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Sora and Kairi didn’t even bother knocking now. Riku couldn’t really blame them for that at this point. After a certain number of near-escapes and thwarted attempts on their lives, knocking just seemed superfluous.
Today they sat down and Sora tossed a printed page down on the desk between them.
Riku picked it up and skimmed the printout. It was a dossier of sorts, but the information was… sparse. A small photo of a fairly generic-looking man with short, dark hair. His name was listed as ‘unknown,’ though there was a provided list of associates. None of the names meant anything to him.
“Can’t say I’ve met him.” Riku raised an eyebrow.
“None of us have,” Sora confirmed. “But I told you I had to figure out who beat us to Kairi’s adoption file, right?”
Riku nodded.
“Well.” Sora gestured at the page. “This guy.”
Riku didn’t bother to ask how Sora had gotten the information. He was the detective, and Riku would trust the information was legitimate. But…
“How does that help us? What can we do about it?”
Kairi leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in her eye that reminded him of the first time she’d hired him, or when she’d brought him with her to the balcony at that first gala. “He’s still here, on the island,” she said.
“He is?” Riku asked.
Kairi leaned back in the chair and nodded. “Can I hire you again to help us get the file back?”
Riku sighed. To be completely honest, he’d already been ready to just do it, no ‘hiring’ necessary. Kairi had certainly succeeded in her promise to ‘make it interesting’, and then some, and he’d be lying if he claimed he wasn’t invested in the whole situation now. He’d probably already tipped his hand with that, when he asked what ‘we’ were going to do about it.
“Of course you can,” he said. “But what is it you think I can help you do?”
“Protect us of course.” She waved a hand as if it were of little consequence. “You’ve done a great job of it so far.”
“If this guy did steal the files”—Sora tapped the photo—“I’d be willing to guess that he’s working for whoever also wanted Kairi hurt or dead.”
It would be a stretch to think it was unrelated. “Do you have a plan? If you have a plan I need to know about it; no hiding things from me this time.”
They hadn’t hidden anything since the first time, but he still had to say it.
“He’s still here, but we don’t know for how long. Probably only another day or two,” Sora said. “But right now he’s staying in a hotel downtown.”
“And we’re hoping,” Kairi added, “that means he has the file with him,”
“Do you think he still has it? That he wouldn’t have just destroyed it?”
“Always possible,” she acknowledged.
“But,” Sora said, “if someone hired him to get the file, there’s a chance they wanted it for something. Even if they plan to destroy it, they might want to do it themselves, after verifying whatever information is in there. It’s at least worth trying to find out, right?”
Of course, getting into a nice hotel with the hopes of sneaking into a particular guest room wasn’t terribly easy, and the tight timeline didn’t help.
The plan was sketchy. It relied a lot on hoping things went the way they wanted them to, which was the absolute worst kind of plan. Leaving it up to chance and other peoples’ choices did not make for a solid situation to walk into. Then again, Riku was used to having to react to unpredictable circumstances—that was a large part of being a bodyguard—so he wasn’t sure he had much room to complain.
They’d decided that Kairi was going to provide a distraction. There was a well-publicized local environmental sciences convention being held at the hotel that evening, and while the hotel was hosting plenty of unrelated guests, no one staying there could have missed that the event was going on. Kairi ‘spontaneously’ decided that she was going to attend. The daughter of a senator wasn’t quite a celebrity appearance, but it was still notable enough to be of interest. They did their best to spread the information that she’d be there, and even a local press release gained some traction, as people rushed to speculate on whether it signified her father’s political support for the cause.
That was also their first series of gambles for the night. If someone was after Kairi—and it was clear that someone was—then news like that would certainly reach them. And if whoever was after her had sent that man to take her adoption file, then having her so close would have to be irresistible. Was the mysterious file-thief the same man responsible for any of the other attacks? Unknown, but if they provided him with a gift-wrapped opportunity to get at Kairi…
Of course, that was a minor risk, but she only had to play bait to distract him for long enough for Riku and Sora to get into his room and find the file. Then they’d be out of there, and she could make her perfectly safe and graceful exit, having also hopefully benefited the environmental scientists and their research on the importance of preserving undisturbed stretches of beach.
