x

Questions rang out fast and furiously and Officer Pitts was amazed how quickly and easily the answers came. He was able to give reasonable and somewhat truthful answers to every question that the responding firemen and police officers asked in reference to the explosion and dead hit man at the Coronet Motel. It bothered him slightly that he found it so easy to lie to his fellow officers, but it was necessary for the moment.

********************

Across the street Sara stood waiting on her police appointed chaperone. Barely able to get dressed and out of the building before emergency services started to arrive, Sara was stuck wearing the same jeans and t shirt she had the day prior. She was still trying to decide if Captain Peters' assignment of an officer to shadow her was a good sign or bad one. It seemed that Officer Pitts was going to be of little help in deciding the dilemma, and so Sara decided not to ask.

The Police and firefighters quickly went about their work and cordoned off the Coronet Motel. Sara watched as the firefighters quickly moved into the building while the police took control outside. The motel's motley patrons were moved out the front door and across the street near her location and Sara decided to give them more space.

"You ready to go?" Officer Pitts' voice surprised Sara from behind.

"Are we going to the Hawthorn?" Sara wanted to confirm where the officer was referring to.

"Of course. I don't know how that man got your address so quickly and I am not sure who to trust right now." Pitts paused momentarily, "But if half of what you told me about KC is true, then we need to be careful because there is something big going on."

"Good," Sara was glad that he was seeing things her way, "let's get moving before we waste the rest of the night."

Pitts slid the key in and opened the trunk of his unmarked police car. The trunk sprung open and Sara stared down into the dark opening. She knew that Officer Pitts meant for her to put her bag inside, however she was finding it physically difficult to part with it. Her family mementos were inside the bag and they were all that remained of her previous life. She knew that they would be safest inside the car's trunk; however they would be out of reach.

"Do you want to just keep your bag up front?"

"No…no it is ok," reluctantly Sara placed the bag into the car's trunk. The door slammed shut and Sara had to silently reassure herself that she would see the bag, and its contents, again.

********************

The street lights lit up the bottom floors of the Hawthorn, but helped to hide the true height of the old structure. Standing twelve stories tall, the building had been built in the late 40's and was a city landmark. Despite the less than friendly neighborhood around it, the building stood defiant and remained in beautiful condition. Sara would have loved to visit such a landmark under different circumstances.

On their way to the building, Officer Pitts and Sara had discussed what they thought they should do upon arrival at the Hawthorn. While Pitts initial felt that Sara should stay outside, a quick reminder on her physical abilities ended any argument along those lines. They decided that Officer Pitts would start with the front desk person and Sara would try and slip past to look around without them noticing.

"Here, take this," Officer Pitts handed Sara his small police radio. "I changed the frequency on it to an un-used channel."

"But what are you going to use?"

"I have a back up in the trunk. We are going to need to stay in contact if we want this to go down without them getting suspicious. "

********************

The double doors that made up the front entrance to the Hawthorn Hotel were beautiful pieces of craftsmanship. Ornately carved wood and stained glass, they swung outward smoothly showing the prime condition that the stately hotel was kept in.

Officer Pitts confidently walked into the lobby and surveyed the room. Straight ahead was a large square shaped room with a beautiful marble floor and pillars in the corners. The front desk lined the right side of the room and the elevators sat in a small hallway off of the far end of the room. Only one person appeared to be working and he stared intently from behind the counter.

"Excuse me," the confused employee began, "is there something I can do for you? Are you lost?"

"Why would you think I was lost?" Officer Pitts replied as he moved toward the counter.

"Well, because it is 3 A.M. for starters."

"So I can't get a room at 3 A.M.?"

"It's just very uncommon." The employee seemed very defensive and Officer Pitts suspicions were aroused.

"I am from the labor commission." Pitts declared while quickly flashing his badge. "I need you to get me your business licenses. Also I need to see proof of age on yourself; you seem a little too young to be working at this hour, Zack."

Zack jumped up and ran back to the room behind the front desk. Officer Pitts leaned back and made a slight motion with his arm towards the front door.

********************

Sara hit the lobby area on a full sprint and was at the elevators before the front door had swung shut. The night lobby attendant was still not back at the desk, so she pressed the button on the elevator and quickly jumped in when the doors opened.

The elevator was classic in design, but in perfect condition. The walls were finely crafted wood with a clear mirror as the roof. The brass handrails shined in reflected glory. Looking at the button panel, all twelve floors had buttons and there were no buttons for anything below the lobby level, but one button in particular stood out. The button for the twelfth floor had a card slot for it and would not light when pushed. With her curiosity piqued, Sara pressed the button for the eleventh floor.

********************

Zack returned with a binder and began to leaf through it haphazardly. Every few seconds he would look up and see what Officer Pitts was doing, then return to leafing through the binder.

"How about your license first," recommended Pitts.

Zack reached back into his pant's pocket and produced his wallet. Opening in the wallet, he pulled out and handed over his driver's license.

