- OCTOBER 2ND— 6:40 PM -

The plane had fallen mercifully silent, the window shades drawn, the lights dimmed, giving the illusion that the world outside was dark, even as cracks of light tried to bleed through and remind you that reality didn't always match the illusion that humanity created. Even the screaming babies seemed to sense that their time to howl their tiny warrior cries of protest were no longer needed and had fallen into gentle coos.

"Are you truly going to ignore me the entire flight?" Amelia asked, he voice soft, matching the planes tone.

Decker continued to stay silent. He had spoken enough to her. More words than he should have. More confessions and admittances than anyone who valued their autonomy and privacy ever should. She had seen the details that made up the hidden details of him that no one should ever have had access to. She knew him. And he would never forgive himself for it.

He had caught her, but at the cost of a piece of himself.

"James." Amelia's tone had grown gentle, the sudden shift sending his eyes catching on hers  before he could stop himself. "For what it's worth, I—"

The pilot interrupted, cutting off her words. "Ladies and Gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts, we are going to be landing in ten minutes."

Decker waited to see if she'd finish her thought, but she turned, pulling up the shade to the window, eyes on the sky, silent as the sun washed over her, sending her hair glistening like threads of gold, swallowing her words in their sheen.

CHAPTER THREE

- ONE YEAR EARLIER -

DECKER

"I don't know how helpful I'll be..." 

Marcus Plume, the elusive and jumpy contact from 'Black and White Tech,' that Decker was supposed to have met the night before, sat on a tall stool, a ridiculously large red rose pinned to a wrinkled button up shirt. He wrung his hands together so tightly that they changed to an uncomfortable purple color, cutting off circulation. 

His red hair was a mess of strands that raked up in several directions from constant finger tugging, clothes wrinkled and stained, eyes blood shot, glancing toward the exit every ten and a half seconds like the sight of it was his lifeline.

In short, the man— Marcus Plume— was a ball of stress and half finished sentences as he seemed to convulse before Decker, body and consonants all twitching and unpredictable.

"I mean, I didn't really get the best look... I just... I thought I should say something you know," he continued, eyes back on the exit again, sweat beading at his forehead.

Decker sat across from Marcus Plume at a local coffee shop, deeply regretting his decision to buy the man an extra shot of expresso now that he knew how jumpy Mr. Plume was. "Just start at the beginning," Decker said in his calmest tone.

Mr. Plume jumped, startled by Decker's clearly not calm tone. Decker offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile, and not a smile that said 'if you don't say something of value soon, I will give you something to actually fear.'

The man nearly dropped his coffee and Decker did his best to hide his scowl behind his own mug. As the man continued to mumble to himself, offering non sentences as explanation and assurance, Decker allowed his mind to wander for a moment, hoping that if he allowed his mind to focus on less irritating subjects, he would in fact come across as a less irritated version of himself— a near impossible task.

His mind roamed to lipstick and secrets. 

Decker's hotel room was currently being scrubbed for information— having called in a private contact to send any discovered DNA to a local lab so Decker would be the first and only person to see the results.

He didn't want to involve the local police. Not if he didn't have to. It went deeper than dislike. Decker had cared about a single police officer, and that man had died gruesomely, leaving Decker with a bad taste in his mouth.

No, his dislike stemmed from years of being a detective in a society where police looked down on him and his work. He could bend rules in ways police officers could not, and this resulted in a level of disdain that left him with fire at his heels, sensing an entire groups wishes for his fall. For him to make one wrong move so they could tear him apart. 

Being made a mockery of was something Decker refused to deal with. He had nearly gotten thrown into jail the last time it happened, and he highly doubted that spending a night behind bars do to his temper would sit well with his client. After all, he wasn't hired by the police. This wasn't police business as far as he was concerned. 

As Decker glanced back at the jittery man across from him, he felt the familiar pull of questions unanswered settle in his stomach.

