Jack
"Jack, what the hell!"
I kept my eyes fixated on L's despite Nox's bellow. I knew I was taking a huge risk with this. I knew that Nox might very well kill me here and now. But hopefully, if I see him start to write something, I'll have at least forty seconds to tell L everything I could before my own heart revolted against me.
While Nox was fuming, L was staring. His eyes had widened, his lips pursing slightly. I could see the scream in his gaze. He wanted to know. He wanted more. He wanted answers. I had just told him that there was someone else in this world that could do what Kira was doing. That the power wasn't limited to just our current target. It was vital information for someone like L. He wanted to know all the variables. All the pieces to this complicated infinite-piece puzzle.
"I..." L said. There was strain in his voice. His entire body was tensed. "Jack..."
"I know you want to ask," I said. "But I can't tell you. You know I wouldn't keep anything from you intentionally. Not if it could help with the case."
"You idiot!" Nox shouted, making me flinch.
"What?" L's face faltered to one of concern for a moment. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, just an ear ache." I really wanted to shoot Nox a glare for that one but refrained. "I think I might have a mild infection or something."
L's dark eyes roved over me. Searching. Analyzing. "Jack, I know you would tell me everything... if you could. I don't know what it is that is preventing you or what you think is preventing you from sharing all your information, but believe me when I say that I can and will protect you."
A warmth blossomed in my chest. I wasn't typically the damsel in distress type of gal, but all the same his words touched me. I knew L would do everything he could to defend the innocent, but the way he said those words made me feel special. It was though while he generally kept his shoes and other valuables up off the floor where the dog couldn't chew on them, he put me up on one of his shelves. One where everyone could see me and he kept me well dusted.
The only issue was that no matter how much L wanted to defend me, he couldn't. Not against Nox. Not if the Shinigami really and truly wanted to kill me. The typical criminals were the dog. Kira was a cat that just might get up on that shelf and knock me down if we weren't careful. But Nox? Nox was the tornado. The thing that would come and rip out everything.
"I know that," I said. Truth be told I was actually a bit surprised he picked up on the fact that I couldn't tell him some things. That I was holding back information, but not exactly willingly. "But it's like I said, L. I'm telling you everything that is possible right now—that's necessary. Regardless if there even is information I'm holding back... we will stop Kira. I promise."
L continued to stare at me. I was growing wary under his gaze. He wasn't exactly satisfied with that answer, that was for certain. But after a long moment, he loosed a breath and turned his head away. "I understand. I just hope you know you can trust me. With anything."
"Of course I know that." I smiled. "This is just... it's not something I can talk about."
"Did you catch the person who did it?" L's voice was delicate. He was fishing more more information but at the same time he also... cared. He wanted to know because if I hadn't caught the one responsible, he was going to. I knew it in that instant—in the glint in his dark gaze. L would hunt down whoever killed my father and end them as surely as he would end Kira.
Of course, I was about to burst his bubble.
"Yes," I told him. "And that's why we can't lose against Kira."
L studied me for a few heartbeats. He knew I was telling the truth and he was dying to ask how, but he also knew I'd said all I was going to say tonight.
"We will make other times to talk," I said. "With Light here I mean. I know you want to keep an eye on him. But there's always Watari to look to him while he sleeps and we can chat." I grinned again. "I promise, L. One day you'll know everything."
"May I say it?" L suddenly asked.
I blinked. "Huh?"
L's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of mine. "Just once. I'd like to say it."
It clicked.
"Oh." I let out a light laugh. "I mean... only if I can say yours."
L immediately looked uncomfortable. My grin became wicked.
"Your willing to risk my ass but not yours?" I said.
"Fine," L said. "Go on then."
I had never actually said his name out loud. Austin hadn't even said it out loud. He wrote it down and sent a photo that I deleted right away and ensured he did the same. Truth be told I wasn't sure how L would feel knowing there was actually a third person in the world that knew his true identity.
"L Lawliet." I whispered it softly, holding his gaze all the while. A strange look passed over his features. It was like he had just tasted a food for the first time and was trying to decide if he liked it or not.
"Jacqueline Townsend," he murmured back.
It was odd. My name sounded almost pleasing when he said it. Like a song. Like something out of a fantasy.
