《The Brains of the Operation》This World is Hope-less
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"Did you see the man's face at all?"
"I told you, no!"
Clive put his face in his hands.
"But this woman... she was definitely the fiancée?"
"Yes. But the vision... it happened ages ago! The file said 2014!"
"Did it have her name!"
Liv panted, trying to catch her breath.
"Her name was... Summer? Summer Pendleton!"
"Right. This is the one?" Clive asked, pulling up a photo of a blonde woman with green eyes and glasses, with tanned skin and the same red dress she was wearing in the vision. Liv nodded mutely.
The phone next to Clive rang, loud and shrill. He picked it up with a sigh. Liv couldn't hear what was being said on the other end, but she could see Clive's face. It just fell, and fell, and fell. Distraught, he placed the receiver down.
"You remember Jade Hope?"
Liv nodded. Obviously she did; it had been a day since they'd spoken. Not exactly a long time.
"She's dead."
Jade Hope's body lay on the autopsy table, cold and silent. No way; it was a corpse. Most corpses are cold and silent. Being cold and silent are two of the main symptoms of being dead. Also, note the 'most'.
"She died... twenty three hours ago, ish. There's an entry wound at the hilt of the cranium, shaped like..."
"Shaped like...?" prompted Clive.
"Shaped like a corkscrew."
Liv smiled and whipped out her sunglasses. "You could say she got-"
"Don't you dare."
"-Screwed."
And then they groaned. Like always.
Ravi rolled his eyes irritably. "Do you want to eat her brain, get rid of these bad puns? 'Cause we want you to."
Ding, vision.
"Stop making puns," hissed the giant man.
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Liv looked up and saw a tall white man, with a bald head and a pure black tuxedo.
"Yes, sir. Sorry sir."
"Now," he growled in Liv/Jarod's face, showering her with spit, "Get me that cash. Do whatever you can, just get the woman out the way. Our ring is suffering because of your incompetence."
He pushed Jarod hard in the chest with his index finger.
"Got it, Champ!"
"Shut up."
Liv came back to control, with Ravi staring at her in anticipation and Clive waving his hand in front of her face.
"Hey, psychic. What you see?"
Liv told him everything and gradually watched as the cogs in his brain started turning, then clicking, then whirring into life.
Aand snap. Let's-get-stuff-done Clive was in the house.
"Ravi, I want you to search everywhere you can for information on Jade, and this bald guy Liv saw. Search on every database in the world if you have to." He flipped round to Liv. "Ready to check out Jade's house again?"
Liv placed her hands on her hips with purpose.
"Hell yeah!"
As Liv prowled around the suave interior of Miss Hope's house, she couldn't help but critique the interior.
"Duck egg blue walls with a white carpet? You're playing a dangerous game, here, hun. You're really showing your feathers. Breaking out of your shell."
"Enough with the bird puns!"
Wait wait wait wait. What did Liv just stroll past?
So, you know I mentioned earlier that Jade was married?
Ever wonder what happened to the husband?
There was an ornate painting on the wall, gold-gilded and dusted pristinely. In it stood two people, in front of a sunset, holding eachother like lovers and laughing. One was clearly Jade; which meant the other was Mr. Hope.
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"Let's see if there's a safe behind this one as well," Liv joked sarcastically. Apparently Clive didn't get the memo. He took the painting off the wall, and voila. Another safe.
"Well that was-"
"Don't you dare make that pun again."
Liv pouted. "Stop pun-ishing me."
"Can we get a locksmith over here or something!"
Thirty-ish minutes later, the lock guy arrived and cracked open the safe; or he would've done, had it been locked.
"It wasn't fu-"
"Thanks, Jerry."
Jerry left, tutting about how Clive was an idiot and everything is stupid and the usual stuff you tut about when you're irritated and just woke up for no good reason.
Liv was expecting drugs, money, or jewels. I don't know why, because the safe was unlocked, but that was what she was expecting.
Inside was a thin police file and a wedding ring.
"Did she... steal this? From the police?"
"Oh please," Liv said, except she didn't say that. Making the worst pun in zombie history, she said, "Oh police. That's impossible."
All Detective Babineaux wanted to do was scream into the void.
"This is the death file of... Lincoln Hope? Her husband?"
"Well, duh, Clive. Look at the picture."
Liv gently received the file, when Clive offered it to her. She flicked through it.
"Hey! I did this file!"
"You did?" Clive questioned expectantly.
"Yeah. He died of brain cancer, I think. Nasty. No next of kin besides Jade. Lincoln Hope? More like Lackin' Hope, amirite?"
"If I punch you, will you have a vision?"
Liv considered it.
"I might. I think he got punched a lot."
Clive nodded. "Yeah. I feel like he did."
"Wait! What's that‽"*
She reached to the back of the metal safe, retrieving a small yellow post-it note.
"Tell Maria to go to the police!
-Cheng," Liv she read, staring at the note.
"Maria? That's... a maid?"
She muttered to herself, "If the Angels find this, she's dead."
Clive shot her a look. "Angels?"
Liv nodded. "Yeah. The Black Angels was the drug ring Cheng was in."
"You're only telling me this now?"
She shrugged. "We didn't realise before. I only worked it out this morning."
They pulled up at Jade's house for the third and final time. Even after the engine had stopped, however, Liv stayed in the car, talking with Clive.
"So, the Angels. How d'you work it out?"
She sighed through her nose.
"Tattoo on his wrist with an angel on it, 'The Black Angels' underneath. Ravi and I didn't know why, until now. When we found out about the drug ring."
Clive nodded. It made sense. All this talk about angels, though... zombies existed, and now it looked like angels did. In a way. An ironic kind of way that absolutely didn't work at all.
"Do you think this is one killer, or many?" Liv's inquiring eyes slightly disturbed Clive. Detective's eyes.
He pondered it.
"One," he said decisively. "So far, the deaths haven't exactly been... mundane. They're... quirky. There's a distinct style here."
They would've spoken more, probably, had there not been a shrill scream from inside Jade's house.
*In all honesty, I only put that line in so I could use an interrobang. You know, this thing: ‽.
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