For a man who believed in analyzing every detail, Decker found himself mostly in the dark when it came to his employer for this particular assignment. He knew the name of company that had hired him. He had a contact that worked there, but even with everything he had been able to dig up, Decker had been unable to get a meeting with the mysterious person in charge.

Everything he knew, could be summed up in a single sentence...

MagnusCorp - a highly secure tech company, which had recently been robbed of highly sensitive intel — intel they refused to give Decker any information about — was on the hunt to stop the man who had taken it before the intel could be sold on the black market.

But months had gone by, and no leak had been reported, no alluring intel had been flagged on the dark web, and MagnusCorp was growing more concerned. Especially since every person they sent after the elusive thief came back with nothing.

Until me.

The reality of the situation settled on Decker's shoulders like a metal coat of arms, heavy with responsibility. Decker knew full well that he had stumbled into something great. Something nearly fantastical.

Each detective before him had been given a month to get a lead on the Heist King, and if Decked could manage to get anything from the Heist King's visit to his room, the job would be his. But the longer Decker sat in his new reality, the more he came to realize that he hadn't stumbled upon the Heist King due to any talent of his own. 

No. He had been chosen. Chosen to play a game. His opponent wasn't known for making moves against the detectives that came before, but had changed his mind when it came to Decker. He didn't know why, but any change in pattern was a clue to be studied. 

His mind fell back to MagnusCorp, his employer. Had they known when they picked him that this would happen? The lack of information online about MagnusCorp and their employees left Decker feeling unsettled.

He needed more answers and made a mental note to have Bex do some extra digging. He refused to sit in the dark on something so important. If he was going to play this game of chess, he needed to know what pieces were on the board. 

Until he knew all the details of his client, they wouldn't get all the details of what he knew when the DNA results came back. Decker knew better than to assume the amount he was getting paid didn't have some strings attached. If they didn't they would have trusted the police instead of a small time detective. 

"What I'm saying is... Well... the thief didn't actually take anything." 

Decker came back to the coffee shop, eyes falling on Marcus, eyebrow raising. "Excuse me?" 

Marcus stared down at his mug, unable to look Decker in the eye. "The thief. All I know is, the thief... didn't actually take anything. Just... walked underneath a street lamp, several blocks from my work. I was sitting across the street and watched the guy. He waved at a camera and walked away."

"That doesn't mean the thief wasn't in the building before hand," Decker said. 

The man shook his head, seeming to gain a bit of courage. "No. I mean... he was walking the wrong way. He wasn't walking from our building. Which means he was never in the building in the first place." 

That detail gave Decker pause. "Are you saying that the thief was walking toward the building after waving at the camera?"

The man shook his head again. "No. The person in the trench coat and hat walked out of a bookstore, walked to the street lamp, waved and then walked away. The guy had never been in the building because he had spent the time that he was supposedly robbing us, inside a bookstore."

Decker's heart began to pound. The reality of it left his mouth dry. If what Marcus Plume said was true, then everything he knew about the Heist King was a lie. Was there more than one person? One who went in unseen while the figure head made an appearance blocks away drawing focus away from the scene of the crime? 

"Something is always taken," Decker said. It wasn't a question. 

Mr. Plume shrugged. "My bosses didn't report anything. Just the camera picking up the person on camera a few blocks away after the alarm was triggered." 

"A copy cat?" Decker guessed. 

That would make sense if Decker hadn't had a run in with the Heist King. If he hadn't known deep in his bones that everything he experienced matched the Heist King's flawless execution.

Then why did Marcus' story paint another picture?

Mr. Plume shrugged again, having no interest in making guesses or digging deeper. He had said what he needed to say and was now focused on drinking his caffeine and avoiding Decker's intense gazes. 

The meeting ended with Decker throwing a card down on the table with Bex's contact information— Decker refused to deal with anymore of his blustering— in case Mr. Plume thought of anything else, and ducking out of the coffee shop before the man could make a monologue of flustered disjointed consonants and vowels as an attempted goodbye.

His phone rang a beat later, Bex talking before Decker could say a word. "You are about to FALLLLL in love with me."