"We certainly like to hide things in plain sight," I said.
L let out a small grunt of amusement. Not quite a laugh or a chuckle. But he still smiled for a brief moment. "I suppose despite all our differences, we're actually quite alike."
"That's typically how friends work." I nudged him with my elbow.
Us doing that—sharing our names in a world where that could get us killed—it was like we had made a pact. It was the ultimate way to show trust. The ultimate way to bond. We knew the key to each other's lifeline in this case and neither of us would ever betray that. I might have initially cheated to get L's name. But in this moment I didn't regret it. It's what led to this. What led to us working the most important case either of us ever touched. What led us to becoming friends.
His words when he was trying to guess my type floated back into my head.
"Perhaps someone with quirks. Oddities like you own. They wouldn't have to be exactly the same, but something that labeled them an outcast as much as yourself."
Aw hell. Was this really happening to me? Was I really starting to look at L and feel butterflies flutter around like a swooning girl in a romcom? I'd dated before—sort of—but I'd never been attached to those boys. I'd never stayed with one for more than three months. I'd never... Well. That was beside the point. I doubted L had either. He was like me... he carried oddities like my own... an outcast.
"Listen up, Jack," Nox growled as he stalked toward me. "You better get an excuse to go to your room because we need to talk. Now."
I shot the Shinigami a short glance. I hoped it held all the venom I felt for the bastard in that moment. He wasn't going to stop me from helping L with this. He wasn't going to stop me from finding Kira and destroying his Death Note.
"Well, I think I've had enough excitement for one night," I said, getting to my feet. I began to walk toward my bedroom, but L caught hold of my wrist.
"Jack," he said.
His touch sent a jolt throughout all my limbs. I didn't want to go down the cliche route and compare it to electricity—but what else could make someone's body seize up like that?
"What is it?" I asked, doing my damnedest to keep my tone normal.
L wasn't looking at me. His eyes were shadowed by his hair.
"Thank you," he murmured.
Heat clung to my cheeks. "For what? And I swear, if you say everything, I'm punching you in the mouth."
L chuckled. He actually chuckled. I don't think I'd ever heard him laugh. "I promise not to be so cheesily predictable," he said and tilted his head back, letting me see his face and his eyes held mine. He was smiling. It was a soft and gentle look to his face. "I appreciate you trusting me."
"Who else better to trust in this world right now?" I shrugged. "I think our game can end, L. When you feel comfortable telling me about yourself, do it then. I won't force it from you sooner than that."
"I'll try to do the same for you," L replied.
I raised my brows. "Try?" I echoed.
His smile turned into somewhat of a smirk. "I'm curious by nature. But for you I think I can at least attempt to refrain."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, well thank you so much, then."
"Jack," Nox snarled. He was looming by my door, waiting for me.
"I might take a bath before bed," I said. "That is, if you let me go."
L glanced down to see his hand still attached to my wrist. He released it swiftly. It almost seemed like he'd forgotten it was there. Was he too so used to us touching and mingling with one another that it was just second nature now?
"Very well," L said. "I will wake you in the morning."
"Hooray for early morning tennis," I said as I walked toward my room. "I'll probably just fall right back to sleep. Insomnia or no."
"Goodnight, Jack."
I looked back and smiled at the detective. "Goodnight L." And I closed the door.
Nox wasted no time.
"Are you INSANE?!" he bellowed.
I flinched and waved him off, heading for my bathroom. I would be able to talk to him more freely with the sound of the bath filling to cover my voice. Once the water was flowing, I turned to see him blocking the way out of the bathroom. He was so tall, the top of his head brushed the frame of the door.
"What were you thinking?" Nox demanded.
"I didn't tell him enough to do any harm," I defended. "Nox. One way or another, L is going to find out about the Death Note. I don't understand why you won't just let me tell him."
"Because that isn't what I need to have happen," Nox snapped. "The Shinigami King does not like unrest in the human world. He doesn't like knowledge of us just being thrown around. That is why humans lose their memory of us when they lose their Death Note."
"Then why come to our world at all?" I asked, throwing my hands up with exasperation.
