Action - Write To Rank 2021: My Entries

Green Belt: (Un)Solved mystery

Prompt: Mystery and Action mashup
Word Count: 1196

Ambiguous question for readers: What's the mystery? Is it solved?

~*~

Dead. No blood. No sign of suffocation or organ failiure. No drugs in the system. But still, utterly, irrevocably dead.

Hallie walked through the run-down building. Cobwebbed corners, mouldy carpets and scampering rats scuttling past her drew her attention. No one seemed to have lived in this house for years.

The woman shuffling along in front of her had told her otherwise. Apparently, a man had been living here. A recently deceased man who'd been killed in such mysterious conditions that one couldn't help but be intrigued. So intrigued that it could draw one out of hiding and into the open - too intriguing perhaps.

"Are you sure this man had been living here?" Hallie asked the woman before her, who darted her eyes towards Hallie as she answered.

"I believe so. My daughter had been dared to enter this house by her friends, which was when she found him. I was horrified when I saw and called the police at once. I just assumed..." the woman trailed off, as she turned back around, shuddering.

Hallie nodded, narrowing her eyes at the woman.

She didn't look old enough to have a daughter.

"Adopted?" Hallie asked airily, watching the woman as she hesitated.

"Yes" she shot a weary smile over a shoulder "You're a smart detective"

Hallie's eyes lingered over the overcoat, which was ripped and torn - she didn't have enough money to take care of a child at all.

"What did you say your name was?" Hallie asked, fingering the pistol in her pocket "Full name please"

The woman leaned against a musty door "I didn't" she pushed the door open "This was where I found him"

Hallie stared into the room. It had maroon walls with a musty, wooden four-poster bed in the centre of the wall to the right.  Upon the furthest wall was a dust-caked clock, which was just about decipherable.

Twenty minutes.

At the foot of the bed was the body.

"Why's the body still here?" Hallie demanded.

The unnamed woman's smile faltered. "They came here to do all the tests"

"So this place has been trampled on?"

"They were careful" the woman interjected, breathing heavily as she rubbed her nose. She then strained a smile "Why don't you just take a look?"

Hallie stepped towards the body, kneeling beside it.

The door shut behind her with a click.

Hallie checked the man's chest pocket.

A heartbeat.

Before she could even reach her pistol, she felt a hand clasp her mouth and pull her backwards, slipping the pistol from her pocket just as the man Hallie'd been tending, sat up with a wry smile.

"Thought we wouldn't reach you in the end, Mitchell?" the guy snarled.

Someone forced Hallie's wrists into a strong rope and tied them together tightly.

 "Let go of me and fight me like a man!" Hallie cried.

"Ha! Jokes on you! I'm not one," the woman from before appeared in front of Hallie exposing the entirety of her face for the first time.