Looking for My Heart's Pieces

Chapter 4

A banging sound jolted Kyla from her thoughts. She looked up, to see Ciaran banging the lock with a small hammer. What?! Wait, there was a key in the lock. What?!

"What are you doing?! Stop! And where did the key come from? Why are you banging the key?!" Kyla shrieked.

"It's called bumping, Kay." Ciaran replied as, after the bang on the key, he pulled the key out just a little until he heard a soft click, then struck it with the hammer again, pulling it out a little, and repeating the process. "And it's not the door key. It's called a bump key. It can open about 90% of door locks."

Kyla began to ask the usual 'how-did-you-know' question, but shook her head instead. Just don't ask, Kyla. Just don't ask. Oh, wait.

"Why didn't you just ask me for the key?"

BANG! "I figured you wouldn't have it." Click. BANG! Suddenly he stopped, twisted the key to left and pushed open the door. A smug smile to the person behind him inevitably ensued.

"What did I tell you?"

"You didn't tell me anything. That's kind of the problem."

"I told you the bump key opens 90% of door locks! It hurts me that you pay so little attention." He said as he walked in, Kyla close behind, not bothering to reply .

The room was... normal. Orderly. Neat.

Ciaran looked back at Kyla, an eyebrow raised. "Is this how it usually is?"

"Yeah... kinda. Everything looks alright."

The weird wonder proceeded to walk around the room and inspect every inch, leaving no corner un-intruded.

After a long search, and rather a lot of poking and prodding about, Ciaran concluded at last. "Well, they don't have any paintings."

"Oh thanks(!). Make sure to come over and give them some décor tips when they come back. To find their son missing."

"I meant as in 'safes behind paintings' kind of thing. No hidden vaults. Doesn't seem like they had something huge to hide." He did the 'don't arrest me' hands up pose again. Oh please.

"So... is that it then?

"What, the investigation? Course not! All investigation and no explanation makes Ciaran a very lame boy. And I hate being lame."

Kyla just couldn't help it. She did a Nacho."How can you hate what you ar-"

"Stop right there!" He held up a hand. "Thank you very much."He then shook his head. "I should stop using that line. If only Nacho were here, he would've told me off yonks ago. Put me in line. What does he want to be again, a comedian?"

"No... I think he wants to be a put-things-together-in-your-garage kinda guy." She said, gaze lingering on floor.

"Ah. Black-market trader, then. Ambitious."

Kyla gave him a weird look."Yeeeah. Are we done now?"

"Yup." Ciaran clapped his hands and rubbed them together."It's seems like your kidnappers entered, stole the princess, and jammed."

Kyla gave him another weird look, before they both turned to leave. Before exiting, something on the desk caught Kyla's eye. Papers. Something, some thought made her pick them up and sift through. A few letters dated from a while before and then just before they'd left, advertisements of new electricity packages from their current electricity company, the same with their water, gas and then TV subscription. This must be mum's 'new proposals' pile, to re-check when they got home. She squinted at each individual paper in turn (Ciaran, to her side, quietly looking from her face to the papers and back again; he knew something important was happening). Wait a minute... wait just a sec. These papers... they weren't in alphabetical order. Mum classified them into 'electricity', 'water', 'gas' and 'TV', and alphabetically arranged them likewise. It was something she'd often told Kyla to do with her letters. She was paranoid about this kind of thing.