The RunAway Model

IV. Sold!

Desiree put up a fight when two men entered her room. Though it was a losing battle, she had to at least try.

They won, of course.

They carried her out of the room, through a dimly lit hallway with paintings hanging on both sides. She tried to scream even though she knew she would not be heard. They entered another room and Ms. Kane was inside, waiting for her with a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"I'm sorry if you have to arrive at such a fashion, dear," the woman said, nodding at the two men. They understood and dragged Desiree to a chair. "You have to be very calm, Desiree dear, if you wish to get through this night unharmed." Ms. Kane opened a velvet rectangular box as she spoke. "This is going to sting a bit but it will help your nerves." Desiree's eyes widened when she saw the syringe.

"Please, don't. Why are you doing this to me?" she cried out. Ms. Kane just smiled as she signaled for the two men to hold Desiree down.

She tried kicking and flailing her limbs, but the two men were too strong for her.

Ms. Kane's smile did not leave her lips as she punctured the needled into Desiree's arm.

*****

"This is all we have?" Marco asked his partner, his fingers restlessly tapping the table he was sitting on.

He and Gian were both looking at the large board before them. A horizontal line was drawn at the very center. It was the timeline of the murder. There was one problem though: it was almost empty. They correlated Khaye's and Jamaica's whereabouts on the timeline. As of the moment, the two ladies' timeline were the only ones they could make out.

The coroner placed the time of death between 11 PM and 3 AM. Desiree, the other model, was unaccounted for during that time, except when Khaye saw her running off with a stranger after the time which she claimed the murder must have happened.

One challenge they had to face was the fact that the Richard they were looking for was using an alias. There were no guests in the hotel under that name except an eighty year-old man who could barely walk. As to Petroff, he had already checked out before the police arrived at the hotel.

"All crucial CCTV angles have magically turned off from the morning of the day the girls arrived at the hotel," Gian uttered for the third time, disbelief still in his tone. "This case is getting a bit complicated, Marco."

It was true that they could not point out where each suspect was on the time the murder happened. They all had to rely on accounts they had gathered from Khaye, some hotel staff and other hotel guests. What Marco was certain of was that Richard and Petroff were in the room with Jamaica before she died. They fought over her and some money.

"Why is there just one person dead?" he asked aloud.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Gian.

Marco didn't take his eyes off the board. "If the two men fought, why did Jamaica wind up dead alone? One of them must want to kill the other if they were having a big fight over her and the money."

"Maybe she wasn't that important to them," Gian guessed. "Maybe getting the hell out of the room alive was the better option."

He considered his partner's words. "If they are who we think they are, Jamaica was just a pawn. But still, there must have been signs of struggle in that room."

"All we found are torn clothes, Desiree's phone and a broken shoe."

Marco frowned. "Shoe?"

Gian nodded. "There was just one."