Don't Run

Clever Girl

Hayley's mind continued to paint pictures of how Fairy's body would look laying down on the ground, or perhaps posed in some way, or maybe discarded like trash.

She tossed her bag on her bed and nearly missed it. The bag fell to the floor as Hayley watched idly, consumed by macabre images. She sat on her desk, put the envelope on her laptop aside and opened Google.

Fairy Desai. She typed.

She skimmed through the articles, each stating that she was shot and then going on a tangent about her life and the tragedy of her death. She fell back into her chair.

"The reporters must have nothing else to do today." She spoke to no one, "Wait a sec."

Her eyes landed on the brown envelope.

Observant remarked Pas.

There was no name, no address or even a stamp, just a plain brown envelope. Translation this was home delivered.

Given the current events the careful thing to do would be to ask her parents if anyone had delivered it.

"Later," no need to involve someone right away, right?

She lifted the flap, something about this made her want to cherish every second. She felt like a character in a horror movie right before they open something to find something horrifying inside. Her heart beat picked up in pace, hands started to feel a bit clammy but her mind was focused. For a second she thought maybe she was making things up, like the billion times she had in the past, that this was just going to end up being some advertisement for classes or exams. She really hoped that wasn't the case.

Her fingers pinched the white paper, empty except for a few lines in the center of the page in a typewriter font, courier new, and 12 pixel in size.

Clever girl, are you clever enough?

Shall we play a game?

As always it starts the same

You have all you need

Find the desire for the deed

Once you find my noble intentions

Come speak to me through a global connection.

Not a poet sneered Pas.

Hayley chuckled, "The killer wants me to find out why he killed her?" she snorted, still not believing what was happening, "Brilliant."

She went over the poem once again, "Nobel intentions, so he thinks that what he did was for the good, of? . . . Society, himself?" she asked no one, "To be fair, that doesn't matter. Speak? – global connections? What? Am I supposed to make an Instagram post or something?"

She jumped in her seat as a notification flared up on her laptop.

Prince 1989 commented on your post – Misogynistic Women and how you don't have to be a man to support the Patriarchy. 

It was like divine prophecy. "Shit . . . Shit . . . OH MY GOD! That's the global connection!"

She put the first page down, her heart skipped a beat as she realized what she was looking at – crime scene photos. She quickly flipped through the rest, yep, definitely crime scene photos. She went back to the first, it was dark, the flash from the camera casting a sharp shadow.

"Shadows? Flash?" she went to one of the articles to check again, "the police found the body in the early hours of the morning and while there may still be some darkness it would have not been like this."