XVI

November 9, 2016

1356 Hours

Dan never really drove a limo before, so he struggled a little bit making turns and using the accelerator and brakes. James was in the passenger seat, yelling him to do something, and Dan would do the complete opposite.

"It's not that hard!" James yelled. Dan gritted his teeth as he hit a curb while turning into a street. They were in Hemingway, en route to the local police station where Rogers turned himself in. The plan was to turn in Kathy into the cops, and receive the money from George. Simple.

"What plan do we have, Dan? What's our evidence?" James asked. Dan turned a left, a car honking at him as he cut them off at a yield sign. Before Dan could answer, a car that passed him from the other driving lane caught his attention. The car wasn't anything special, but the guy inside seemed familiar. Very familiar.

"Dan?" James asked. Dan shook his head, and refocused his attention on driving.

"Sorry, thought I saw something. As for the plan, it's easy. Do you still have that bug with you?" Dan asked. James instinctively reached for his pockets, but then he realized that the bug wasn't there. It wasn't on his person.

"It's still at the motel, in my laptop in the USB," James explained. Dan sighed as he saw the police station come in sights.

"Think they might just believe our story?" Dan asked, hoping James would say, "of course!"

"Of course not!" James exclaimed. Dan pursed his lips as he turned into the police station parking lot.

"Too late, we're here. Might as well try!" Dan turned off the ignition, and immediately made his way inside. James followed in close pursuit, dreading what was going to happen.

Hank pulled up to the compound that now housed a total of six dead bodies and three live ones. Sanine, Rogers, and the guard were all sitting outside. The guard had a makeshift ice pack pressed against his head, wincing ever so slightly at the pain.

Sanine was the first to get up as soon as she saw Hank's car. She got into the passenger side before Hank stopped all the way. Rogers and the guard were quickly on her tail, and got into the back seat quickly.

"What happe-" Hank started to say, but he was cut off by Sanine giving the shush finger.

"Just drive me home. I have to devise a plan." Sanine said. Hank looked in the rear view mirror at Rogers with a questioning look. Rogers looked at him, and mouthed "just do it." Hank shrugged, and pulled away from the building.

After awhile of driving, Hank said, "I saw your limo going to the police station. Rogers told me how the detectives stole it, so I decided to follow them there. That's why I took so long." Sanine didn't reply, she just looked outside the window deep in thought. Hank cleared his throat as he gripped his wheel. He wasn't sure what to say to relieve this tension.

"Nice sword," he commented. Silence still.

"So I was going into this room, and the chick said that the place felt weird. You know, so I went in there, and I-"

"You banged her!" A man said. Everyone in the room laughed, and the main guy telling the story made a disgust face. The room was full of cops listening to Greg tell a story about the stupidest job he's done.

"Dude, no!" Greg exclaimed. "I'm happily married thank you very much. No, I went inside the room, and there was nothing off."

"Yeah, of course there wasn't anything off. The girl still had her clothes on." An officer said. Everyone else laughed hysterically, and Greg looked around in confusion.

"That wasn't even clever," Greg said, but no one heard him over the uproar of the crowd. By this point, he was getting irritated that no one wanted to listen to his story.

"Okay, turns out she wanted me to check out the room because she thought it was haunted. She didn't tell me beforehand that she thought it was a haunting, probably because she knew we didn't deal with that. I told her I couldn't help her, and she started getting really ang-" The door jingle rang, indicating someone just entered the building. Everyone in the room except for Greg put their fingers to their nose.

"Ha! Greg has to go talk to crazy people!"

"You guys are so immature," Greg commented as he left the break room to see who walked in. He was greeted with two men who seemed very rush and quite spooked.

"How can I help you?" Greg asked unenthusiastically. One guy stood back while the other stepped up to the desk. This man's hair was untidy, along with his stubble. His clothes, along with the guy in the back, were dirty and tattered. Greg could smell him as he got close, and he smelled like some basic fragrance that companies use in their hallways.

"We're here to tell you about a crime that was committed." The man said. He pulled out his wallet, and gave Greg a card.

