LISA

According to our plan, Steph teleported right into James' office, and Helen was tagging behind me, invisible, noting down any suspicious behavior inside the hotel, while I was walking towards the girl at the counter, as James Taiburt. Shifting into him was easier than expected because I didn't have any of his DNA samples and I'd already turned into him millions of times while practicing, with his help.

"Nice to see you, Mr. Taiburt, after today morning." The girl at the counter said.

"Nice to see you too, Rachel!" I said glancing at her name tag, mimicking James' tone. "Was I out for a long time?"

"No, Sir. It's just that I didn't see you leaving, and here, I'm seeing you going in, again. Just confused, Sir. That's all." She said.

"I think I lost my key while I was out. Do you have a spare one I could borrow?" I asked her.

"Sure, Sir." She stated handing me a key.

"Sss." The other girl at the counter hissed at Rachel and whispered, "Maybe he'd have gone out when we left for our lunch break while it was Bethany's and Martha's turn at the counter. And, remember we went to....."

But I was already walking away with James' penthouse key in my hands. After a nervous journey in the elevator as James, I reached his office. I looked around casually to see if there were anyone stalking me. With the satisfaction that there were no one, I opened his office and went inside, locking it behind me.

To be honest, I was shocked to see Stephanie Stevens in her knees crawling all over the office floor.

"What are you doing, Steph?" I asked her shifting to my own self.

"I was searching for clues or hints as to who'd have done this. So far, I've found three strands of hair, each with different texture. All you've got to do is shift into these people and we'll see if we recognize any of them." She was saying when there was a knock at the door.

I looked through the peep hole to see no one there. I knocked thrice from the inside and the person standing out, invisibly, knocked five times and after a pause three times. That should be Helen and that was our Knocking – Code. There was a gust of wind as she entered and became visible. I locked the door as she started telling us that there were no suspicious behavior in any of the hotel residencies.

"No involvement of the hotel management." I stated the fact to which both Steph and Helen said, "Yes!"

Steph was crawling under the table when Helen pointed at the window and said, "Look at that, guys." We went to stand by the window and Steph emerged from under the table. "The window's broken from the inside and not from the outside. So the kidnappers were inside and not outside."

Steph wrote something in her spiral bound notebook. I sat in James' swivel chair while Helen looked at the outside from the broken window.

Suddenly we heard a shrill sound, three beeps, and James' voice coming from nowhere. "Zachary Vladmir. New York. July. Chicago. Christina Edwards. 1-7-0-7-1-9-8-7." His voice repeated the same things three times and it became eerily silent after three more beeps.

"Did I activate that?" I asked standing up and looking at the chair I was seated.

"What was that for?" Helen asked no one in particular.

Steph was writing again in her notebook. She read the words James said, aloud and said, "Sounds like some answers to me. Maybe codes."

"Codes for what?" I asked.

We scanned the office for God knows what when Helen pointed at James' computer saying, "Let's check that!"

She booted up the computer. Steph and I went to stand by her side.

"Password! It's asking for password! What will he keep as his password?" Helen asked.

Steph bent towards the computer and said, "The password hint is 'My favourite.' What favourite does he mean? Drink, food, sports or what?"

Something struck me and I stretched my fingers towards the keyboard and said, "I remember him muttering 'Trio Squad' once when he logged into his computer." I typed the two words. Surprisingly enough, it came to life.

"So we are his favorite?" Steph grinned. "How sweet of him!"

After a few minutes, we only found three folders in his desktop. One was named: 'Cases Solved', the other two named: 'Cases Unsolved', and 'Pictures'. The first folder had so many files, but the second one was empty. Finding nothing useful, we opened the 'Pictures' folder to see if James had anything hidden. We looked at him and his wife in the pictures they had taken together, smiling cheerfully. There was a picture of a church. We looked at each other because James wasn't a church-going person. He never believed firmly in any religions.

"There has to be something hidden. This is insane." Helen said zooming in. Sure enough there was something written in the bottom of the pic. 'The pic where Nicole and I are wearing a couple dress.' We went to the respective picture where both of them wore white T-shirts with the word 'SMILE' in the center. There was nothing unusual in it. For assurance, I zoomed in. I noticed that the word 'SMILE' was edited. I pointed it out to my friends. We were blank. We didn't know what to find.

"LOOK!" Helen screamed which made me wince. I thought my ears would go deaf. I shifted my gaze to where she pointed. There was a Smiley Face at the corner of the picture. Our lips rose up in smiles. Before Helena placed her hand on the mouse, Steph who had the mouse already in her hands, clicked on the face.

After a few minutes of tapping fingertips and toes, a window popped up. It had a question asking, "Who's my favorite singer?"

We looked at each other, wondering what on earth the computer's asking for.

"Is this some pop quiz?" I asked. "What will the answer be?"

Helen clicked the 'Next' button. "I think we should answer these questions. There might be something behind these things. Where was Chef Stephen born?" She read the second question out loud.

The next one was 'In which month did he go to New York last year?'

Before Helen clicked the 'Next' button for the third time, Steph stated, "I think I know the answers for these. It takes a genius to know these stuffs." She winked and gave her spiral bound notebook to Helen.

I bent forward to read what she had written. It said:

Things observed by the Trio Squad in James' office after his disappearance

¨ Office – A ruckus

¨ Number of hair strands found – 3; each of different texture

¨ Suspicious behavior among hotel staff – None

¨ Window broken from the inside

¨ Weird audio telling:

· ' Stephen Vladmir'

· 'New York'

· 'July'

· 'Chicago'

· 'Christina Edwards'

· '1-7-0-7-1-9-8-7'

Helen glanced at me after reading, then at Steph, then the book and finally at the computer. She went back to the first question and typed, 'Stephen Vladmir' in the type-in box.

"Correct," a female voice came from the computer's speaker.

Then she typed 'New York' and 'July' as the answers for the next two questions. The fourth question was about James' favourite place to which the answer was 'Chicago'.

"That's his favourite place?" I asked. Both of them ignored me, concentrating hard on that pop quiz.

"Seriously? What's this? Are we his family lawyer?" Helen grinned typing in the name, 'Christina Edwards'.

"Amazing!" the robotic female voice exclaimed before the screen went blank.

"That's it?" Steph asked. "No awards or rewards?"

"Wait! There's another answer. If there's no more questions, then what's this number for?" I asked.

"Maybe it is really a game. His attempt of making his boredom worth a shot?" Helen stated.

We burst into fits of laughter. "Let's return to our job of finding clues." Steph offered with a smirk.

I walked to the shelf to see if he had any files about his enemies, if he had any, who had the nerve to kidnap him.

Helen started up the computer again and was going through his 'Cases Solved' folder and Steph, where was she?

"Ouch!" I heard her voice coming from under the desk. "Lisa! Helen! Come over here! Quick!" she beckoned us, rubbing her forehead.

When we bent down to see what she has found, she said, "This thing - this part was not there before. It just popped open now."

Helen tapped it with her knuckles and a hollow noise came. She extracted her phone from her jeans pocket and flashed the flashlight on the mysterious part of the table.

"Oh! There's a keyhole," I exclaimed taking a hairpin from my bun. Messy buns help at times. Fortunately, the door opened and a voice shrieked, "Code number! Code number! Code number!"

It was then that we all noticed a small keypad at the corner. I reached up retrieved Steph's notebook from the table. We smiled at the final entry Steph had written in it. The 8-digit number. Helen punched in the number digit-by-digit. It opened into a safe.

"Whoa!" All of us exclaimed loudly.