"We need your years to live," Nox replied, his voice finally lowering. He seemed to be calming down. "When a Shinigami writes a name in their Death Note, we steal that human's remaining lifespan and add it to our own. There are some Shinigami around that have lived since the beginning, but they're so old they've decayed in a different sort of way. They are shells of what they used to be. No memory of the early times. Of why Shinigami exist in the first place."
Nox loosed a long breath and leaned against the counter near the sink. I sat on the edge of the tub, watching him.
"I want to know why Shinigami live. What our purpose is," he said, his tone soft. "Why do we have the gift to siphon life? What is the point in living forever if all we do is steal lives before their time is up? It isn't like we're the ones who end it when a human's lifespan hits zero. We aren't some shepherds to the afterlife or judges of a human's deeds while they lived. We don't decide if they go to heaven or hell. We just take and live and that's it."
"So that's it?" I whispered. "All this time, you're just looking for something humans do all the time? The meaning of life. Huh..." I shook my head and scoffed a bit. "Nox, no one knows why we're here. There's faith that guide some people, and that's fine. But no one knows for absolute certain why humans exist or what we're meant to do. It sounds like your kind is the same way."
"But you humans have a cycle," Nox asserted. "You live and die—you can't do anything to change the fate of your own lifespan- not without the help of a Shinigami. You gain companions throughout your years, repopulate, learn, travel, enjoy experiences. We can't make more Shinigami- it's impossible for us to have children. We hardly get along with one another. We have no purpose other than to prolong our lives but for what?"
"Has any Shinigami actually died?" I queried.
"Yes," Nox said. "A good amount for a number of reasons. Some just stopped writing names in their notebooks. Others got attached to a human and wrote a name in their notebook that helped prolong that human's life. That instantly kills the Shinigami. And all their remaining years go to the human they saved. Others killed humans without using their notebook. This is a high offense that the Shinigami King sees to being punished in the most severe regard."
"But Shinigami can't be killed by a Death Note," I guessed.
Nox nodded. "That's right," he confirmed. "We're immune. Much like yourself. At least to mine. Can't tell you for sure about the others. This Kira guy might still very well be able to kill you if he gets your name."
I glanced back at the slowly filling tub. When Nox first came to me to give me the Death Note, he had told me its previous owner had attempted to kill me with it. But the idiot only knew my last name, and my nickname Jack. He assumed I was using an alias for my first name. So he tried to write my name in the notebook- he wrote down seven different names with the last name of Townsend before he was hauled away and the Death Note was left without an owner once again.
Spelling someone's name incorrectly four times in a Death Note rendered the potential victim immune to killed by it. Unless the name was spell wrong purposefully, Nox had told me. If that was the case, the Death Note would still be able to kill that person, and the one who had written in it would die as a result of trying to use the notebook's rules to their advantage.
The man who had my Death Note before me was Victor Skor. He had been a dirty businessman that had stolen millions of dollars throughout his years. When he came upon the notebook, he realized he could easily kill anyone who got in his way.
My father had been one of those people.
"I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around this," I sighed. "You want to find the meaning of Shinigami existence. So you've been letting humans use your notebook in various ways. And now here I am, refusing to actually use the notebook, and trying to stop another human from using a different one- how- how does this help you?"
Nox pinched the bridge of nose. "Variables, Jack. I need to try everything. And when will I get another person who refuses to actually use the Death Note, but keep it? You involving anyone else could compromise that."
"Are you saying L would want to use it?" I gaped at him. "Are you kidding? You don't know him at all- even after all the time we've spent with him? He would never kill anyone, even if Kira confessed who he was and gave him a gun to point at his head."
"But would he use it to save thousands?" Nox asked. "If he knew who Kira was but didn't have the means to physically catch him, why wouldn't he just end it by writing down a name?"
"Why wouldn't I?" I crossed my arms, glaring at him.
"Because every time I suggest you use the thing you get the same look in your eyes," Nox said. "You claim that it's because you don't want to taint your soul. To doom yourself to purgatory. But I know you, Jack. Using the notebook, at least to you, would be cheating. You thrive for challenges. And killing Kira like that wouldn't take any effort at all, not once you knew who he was. You want to catch him the old fashioned way."
Well then. I couldn't exactly defend myself from that one. Nox had a point. Certainly, I didn't want to screw up my standing with heading upstairs when I died, but killing Kira like that... was just too easy. I had to admit, that was a factor. But there's was more to it than that. Something Nox wasn't getting.
