"He's not picking up," I groaned, "Can anyone check his flight details?" I requested before briskly walking towards the Captain's office. Mitchelle was already explaining the whole situation to Captain Romero who has been dubious to everything we informed, but thankfully, he was ready to comply with our inquiries.

After we picked up Mrs. Brye, I decided to give her a small makeover and a living space in my house. I then filled out an online application for Gemini's Home for the Elderly, which was a charity institution built for homeless elderly people and those who had been abandoned by their families. But before she could be admitted into the nursing home, we had to have her tried by the court for a psychological evaluation since her mental state didn't seem to be very stable. So after another burden I intentionally added to my list, I was driving to get my Medicaid license, Aisha sitting in the passenger seat with me.

The three of us detectives including the Captain- who surprisingly decided to work earnestly for once- were giving up our weekends to work harder on the case. Mitchelle and the Captain were trying their best to track down and investigate James's background. Which now that I think of it, was very... astonishing to say the least. I really had no idea what happened that day at the back  of the pub. We were such good friends... why would he do that all of a sudden? And why was the necklace involved in this? Did he know we were visiting his mother? Is that why he pretended to confess? Even if he did, wouldn't he know that his mother would be aware of the necklace? I was too busy with the things around me that I didn't have enough time to ponder over his motives. Was our friendship fake?

"Red light!" Yelled Aisha, breaking my train of thoughts as I hit the brakes, barely crossing the white line of limit. "What happened?" She turned towards me, "Are you okay? Seriously if there's something troubling you, let me know."

"I'm... I'm just... confused," I murmured, resting a hand on the gear of my car. "Is it true? Like... do you really think he could do something like that?" As the traffic light glimmered green, Aisha spoke, fixing her head scarf. "You... never really know what even the people most closest to you can do. What they're capable of. It isn't our fault we can't see past people's facades. As for James," she sighed solemnly, "We're not sure if it's truly him- I mean come on, you said it yourself that the old hag seemed crazy and- who knows? There could be other models of that necklace?" She jumped excitedly, "Also, Geisha?"

"Mhmm,"

"I knew he liked you," she said, looking away as I flinched at her words. "Why didn't you tell me?" I shot a glance at her before focusing back at the road. "Because it wasn't my place to tell, and even so, I didn't really approve of your relationship."

The ride to Oakland from Carmel was about an hour and forty-five minutes long. We were going to get the Blue Shield insurance for Mrs. Brye which happened to be near Detective Lyson's house. He had come in early from his holiday so we decided to shift the date earlier. A quick way to move things forward. "Why?" I groaned. "I just didn't okay? A lot of people would ship their bestfriends in my position but I'm just not that kind of a person. Besides, my gut feelings are always right, Alhamdulillah for that." She raised her hands in defense.

"But you could have just told me! There was no harm in discussing it with your best friend," I stared at her, dumbfounded. She just shrugged in response. Although I didn't really like James romantically, I was surprised that he did. And even if I was a bit disappointed with Aisha for not telling me anything, I knew she wasn't wrong.

She used her wild instincts to solve many cases which God knows how she did it, but what was more hilarious that she was able to even guess her way in a lottery quiz well. She was a very lucky woman, someone I could never be. Heck I couldn't even get my guessing game right in charades let alone do so in a prize-earning quizz. After we applied for the insurance and I paid for the package, we departed for the retired detective's house. Upon reaching the place, we rang the doorbell. The white, freshly painted door opened revealing a plump looking man with a frosted moustache and a beer belly.

We were invited in for a glass of orange juice which Aisha declined. "We're actually here to ask a few questions about the french gang you were involved with undercover. Please give us the full details," I demanded, drawing out my notepad as my partner opened the pictures we took of the claim report. "This happened fifteen years ago when I was asked to join the as de cœur gang in   Paris," he started, pronouncing the French name with a heavy accent. "For short we called it ADC. They usually smuggled common drugs through their underground channels located all over France and in some areas of California, Florida as well as in Northern Ireland. They gathered a lot of youngsters and desperate families under their care to perform crimes along with smuggling such as theft and human trafficking. When I joined, they asked me to sign a contract."

