Everyone's mouths hung open stupidly. Even some of his henchmen.

"You are her…" Mica declared, "but…a replicant!"

"What do you mean?" Chelle squeaked.

"I created you with her DNA!" the man replied. "You are her in all but her spirit. The sheer talent of a renaissance artist packaged inside of a ditzy teenage girl!"

"But…but…" Chelle murmured as she sunk to her knees. "Daddy…?"

"Silly, silly girl," he said with a sneer. "Much like the painting you are making, you are nothing but a replica of a masterwork. But you could never replace the real thing."

She sobbed at his feet…a child lost in a cruel revelation.

As the vicious man spoke, I slowly maneuved my arm towards the magnetizing button on my leg. One press and his whole cabal of body guards would be disarmed. Once that happened, we could summon the Cornberry brigade to arrest them.

"Mica Angelo," I said softly.

The villain’s ear's pricked up and his head turned towards me. "Eh?"

"I'm not surprised you had to clone yourself a daughter…"

"Or a grandma?" Maria added as she watched my hand closely.

"A grandma, daughter, whatever, clearly no woman ever had an attraction to you…except for me! I find you rather…magnetic!"

I pressed the button on my leg and a loud humming sound filled the air. "The leg!" Mica shouted. "The leg! Shoota her in the leg!"

Apparently, Mica had some deft marksmen on his side. With a well-placed bullet, someone blasted the magnetizer in my leg. The humming died, much like my hope.

"Got any more tricks up that leg, mi amor?" Maria asked, exasperated.

"A cupholder?" I answered.

Mica gestured over to a jet black jumbo jet that sat on a launchpad in his backyard. "Tak them to my private jet. We're gonna drop them where they will never be found again!"

"Where would that be?" I asked.

"Oh you'll see," Mica smirked. "And by see, I mean sea as in ocean."

I winced. "The Toxic Sea!"

"Yep," Mica smirked. "Thatsa right!"

"Daddy–" Chelle cried. "You can't do that. They're detectives and we're gonna get in so much trouble!"

She attempted to run, but one of the men in black caught her and started manhandling the elderly child. He twisted her wrist and all she could do was hang limp in his grasp.

Mica crossed his arms and walked over to the child of confused origin. "If youra gonna behave like that, grandmama. You're coming with us."

Before we knew it, we all had a dollhouse view of Noirberg.

Comfy and inviting was the interior of the sleek black plane. The rows upon rows of velvet seats and central heating warmed our cold bodies. As we soared through the air, I almost imagined we were going to a paradise resort rather than a burial at sea. I sat bound to the seat with Maria beside me, ruminating on the case as it was. Maria's sly eyes traveled around the cockpit, no doubt searching for a way out.

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"This is quite romantic," she said to me. "If only we had two glasses of whiskey, it'd be just like that fateful night, mi amor. You know the one…"

"And I wished the alcohol made me forget it," I said, my face turning the color of my red hair tips. "Santiago, you know I'm not really into…"

"Except when you drink!" she laughed. "You become such a different person!"

I rolled my eyes so hard. The sheer embarrassment of that night was making the idea of getting dropped in an endless sea of acid seem not only preferable, but merciful.

But before this case was dissolved along with us, I had one question for the mastermind behind it.

"Mr. Angelo," I asked, feigning politeness to stall for time, "can you please tell us one thing?"

"Eh?" the man stopped twirling his mustache for a split second. "Whata eez it?"

" Before we die, let us in on your secret," I asked. "Why were you forging your own artwork?"

Mica rubbed his hands together. "It can't hurt to tell you. For you see, our estate had fallen on rough times. The advent of digital art and paintings by those cursed AI robots had reduced our patronage to a mere fraction of what we had."

I pursed my lips. Tablets had killed the trad artist.

"But," the man said, with cash signs nearly visible in his eyesockets. "An anonymous benefactor offered to pay fourfold what the museum paid me!"

Maria smiled knowingly. In her catlike eyes, there lied information, I didn't know…or she was just smug as usual. "But…why the cloning gig, senor?"

"Because!" Mica answered arrogantly. "We were to make a replica of this masterwork and return it to the museum."

"Clever clogs," I said, my eyes glinting. "Now I see!”

Maria raised an eyebrow.

“That way,” I said nobody would look for the stolen painting and this anonymous collector could let the real one languish in his vaults."

"Oh Jacky," Maria mocked me. "You are mucho mas fuega when you're confident. You should show that side more often."

"Maria," I growled. "The only side you're getting from me is my rear before we’re dropped to our deaths!"

"My apologies, lovebirds!" Mica exclaimed. "But you will soon be nothing but vapors in the Toxic Sea."

I thought back to Olive, who often said she got the vapors. I guess in a few moments, old Olive would be getting us.

I shook my head, dislodging the silly thought.

Two large lunks with guns pointed them at us, gesturing for us to stand up. Mica carefully slid open the emergency escape hatch. Winds from the outside tore at us like a vicious pack of wolves. Mica’s bodyguard, a towering bald man who resembled a human thumb, carefully drew him back. “Let us handle this, sir,” he said to him in a voice deeper than the grunt of a 200 pound gorilla.

Mica, once he was out of the reach of the wind, twirled his mustache. “Pay attention, grandmama,” he said to Chelle. “And you will witness what happens to those who disobey me!”

Chelle’s eyes darted between us and her father-cum-great, great, great-grandson. The girl trembled as she watched us.

“When we get back home,” Mica shouted. “You will finisha my forgery immediately! Even if it takes all night!”

As we inched our way over to a sudden death, Maria’s smiled at the girl. “It’s ok, senorita. The sins of the father are not those of the daughter. Or whatever the infierno you are!”

The girl covered her eyes with her hands. I soon came face to with my eternity—the Toxic Sea.

The sea bubbled and frothed, a shade of sickly chartreuse green. And it smelled as putrid as it looked.

Hundreds of years ago—a toxic calamity occurred that made all the oceans in the world, completely poisonous. People used to live on islands, but now, we on lived hovering metallic platforms the size of cities. It was not so much a history lesson as cold hard facts. Especially when we were about to take the plunge and become history itself.

“Any last words?” Mica taunted

I turned my head to Maria. Her auburn eyes looking quite winsome, though admittedly, not as much as that crazy night when I was inebriated

“I had no idea,” I said awkwardly. “I'd spend my last moments with the one person who made a complete fool out of me."

Maria, beneath her fiery passion for mischief, had a heart made of the most frigid material. For she only winked at me and blissfully smiled. “Así es la vida, Jacky.”

“What?!” I stammered

“That’s life, chica!”

“More like,” Mica laughed. “Thatsa death!”

His hand was on both of our backs, and I knew in a moment’s flash, we’d be pushed off the precipice to our fate.