Prologue
Dear Journal Diary Thing,
I’m faking my death today. Guess I’ll check that one off the ole bucket list. I never thought I’d get around to actually checking things off of it. To most people their bucket list have things like “Ride an elephant” “become an actor” or “make it on the cover of vogue”. My bucket list however goes like this:
Fake Death
Adopt a new identity
Become a private Investigator
Solve murder cases (at least 3)
Kiss a girl (preferably Ruby Rose)
Yeah so that last one is similar to everyone else’s bucket list, even though I want to fake my death and become a crime solver I can still have celebrity crushes! Sue me.
Does it count as a celebrity crush if you yourself are a bit of a celebrity? I’m not an actor or anything but my family has a pretty big reputation. The Silverlakes are pretty well known. Especially because the recent assassination attempt. Gasp! Do you think Ruby Rose knows who I am? I guess it’s too late to find out seeing as I’m “dying” today.
Let me explain why I’m doing this. Because of my Dad’s retirement, the Silverlake company became my responsibility. I reeeeaaaallly didn’t want any part in his company but I wasn't really given any choice. Until an assassin tried to kill me last weekend. No biggie! At first I was terrified! But then i realized that this gave me a chance to do what I’ve always wanted to do. Thank you Mr. Assassin!
Time to fake a death!
Leto Silverlakes
I hope no one finds this…..
Log date: 15 17 18
Target: Leto Silverlakes
Report:
Target appears to have gone away on vacation for the week. This would be an opportune time to learn how to bypass the security system in their home. However I do not know how long the vacation will last. This means I’ll have to take action as soon as possible. I already requested someone to hack into the security system.
The target rarely leaves their home so this stakeout has become tiresome. I do not appreciate being stuck in an old abandoned apartment for seventeen days straight. I want to make this job quick.
Log date: 15 18 18
Target: Leto Silverlakes
Report:
The hacker was able to bypass the security system and I’ve safely made it inside the target’s apartment undetected. After making a plan of where the best place to attack is I will leave and return to my post.
Log date: 15 19 18
Target: Leto SilverLakes
Report:
Target had returned home sooner than expected. I was forced to either attempt leaving the apartment while target is in there, or kill the target sooner than anticipated. Having been on stakeout for phenomenally long time I decided to kill the target. However other people were in the apartment and I was spotted almost immediately. I fled hopefully unrecognised.
Mission Status: failed
Chapter One
A short blue haired girl exited a coffee shop. She held in her hands one overpriced coffee, a simple spiral bound notebook covered in stickers, and one of the many Sherlock Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlette. She holds the two books close to her, as if they were her most prized possessions, in fact they are. She attempts to make her way through the busy New York sidewalk and get where she was going. She was going to her favorite spot in Central Park. A nice bench under the shade where she could look out on the lake and see the infamous fountain from the “Friends” opening.
She happily sits on her bench and watch the tourist take pictures at the fountain. She always enjoyed people watching, but Tourist were her favorite targets. They had a sense of predictability of them that helped her start her daily routine. Besides every other aspect of her life was unpredictable. This time in the morning was the only time she felt relaxed.
She sips her coffee slowly and skims her book a bit. “What the deuce is it too me?” She read aloud in a terrible British accent “you say that we go round the sun. If we went around the moon it would make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.” She scoffed “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle you romanticise this shit way too much” she laughed a bit to herself.
“You don’t like his work?” asked a voice behind her. She jumped out of her bench and spun around. A tall woman stood behind her bench. She was dressed in a full suit and her jet black hair was pinned tight and neat behind her head.
“Don’t sneak up on people like that!” She snapped
The woman only chuckled a bit “Sorry”
“Why were you standing behind me anyway?”
“Well you were kinda reading out loud in a terrible British accent. It’s perfectly normally to stop and listen right?”
“You haven’t seen- heard weirder in New York?”
The woman shrugged “I’m not from around here”
She’s on a business trip then. The blue haired girl though. I wish I knew what line of work. Sherlock would know.
“You didn’t answer my question” The woman asked.