The night started well. Kairi acquired guest passes for all three of them. Sora and Riku did their best to remain unobtrusive as other guests began to trickle in, while Kairi made herself very visible by contrast.
Riku was reminded of watching her work the room at the fundraiser gala he’d initially been hired to protect her at. She’d been very clearly in her element at the time, and it was clear she was just as good at charming this crowd. The attendees were mostly scientists in varying subfields, focused on different aspects of the island’s ecology. They were presenting findings from multiple studies, all in support of protecting areas of the island from development. Kairi was obviously well-informed on the topics at hand, and held up her ends of the varying conversations intelligently and well.
The room was starting to fill when they spotted their target.
Riku hated calling him that; it sounded so pretentious. Still, there wasn’t a better word for him.
If he hadn’t spent so long staring at the photo Sora had provided, even Riku would have been inclined to overlook him. He looked extraordinarily average. Short dark hair, dark eyes. Average height, average looks, unremarkable clothing. He had a guest badge clipped to the pocket of a button-down shirt.
His mingling looked almost as natural as Kairi’s, or would have if Riku wasn’t watching him so closely. He was looking at Kairi far too often. He didn’t approach her, but was constantly glancing at her, keeping track of where she was in the room, keeping her within his line of sight.
Riku wanted to be the one to go up to him. Judging by how Sora was clenching and unclenching his hands, he probably wished the same.
Unfortunately, they’d decided that was more of a risk than they were willing to take. Both of them were well-known to be involved with Kairi in some capacity—Sora as her partner, Riku as the hired man who helped thwart the attack at the gala—and anyone after her would recognize them as well. While their presence with her at this event might be easily explained, it could still tip off their target if either of them approached him directly.
Instead, Kairi had to do it. She was being a social butterfly, and there would be nothing suspicious about her approaching a stranger to chat.
As if thinking about it had been enough to prompt her, Kairi gracefully disentangled herself from her current knot of conversation and made her way across the room toward the refreshments table. That just happened to be near where their mystery man was standing.
Riku couldn’t hear her from where he and Sora had set up, but she started up some sort of conversation with the man. She poured herself a cup of the punch set up on the table, and sipped at it delicately while they spoke.
He looked just a bit stiff, but perfectly willing to carry on the conversation.
A couple of times Kairi made casual physical contact, such as a hand on his arm, or her fingers tapping his shoulder as she laughed at something he’d said.
“That’s on purpose,” Sora said, so low no one else was going to overhear him. “Obvious contact helps disguise less obvious contact.”
If Riku hadn’t been watching the whole thing, he wouldn’t have had any idea when she went for it, and even then it was quick enough he second-guessed it.
She turned to set her emptied cup down on the table behind her conversational partner, and her hand just barely brushed past his hip and his back pocket.
They carried on with their talk for a few more minutes, until Kairi broke away with another gentle arm touch, as she appeared to spot someone else she just had to speak with. She moved to another conversation, and then another, and then another, continuing her tour around the room.
She’d chatted with three other small groups before she drifted back over to where Sora and Riku were lingering on the periphery.
She hugged Sora, and Riku just barely saw her slip something into his pocket as she pulled away.
“If you’re just unbearably bored,” she said, just loud enough to be overheard if someone was trying, “you don’t have to stay. I know this is more my sort of thing than it is yours.”
“I don’t want to run out on you…” Sora replied, the picture of reluctance.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Why don’t the two of you go grab something to eat? I know this will go on for a couple hours still. I’ll be right here if you want to come back in a bit.”
Sora’s posture relaxed. “If that’d be okay.”
