Stage for Three

Alarm at the theatre

Laen grabbed and threw the pillow at her nightstand. By chance it also knocked the clock off as well. Yes, nice aim, she thought burying her head deeper into the mattress. Why could she still hear it? Reaching for that long gone pillow to drag over her head, she couldn’t reach it; drat Zach had somehow failed her sleeping in attempt.

A ring indicated it had gone to message, oh crap; she hadn’t turned off the loudspeaker. It was 2018, why hadn’t they invented psychic turn off automatically when you wanted alarms?

She heard Zacks voice flow through the small studio apartment, why hadn’t she killed him again? Oh right, Logan made her. Stupid older brother and his stupid morally right logic!

“Die!” She grumbled out loud.

“Hartman get your ass outta bed! This is an emergency case; someone’s dead and for god sakes! Bring the friggin’ coffee!”

‘I’m gonna kill him! I’m SO going to KILL him!’ Thoughts as to how she would accomplish this occurred as she slipped out of bed. Last time Laen did this she was fourteen and running the streets wild with Logan.

She pulled on her boots and finally checked the time on the abused alarm clock. 4:36am glared back at her in bright red numbers.

Laen pulled her jacket on while slipping her phone. She left a colourful voice message before walking out the door.

Zack laughed when he heard the voice message. Laen loved her sleep…and hitting him when interrupted, now that the thought occurred. He should wear a baseball helmet now that he thought about it. Or full body armour.  He texted back to the freelancer with the address and continued driving down to the address.

An old derelict theatre that had been done up in the name of history, was running a movie about vampires and D.I.D’s (damsels in distress).

Apparently the body was found back stage near the exits. ID’d as Amelia Romero; she was with her two kids a boy Drake and a girl Denise. The father had been separated from the mother for over two years due to a drink driving problem which had gotten out of hand and he now attended AA meetings weekly.

Zack saw Laen leaning against a conventionally placed street lamp for the old theatre look. She could almost have been a gangster if it wasn’t for the purple and blue highlights in her hair. That reminded his of when they first met and she first attempted to break his nose ‘accidently’. Or so she claimed when they agreed to work together on varied cases.

Laen held up a cup of coffee for him while she sipped on a milkshake.

“I was sleeping and having a good dream!” The deadly tone with a matching glare, he could tell was to get to the point if he wanted to live.

“Well there’s no better dream then being here to admire me.” The glare was heating up and turning to laser stun. He cleared his throat and handed her the file on the victim’s history.

“Mother of two, one eight, the other eleven, thirty eight years old, separated from husband called Leo.” He mentioned to walk “Slashed and bleed to death. Kids are currently in fathers’ custody who is being questioned at the station and…why are you wearing a pyjama shirt?”

A sleeve and collar of purple were visible and the response that he got was a growl that resembled a wolf.

“I was once again and for the final time…sleeping!” She gustoically exclaimed waving her arms. “Victim was slashed in an X shape. So jack the ripper knock off?” Laen raised an eyebrow at him.

 He shrugged agreeing, he had to generally rant at everyone to allow Laen to see the scene, and this was no exception. Why couldn’t they live in a perfect world?

“Remind me why I let you become James Bond when you obviously suck at getting perks?” Laen teased.

“Because Nancy Drew hadn’t graduated from high school and can’t get a high paying job without the qualifications,” Responding to the fact that she never attended proper school.

“Riiiiiiight” She stretched out sarcastically.

Laen went into interrogation style and questioned anyone in the theatre working at the time. Zack wandered backstage to the body where it was half resting against the wall.

She looked horrified from the facial expressions. As if in disbelief that she was about to die.

There was a small cut across her cheek that almost didn’t match the rest of the body if you couldn’t see the thinning mark across her neck that slipped into a vein. Blood seeped across her pure white shirt cutting it from her shoulders and across her chest delving deeper on her lower part of the body. It had turned crusty and blood now dried, it made her look fake. The now pale skin didn’t help.

Looking around Zack noticed the blood spray along the wood floor. It was messy the way the victim had been cut and the killer unprofessional from the look of it.

“Amateurs,” He voiced into the world.

He noticed that for a bleed out the victim hadn’t gotten the walls as messy as was normal in cramped spaces. Zack checked the screen again; no blood had seeped through to the front stage. He saw that the nearest rotating cable, which held up the screen and helped with the lighting while it quickly rotated  screen looked newer and cleaner while the rest had slight age on them. It looked like it would break easily.

Hmm….he wondered turning back to the X shaped body.