“Hm?”
“Do you not like Arthur Doyle’s work? You said he romanticised it too much”
“Oh no! In fact I love Sherlock Holmes! I own the complete series! Short stories and all!”
“Then why did you-”
“I said he romanticised it too much because he does! I solve crimes for a living so I would know”
The woman looked at her a with a bit of contempt, and suddenly an awkward blanket wrapped around them both.
“Oh!” The blue haired girl realized what she’d done “That was rude of me, I’m sorry. I can be a bit arrogant but I’m working on it.”
“It’s no problem” The taller woman shifted her weight a bit, still obviously awkward “So you solve crimes? You work with the NYPD?”
“Actually! I’m a Private Investigator!” She spoke with pride and great ego.
“So you stake out people’s apartments to catch them cheating on their spouse?”
“Oh haha…..yeah. But I do get a few big cases from some anonymous clients. I’m hoping for a murder soon!”
“That’s a weird thing to hope for.”
“Yeah well….” She shrugged “Here take a card”
The blue haired girl hands the taller woman a card from inside her notebook “incase you need me to stake out your spouses apartment for ya. Or hey! Maybe even a murder” She winks, awkwardly. “Thanks I’ll keep that in mind, Opal Lovelock.”
“Woah how’d you know my name?!”
“It’s on your business card”
“Oh. That’s right”
Suddenly an alarm goes off on Opal’s phone. “Ah! I gotta go! I’m late for a client meeting”
“Before you go! Why do you want to solve a murder so bad?”
“Let’s just say it’s kinda on my bucket list” She awkwardly winks again. Opal gathers her things and quickly runs out of central park, nearly running into many tourist on the way out.
Opal finally makes it to her small studio apartment. The Manhattan apartment building was not in good shape. Mold grew on the wall, and only grew larger with each passing day. Water damage occupied nearly every corner. No one dared use the sad excuse for an elevator, and there were more than enough stairs missing. Her neighbors were another thing. Sure, there was Aniyah Green, the older black lady who always greeted Opal with a friendly hello. But there was also Bob Smith the racist (why he decided to move to the most racially diverse city in america was beyond anyone), and Kevin the stripper who went out of his way to insult every outfit Opal owned (Opal used to care about his opinions but soon found out that he had no idea what he was even talking about).
Upon Opal’s arrival, a middle aged man stood impatiently in front of apartment 203, her apartment.
“Mr. Agrio!” Opal exclaimed “so sorry to keep you waiting. I got caught up in Central Park”
“I buzzed you four times” Agrio scolded in a thick Russian accent.
“Yeah sorry I….wasn’t in my apartment”
Agrio unapologetically rolled his eyes.
“Right….” Opal unlocked her apartment “after you”
Perez entered without a word. He plopped himself down on Opal’s futon and kicked his feet onto her coffee table. Mr. Agrio was a short and angry man. His face was always twisted into a frown with his eyebrows pinched together. Opal often wondered how his face didn’t cramp up, she then wondered if his face did cramp up one day and it’s been stuck ever since.
“Way to make yourself at home” she murmured.
Opal’s apartment was small but she did her best to make it feel open and bigger than it actually was. She hung mirrors over the mysterious stains on her walls, her bed was a futon she rarely ever pulled out, and she eliminated the need of a bookshelf by storing her book all over the apartment. Books covered her coffee table, her kitchen counter, her futon, and she even stacked a few on top of her fridge.
“So, Mr. Agrio, I waited outside of the delivery man’s apartment. The one you accused your wife of sleeping with.”
“They are sleeping together!”
“Right, except your wife didn’t enter his apartment the entire night”
“Then where was she the entire night?”
“Well here’s a crazy concept: perhaps she really was out with friends”
Mr. Agrio was not happy about that answer. He abruptly stood up from the futon, knocking a few books off of it in doing so.
“I know she is cheating on me!” He yelled
“Mr. Agrio! If you’d like I could stalk your wife and bring photos back from her night out!” she yelled back. Of course she didn’t really mean it. Stalking a client’s spouse was insane. She’d only goes as far as staking out their apartment for a few hours.