“Of course! Have fun, you two!” She winked at them, blowing a quick kiss, and returned to mingling.
The elevators were in the same direction as the restaurant.
Riku and Sora didn’t rush, and instead joined another small group of people heading up to their rooms.
Sora reached into his pocket and pulled out the keycard Kairi had slipped to him. It was wrapped in a paper sleeve with the number 334 on it.
Once they were on the elevator, Riku pushed the button for the third floor.
The other guests were heading up to the fourth, so once Sora and Riku got off the elevator, they were completely alone. The hallway was very quiet.
“That was impressive. Who knew a socialite was so good at pickpocketing?”
“Kairi is a woman of many skills,” said Sora.
“Like her detective boyfriend and his lockpicking talents?”
“Exactly!” Sora flashed a brilliant grin.
“And now for some light breaking and entering. Again.” Riku sighed. “With a bit of petty theft on the side.”
“Is it really stealing if he stole it first?”
Riku allowed a brief pause for effect before answering, “Yes. Yes it is.”
Sora shrugged as they reached room 334. “And is it really breaking and entering if we have a key?”
Riku held his breath as Sora pushed the card into the slot on the door and pulled it out. He’d stayed in enough hotels to know that keycard issues were a constant annoyance, and if this one had demagnetized or something, they were sunk…
The light on the door turned green, and the lock clicked.
The room barely looked occupied. There was a single rolling suitcase, closed, seated on top of a foldable suitcase rack. A nondescript black laptop bag sat on top of the room’s desk. There was a single used towel on the bathroom floor, and the bed was slightly rumpled.
That didn’t leave an overabundance of places for the file to be.
Riku crossed to the laptop bag. He unzipped it carefully, and revealed a pair of promising manila folders tucked alongside the computer. The one on top was labeled Kairi Uchida on the tab. Exactly what they were hoping for.
He tugged the folders out, and paused. “Are we taking the files?” Riku asked. “Or…”
“Pictures,” Sora answered. “I want to take the originals, but if we take them, then it really is obvious we were here. If we do this right, they’ll have no idea. We’ll drop the keycard somewhere in the conference room, and it’ll look like it just fell out of his pocket. No one will suspect anything.”
Riku nodded. For all his joking about some theft on the side, this was smarter. Better for no one to even suspect the information had been found.
Riku opened the top file, the one with Kairi’s name on it. He laid the first page out, and Sora lined his phone up to take a picture. He snapped several copies before nodding for Riku to turn the page over.
Riku wished they could stop and read the whole thing, but the faster they were done, the better.
Once they’d taken pictures of all the pages in the first file, Riku hesitated over the second one. The name on the tab didn’t mean anything to him, but if the man had stolen it, too…
“Yeah, let’s get that one too,” Sora said. “There has to be a reason he has it.”
One page at a time, Sora took pictures of the second file. As Riku flipped the last page over, Sora’s phone buzzed in his hand.
Sora looked at it. He didn’t say anything, but his sharp exhale sounded like he’d been punched. He numbly turned it toward Riku.
Riku looked to the lit-up screen. A text from Kairi: Here. Help.
Sora frantically snapped a picture of the final page, and Riku rushed to get the pages back into the folders and the folders returned to the bag. He rezipped it, and made certain the bag was back in the right spot on the desk.
They raced out of the room, letting the door slam behind them. The hallway to the elevator seemed far longer than it had been before. Sora practically crashed into the elevator door, pressing the call button for the elevator over and over.
Riku grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the stairs. They took the stairs several at a time, using the railings to help vault them down.
They hit the ground floor door at a mutual run, not caring about the attention they were drawing as they rushed back toward the ballroom where the conference was happening.
Sora frantically called Kairi’s phone, but Riku heard it go immediately to voicemail, without even a single ring.
The room looked mostly as they’d left it, small groups conversing and drinking punch, some calm, some animated.
But Kairi and the man she’d been there to distract were both gone.