Rito knocked on the door and pushed it open without waiting for a response. Sinya rarely responded when she was reading or grading papers. On Rito’s first day at work, she’d told her to let herself in if she needed anything.
The room was empty, but a bunch of papers littered the ground, as if they had just fallen off the desk. Rito frowned. This was strange. It was a quarter past eleven. It wasn’t like Sinya to be this late.
She crouched near the desk and started collecting the fallen papers. As she arranged them into a pile, a dark blue letterhead on one of the sheets caught her eye.
She pulled it out. The familiar logo of two doves with their beaks touching, along with the stylized letters of the word ‘Pragati’, adorned the top of the page. Below was a grainy photograph of Afreen. The words ‘La Fantome’ were scribbled untidily below the picture, along with an address in downtown Weritlan.
Rito stared dumbstruck at the piece of paper. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Sinya have Afreen’s photo? How could she possibly know…
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Rito jumped to her feet, arranged the fallen papers as neatly on the desk as her shaking hands would allow, and pocketed the one with her friend’s picture on it. Then she hurried out of the office, barely allowing herself to breathe until she had locked the door behind her in the ladies’ room.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she typed the words ‘La Fantome’ into the browser. As expected, the first few results told her that it was a high end, ‘exclusive’ club that had opened recently in downtown Weritlan. Their website was gorgeous, dynamic and intuitive, and completely devoid of any relevant information. Rito growled, frustration gnawing at the pit of her stomach.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Sitting down on the toilet seat, she backed out of La Fantome’s fancy website and scrolled down, looking at the other search results. Most of them were bland PR pieces about the club’s inauguration party and the celebrities who had attended it.
On the second and third pages, she found some articles – published by obscure local newspapers and small-time e-zines – about rumours of illegal drug use and trafficking activities in the club. Some of the articles even contained anonymous eyewitness reports claiming that children as young as eight and nine had been spotted in and around the club, looking dazed and lost.
No wonder Afreen had tried to infiltrate the club. Helping trafficked children had always been one of her greatest passions. Rito gritted her teeth. Whoever was behind this was both cunning and influential. These reports were few and far-between, and had only been published by obscure papers and zines with a non-existent readership.
Even then, many of them had published retractions in later editions, even apologized for the ‘defamation’ they had unintentionally caused. The whole thing stank of political maneuvering and interference.
By the time she reached the fourth article on the topic, the details had begun to solidify in her mind. She didn’t have anything definite yet, but she was beginning to understand what she would be dealing with once she arrived in Weritlan.
As she scrolled down to get to the meat of the article, her eyes caught the name of the website. The Loquacious Laihan.
Despite the situation, Rito giggled. If there was one person she knew who would ridicule himself on his own website, it was Laihan Ajera. She scrolled up quickly to see the name of the author. It simply said ‘admin’. He didn’t have the revenue to hire employees yet, she supposed.
The Loquacious Laihan was one of the few publications that had neither taken down the article, nor published a retraction or apology of any kind.
Rito smiled, pulling up her contacts and scrolling until she found the phone number she was looking for. Laihan Ajera – her old classmate, friend, and co-conspirator. And one of the most interesting people she had ever met.
It was time for a reunion.