The card read, "Dan & James: The Brotective Agency". Greg furrowed his eyebrows. Something in the back of his head told him he knew these two.

"How do I know you guys?" Greg asked.

"We made the Assistant CEO of H&H lose millions a few years back." Greg nodded his head slowly, remembering seeing that on the news. It was huge back then.

"Yeah, okay. What do you guys want?" Greg asked.

You know about the murder that happened recently, right?" Greg nodded, referring to the Smith murder.

"Okay, well the guy you threw in jail for that murder wasn't the actual murderer. Turns out the actual murdered was the kid's own mom." Greg pressed a button under the desk, turning on the speaker in the back room so everyone can hear what was being said. "Okay, so this mom, her name is Kathy but she goes by Sanine, is also a crime boss. She works for Jir as far as we can tell, an-"

"Sir, how did you stumble across this case?" Greg asked. The man thought about it for a little bit.

"Kathy's ex husband contacted us to investigate his son's murder. He believed it was Kathy the whole time, and wanted us to prove it."

"Thank you for bringing that up, where exactly is your proof for all this?" Greg asked. The man froze for a second.

"Well, we kinda have hard evidence. Most of this stuff we just kinda witnessed..." Greg cut him off with a finger.

"I hope you know you sound like you're crazy." Greg commented. The man got a little angry, and gripped the edge of the desk.

"Look, I know this doesn't sound real, but I promise it is! The compound! Jir had a secret compound where he kept my brother and I hostage! I saw cameras in that building, so there's most likely a surveillance room with recordings! You guys can go there and see everything unfold!" The man exclaimed. Greg stared at the man, then broke out in laughter. This caused the door behind to swing wide open, revealing half a dozen officers laugh ting their butts off too.

"I'm so sorry," Greg said in between laughs, "I couldn't take you seriously after you said the mom killed his own son. This is Hemingway freaking Texas! The most action you get here is someone accidentally smoked some weed, thinking it was a cigarette." The other officers laughed in agreement, one on the floor, his face red. The man's face also turned red, out of embarrassment and anger.

"I'm being SERIOUS!" The man yelled. This only caused some of the guys in the back to laugh harder.

"Yeah, okay, let me tell you something 'detective'. You guys don't actually do s**t. Alright? You two bringing down Jir, that was pure luck. We could've done the same exact thing, but we're qualified. You? You have cards in your wallets that are made out of yardstick you can buy from a local Walgreens. As for this story you're telling us? Stop wasting our time."

The man turned around to look at his brother, who was standing there with the emotion of anger, but also a feeling of "I knew this was going to happen."

The man turned quickly away from the desk as the officers finished their laughing. The brother followed him outside as Greg yelled after them, "Have a nice day!"

Dan stormed out of the police station, angry how it went. James followed him out, slightly embarrassed at what happened.

"I told you they weren't going to believe us!" James exclaimed. Dan stopped and turned around to look at James.

"I'm not mad at that! I'm mad that they treated me like a child! Do I look like a child to you?" Dan asked, waving his arms around in anger.

"Forget that Dan! What are we going to do now? That bug isn't enough evidence on its own, we need those tapes from the building." James suggested.

"We don't even know for sure if that places even has a surveillance system or not. Quite honestly, I don't want to go back."

"Stop being so stubborn! If we want this case settled, we need that evidence. Even if there wasn't a surveillance system, we could get a camera and take pictures of the bodies!"

"Oh, yes, GREAT IDEA! Let's go take pics of the dead bodies and show them to these a******s, that won't look suspicious at all!" James sighed heavily.

"At least I'm coming up with ideas here! You're just butthurt over them calling us fake. Do you know how many cases we've done? How many people we helped? You're going to let some words of this cop who probably doesn't even do his job outweigh your memories and experience?" Dan looked away, realizing James was right. James looked behind Dan at the limo parked, and cursed out loud.

"We have a slight problem here." James said through gritted teeth. Dan turned around to see what James was looking at, and he yelled out. All of the tires around the limo were flat. Slashed is what it looked like.