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15: Masks Without Meaning

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September 23rd, Monday

Ren took a glance to his left and then to his right, like he was crossing a street. The corridor was devoid of not just people, but warmth as well.

He wondered when they had last checked their insulation. The house felt cold and drafty, despite the heater being on. He shivered as he walked around, looking for clues while descending the black, creaky metal stairs into the basement: Lennox's bedroom and workplace.

Flower boy was gone, running some errand or another, and he wouldn't be back for a while. Lennox was always holed up in his room as if he was hiding something. Ren decided to check it out, hoping to find some secrets to use to his advantage.

He looked around, seeing spines of nonfiction that read Advanced Apothecary: The Third in a Series, Budgeting for Dummies, The Road to Self-Discovery: Why It Can Wait, Identifying Dangerous Flowers, as well as a slew of dust-covered fantasy titles found in the mix.

However, there was something about the room that was almost sterile. Besides a number of personal effects, the walls and every piece of furniture that touched them were empty. Not of objects, but of a special touch by the one who owned them. Empty of love. Empty of feeling.

Just by looking around, he could tell that everything would be where it was supposed to be, so Ren began with the desk. His gloved fingers brushed past piles and piles of important documents, sifting through for anything he could use to get him closer to his objective.

When he stumbled upon an accounting book, he cracked it open, noting that the spine seemed rather new for someone who ran a shop where every sale counted.

Sure enough, only a few pages were filled. However, the pages that were filled were littered with question marks.

Ren scanned the calculations and soon found their purpose: the numbers didn't add up. Not only did the shop not produce enough profit, even after adding the fruits of the pharmaceutical pursuits, but there was another pool of money coming in, and neither Ren nor Lennox knew where it was originating.

They really were struggling financially. Ren opened the florist's closet. but if that was the case, Lennox shouldn't possess the things that he does. Such expensive and luxurious things. His shop should have gone under years ago. So why hasn't it? Why did they insist on maintaining an act of wealthiness?

He yanked the remaining drawers open, darting from shelf to shelf, shoving books and bottles and boxes aside, hunting for another ledger. If he could trace the source of the mysterious cash, then maybe he could find his answer.

Movement at the stairs impeded Ren's thoughts, causing him to jerk. His initial reaction was to slide out his gun, but then he remembered his act, his persona, and pushed the urge away.  Instead, he sat atop the desk, legs crossed.

It wasn't Lennox, he couldn't possibly be back from his outing yet. He knew his footsteps too well anyway; his gait was heavier than the one he heard now. It wasn't Wade either, for the same reason.

That meant it was either Emily or the brother. He didn't care which one, it wouldn't be difficult for him to deal with whoever came down those stairs. They were scared; he could sense it by their steps. They were trying to be stealthy, to be quiet. They didn't know that it was Ren there. And he would use that to his advantage.

Before he knew it, Lennox's mother rushed to hover over him, thrusting a candelabra at him and yelling, "If you so much as move a single metre, you vagrant, more than this candle holder will be embedded in your skull for thinking you could waltz in here and—" She had her eyes clamped shut, as if that would shield her from the responsibility of the person she was about to injure. Lennox's mother opened them to see Ren, who had ducked out of the way. "Oh. I thought you were a thief... or one of those blasted Crimsons." The candelabra clanged against the wooden desk, leaving a scratch on it.