“Yes, do that” He responded.
Mr. Agrio thought it was a wonderful idea.
“What? No I was be-”
“I’ll pay you double”
Opal then thought it was a wonderful idea.
“When and where?”
Mr. Agrio begun to leave the apartment. “This Saturday at 8:00. That’s when she normally leaves to go out with her friends.” He said, putting air quotes around the word ‘friends’.
Mr. Agrio left. Opal sighed to herself. Perhaps she should’ve just gotten a useful degree in college like a normal person. Instead she just had to chase her dreams, and become so behind on rent, and stalk mentally unstable client’s wives.
She sets a reminder on her phone. “Stalk Mrs. Agrio”.
She then goes about her usual chores whilst muttering remarks about how her life sucks. Such as when she cleans her kitchen it’s “for someone who can’t afford to buy a lot of food….I sure as hell find a way to get crumbs everywhere” or when she responds to emails “I’m so glad that my college reminds me that I threw away good fucking money to go to their boring classes and burn myself out on work”. Amongst those emails she received one from her therapist.
Dear Opal Lovelock,
It has been a while since our last session. It’s important to me to see that all of my clients have heeded my advice with care. I would hate to see you fall back into your previous lifestyle.
Shall we schedule something for this Friday?
Your therapist,
Dean Piper
Opal laughs. “You don’t have to tell me you’re my therapist after every email, weirdo.” She sets another reminder on her phone “Therapist appointment on Friday”
Opal recalls her last therapist appointment. Dr. Piper’s office was comforting like most therapist’s offices were. Two dark teal couches sat across from each other. Cheesy inspirational posters lined the walls. It was hard for Opal to tell if they were ironic or not. She did appreciate the poster of Yoda that said “PERSEVERANCE ‘do or do not, there is no try’”
During that last appointment all they really did was catch up in Opal’s current “situation” and if any changes needed to be made. Dr. Piper was always especially thorough and sometimes his questions borderline invasive. But that’s the exact reason she hired him. She needed someone thorough and someone who made no mistakes. It payed off too. She’s in a much happier place ever since seeing him.
Opal forces herself to unfold her pull out couch and get ready for bed. Today had been a stressful day and she deserved some rest. After taking a shower and getting refreshed she slammed into her bed. Literally, she jumped up and nearly broke the damn thing. She laid awake just thinking about things she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about if she wanted to get some sleep. How she has to stalk someone who’s probably done nothing wrong. How she hasn’t gotten a “substantial” case in a while and rent is coming up. Thoughts like this swarmed and filled her head. She felt her head begin to buzz and a loud ringing began in her ears.
Stop She told herself. There is no use in thinking about it now She could still hear the ringing. Think of something good, something positive, what is something positive that happened today? She was really just reciting what her friends and family had told her a thousand times by now. Think Think Think Hey! Didn’t she have a nice conversation with that lady at the park today? It was little but she enjoyed talking to her. Yeah she really was….curious.
So she thought about that instead. She tried her best to recall what the woman had looked like. She didn’t seem too much older than Opal, but her maturity and demeanor made her give off an older vibe. She was tall, that’s one of the main things Opal remembered. She was tall and had long black hair pinned back really tight. Opal wondered how she got it so neat and tight. Opal wasn't used to doing her own hair, so it was always a mess, and she usually just wore hats. Her eyes were….green? No, hazel. She was dressed professionally but Opal couldn’t tell what profession. She spoke a little monotone but also sophisticated. She seems like any other business woman in NYC. But something about that woman made Opal a bit wary. Something was off. Maybe it was because Opal had a hard time reading her or maybe it was because….
At this point Opal had fallen asleep. Thinking about that Woman in the park really helped Opal calm down, and get some rest. In the back of her mind, almost just a whim, Opal wished she could see that woman again.