He signalled us to follow him upstairs where his wife sat in their self-made nursing room, toys littered all around it and an old casette player booming with 'Mary had a little lamb'. There were four to five children singing along to the rhyme, too distracted to notice us coming up the staircase. Lyson closed the door to the room giving us an apologetic smile. "Sorry, my wife loves children but we couldn't have any of our own so we made our own nursery here. It's legal, don't worry," he chuckled, "It's been thirty years now."

"Here it is," he shuffled through his file cabinet to pull out a document signed under a fake name. "It says that I have to obey every order the young boss gives and the only way to get out of the gang was death. Usually if someone joins a criminal group, they're entrusted to their boss, but this young lad of about... twenty two?" He calculated on his fingers,"Yeah, twenty two years was different. He was more commanding and although he was pretty secure, he would strictly get his work done. Our deaths, if by accident, did occur... he wouldn't be responsible."

"Have you met him?" Asked detective Noor. "No," he replied, "I have never met him. From what the other members more close to him told me, he was slender and frail at that time. He was always straight with his words and was very punctual. You could almost mistake him for a well- known businessman without the guns and drugs."

I dipped out of the conversation and explored more of the house. Right at the end of the corridor, was a reddish brown, glass- framed cupboard brimmed with ornaments and presents. I surveyed the inside before opening them. Nothing out of the ordinary rested on the shelves. Just medals, certificates in oriented picture frames and trophies cleaned thoroughly enough for my reflection to be seen.

I scooched down and opened the bottom half of the cupboard by sliding their old fashioned latches. There staring right back at me lay a dusty model of an Evolis Primacy card printer. "Aisha!" I yelled.

Heavy footsteps resounded as the two of them came running towards me. "Where did you get this from?" I spun around, jolting from my position, giving a hard stare to the retired officer. "I got it from Pierre, the right hand man of the boss. He gave this to me as a present. He used to work for the French police but he was found out and killed right away. A good friend he was," explained Lyson.

We hurriedly packed the card printer and awaited the almost two hour drive to the precinct. As soon as I reached there, I was bombarded with information thrown at me from the working detectives of the team. They couldn't get a hold of anyone named James Blue from the American Police academy. The address given to them was of an empty apartment given for rent to someone who never even once lived there.

There was nothing we could get our hands on about him.

Declaring that I will, myself, flip his place upside down to look for any clues, but until then we had our hands already full with the account details of detective Lyson. We logged on to the deserted website and keyed the login information.

Skimming through his chat history, we found Pierre exchanging valuable insights of the gang's plan here in California, dated to ten years ago. "The contract gave Lyson a name. Maybe Pierre was also a code name for the person," theorized Aisha, scanning our piece of evidence. We ran our eyes through their bull sessions to come across his actual name, Julio Brye.

Mitchelle sighed and dropped herself heavily on a nearby chair. "I went through his record. The academy he wrote about in his resume trained nobody under the name James Blue, nor Julio Brye."

We hear loud screams coming from the Captain's office who stormed out with his briefcase, "I'm going home, there's an emergency. Have his picture stuck on every post, I want him alive." He growled, slamming and stomping his way through the station. "Well, he's gone too."

While the girls rummaged through all of James's belongings left in his desk. Not a single one gave any personal data. Meanwhile I wrote an email to the department of public affairs to issue James Blue in their newspapers, online advertising and broadcasting channel.

I skipped from picture to picture in my gallery sown with happy moments spent with him. Bitterness filling my mouth with the aftertaste of betrayal. Attaching a good, clear photo, I pressed sent on the tiny screen of my phone.

Only a few seconds later, the phone in the Captain's office rang. "Yes?" I answered to the dispatcher over the phone. "Is the Captain available?" He asked, his voice oddly impatient. "No," I replied as eagerly. "What about the team leader of the King of Hearts case?"

Oh, so that's his official name? Is that what we're all officially calling him? I though that was just reference.

"Speaking," I said, sternly. "We have just sent a squad up to the twentieth Avenue. The caller is a girl who says someone is trying to kill her. I'm directing the call to you, please take good care of it."