"Zack Milner," Officer Pitts said aloud. "How is it that at 18 years old you are running the desk at a hotel over night by yourself?"

"Well…," Zack seemed obviously nervous, "my uncle got me the job and there also is the…" The bell signaling the arrival of the elevator at the bottom floor and its doors opening stopped Zack in mid sentence. Both Zack and Officer Pitts turned and watched to see who got out of the elevator.

A tall caucasian man with salt and pepper hair stepped out of the elevator and turned toward the lobby. He stood several inches above Officer Pitts' height, but his build was much slimmer. The man's grey suit combined with his hair to give him a grim and foreboding presence. The man immediately walked to Officer Pitts and introduced himself.

"Hello, my name is Mr. Pall," the man coldly introduced. "I am the night manager, and Zack is my assistant."

"Well, this would have all been unnecessary had Zack simply said something to this effect," Officer Pitts responded.

********************

A ding announced that the elevator had reached the eleventh floor and the doors began to open. Sara glanced quickly into the hallway to ensure that no one was there. The empty hallway was just as beautifully maintained as the rest of the building appeared to be. Glancing back at the button panel, an idea popped into her head.

Sara mashed in the door open button again and quickly jumped and pushed on the emergency hatch in the ceiling of the elevator. The hatch door stood firm and was obviously locked from the outside. Jumping again, Sara gave the hatch a strong shot with the palm of her hand. The hatch kicked open and smacked off of the top of the elevator and slammed shut again.

Sara quickly pushed the door open button again and looked into the hallway to ensure that no one was coming. The room doors in the hallway remained closed and it seemed that no one had heard her loud actions.

Hitting it again, the hatch swung easily open and remained that way. Sara quickly pulled herself up and through the small opening and stood atop the elevator.

With a jerk, the elevator began to move downward. Sara quickly kicked the hatch closed and jumped off of the elevator roof and onto the side of the shaft.

The inside of the elevator shaft was as dirty as it was dark, but Sara was able to make out the doors to the twelfth floor. She quickly climbed up to the door and wedged her fingers into the slot between the doors. Pulling slowly but firmly, the doors opened and the twelfth floor revealed itself.

********************

Mr. Pall stared long and hard at Officer Pitts. The measured nature of the man's stare made Pitts uncomfortable, but he refused to give the man the satisfaction of outwardly displaying it.

"I'm conducting some routine compliance inspections of the hotels in the area," Officer Pitts began, "I need to see business documents, to include who actually owns this building."

"That should all be at available at city hall in your department's office," the night manager countered.

"But you are also required to have them on record here." Pitts was running out of excuses to delay with. He hoped that Sara was finding something worthwhile in her search.

********************

The hallway outside the elevator shaft led in one direction. Several large plants sat in huge pots and framed a beautiful mirror. Two her right, Sara could see where the hallway curved away from her and blocked her view. She stepped out of the elevator shaft and slowly allowed the doors to close.

Moving to the far side of the hallway, Sara hugged the far wall and moved down the hall. Before long, a set of ornate double doors came into view along with a man in a nice suit. The man stood tall and walked around near the doors. While not wishing to sound an alarm, the room the man guarded was clearly someplace she wanted to check out. She thought about rushing him, but there would be some sort of noise, and the last thing she wanted was more guards to deal with. Then a thought occurred to her.

Returning to the elevators, Sara pressed the down button and moved behind one of the large plants. Within a minute the light above one of the elevator doors lit and a ding echoed down the hall. The notification of the elevator car's arrival rang out loudly in the silence of the middle of the night. Sara sat and waited expectantly.

The sound of footsteps came from the direction of the double doors and Sara became excited. The man who had been guarding the door walked past her and looked into the empty elevator car.

Sara cocked back her right arm, hand in a fist, and waited. The man looked the empty elevator car up and down and began to turn to go back toward the doors. As he turned, Sara launched out and landed a solid blow to his jaw. Feeling a definite crack under her fist, the man immediately feel to the floor and remained still.

Quickly Sara rifled through the man's pockets and cloths. Inside his jacked and under his left arm she found a shoulder holstered handgun and under his right arm hung some sort of sub machine gun. The man had a wallet and some sunglasses in other pockets, but nothing more. The presence of the firearms more than convinced her that she was searching in the right place. Jumping to her feet, Sara quickly moved down the hallway to the double doors.

********************

Across the counter Officer Pitts and Mr. Pall stared at each other in an undeclared battle of wills. Pitts had been attempting to distract the lobby personnel while Sara attempted to search for evidence of some connection to the deaths of her family. Mr. Pall however, was obviously suspicious of the story the officer had provided and was doing his best to frustrate Pitts efforts.

"So are you going to show me your paperwork," Pitts broke the silence, "or do I have to write this up?" A dark and frustrated look deepened on the face of Mr. Pall, then suddenly lifted and was replaced with a friendly smile.

"Zack, go and get a mop. The lobby floor is a mess." Mr. Pall sent the young man running off to some unknown cleaning closet. "You will need to follow me then."

