chapter 29.

I told Jannie everything that I had over heard Fletcher say, watching as she carefully thought through everything. We had gone through multiple sheets of paper, all of which were scattered around us on the floor, as we tried to put together who was going to kill John. Jannie was convinced that it wasn't Fletcher, but there were no other suspects besides Mahala at this point.

"What about Ryler? He threatened John, he's been acting out of character, and he's got a motive – Nora. If he thinks that Nora was trying to get back together with John, that would give him a reason to want John out of the picture once and for all," Jannie contemplated as she penned out Ryler's name on a blank sheet of paper, scribbling some other things before setting it down. We both looked over the papers we had so far – three names were prominent: Fletcher, Mahala, and now Ryler.

"Possibly, but I don't think Ryler would kill his own best friend," I added.

"Love makes people do crazy things, Ellion."

"But the knife that is used to kill John is the same one that Fletcher has, and he said it's an old family heirloom."

"What if someone is trying to frame Fletcher for John's murder?" Jannie pondered, shrugging her shoulders at me. "Maybe someone that Fletcher has wronged, or – you know, someone that he owes money to."

"Like this Marik guy? Especially since he knows that John is involved," I added to her original thought. "But how would framing Fletcher for John's murder help Marik?"

"Okay, this might be a crazy thought, but what if killing John will make Fletcher inherit John's mother's savings? Who else would be in line for the inheritance? Then this shady Marik guy could find a way to get the money from Fletcher in return for – I don't know, his own safety? The debt is cleared, right?" Jannie said, jotting down what she had said onto paper before adding it to the pile.

"But Fletcher goes to jail, so he would technically be safe from Marik as long as he is behind bars."

Jannie burst out laughing, shaking her head at me. "No, Ellion, you think a guy like Marik wouldn't have some friends behind bars to take care of Fletcher? Haven't you watched Prison Break?"

"That's a TV show, Jan, I don't think it works that way in real life," I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Okay, let's say that Fletcher is safe if he goes to prison – what sort of leverage would Marik have against him on the outside?" Jannie asked, raising her eyebrows as we both clued in to the same conclusion. "Hadley."

"So he could use Hadley's safety on the outside as a means to get the inheritance money from Fletcher?" I questioned, picking up the piece of paper that Jannie had been writing on to weigh through everything. "You're trying to tell me that Marik could be John's killer?"

"I guess we'll have to do some sleuthing to find out," Jannie said, jumping to her feet as she ushered me to follow her. "Fletcher said something about papers in his office, and he's out of town till Wednesday – so we can just sneak in there and find out what papers he is talking about and maybe get some info on Marik to track him down."

As much as I hated the idea of breaking into someone's private property, if it meant keeping John safe then I would make an exception this one time. Jannie seemed as though she may be onto something, possibly a thorough lead to who John's killer may be. The thought of saving John made my heart flutter, hoping that there was some way to put a stop to the premonition so that he could continue on living. More than anything I wished that I could tell John what was going on, as if that was a way to keep him safe – but it would be too easy for him to think I was crazy and want nothing more to do with me. I needed to keep him as close to me as possible, which meant holding my tongue until I knew the premonition of him being murdered had passed.

Jannie and I drove to Fletcher's office at the construction site, noticing that there weren't many people hanging around. I wasn't sure why Fletcher was out of town for the few days that he was, maybe it was for a job or for personal reasons, either way the lot seemed empty without him around. We looked for the main offices that were situated near the main parking lot, trying to be as stealthy as possible to remain unseen by the few workers that lingered around aimlessly. Jannie noticed a back door to the portable which was shaded from view, leading me up to it. We tried to open the door but it was locked, this didn't seem to deter Jannie. She stretched over the side of the railing towards the nearest window, perching herself slightly on the railing so that she could use all of her strength to shove the window open. With a smile beaming on her face, she shrugged as if this wasn't her first time breaking into private property.

"You would be surprised how few people lock their windows," Jannie whispered, turning back to carefully pop out the screen before handing it to me to set by the door. She brought her feet up on the railing, balancing herself for a moment until she carefully pulled herself inside of the window while trying not to make a lot of noise. Luckily there didn't seem to be many people around.

