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“I’m only doing this for you, gorgeous,” Ella says with a smile. I widen my eyes and pull up my eyebrows, making my forehead crease. I didn’t see a compliment coming. She notices my confusion and rectifies my stupid assumption.
“I’m not talking about you, asshole. I’m talking about this masterpiece here.” Ella points to Hana. My cousin starts laughing, and that sound combined with Ella’s sarcasm makes me hoot as well. We compose ourselves, and I hand over the knife to this intelligent woman.
She uses a high-resolution forensic scanner to digitize the print off of the knife before it goes through something I never heard of: a fuming chamber. She slides the knife into the chamber and minutes later, pale ridges bloom across the knife. Ella photographs the handy-dandy toy, then feeds the image into her AFIS terminal.
“Let’s see who has been careless.” Fucking finally. I need a peek into Lana’s history, and this will help me learn a bit more about her. Every second that is passing without any information is killing me, and Ella notices.
“If you don’t stop tapping your foot, I will tell Hana to shoot you,” she snaps at me. I immediately stop tapping my right foot and start biting my nails. You can’t smoke in a lab, so this will do. After what feels like an eternity, something pops onto Ella’s screen.
“The person behind this blood is very secretive– what the fuck.” Yeah, no shit. “But not careful enough.”
“Tell me.” My eagerness to know is reaching dangerous levels as I can’t contain my excitement and rage. Ella notices my gleeful look and slowly nods her head while she crosses her arms.
“You fucking dog, this is because of a woman.”
“You are such a good and obedient dog.”
No, not right now.
“What do you have on this person?” The urgency in my tone is unmistakeable–I needed that fucking information yesterday.
“So,” Ella starts, and Hana and I are listening intently, “the blood didn’t trace back to a woman, but to a man.”
“Who?” Even though I have a strong inclination of knowing who she is talking about.
“A man named Leon.” All the air leaves my lungs as I start breathing heavily. My hands are starting to get sweaty, and I’m licking my lips more than I should. I motion for Ella to continue.
“Leon was arrested when he was barely an adult for attending a protest. The police have kept his records, and I am happy they did.”
“Why?” I ask her.
“Well, it traced back to three properties. Two of them were restaurants that this asshole had, but those pieces of land were turned into daycare centers. But one property stands out, an abandoned house that the government can’t tear down.”
“What kind of house did she inherit?”
“Your girl inherited a corpse. An Austro-Hungarian house rotting on prime Sarajevo land.” Now everything makes sense. The property and house have heritage status—old Austro-Hungarian bones are protected by the city, too historic to demolish and too ruined to use. Lana inherited everything from her father, but why doesn’t it show up on Ella’s computer?
Hana is thinking the same thing because she asks Ella what we have been thinking. “How doesn’t it show up on any database that Lana inherited everything?”
“The database is empty where she should be,” she explains. “No link to him. No inheritance trail. Nothing.” She stops her cursor, and I stare at her screen.
“It’s not that she’s missing… it’s that she was never allowed to exist on paper.” Fuck me. Leon has done everything in his power to keep Lana safe and make her disappear. I bet Lana doesn’t even know that her dad got arrested before she was born, which gives me back my edge. Now I only need to break into her estate.
“Any active connections? ISP registration, smart meters, security systems—anything still pinging from that address?” Hana’s questions show that she is a digital mastermind and that she always thinks ten steps ahead.
“There’s a residual digital footprint,” Ella explains to us. “Low-level, but consistent. Whatever it is… it’s still connected to a network.”
“Do you know what it is?” I ask her, and she shakes her head.
“That’s your cousin’s job, not mine. Now,” she stands up and points towards the door with her eyes, “leave. I have a one-night stand with a fucking hot woman, and I don’t want to miss that.”
“I thought you went out on a date with Haris last week?” Hana asks her as she hugs her goodbye.
“I like to keep my options open. Now, go.” We step outside and the night is slowly starting to descend. I close my eyes and breathe in and out.
“Euhm, Noa?” whispers come from Hana, and I shake my head to pay her the attention she deserves. My cousin really has outdone herself so far, and I am so proud of her. A cool spring breeze meets the walk to our bike.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go back to the villa so we can leave for Lana’s estate.” Hana grabs my arm and makes me stop walking. When I look at her, she is laughing, but there is no humor in her laughter. It’s full of sheer panic.
