Sparks and a Girl (Rewritten to publish)

5. The Movies

"Cooking your feelings?" Jeisa's dad asked as he leaned against the kitchen door.

"What gave it away?" Jeisa replied with a sigh as she wrapped another aluminium tray filled to the brim with spicy biriyani rice, labelled the foil wrap, then added it to the kitchen counter populated by a dozen other trays filled with a dozen different dishes.

"I'll call the neighbours to let them know to make space in their refrigerators," he said with a little chuckle. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if your shared meals have raised the property value of this neighbourhood. Everyone keeps saying they're the happiest neighbours in Wraith Hamlet."

Jeisa laughed as she began clearing the dishes she'd used. She preferred using the main house's kitchen for these big cooks because it was easier to use more dishes thanks to the much larger dishwashing space that dwarfed that of her tiny one-bedroom bungalow guest house next to the main house.

"Dad," Jeisa sighed, looking up from being elbow deep in sudsy dishwater. "The captain knows I'm on to her."

Her dad nodded. "I figured."

"I did everything right."

"I know. It's not your fault. I underestimated her." He said, walking up to help her with the dishes. "We're taking her off the list. She's no longer a part of your assignment."

"What?" Jeisa couldn't believe he'd just said that. The definitive consequence from disregarding the Red Dragon was supposed to be a certainty, like taxes and death. This is what Jeisa had been training for her whole life!

"I mean it, Jeisa," he said. "I'm calling you off this. Don't go after her."

He wasn't telling her everything and that pissed Jeisa off. She was about to call him out on it, when he said one more thing that silenced her.

"In more positive news, your third target? Remember him?" her dad asked. Mr. twenty ninth floor apartment. Of course, Jeisa remembered him. Had only just seen him yesterday. "Well, he hasn't been seen in town for the last couple of days. Looks like you've got your first target to actually heed your warning. Congratulations."

Jeisa stayed silent. To correct her father would be to admit that she'd failed in more ways than one because she'd have to tell him about the purple velvet case – the likely Weapon of Mass Destruction that she'd let slipped through her fingers several times now. In addition to hunting down the Captain, Jeisa had spent the last day hunting down Mr. twenty ninth floor apartment, the woman he'd met with and that stupid purple case, but she hadn't made any progress.

Shit.

The neighbours were going to have to buy new refrigerators to fill up.

*

Three days.

Three days and Jeisa had made barely any progress. She trusted that her father would be working his own angle with his contacts, but she'd been discreetly building her own contacts in the Warehouse district and had been leaning on them pretty hard the last few days. No one knew anything about the guy from the twenty ninth floor apartment, but she'd just gotten some news that made it feel like things were finally about to turn around.

Someone knew the woman he'd been dining with.

She was a Wraith Hamlet local. Someone who'd been here when the town was first transformed. There was even word that she may have been a member of the team that transformed the town, although no one, not even Jeisa's dad, knew exactly who was behind the town's transformation. The woman was also heavily involved with ex-military mercenaries, apparently having hired a dozen or so in the last month. This was the news Jeisa had been waiting for. She didn't want to go to her father empty handed, but this was good. She could finally tell him about the woman, Gretel. He'd know what to do, and hopefully, how to get that purple case.