"There's a third piece," I told him. "Nox, I will not kill anyone. Not with the Death Note. Not with a gun. Not with a knife. I don't want to be someone who causes life to just stop. I'm not like you or your kind."
"For the record, we do it to live," Nox pointed out. "But I suppose I can see that in you. Odd. It is in human nature to kill. You lot don't do it as much as you used to—at least not so freely—but deep down, all of you have that instinct."
"Ability to control one's instincts is what separates us from beasts," I said. I let out a long sigh and looked at him up and down, frowning. "I don't see why you just won't let me tell him."
"The more people who know of the Death Notes the harder it makes it for us Shinigami to come here," Nox explained. "The Shinigami King would limit us to only coming to the human world to kill, and we wouldn't be able to leave our notebooks with anyone. That would limit me on my endeavor. So I'm holding onto the possibility that you'll be able to stop Kira without telling L the truth. Until it is out of my hands completely will be the only time I won't kill you for him finding out. You got me?"
I turned off the water. The fan in the bathroom was on, so that helped mask a bit of sound. But I still spoke softly as I responded. "Fine. I get it. Now get out, I'm getting cleaned up. No being a perv."
Nox rolled his eyes. "We can't even divulge in those kind of acts, Jack."
"So?" I scoffed. "I didn't let my roommate's cat watch me undress, I'm not about to let you!"
"Yeah, yeah," Nox said in his gravelly voice. He waved me off as he headed for the door. "Just don't pull something like that again, Jack. I don't know how many times I gotta say that I don't want to kill you." He glanced over his shoulder, an ice blue eyes glaring at me. "But you bet your ass I will."
Then he walked through the door, vanishing from sight.
I exhaled a tight breath as I began to unzip my hoodie. When I bathed, I put my iPod on speaker so my music could still be with me. I placed my winged headphones on the counter next to the device as music pumped out of it. After shedding the rest of my clothes, I slid into the hot water.
It instantly began to soothe my muscles. They had been held tense for way too long today. I knew revealing that much to L was a long shot. I almost expected Nox to write down my name then and there. I would not be able to get away with something like that again. Not unless I found a golden opportunity when Nox wasn't there.
Something clicked. I reached over to the counter and grabbed my iPod. I made certain to hold it over the edge of the tub, away from the water in case it slipped from my damp hand. I opened up my notes with some deft flicks of my thumb.
My message was simple.
SHINIGAMI EXIST!
I saved it and exited out of the notes, placing the iPod back on the counter. Nox wouldn't have any need to look through that. I wasn't sure if he could. I knew he could pick up apples and eat them, but would the iPod recognize his thumb? In any case, now was the time to think of a way to get L to read that message and hopefully, if he believes it when he sees it, he'll realize that one had been with me all this time and if he says anything obvious it'll probably kill me.
It was my daytime iPod, so it would be with me when I was with L. However, getting the message to him would be tricky and might very well end in my death. For now, perhaps I shouldn't worry too much on it. The tennis match was tomorrow. It would prove interesting to see how Light performs, both in the game and and in demeanor. We didn't know for certain if he was the right one to pursue. It would be awfully annoying if it turned out he wasn't Kira. We didn't have time to waste.
But all the same...
"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt," I murmured.
More Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps it wasn't the best thing to mention here. That author hated his main character, Sherlock Holmes. He was able to write the man to seem so brilliant by tricking the readers. Holmes didn't make people feel like idiots because of things they couldn't possibly have known, but because he pointed out things they should have known—should have seen. In a sense, Doyle saw Holmes as a sham.
L and I couldn't afford to be shams here. We had to be the best we could possibly be, and hope to everything it would be enough.
Light
Light Yagami sat before his new desktop computer, his head reeling. That couple had indeed been more than they seemed. Much more. One thing was for certain, they were working for L, and if that young man—Ryuzaki—was to be believed, he was L. It was an ingenious move, regardless if the man was who he said. It completely took Light off guard when he leaned over after the ceremonies and whispered in his ear.
"I want you to know," he murmured, his voice low and fast, "that I am L."