The next day was Tuesday. Opal started her day like the day before. With an expensive coffee and a view of the fountain of tourist. Today she watched a rather large family take their pictures. The two parents looked exhausted and like they regretted ever taking a family vacation. Two kids were strapped to a double stroller. One twin was particularly not fond of being strapped in a stroller. They kicked, screamed, and jerked around in their sit. The small child pulled at the straps with all their might and ability. They looked like an insane person in a straight jacket. The other twin seemed calm enough, but opal soon realized that was because they were completely asleep. The family had two other members. A rambunctious young boy, and an elderly grandmother. The grandmother kept pulling on the father’s sleeve and chewing him out over something. He didn’t seem to care about what she had to say, because everytime she pulled on his arm he rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. The poor mother was having trouble getting the rambunctious boy off of the fountain just so they could get a decent picture.
The family looked completely miserable. But even then Opal envied them. She wished she had a family like theirs. A family that she can say is one of her top priorities. She was never closed to her family, they never did family thing together. She never really minded, her family kinda sucked. She supposed she just wanted a meaningful bond with someone.
She began to feel more and more sorry for herself. She could feel the corners of her mouth nearly touch her chin from frowning. She decided to stop people watching and instead read her novel. Where was she again?
“I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one….”
This reminded Opal of that woman yesterday. It reminded her of how curious she was of that woman’s occupation. The way she was dressed was sorta off putting…. the woman’s attire was immaculate. Not a stain nor hair, no fabric was crooked or wrinkled. Opal looked down at her own clothes. Jeans and a brown T-shirt. Nothing about her was interesting, nothing showed who she was as a person. She used to think about how people perceived her based on how she dressed. If she wore bright colors would people think she’s obnoxious? If she wore a cardigan would people think she’s motherly and kind? What if she wore a feminist t-shirt and people thought she was a terf? So she decided to always dress plainly to make sure no one thought anything about her ever.
She shook that thought out of her head and continued reading. “I pondered over our short conversation-”
“Do you know that you’re reading aloud? Or does it just happen?”
Opal, once again, jumped straight out of her bench. She swiftly spins around to find the same woman from yesterday before her.
“Y-you!” Opal yelped.
“Me” The woman responded, unphased.
“You’re here again…”
“You’re not answering my question again” She rebutled.
“Sorry...again” Opal had major deja-vu. “Well I’ve always been bad at public speaking and speaking in general. So I started to read aloud as practice. It’s kinda become habit after awhile. That’s why I’m banned from two libraries!” Opal explained.
“You’re oddly proud of that”
Opal shrugged. Then she looked the woman over again. Her hair wasn’t pinned back this time. She was able to see the length now it reached her waist. It was extremely shiny and straight. It was almost as if she dunked it into an entire bucket of conditioner. Opal suddenly felt self-conscious of her own hair. It was greasy, her roots were showing, and she didn’t exactly do a good job at dyeing it in the first place. This is why she usually pulled a beanie over it. She felt that probably hid how horrible her hair looked.
“How’s the novel so far?”
“Oh it’s great! I’ve read it before, so I’m just rereading it because of how good it is.”
“It should tell me about it over coffee.” The woman smiled at Opal.
“Oh!” Opal stepped back a bit. She didn’t expect this from her. Well she honestly couldn’t exactly expect anything from her, she barely knew this woman. She didn’t even know her name!
“Sorry. That was pretty out of the blue huh?” The woman laughed.
“Yeah” Opal laughed nervous. Was she being asked out on a date right now? By a hot professional working woman? Who she barely knew? Who she met because she reading out loud in a god awful british accent? What kind of meet-cute romcom?
“So? What do you say?” The woman said this while bringing a small notepad out from within her jacket.
“Huh?” Opal was too flustered she forgot to respond. “I- don’t even know your name…”
“Well take a card” She tore off a piece of paper from her notepad and handed it to Opal.
“Call me when you can” And with that she left the park.
Still holding the paper Opal watched her leave. “I don’t know your name…” She muttered. Then she realized the paper in her hand. On it in perfect print was a name and phone number. “Lilith….Lilith Kingwood…” Opal smiled. She had a date.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsdLZxHIvso
