Undercover Disaster

Keiko Fujiwara

Chapter Nine:

Damn!

~BEAUTY AND THE BEAST~

Catherine first thought it would be a good idea to check Thomas's suite since he was away for his meeting so she went to the receptionist's desk and asked, "Hello. I'm sure you're very well aware of the explosion that happened to the back of this building earlier and I'm a part of the team investigating it. It is important I speak with the Mrs. Gilmore. Can you please point me in the direction of her suite?"

"Of course. The Gilmore Suite is on the top level, first door to your left from the elevator. While you're up there, can you give Mrs. Gilmore my regards? I hear she isn't feeling well." The receptionist replied.

"Absolutely. Thanks." Catherine smiled before going to the elevator. She looked around to make sure no one was watching her before entering the double doors. As the elevator slowly made its way to the top, she dug into her purse and found the master card she snatched out of Tess's purse while she was underneath the table.

She heard the elevator beep and when the doors opened; she took off her high heels and walked out, barefooted in case she had a reason to run. She first knocked on the Gilmore's door and said, "Mrs. Gilmore! I'm Catherine Chandler. NYPD. Open up!?"

There was no reply.

She instantly swiped the master card through the door's lock and it opened for her. She snuck inside, closing the door behind her, and tiptoed through the suite. She pulled her gun out of her purse and held it out in front of her as she slowly walked step by step. "Mrs. Gilmore?"

She found herself wandering around in the living room space and gasped. An entire display of medieval weapons was hanging on the wall. She carefully walked to an axe and stared at the shape of the weapon. 'This axe would have that wedge shape Evan was talking about earlier.'

She pulled out a Q-tip from her purse, swiped the blade's tip and placed it in a plastic bag. Earlier, while she was packing up her things, she purposely gathered Ziploc bags and Q-tips from Evan's M.E. materials in case she needed to use them. Turns out she was right.

She continued to look at each, individual weapon to see if she could find something that would match the weapon used on the Phillips family. 'Evan said the weapon was thin…like a Butcher's knife or something…Wait! That looks pretty slender and if the blade was sharp enough…it would do the trick!' Catherine thought as her eyes caught a long, medieval machete blade.

Catherine grabbed another Q-tip and plastic bag and repeated the same process she did with the axe. 'Now that I've found the potential murder weapons, it might be a good idea to look for Mrs. Gilmore.'

"Mrs. Gilmore?!" she shouted again, hoping to get a reply.

Again, no response.

Catherine ventured into the master bedroom and first opened the closet. Nothing.

She then walked into the bathroom to look into the tub. Once again, nothing.

"Mrs. Gilmore! NYPD! If you are here, please respond!" Catherine said loudly.

Suddenly, a silhouette underneath the bed caught her attention. She ran to the bed, bent down but couldn't see anything. After digging into her purse and finding a flashlight, she flicked it on and pointed it under the bed. "Oh my."

Catherine's eyes widened as she saw Mrs. Gilmore lopped to one side with a bullet in her head. By the looks of her still intact flesh, Catherine assumes she was shot sometime today. 'I need to get out of here. Now!'

As fast as she could, she walked quickly to the front door and walked out, trying not to look suspicious. She decided the stairs would be faster so as she walked down the stairs, she pulled out her phone to call Vincent.

"Hello?" Vincent answered as Catherine was halfway down the third flight of stairs.

"Vincent! Thank god you picked up!"

"What's wrong?!" he asked, suddenly alarmed.

"Nothing…nothing yet…I went to Thomas's suite…Vincent, he has to be our killer. I found a room of medieval weapons, two of them matching the descriptions of the murder weapons. I took swabs of the blades so if there were any DNA left over, Evan or even the WVPD could test for them."

"Where are you?!"

"I'm on my way back down to the front lobby. I decided to take the stairs." Catherine replied as she continued going down the stairs at incredible speed. "Vincent, there's more. Mrs. Gilmore isn't sick…she's dead…I found her with a bullet to her head under their bed."

"Catherine, get out of that building right now! Who knows if anyone saw you. I'll meet you at the front of the building."

"Okay…I'm going as fa—" but her voice was cut off as something slammed into her back, causing her to lose her balance and fall down two flights of stairs.

"Catherine! Is everything okay?!" Vincent yelled through the phone. The next thing he knew, the line went dead.

~BEAUTY AND THE BEAST~

"Catherine! Is everything okay?!" Vincent shouted as he heard her voice suddenly cut off with a wail of pain. His heart nearly stopped the second the phone died.

"Is everything alright?" Evan asked

"I don't know." Vincent replied. "She was telling me something about her going to Thomas's suite and found two possible murder weapons as well as another dead body—his wife."

"She what?! Why would Catherine go there alone?" Evan asked, bewildered.

"Evan, Catherine is Catherine. Besides, no one believed her so she probably thought she had to do the investigation alone."

"Then what happened?" Evan asked.

"She…I told her to get out of the Greenbrier main building as fast as possible and before she could finish her response, I heard her wail in pain with a large crash. The next thing I hear, the line goes dead."

"Right. I'll get ahold of Tess. You make your way to the main building. If anything, she was ambushed like I was that one time with Peter. Oh God. Why didn't I see it before? Just as I wasn't suspicious of Peter, I wasn't suspicious of Thomas yet all of the signs were pointing to him just as Cat had said!"

"Okay, man, you can sort your guilt later. Right now we gotta find Catherine before something happens."

"Right." Evan replied as he pulled out his phone.

Vincent didn't wait for Evan to call Tess. He just bolted out of the suites and made his way towards the main building as fast as he could.

Keiko Fujiwara: Okay, I know this was a really short one but I decided to make the chapters shorter so you guys can get more frequent updates! Okay! :)

Let me know what you think!