Light hadn't known what to say. The man's alias was Hideki Ryuga, a famous pop star. If he tried that name in the Death Note and accidentally pictured the icon in his head and killed him instead, that would doom him. Even if Ryuzaki was his true name and he was merely working for L, using that name would doom him too. Whoever this guy was, he had Light right where he wanted him.
Then there was the girl—Nina. Or Jack, as she confessed herself to being. Light had heard of another detective type like L, but Jack mainly stuck around North America. Sometimes in Europe. This was the first time Light knew of Jack putting a hand in something in Japan—or any country that didn't speak English. She'd given the impression her Japanese wasn't very good, but Light wasn't too sure about that. In fact, there was always the possibility she was L. It was plausible that the persona of Jack and L were the same person.
Of course, the way each of them had handled known cases was vastly different. L was calculated. He followed through with challenges presented to him with fluid accuracy and critical thinking. He deduced most of his findings then charged after them. But Jack...
From what information Light had gathered online so far, Jack dug up her condemning evidence by means of technology. Hacking, bugging, surveillance... In the case Light was reading up on now, she actually berated a man into giving himself away. She got into his emails, his websites, his company database, and harassed him with messages claiming that she knew exactly what he did. She put out names and dates of things that didn't make sense until one saw what the man was actually guilty of.
The man's name had been Victor Skor. He was the CEO of an American multimillion dollar insurance company known as Century Lock. He and a few members of his board committed a level of fraud that nearly outdid Bernie Madoff. It was a typical Ponzi scheme where Skor claimed his business was doing well and increasing in stock market value to have more people purchase shares. In reality, the business was crumbling, and Skor was only paying back people for their shares with other people's money. He essentially promised huge returns where none existed.
An employee of the company was one of the first to notice the scheme. He kept it on the down low at first, wanting to gather evidence. He entrusted four other employees to assist him. These five were higher up in the food chain within the company, so to speak, but not quite on the level of Skor's board of directors. And their involvement in uncovering Skor's thieving wasn't even known until after a certain cyber warrior twisted Skor so much that he exposed himself.
Light scrolled down the page, his eyes darting back and forth as he read the article.
People had heard of the Cyber Detective, Jack, before. He always communicated via text in emails and notes and always left the image of the Jack of Hearts playing card as his signature. He'd helped with police investigations of all kinds, including but not limited to murder, kidnapping, robbery, and even uncovering a dog fighting ring. However, the case of Victor Skor and Century Lock was the first one that really made Jack famous.
It wasn't known in detail of all that Jack did to expose Victor Skor's Ponzi scheme until he confessed everything in court. The first thing they were aware of was Skor running through the streets at two in the morning in nothing but his boxers, screaming for Jack to come out and face him. He was reported disturbing his high end neighborhood and the police arrived to bring him home or detain him, under the impression he was under the influence of alcohol.
"We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into," Officer Jerry Benoit claimed. "When we got there, he was just sprinting through his neighbor's garden, bellowing for someone named Jack."
Three officers arrived on scene including Benoit. When they began to approach Skor and ordered him to cease his wild actions, it only kicked things into overdrive. Skor took off running back to his home. He managed to outpace the officers and got into his house and close the door before they could stop him.
"Even our tazers couldn't reach him," Benoit claimed. "I hear talk he used to run marathons all the time, but we weren't prepared for him to just run off like that."
Skor took to the second floor of his home and from out the front facing window, opened fire on the officers below before they had a chance to knock the door down. Officer Sandra Adams was killed and Officer Edward Gillen was severely wounded. Benoit managed to avoid any shots and was the first to get in the house.
"The door had so many locks on it," he said. "It was no wonder we couldn't get through. I ended up going through a side window after breaking the glass."
Benoit managed to detain Skor when he went upstairs and ordered him to drop his weapon while holding a pistol on him. Skor had used an assault rifle to attack the officers, but when faced with Benoit and a gun to his head, he complied.
Later on in court, Skor gave a full confession to everything he had done. This included not only the murder of Officer Adams outside his home, but to three other employees that had nearly exposed his fraud earlier that year. Police had been astonished that Skor had managed to kill and hide the bodies of each person months apart and hid their disappearance from the public. He had bribed other workers to claim they saw them on a regular basis at work, and two of them bore no close family. In total, five employees had been working together to show Skor for the thief he was, but none of them had lived to see the day.