"Sure," Officer Pitts was confused, but excited that his ploy appeared to be working. "Lead on."

Mr. Pall walked out from behind the lobby counter and proceeded to walk across the lobby floor toward a non-descript door on the other side of the room. A placard on the door stated "Staff Only".

********************

A pair of beautifully carved wooden doors stood firmly to Sara's first attempt to push them open. A light punch confirmed that while beautiful, the pair of doors were far from normal. The doors appeared highly reinforced, but there was no way that Sara was going to give up now.

Running from up the hall, Sara smashed into the doors at full speed and with all the force she could muster. The left door flew completely off of its hinges and Sara landed on top of it inside the room it had secured, her right shoulder throbbed with pain and felt like she may have broken something. The right door hung off of its hinges.

Rubbing her shoulder as she got up, Sara surveyed the room. Around her sat a large living room like structure. The walls were adorned with fancy paintings, some of which appeared to be famous works of art. A marble floor ran wall to wall and several beautiful couches and chairs formed a ring around a central fireplace. Three doors led off of the room in different directions.

Sara carefully walked around the room to look into each doorway. So far no one had reacted to her door breach, so she assumed that no one was home.

The first door led to a short hallway with a large kitchen and almost as large bathroom off of it. Thinking that there was likely to be little of value in either room, Sara moved on to the next door off of the main room.

The second door led to a large entertainment themed room. A huge TV sat at one end and several couches faced in its direction. The walls were covered in sports memorabilia.

The room off of the third door sparked Sara's interest. The large room appeared to be some sort of cross between a bedroom and office. In one corner sat a large framed bed with a huge wooden headboard. A beautiful rug seemed to mark out the portion of the room dedicated to the bedroom theme.

In another corner sat a large wooden desk with a computer on it and on a table nearby at the wall was an expensive printer. This portion of the room was identified on the floor by its wood flooring and no rug.

The remaining majority of the room had a large rug on the floor. One wall was lined with lockers like some sort of sports locker-room. Nearby stood a set of three full length mirrors that formed half of a hexagon, similar to the dressing room of a department store.

Sara began to search the room by looking through the lockers. She knew that she wanted to check the office area, however the locker area was just too out of place for her to resist. In each locker hung several distinctive sets of clothes. One locker contained a judges gown. The next had a suit that would have fit a small man or boy. The next held the street clothes similar to the ones that the drug dealers from the Riverside Kings had been wearing. Perplexed at the lockers, Sara moved on to the desk and computer.

Rifling though the desk produced little, and the computer was on but password locked. Sara momentarily glanced over at the bed and realized that it was unmade; looking like someone had been sleeping in it recently. Nervous at the realization, she glanced around the room. Something caught her eye and she glanced back at the printer. A single sheet of paper sat atop the printer in the out bin. Sara moved to the printer and hesitantly picked up the paper.

********************

The "Staff Only" room was boring compared to the beauty and grandeur of the lobby outside its door. No furniture adorned the room with the exception of several filing cabinets at the far end of the room. Mr. Pall led the way over to the cabinets and stopped to look at Officer Pitts.

"Our documentation is here," he stated with a smile, "it will take me a minute to find the exact documents that you need." That was fine with Pitts since he was pretty sure that he wouldn't know what those documents looked like regardless. Mr. Pall turned and began to search through the many drawers of the one of the filing cabinets.

"No problem. I would be happy to wait." He began to get nervous that something had happened to Sara or that she was not going to be able to uncover anything in the time available. And while it felt like he had been providing a distraction forever, Pitts knew that it had been very little time for what they needed to find out.

More than several minutes went by before Mr. Pall pulled out a file and began to turn. He held the file up parallel to the floor with his left hand as his right hand rested, hidden below the file. As he motioned forward with the file Officer Pitts radio chirped to life.

"Pitts!" Sara sounded excited.

********************

Sara was happy to be back outside of the Hawthorn. Sneaking around inside the hotel had an element of excitement, but it was also nerve wracking. She had managed to find a hallway window on the eleventh floor that opened onto the exterior fire escape and make her way to street level. Waiting near Officer Pitts' unmarked police car, she wandered what was taking him so long. Just as she was about to key the hand held radio he had given her again, he appeared at the front door of the hotel and began to walk in her direction.

"What in going on?" Sara questioned with a touch of anger in her voice. "First I have to call you 5 times to get you on the radio. Then you take like ten minutes coming out of the building. What if I had been in trouble?"

"Sorry," the officer meekly responded, "I had the radio turned down so that I wouldn't blow my cover. And I thought I needed to see my ruse through in there or it would make them suspicious."

"Well, you had me worried…Don't do that again."

"What did you find?"

Sara pulled out the paper from the printer and showed it to Officer Pitts.

"Do you recognize any of these names?"

"Well, some of them are familiar." Sara took her finger and pointed at one in particular.

"Alex Murphy, District Attorney."