The Stand

Three and Thirty

Marc had contacted Red Robin who was going to find out where the two had gone. Marc himself wasn't in the mood for waiting. He had been pacing back and fourth for a few minutes before he had decided to go investigate Lucielle's room, to see if he could find anything that he could use to find her.

Harleen came to help, she said she knew this place and she could find where the room was, she seemed oddly determined.

After quite a few moments of searching, they entered the room of Lucielle Starlet. The warm rose colours were a striking contrast to the cool interior of the lounge. All of the objects looked untouched. They walked throughout the space as if they were in a museum. They left clean footprints in the white carpet. Marc walked across the room and inspected a few of the objects. A closet, a stereo, a hairbrush. He wondered where the partner of Red Robin was.

"she's got quite the lifestyle huh officer?"

"yeah," he opened the laptop that was on the woman's make up table. There were tabs open. He clocked on each one. Emails, social media, news. Nothing out of the ordinary. He noticed there was a web-cam on. He moved the mouse to click on it when Harleen screamed. Marc jumped, he got up from the computer and went to where she was. He ran to a door which had not previously been opened.

"Ms. Quinzel?" he called as he entered the room. He saw her standing in the centre of the white tiled bathroom staring at the ground her mouth covered. There was a pile of platinum blonde hair on the ground beneath her feet. Marc slowly looked past her toward the bathtub, seeing seeing red soiling the clean white tile and running down the snow white tub. Marc gasped.

"oh... look at all this hair," Harleen turned to face Marc. She looked at him, then at the tub, "oh that... it's disturbing, huh... you get used to it,"

There was a woman lying there. She was dressed in the Harlequin costume, the one he had seen in the security footage.

"i did think that outfit was cute though, now it's ruined,"

The mask was on the woman's lap and her red hair was soaking wet. Her eyes were wide open and her throat was slit. Miss. Tanner's dead stare met their eyes. Her mouth was taped shut and an envelope was attached to that. Harleen seemed really unfazed by that. She walked up to the unfortunate actress and carefully removed the envelope. It was soggy but she opened it anyway. The woman smiled slightly and removed the letter. Unfolding it she read,

"Dear Marcus,

I know you're here reading this, and I wanted to tell you something. I do not like that people employ professional liars. Actors. They are paid to lie, where as we, working class citizens lie for recreation. Now the thing about these liars is they start lying to you, the employer. You see, that's what you don't want. So you've got to nip that weed in the bud before bad things happen. There's your free tip.

R

Harleen looked up from the letter at him. They stared at one another in silence for a few moments before they heard a quiet ringing sound.

"is that?..." Harleen asked.

Marc quickly stormed out of the bathroom and went to the laptop. He clicked on the web-cam and opened it. He was met with the ringmaster's mask on the screen.

"you," Marc grumbled.

"me?" the ringmaster replied.

"him?" Harleen added.

"It took you long enough, and you brought the old lady with you, how quaint." he said with disgust, "so, before you get all into the 'I hate you, what have you done with my girlfriend?' stuff. How are you? I mean really. How do you feel, since I got your girlfriend, and you could have done nothing to save her?"

"where is Lucielle?" Marc demanded.

"so, we're just going to go ahead? Small talk isn't your thing. Fine. She's with me,"

Marc glared angrily at the screen.

" very scary officer. But you know what... I'll throw you a bone. I'm done with this mystery stuff. So ?I'll even tell you who I am. Not that you'd believe me. However, you have to come alone, you can do that, right smart guy?"

Marc kept a stoic expression, "sure," he could only imagine the look on the Ringmaster's face at the moment. He clenched his fists.

"good, I look forward to your arrival. Two shows in one night, how lucky for you,"

"wait where-"

"Ha! I thought you'd know the circus was in town,"

The screen went black.