"Only had to kill three of them," Skor had confessed at his hearing. "The other two did it for me."
The five employees were Alexandra Rivers, Dale Sims, Levi Fisher, Tanya Biggs, and Shaun Townsend. Skor confessed to the murders of the first three. Rivers and Sims both died from strangling and Fisher had appeared to have passed away by natural causes. However it was later speculated that Skor poisoned her, though he never explained how; he only claimed to be responsible for her death. Meanwhile, Biggs had died in a car accident a mere two months prior and Townsend had suffered a deadly heart attack a month before that.
Skor stated that Townsend was the one who caught on first and organized the others to start gathering proof. It was later discovered that Townsend used to be part of a secret service, but details on that were restricted. Townsend was third employee involved to die.
As far as Skor's breakdown, hints to its origin were given at his first arrest, when the station that took him in received an employee-wide email with a Jack of Hearts playing card and a simple message: "You're welcome." Skor later explained in court that he had been receiving emails from someone claiming to be Jack, the Cyber Detective. He stated that at first he didn't believe the person was who they claimed. But then his computers both at home and at his place of work, received viruses that made them do, as he put it, "Obnoxious shit."
Skor stated that the oddities his tech did at first was very subtle. Some might not have even noticed. But Skor claimed he was an organized individual that liked things to be a certain way. He would find that his desktop shortcuts would be moved one over or swapped with another or deleted all together. Then certain programs started showing pictures for a fraction of a second before opening properly. Skor said when he finally managed to pause and see the image, it was that of a Jack of Hearts playing card.
His computers began to do more severe things, like shutting down at random intervals, deleting any documents he had just spent hours working on, and even freezing up to play a video of a kid playing a kazoo every five minutes one day. Skor finally responded to the emails, telling the sender to stop or he would press charges. Jack then responded by sending a photo of the first employee Skor had killed and claimed the CEO would go to the police, but it wasn't going to be to turn Jack in.
Skor explained that Jack continued to send messages and mess around with his computers over a month. He sent photos of each of the five employees that had attempted to expose him and told Skor it was only a matter of time before Jack finished what they started. Jack even began to send messages that confirmed he was watching Skor everywhere he went, even to the point of stating that leaving out pickles on a burger was almost as horrific as his murders.
Driven insane by Jack's constant assault of berating and threatening, Skor sprinted out of his home in the middle of the night after receiving yet another email from the Cyber Detective, and this is what led to his arrest and furthered his kill count. The three employees that Skor killed were eventually dug up and it was found that each of them had been strangled to death.
The emails from Jack to Skor were never recovered, as the hard drives to all Skor's computers were wiped by a virus shortly after his arrest. Other than Skor's word, we've no idea what was actually said to cause him to act so rashly that night. But Skor did confess he wanted nothing more than to kill Jack just like he'd killed all his other victims.
Skor was charged guilty on several accounts, including fraud, embezzlement, first degree murder on three accounts, and second degree murder of an officer. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole and fined 1.2 billion dollars—which isn't even half of the cash he'd managed to gain with his scheme.
Light finished reading with a deep frown on his face. It was fascinating in itself that Jack had managed to get this man to out himself in the end. It could be that she hadn't been able to gather the proper amount of evidence in the right way- after all, America was like Japan in the fact that all evidence founded without a warrant was void in court unless the crime was outrageously severe. Although, over 50 billion dollars in loot seemed like a pretty extreme crime. On top of three- now four- murders.
But one thing did catch his attention. With the three employees Skor confessed to killing, it seemed that with the last one he got more creative than just strangling. But why didn't he explain how he did it? He didn't seem to have an issue telling the jury about everything else. It seemed that Jack had effectively cracked him.
And then, of course, there was this Shaun Townsend. He'd died of a heart attack before he could see through his plans to expose Skor. Light glanced over at his Death Note. Confident the cameras and wiretaps were out of his room, he had taken it out to scribble down a few names before doing his research on L and Jack's known feats.
