Bad Decisions

•THREE•

"Kate, good morning," Aurora said the next morning, beating Kate to the greeting, and also startling her.

"Miss Kestrel!" Kate said, standing up so quickly her desk chair skated away from her. "Hello, good morning!"

"I need you to do me a favor," Aurora said, setting her coffee down onto the counter of Kate's desk, and reaching into her handbag. She withdrew the card and the envelope and handed it over to Kate. "Do you think you are able to find which stationery shop sold this exact card and envelope? There's some embossing on the back, but I don't have the time to figure it out."

Kate took the card and envelope and flipped them over, running her tanned finger along the embossing. "Of course. I will see what I can find for you. Just give me a few hours."

Aurora nodded and plucked up her coffee cup, and let herself into her office, where she wasted no time in shucking off her outerwear, logging into her computer, and pulling up the information of the Ducati locations around LA, settling on the dealer in Santa Barbara.

She dialed the number, and after a few rings, a woman answered. Aurora had thought about her spiel all night, and all morning during her first workout of the day, and as she drank her protein shake breakfast.

"Hello, my husband lost his certificate of authenticity to his Superleggera, and I was wondering if I could get a copy emailed to me?" Aurora had practiced it, to make sure she didn't stumble on any of her words, and she was proud of herself for just how believable she sounded.

"Certainly, do you have the VIN?" The woman on the phone answered. Aurora hadn't been able to look up the VIN from the license plate alone, considering it had been a fake plate, despite it looking incredibly real.

"Unfortunately I don't have it handy, but I do have his name?" she offered, kicking her feet up on her desk.

"I can definitely use that, then," the woman replied, and Aurora gave her Noah's name. It rolled right off her tongue, and honestly, she was woman enough to admit his name sounded good spilling from her lips. The woman on the other side tapped on her keyboard, and a few moments later finally replied. "Got it pulled up here. I'll take your email address and send it on its way."

Aurora gave her a fake email address, thanked her, then hung up. The email popped up a few seconds later, and she clicked on it, reading through the information on the certificate. The VIN was right there, underneath his name. She saved the certificate to the dossier on Noah, and then opened up another online database, where she tapped in the VIN, and started a search for it.

The wheel spun for a few seconds, and when it loaded, she dropped her feet from her desk and scooted her chair in.

It had all the information she would have wanted.

The actual license plate number, the name it was registered under, as well as insured, which was absolutely not his name, but a Nicholas Ruffilo instead, and then an address deep in the suburbs of LA. She was gleeful and ready to get going to do some surveillance on the house the motorcycle was registered at.

She saved screenshots of what she had found also to the dossier file, and then stood up.

"Miss Kes- Oh! Are you leaving?" It was Kate who was standing outside her office door, her fist poised to knock on the door jamb.

"Yes, headed out for a few hours," Aurora answered, and slid on her peacoat over her dark shirt and jeans. "Did you already find the shop?"

"I did! It was really easy actually," Kate answered, stepping into the office when Aurora waved her in. "My best friend actually does calligraphy for wedding invites, and she uses paper like this on occasion, so she narrowed it down to three shops in the Greater LA area that sold it, besides getting it online."