A Danger That Lurks In The Darkness | A TPQ AU |

IX | Sugary Coffee Is Not Stupid: The Thesis

MINI
"So we look through more letters?" she asked, leaning back in her chair.

Her appetite had been squandered by the conversation they'd had five minutes back, a bitter aftertaste burning in her mouth.

"Do... you want to eat anything?" she asked, uncertainly.

"Nah. Do you want to?"

"What I want is irrelevant," she said, waving her hand, flippantly. "I feel like buying you lunch is the least I could do, after screwing up your day. What do you want to eat?"

He lifted a shoulder. "I could go for a sandwich,"

She got up, and grabbed his wrist. Under her fingers, she faintly felt his pulse, rapid and jumping through his skin.

"I know a great sandwich place!" she announced, summoning the old confidence and cheeriness she'd put up before.

Rudy raised his eyebrows, but said, "Sure,"

————

"I'm going to kill Sheela," she decided, pouring a sugar sachet into her coffee.

Rudy, in between bites of his sandwich, said, his voice muffled, "Careful, someone might hear you,"

"Don't care," she said, peevishly.

Rudy wiped his mouth, a soft look entering his eyes. "It's not her fault, Mini. She was just worried. If anything, it's that motherf—"

She stared at him, pointedly, as she tilted her head in the direction of the other patrons.

"Fine, that jerk's fault," The old, tender look in his eyes disappeared, replaced by anger.

Before she began to drink the coffee, she poured another sachet of sugar into it.

"That's... a lot of sugar," he noted, sounding slightly smug.

"Your stupid, sugary coffee has grown on me," she admitted, in a mutter, lifting her cup to her lips.

He smiled, his smug grin growing wider. Something was alight in his eyes.

She tried to hide the smile fighting at her lips.

————

RUDY

Rudy leaned back into his seat, a crick in his neck. "Looking through letters is so boring,"

"Mm," Mini hummed back, not paying attention to him, her own gaze transfixed on the letter.

Finally, she threw the envelope onto the desk, and rubbed her eyes. "I am so tired,"

Through the stack of letters, he caught sight of a faint, silver glint. He pushed aside the letters, and said, "It's Patricia's laptop. I forgot to give it to the cyber crime department."

Mini straightened up, her eyes sparking with a manic light. "I'll go give it to Sheela,"

"So you can yell at her? No."

She visibly deflated. "Right, sorry. You go,"

He scooped up the laptop, as she continued sifting through the letters, that old determined light entering her eyes again.

Five minutes later, after handing off the laptop to a slightly nervous Sheela (whom he assured that everything was alright), he received a text from Mini. It read: Come up rn.

At first, panic rose inside him, as he thought something along the lines of: What happened?!

It then subsided, when he remembered: Wait, we're in a police precinct. It's okay.

He went up to see Mini standing, her chair pushed backward, her spine straight.

"What's up?" he asked, about to slide back into his seat, but she caught him by the elbow. "Look," she said, excitedly.

He looked, as she showed him a picture: of a girl, looking very much like Patricia, and... another person's face, but their face was hidden in shadow, covered by a cap. Their arm was around the girl's face.

"Lissa Lawtons?"

"Probably. And if that's Lissa Lawtons, then that—"

"—Is Nightshade," he completed.

She leaned over, her eyes narrowed, as she squinted at the picture.

"What, exactly, is it that you're looking for?"

"Defining features," she muttered, peering at the picture so closely, it was nearly touching the tip of her nose.

"Want me to help?"

"I'm managing,"

"No, you're not. I think there's a reason you have glasses,"

She scowled, in his direction, before handing him the picture. "I guess you have a point."

He smirked, before frowning, his gaze snagging on something around Patricia's wrist.

"Gold bracelet," he said, tapping the picture. "And an expensive gold bracelet, that to,"

"How do you know?"

He shrugged. "My grandfather was in the jewellery business. He taught me some stuff,"

She frowned, and said, "Was she wearing the bracelet when she died?"

"Well, with everything that was recovered with her body—" he turned the laptop screen towards her, with a transcript of Lissa Lawtons' case file.

"...No?" She frowned, staring at the screen. "Maybe she took it off?"

"Hm," he mused. "Or maybe she realised how truly cringe this... Nightshade person was,"

"Hey, don't hold that against them," she said, sounding slightly defensive. "Maybe they were just affectionate."

He raised his eyebrows. "So you like it when people are affectionate towards you? Like, to the extent where they write—" he glanced at the stack of letters. "—love letters to you?"

She squared her shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe. Why do you care?"

"Chill, I don't," he said hurriedly, a weird kind of panic rising inside him, as his words dissipated into a moment of awkward silence.

He cleared his throat, and flipped the photograph over, with the words: Hypnos Jewelry, 231st Street, NW Village, 2009.

He cleared his throat, and said, "Well, whatever we want to find, we'll probably find it at 'Hypnos Jewellery'."

————

Forty-five minutes later, they were pulling up outside 'Hypnos Jewellery', a local establishment, next to the apartment building where Mr. and Mrs. Lawtons lived.

The door opened with the jingle of a bell, as a hoarse voice called out, "Who's there?"

"Er..." Mini started off, and continued, "...We're detectives from the police department, and we want to ask you a few questions about one of the residents—"

"Oh, poor Trisha Lawtons," the voice belonged to a young woman, her hand on her chest, as she cast her gaze on the two of them. The tag on her shirt read: 'Mae'.

"Actually, no," Rudy began. "This is about Lissa Lawtons,"

"We're wondering if she was dating someone— someone who called themselves Nightshade?" Mini prompted, her eyes narrowed, as the both of them gauged the woman's reaction.

The woman's eyes widened in recognition. "Of course she was," she said, harshly, "he was the one who killed her, in the end."

————

a/n: my exams start on monday, and i'm really nervous. bc, well exams. wish me luck, and i hope this chapter did not disappoint!