Perhaps it was just coincidence. That the man just happened to die that way. But the woman before that went in a car accident. Further research concluded she's seemingly blacked out while driving and ran smack into a guard rail on the highway, causing her to flip her vehicle and her head to be crushed. Then there was Fisher who passed on in his sleep from something no corner could figure out. Poison was possible, but Skor refused to confirm nor deny that. He merely told everyone he did it. He killed him.
Light pressed a hand to his forehead. Could it be possible this man had a Death Note at one time? That he'd gotten it after he'd killed the first two employees and used it to kill the other three? Its seemed odd he'd leave the heart attack kill as the last one, and for the one who he claimed started it all. If he truly had a notebook, why would he start with someone passing away quietly in their sleep?
Opening another tab on his internet browser, Light did some more research, this time on the victims of Victor Skor. Each led seemingly typical lives, save Shaun Townsend. The man, as many articles Light found stated, was revealed to once be a part of a secret service of some sort. Details were classified but he was definitely involved in some form of law enforcement. He left behind a wife and two children, but Light could not find a single piece of information on them. Not their names, their pictures—nothing. Even Townsend's personal info wasn't listed. Not where he lived or where he came from, not even his own family lineage.
It was almost as if someone had gotten in and erased all mention of Townsend outside this case. Perhaps it had been his previous employers with that secret service of his. But that still didn't make much sense.
Light released his mouse and leaned forward on the desk, placing his fingers in a steeple and pressing his lips to his thumbs. There was something about this case. This case in particular that held something of aught. It was the main case that got Jack so infamous in the North American region. What made police trust him—or if Nina was believed to truly be Jack—her.
There was a method Light could use to figure out if Nina truly was Jack as well as possibly pry more information from her. Victor Skor yet lived. He had been a criminal that Light hadn't gotten to, hadn't really known about until now. He'd been in prison for nearly a year. Sure, initially his crimes were white collar, something Light didn't delve into too much, but he had killed people in cold blood to cover his tracks. He deserved to die. If Light killed Skor, and in a gruesome enough matter that it caught the eye of the media, perhaps Nina would react properly.
However, that was also a huge risk. The fact that the Cyber Detective Jack was working with L was not public knowledge. From what Light had managed to see of his father's police records, it wasn't even listed in there. So the only ones who could possible know of Jack's involvement was the task force and Light himself. If he suddenly targeted and killed Skor in such a fashion, L would certainly grow even more suspicious.
Light shook his head. As it stood now, killing Skor was too much of a risk. He had to at least let some time pass first. That way if he did kill him, he could make it seem that it wasn't related to him just discovering Jack was on the case as well. And besides... Skor might be useful alive. Light wanted to know more about this case. If Skor truly did use a Death Note... and it was Jack who caught him... there was a chance she knew of the notebook's existence.
That wouldn't bode well at all, and in fact, it would make her a primary target for Light to kill- even over L.
"Aren't you going to go to bed?" Ryuk snickered from the corner of the room. He had an apple in his hand. "You have a big game tomorrow, remember?"
"Of course," Light replied coolly. "I just wanted some more information on this new player on the board..." He swiveled in his chair to face the Shinigami. "You acted strange when that couple showed up at To-Oh. You can't deny that. Tell me, Ryuk..." Light leaned forward, propping his arms on his knees and glaring at the death god from under his lashes. "What did you find so interesting about them?"
Ryuk took a handsome bite out of his apple. He took his time chewing it and swallowed loudly when he was finished. He leered down at Light, unfazed by his glare. "I really don't know how many times I've got to tell ya, Light. I'm not helping you."
Light slumped back in his chair, running over all his next possible moves. Ryuk not telling him helped as well. It meant that whatever he saw was important. That revealing it to Light would give him an advantage. Perhaps their names? Or was their something more? Did something change in one's name and lifespan that appeared to a Shinigami if they'd touched a Death Note before? Could Shinigami tell if someone had handled one of the notebooks by other means? Were they permanently marked in some way?
He itched to ask Ryuk, but he had a feeling that it would get him no where. Ryuk probably would just offer up the Shinigami Eyes again, and that wasn't a deal Light was going to make. He wanted to be around to rule the world he was building.
"Fine," Light sighed, shutting down his computer and heading over to his bed. All he could do for now was rest and focus on this tennis match tomorrow. Once that was over, and he was able to observe Ryuzaki and Nina more, he would decide on his next move.