Shark of Spades

A Parting Gift

"Holy shit..." Evan muttered, pulling out something and rifling through papers, then slowly to face me, blinking like he was trying to see through fog as he handed it over.

I took it all in, trying to fit all  the puzzle pieces together, but they just wouldn't go. "There's no way she could have known all of this, right? There's no way. It was an accident. An accident..." I trailed off, suddenly feeling apprehensive,  something I didn't experience often and hated the very feel of.

The item Evan had picked out was a file with a man's picture, name, and contact information, including address and all sorts of sensitive details. It also included a listing of weapons he owned, and highlighted on the list was a Glock, followed by it's make and model. When my eyes drifted back to the briefcase, I noticed something odd, so I pulled it out and was looking at a Glock inside a plastic bag. With barely shaking hands, I checked the serial number on the gun and matched it to the  highlighted description.

Misa had somehow managed to find out all about the guy who had shot her, including his own weapon, while she was in the hospital with no resources available to her. Or was it somehow possible that she'd known all along?

I  flipped through the file again, more quickly this time, only the last page stopped me. There was a small article about a body being found near  an embankment off of a nearby highway.

"She not only dug up  everything on him, but she got rid of him too," I said, showing the  newspaper clipping to Evan, shocked to my core. How...?

"But that's not all," Evan said, his voice strange as he held up a key. "What's it go to?"

I  shrugged, leaning forward and taking a closer look at the other  contents of her briefcase, pulling things out as I noted them mentally. Standard stuff - a first aid kit, a small knife, a length of rope, a screwdriver...

I pulled out a thick envelope and opened it up to find cash. "Evan...check this out. It's got to be at least ten thousand."

I  expected him to be at least a little interested, but he just shook his  head. "It's depressing," he said quietly, "that all that's left of her  is some money. What can you do with money? She couldn't bring it with her when she died, and I can't use it to buy her back."

"Yeah, well, living people generally need money, and the larger quantities, the better. If you don't want it, I'll take it," I offered indifferently, already moving on to pull out something else, but Evan punched the table, stopping me.

"If I didn't think that you're affected by her death, then I would be hitting you right  now," he said at last, sinking into his seat a little. "I'm not as good as Misa was at reading people, but I can tell. I just wish that you'd be a little less callous in front of people like me who actually show their real emotions, okay?" He paused, collecting himself and cooling  down a bit. He stood up, pushing in his chair and holding up the key.  "I'm going to try to look up what this might go to. You see if there's  anything else interesting in the briefcase, okay?"

I nodded, and he left me with the briefcase as he left the apartment, presumably heading for a nearby library. I turned my attention back to the briefcase, pulling out a few train schedules and a bus ticket.

Odd, I thought, that such an infamous card player has not a single trace of her craft in her, not even an extra deck of cards. I wonder why?

Pushing the thought aside, I sifted through a few papers that made up a report on the death of Aaron Royzac, the friend of Evan's who'd approached her a  few years ago. I never knew that she looked into his death, I  noted with surprise. I was discovering a lot of things. From the report, it seemed as though she'd identified the group behind his murder. After seeing the evidence of what she'd done to the guy who shot her, I wonder what she did to those thugs? I  grinned, impressed. Then my grin faded slowly as I pulled out another  file. This one looked more like a copy of a doctor's notes.

The patient, Misa Kusoe, has been diagnosed with RNx disease, at the age of six years old. At the current time, she is displaying no symptoms, but  upon viewing her father's DNA, she has 100% chance of contracting it soon. Once she displays symptoms, she has somewhere between five and ten years to live.

Then there was a break filled with a bunch of  doctor speak about the RNx disease, how it was caused, further  investigations into RNX gene mutations, symptoms, and other studies. I  found another entry at a later date.

The patient, Misa Kusoe, has displayed her first sign of symptoms at the age of fourteen.

Fourteen, I recalled, trying to pinpoint what sounded so familiar until I suddenly remembered. That's how old she was when she ran away from the government community. So...she's known, this entire time?

Another entry a bit later.

Despite her good health and physical condition, there is 0% chance of recovery. Estimated time of death: 22-24.

I slammed the file closed. For some reason, I was incredibly angry, both at the doctor for being absolutely useless, her dad for his stupid genes, and at Misa herself. Damn it, Misa. You knew your clock was  ticking. You should have taken it easy and focused on your health, not gone around gambling and shooting people. You should have spent your  last years happily. Yet I never saw you happy, not once.

I  pushed the file away from me, ignoring my thoughts about how awful it must have been to have known that you were halfway to your death when you were only 14. Instead, I reached for the final object in the briefcase: Misa's prized gun.

I stared at it for a moment before putting it back, but when I did, my thumb brushed up against something. I  removed the pistol once more and managed to take out the bottom of the  briefcase, revealing a hidden file underneath.

Why hide one file? Weren't the others just as incriminating? I wondered, but when I opened it, I saw why.

It had my name on the top, not Jack, but Jonathon, and all of my past was  written below. All of the bad things I've done, all of the people I've hurt, the names of all my family and known associates.

I couldn't help but sit there in frozen shock until I heard the doorknob turn and the door open, whereupon I shoved the file back and put the fake bottom  back in, placing the gun in last just as Evan came into the room.

"Find anything?" he asked, nodding towards the table now strewn over with odds and ends.

"A few things. What about you? Did you find where the key goes?"

He nodded. "Let's put all of the stuff back in the briefcase and go check it out."