I followed her lead through the window, knocking over a pencil holder that scattered an array of markers and pens all over the desk that I was trying to maneuver my way off of. Jannie cringed, grabbing a few of the writing utensils that eagerly tried to roll off the edge. I mouthed an apology as I lowered myself onto the floorboards, looking around at the slightly dimmed portable office. There were a few desks scattered around and a beat up couch shoved in the far corner by the bathroom, but beyond that it was fairly empty. The sunlight tried to beam through the slits of the shades that covered the front windows, giving us just enough light to safely avoid the sharp corners of the desks. Jannie immediately went to the nearest desk and began searching for anything that led her to believe it belonged to Fletcher, quickly moving onto the next when she discovered the desk was owned by someone else. I searched the desk nearest to me, noting a piece of paper with DANIELS written on the top of it. I snapped my fingers to get Jannie to join my side, both of us trying to search through Fletcher's belongings as fast as we could.

From what we had already seen everything that was on Fletcher's desk was work related, but as soon as we went to search the drawers the first one was locked. Jannie bit her lip as she tried to pry it open to no avail, promptly pulling out a bobby-pin from her hair to try to pick the lock. She fiddled with the lock for a few minutes before shrugging, but I knew of another way to get inside of the drawer. The desk itself was made out of thin sheet metal, nothing that couldn't be tampered with. I motioned for Jannie to help me pull the desk away from the wall, going around to the back side to pry at the sheet that held the back of the desk together. I noticed a few screws holding it in place, darting for the nearest toolbox for a screwdriver. One by one the screws came out until I was looking at the back of the drawers, steadying myself against the wall as I leveled the heel of my foot against the first drawer. With all of my strength I kicked at it, causing the drawer to fly open on the other side as some of the contents spilled out. Jannie's mouth dropped, shaking her head at me.

"My dad had a desk just like this that he used to hide his pellet gun in," I whispered, going around to the front of the desk to search through it. "I was a crafty kid back in the day, especially when I wanted something."

"Ellion Marksman, you never cease to amaze me," Jannie whispered back, nudging me gently before helping me search the drawer. "Here I was thinking that you were just a little angel, meanwhile you're a total bad-ass!"

I grinned at her before turning my attention back to a small envelope with SHOP written on it, pulling it out. "I have my moments," I mumbled, emptying the contents of the envelope onto the desk. Inside there were a few papers mentioning Alana Shop, John's mother, as well as a brochure for a nursing home in Harrow Hall. Amongst those papers there also happened to be a bank statement with Alana's name on it, followed by a the sum total of what happened to be in the savings. Considering what John owed to Fletcher, this wasn't even going to make a dent on that amount. I looked through the last piece of paper which happened to be from an insurance company that John was associated with – it was John's life insurance policy. Why did Fletcher have it? The amount on the policy was astonishing and more than covered what John owed to Fletcher.

Jannie read the papers over my shoulder, squeezing my arm as soon as she caught sight of the insurance policy. This didn't look good for Fletcher at all, especially if his intent was to murder John to get his life insurance. John put the recipient as Alana, and from further investigating Fletcher was second in line to be the power of attorney for Alana – which meant that Fletcher could easily get his hands on the life insurance that would go to Alana, using it for his own good. I was having a very difficult time believing that Fletcher wasn't the one who would be responsible for John's murder, especially given all of the information we had stumbled upon.

Pulling away from my side, Jannie continued to search the desk until she finally stumbled upon Fletcher's personal phone book, scanning through until she found a number listed simply as M. I knew we couldn't take the papers with us, but there had to be some way we could keep the information for later. Jannie rolled her eyes at me and pulled out her cellphone, snapping a few pictures of the documents in front of us. I had never been a fan of cellphones and didn't particularly like the idea of getting one, but this was one of those times that I appreciated how useful they were. Jannie added the phone number into her cellphone before setting the phone book back where she had found it, eying the mess we had made of Fletcher's desk.

"Should we put it back together?" Jannie asked, snickering to herself at how disheveled everything looked.

"I hate to break it to you, but I never quite figured out how to fix the broken drawer lock. Usually I just accepted my fate," I replied, shrugging at it. "We could just make it look like a regular break in, as long as we don't take anything that could lead back to John."

"Nope, it's all safe on my phone," Jannie pointed to her phone before shoving it back into her pocket. "Come on, let's get out of here before someone finds us. We've got a phone call to make."

I followed Jannie out of the window, sneaking from the portable office over to the parking lot where we quickly hopped into my van. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to call a known criminal, let alone associate Jannie with him, but she seemed to be more than okay with the idea. We didn't even pull out of the construction site parking lot before Jannie was dialing the number into her cellphone, putting it on speaker so that I could listen while I drove us away from the scene of our break and enter. The phone rang until finally an announcer came on and said that the number was currently unavailable, but Jannie didn't hesitate to dial the number a second, then a third time. Finally the phone stopped ringing, and a voice came through on the other end.

