Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter X

"What about her?" Mira answered with a question that didn't hide her annoyance.

"Could she be taking part in this?"

"What? No way! Are you seriously trying to throw all of this on my mother?"

"I'm not throwing anything on anyone, but hey, you gotta think clearly - I bet you look a lot like her, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"And you also look a lot like her!"

"I mean I guess, but-" Mira squinted her eyes. "Like who?"

"Like the woman!"

"I never told you about any woman, Gerald."

"What? Yes you did!"

"I'm 100% sure I did not."

"When you described what happened last night, you said-"

"I did not say anything about any woman, Gerald." she said and slowly moved her to her back. Without losing eye contact with the man, Mira pulled a small gun out and pointed it at him. "Where did you find out about a woman, Gerald?"

After seeing the gun, the detective froze in place and squeezed out an awkward smile. "Oh come on, Mira, why are you doing this? You know you told us about her, cut me some slack!"

"Even if I wanted to say something, you dumbasses wouldn't listen, why would you think I'd tell you something like that?!" Mira snarled and waved the gun around instead of gesturing.

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down! We don't want anyone to get hurt, right-"

"Then how do you know about her? Tell me, and no one will get shot!"

"I- I looked at the camera footage, okay? The one in the room there." he said and waved his head into the general direction of the room."

"And when did you do that?"

"Like 5 minutes ago? Come on, put the gun down, this is all unnecessary. Put the gun down and let's get some tea or something-"

"You're lying." Mira whispered.

"I'm what- now how would you know that?"

"Because when I went to check for the footage, it was already deleted. And that was 'like' 15 minutes ago."

"What? Deleted? No way..." he said insincerely before turning around and trying to run out of the room. Instinctively, Mira aimed at his legs and pulled the trigger, which wasn't very successful. Although she did hit him, the bullet only grazed his leg, making him slower, but not immobile, which he proved moments later after he ran out of the building.

Mira ran downstairs to the reception and told of what had just happened, making the old woman in the receptionist send out all kinds of messages to everyone in the industry. She even sent out one to the Level Hall, just so they'd make wanted posters in case they can't get him before.

While that was happening, Mira put on her full suit - that being a bulletproof jacket and a regular sized gun, took a few officers with her and went looking for any blood trails or clues of where he could've gone.

As soon as they left the building, they noticed barely visible blood splatters along one of the walls. Quietly, they glanced at each other, nodded, and walked forward, carefully placing each step. Like that, they walked around almost the whole building, when the spots started going in a different direction. With their guns at the ready, the whole squad followed the trail, which led them to an abandoned looking building. Mira raised up her eyes and realized it looked rather familiar. She walked a few steps to the side, and noticed the other half of the building was that creepy noodle place, where she had witnessed a fight-turned murder a few months ago.

"There's no way this is a coincidence." she whispered and stepped inside. The owner of the place, who was also the only employee, looked at her and his eyes widened. "May we have a look around, sir?"

"Do you have a search warrant?"

"No, but we're not looking for anything, we just want to walk around and see if everything is fine, sir."

"Well, get a search warrant and you can look around as much as you want, Miss." he said and walked out from behind the counter and to the bathroom door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a visit to make." he gestured at the bathroom door and walked through.

Mira waited a few moments and went behind the counter. She squatted and looked inside the counter before victoriously standing up with a key in her hand.

"Fader, we can't do that, we don't have a warrant-"

"Shut up, he can't know. I'm gonna go in there, and you go get the warrant okay? And distract him once you get back here so I could come back in, okay?" she said and unlocked the staff only door behind the counter. She immediately took the key out of the lock and placed it back where it was, and walked in, closing the door behind her.

On the other side of the door, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were shelving units on the walls, filled with multiple packs of store bought pasta, which may or may not have been already past the expiration date. In the corner next to the door, stood a small fridge, which made and extremely loud sound every few minutes. Mira stepped forward through the narrow room and looked around. It looked like a normal storage room, sure it may have been a little shabby and could use some upgrades, especially in the pasta department, but nothing a visit from the health department couldn't fix. Disappointed in her detective skills, Mira was about to leave the room and face the disgracement of not following the law, when something unusual caught her eye. She took a few steps back and looked closer. Most of the boxes that were under the shelves had a lot of dust on them, except one of them. Although it could've been the only one used, placing the most used box at the end of the room seemed highly impractical. She carefully pulled the box out and smiled, as there was a small drop of blood on the other side of the box. Although the box itself contained nothing but old newspapers, the spot where the box stood before looked way more promising. As Mira turned to it, she saw a small hatch in the floor. Without giving it a second thought, she opened it to see a ladder going down. Mira glanced around her, and after not hearing any sounds coming from the other side of the door, decided to climb down.

As Mira carefully placed her feet on the steps, she noticed that the ladder went on for a while. While she was slowly going down, she heard a sound coming from above. She lifted her head up and say the face of the owner of the noodle place, but it didn't seem like he saw her. The man sweared and muttered something about people always forgetting to close the shaft after using it. Moments later, he slammed the hatch closed, and left Mira in the complete darkness.

After somehow getting down the ladder, Mira looked around in her pockets for something that would help her see. The only thing she could find though, was a small box of matches, which seemed to work less times than it should. After trying to light at least 4 different matches, she finally managed to get some light. As soon as she was able to do that though, she started looking for something sturdier, that could hold the fire on for much longer. She walked around, keeping the match as low as she could, just so she could see the things that could possibly be on the floor. After using almost the whole box of matches, Mira saw a wooden chair standing to the side. Without thinking twice, she picked up the chair and slammed it into the ground, making one of the legs break off. She took the leg, ripped some fabric off her undershirt, and tied it on. She placed the soon to be torch and between her thighs and took out the match box out of her pocket. There were only a few matches left, but with each she tried to light up and failed, her hopes started decreasing and despair started creeping in. Finally, one of the matches gave in and she managed to light up the fabric, giving herself a full blown torch that lit the place she was in quite well.

When she finally lifted her head up and looked around, she realized that she was in a rather long looking tunnel, which seemed to curve a little bit in one of the sides. She went back to the ladder she climbed down from, and tried thinking which direction Gerald must've taken. She walked a bit to both sides, but there was nothing that could indicate his choice. Mira walked back to the side she was in, when her eye was caught on the chair. On it, were multiple spots that looked like they were a result of a wounded person trying to sit down. As it was the only lead she had, Mira confidently made her way into the direction of the chair, leaving the ladder, yet again, in complete darkness.