"Must be good," Decker said by way of greeting. 

"Raise level good," Bex promised. "We have a lead. Your Heist King left a clue."

Decker scowled at Bex's use of the word 'your,' but otherwise remained silent. 

"One of my sources found it at a diner in New Jersey. Same as last time. No cameras. No description. Just a riddle. You can go pick it up or—"

"Just read it to me," Decker said, hands already snatching out a small notebook from his back pocket as he ducked under a small corner grocery store awning to get out of the flow of human traffic. Propping the notebook against the wall, he began to write. 

My gift is clothed, where I am not.

My gift has curves, where I do not.

My gift is water touched, where I am not. 

My gift has fire, where I do not. 

Where am I?

—Heist King

Decker was back on the street a moment later, the answer clear before he had flagged down a taxi. Bex had booked his flight before he had arrived at his hotel. And minutes after his bag was in his hand, he was back out on the street, headed for the airport. 

The riddle was too vague to pinpoint an exact location for the next heist, but Decker had a place to start. 

"One last thing Decker... and you aren't going to like it," Bex said, drawing Decker's attention away from the riddle and all potential locations the Heist King could be planning to hit next. 

"The info just came in. Apparently the Heist King hit a second company in New York City." 

"What?" 

"The riddle you solved. You were right about 'Black and White Tech,' but apparently the riddle could also apply to 'Penguin Port.' That place was hit last night."

Decker's heart began to pound wildly. "When last night?" 

"While you were supposed to be meeting Marcus Plume at the bar."

"That's impossible."

Decker grew quiet, his mind reeling from the information. 

"I know," Bex said into the silence, understanding his confusion. She knew why the pieces were becoming less clear, more disjointed. 

"She was sitting right next to me, Bex. I'm her literal alibi. She couldn't have been robbing the place because she was too busy robbing me." 

The cab driver's eyebrows went up and Decker turned toward the window, lowering his voice. "She has to have someone else working with her. Or she must have stolen it ahead of time and then remotely triggered the alarm. Find me footage of her calling card. Was she standing under any street lights last night. Find me something." 

Decker's phone began to ring with a second call. After a quick goodbye to Bex, he switched over as he got out of the car, yanked out his bag behind him and made his way into the airport. "Chase, what do you have for me?"

"A weird story," Chase said, southern accent thick with exhaustion. "We searched your entire hotel room and we found DNA on the scene belonging to two different people. Yours, we expected. And a set that we struggled to pinpoint."

"As in the DNA is not in your system?" 

That happened on occasion. Not everyone had their fingerprints or other aspects of their DNA in the database. 

"That's just the thing... I ran it three times. The first time it was a match for a girl named Harrow Kells."

"The name rings a bell," Decker said vaguely. "What can you tell me about her." 

"She currently lives in England. Was pretty shocked that we found her DNA on file here. Which led me to believe that your fake Harrow Kells found a way to break into the DNA data base and switch her prints with real Harrow Kells. Impressive feat. Very hard to do."

"And the other times?" Decker asked. "You said you ran it three times."

"Second time, that information was gone. Scrubbed from our system. No match at all. Like someone hacked into our system and removed Harrow Kells information while we were running it. Thorough job too. Really pissed me off. Like the person was just messing with me."

Sounds about right. "And the third?" 

"The third time it belonged to a girl with a different name." 

The way Chase said it made Decker ask his next question. "What was the name?"

"It was for a girl in the local morgue. The girl has been dead for three days." 

---

Thank you for reading chapter three! I hope you are enjoying the story! Or are at least curious to see where it goes! Add this story to your reading list to know when the next chapter drops!

UPDATE DAYS - A NEW CHAPTER EVERY FRIDAY!

What is the Heist King planning? 

How is she connected to someone who's been dead for days?

Where is Decker going? Will he find the Heist King when he gets there?

CHAPTER QUESTION - Have you ever had a job interview? How did it go? Did you get the job?