corruption, such evil. I cannot do nothing."
The next morning, Derek knocked on Liana's door to call her down for breakfast. When there was no response, he opened the door. "Hey, sis, there's nothing in the papers. I thought you went out last night so…" he trailed off as Liana turned to look at him, her face distorted by cold fury. Derek closed the door and backed away, already feeling sorry for whatever idiot had incurred his little sister's wrath.