"You have the wrong number, don't call this again."

"Wait, Marik?" Jannie questioned, looking to me as I shook my head at her. There was no way any of this was going to work. The other end of the line was silent for an uncomfortably long period of time. "I was referred to you by – a friend, and I am in desperate need of your help."

"I can't help you."

"I've been told you can. My friend told me that you're able to help people out in a pinch," Jannie chewed at her cheek nervously, unsure of what to say next. I kept my eyes focused on the road. "See, I'm in need of a – a loan and I heard you're the guy ---"

"Enough. I don't do business over the phone. If you want to talk, come see me."

"Where can I find you?"

"Troubleshooters." Then he hung the phone up, leaving us with nothing but a dial tone.

Jannie sighed, clicking the phone off as she quickly pulled up her internet browser on her phone, searching Troubleshooters. She scanned through a few pages of links but nothing stood out, it was too vague of a search. We didn't even know where to begin looking. She pondered for a few minutes before we pulled past the police station, clicking her fingers and pointing in its direction. I followed her lead, unsure of what she wanted to do. Once the van was put in park, she jumped out of the car and waved for me to follow her, hopping up the steps of the station until she was nearly inside. I scrambled behind her, watching as she casually walked through the lobby towards the main desk where Ben Cimson sat behind. He looked up to us for only a few seconds, focusing back on his computer.

"Hey Benny," Jannie said, leaning over the desk slightly. Ben smiled faintly at her before pulling away from his work, wheeling himself towards the front of the desk. "I was wondering if you knew of a place called Troubleshooters?"

Ben stared blankly for a moment, bouncing his gaze between both Jannie and I. "I believe it's a dive bar outside of Denver, if I'm not mistaken."

"A dive bar?" Jannie turned to look at me over her shoulder. "It would make sense, wouldn't it?"

Ben stood up from his desk chair, placing his hands down on the counter as he eyed the two of us carefully. "Any particular reason you're interested? If you're thinking of checking it out, I would advise otherwise – there's a nasty history of gang activity in that area."

"What gangs?" I asked.

Ben didn't seem too enthused about the idea of us getting mixed up in whatever this place held. "The kind of gangs you would be better not knowing about. Say, you're not thinking of heading over there any time soon, are you? Because I can recommend a hundred better bars if you wanted."

I needed to act fast. "No, that's not why we're asking at all. We're actually writing an article about ---" I paused, trying to think of the best reason, "--- gang culture and how violence has a ripple-like affect on not only urban hubs, but rural areas, too."

Jannie looked impressed, trying to hide it from Ben. He took a moment to think it over, finally nodding along. "I see, and why is it that you want to know about this bar?"

"Someone mentioned it in passing conversation, we're just looking to see how to connect the violence from that bar to violence here in Harrow Hall," I replied.

"Well, I wouldn't say we get much of a backwash from the Denver area. In fact, I think Harrow Hall is probably one of the far more safer areas to live in terms of criminal activity," Ben weighed in. "However, most of the crimes being committed around this area happen to be illegal gambling, possibly a little bit of money laundering – but you didn't hear that from me."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Jannie interjected, crossing her fingers. "So you would say that Harrow Hall is mostly affected by financial crimes? Like – people who can lend you money?"

"Loan sharks, you mean?" Ben asked, to which both Jannie and I nodded. "Sure, there's loan sharks in the area. Most people use them if they have a gambling problem and need more money to get their next fix."

"Fix as in drugs?" I asked.

"No – I guess I'm not using the right terminology. Just that they need money to continue to run down to the casino in Brook."

"So what you're saying is that people would use a loan shark in order to feed their gambling addiction?" Jannie asked.

Ben nodded. "They could, yes."

"Not that it's any of our business, but do you happen to know someone like that by the name of Marik?" Jannie pressed, clearly not wanting to waste another second.

"Listen, all I'm going to say is that you need to be extremely careful when dealing with these type of people. I wouldn't recommend trying to find any for an interview, they aren't particularly fond of talking about their business with just anyone," Ben explained.

"Understood loud and clear," Jannie replied, tapping her hands on the top of the desk before stepping away. "Thanks Benny, that helps a lot. Also, the uniform suits you."

He smiled at her, still unsure of what had just happened, nodding once at her in a very strict-like manner. Jannie gently pulled me out towards the door, leaving the police station behind. We jogged down the steps towards the van where she promptly stopped me.

"I guess we're going on a little road trip," She said, a giddy smile appearing on her face.