renner
League Member
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2004
- Messages
- 178
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 40
- Location
- Oakland, TN, USA
- Website
- www.fetchquest.com
For PRIME's Dual Halo, which I don't want to talk about.
* . *
The clash of thunder almost drove him to point his finger at the woman.
"It was you."
"W-what?!" the accused responded, taking almost an unconscious step back. She was surprised, the tone of her voice trying to remain calm while hiding a large enough nugget of worry that even he could notice it, "What are you talking about!?"
"You're the one who shot Mr. Chambers." he said, continuing to point an accusing finger at her. The tone in his voice was at its most serious. All of the facts pointed at this woman.
"Pre-preposterous!" the woman shouted. Yet, she shivered, and seemed to hug herself for warmth. His words were akin to having lots of needles made out ice stuck in her body.
"You were his lover, and you had the opportunity." the man continued.
"L-Ludicrous..."
"It was definitely you. Just give up, we'll call the authorities when the storm passes, and it'll all be over." the man said, calmly. He knew that the situation was precarious, and he didn't want things to degenerate to chaos.
The woman's reaction was all too the predictable, yet all too surprising.
He saw the glint of metal in her hand as it pointed in his direction. He saw the faint streaming of tears down the woman's face, a defeated expression on her face. He knew that this would end too ugly, too fast.
"It's... already over..."
Bang.
* . *
October 4th, 2008; Off the coast of North Carolina
Steve Knox often wondered how his life measured up to the lives of others. Sure, he was a professional wrestler, and at this moment in time, he was sitting pretty on two hard-won championship belts. However, the events in his life were considered, by Steve, to be so extraordinary that if he were to ever write his memoirs, it'd be moved into the fiction section of the library.
Today, he found himself on a high speed ferry (or as Tyler Rayne might say... "he's on a boat, mother****er"), which sped along the waters off the coast of North Carolina.
The destination was a privately owned island, owned by an wealthy uncle of Chris Chambers'. Steve and his gang had been granted an invite to vacation there for two days by Chris's cousin. When Steve first heard Chris talk about his uncle and his cousin, he swore up and down that Chris was making it all up just to impress him.
He hated to eat his own words, and hated moreso that Chris elected to invite the rest of Steve's "gang" to experience the vacation.
So, not only was Steve Knox travelling with his lilac-haired, self-proclaimed "gangster" of a disciple, but he was also travelling with the other three people that usually hung around him in the first place. They included the Cosmo Kid, a certifiable weirdo who always wore a purple mask with a white star print and alien antennae on the top and a black business suit with a red tie; Marisa Silvernail, Steve Knox's red-headed high school girlfriend who worked as his legitimately dangerous bodyguard; and Alice Wright, Steve Knox's perfectionist documentarian, closet Japanophile, and childhood friend.
"You know," Alice said to Steve, who was more busy trying to figure out how Chris Chambers happened to be related to a guy rich enough to own a mansion built on a privately own island, "This situation seems awfully familiar to me."
"It's just your imagination." Steve said, shrugging off his childhood friend.
Alice was not an unattractive girl, especially not when she wore denim shorts and a short yellow tanktop that exposed her belly button like she did on this day. However, she had a manner and an attitude that made her rather offputting to other men, which was probably why Steve had never dated her, even though they'd been friends since they were toddlers.
Alice had brought her camera for the trip, though it was less so for the purposes of the Steve Knox documentry and moreso just to chronicle what should be an amusing time.
She focused her camera's attention to Marisa, whose white sundress flapped in the speeding ocean wind as she stood and watched the waves. If there was any one person she liked to film, it was Marisa, because she happened to be quite photogenic. Unfortunately, an entirely unphotogenic Cosmo Kid suddenly stepped in front of the shot.
"Hey," Cosmo said, pointing off to a place that was out of camera's vision, "There's the island."
Alice's camera turned to see an island that wasn't too far from the boat. It wasn't a very big island, but it was just large enough to comprise an estate for a large brick mansion, very elaborate in design, yet built to withstand strong hurricanes. The island was actually fairly elevated from the sea, at least tall enough to keep high storm surge waves from flooding the mansion. The mansion itself overlooked a beach, and had a scenic view from its position at the top of the mountain.
Steve Knox whistled when he saw it, "Hey, Chris?"
Chris Chambers laid fairly lackadastically on a seat in the ferry, mostly just relaxing. He wore a "throwback" Chicago Bulls jersey, a pair of jean shorts, and a white bandana that covered his lilac-colored hair. He idly turned his head towards Steve Knox, "Yeah?"
"I'm gonna take back some of the things I said about you." Steve said with a chuckle.
* . *
As the ferry pulled into the small pier, they were greeted by a single man. He was a white man with short brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a white collared shirt with a red tie, and black pants with black loafers. He looked to be in his late 20s, and looked a bit tired. Yet, he smiled upon seeing Steve and his gang, particularly when he saw Chambers.
Chris approached this man, and gave him a high five, "Louis, my main G, what's up, yo?"
"Just killing time, these days." Louis told Chris.
Steve Knox walked over to Chris and whispered to him, "Dude, you're in front of family, you can chill with the gimmick." Then he looked at Louis, "Hey. I'm Steve Knox. Thanks for letting us tag along."
Louis shook Steve's hand, "Name's Louis Chambers. I'm Chris's cousin. It's a pleasure to meet you, I've been watching the TV to catch Chris after he told me he was back on television again, so all I know all about you."
Knox nodded, and as he did so, the Cosmo Kid walked up, carrying a satchel over his shoulder, "Nice place. Did the architect die while building it?"
Louis looked at Cosmo Kid for a second before turning back to Steve Knox, but then he thought about Cosmo's bizarre inquiry, did a double take back to Cosmo, realized that he wears a damn luchador mask even when vacationing, and found his mouth literally quivering in confusion while he tried in vain to come up with a response. Instantly, Steve knew what the problem was and rested a hand on Louis's shoulder, "Don't worry about Cosmo. He does things that make us go 'what the hell?' all the damn time."
Almost to emphasize the point, the Cosmo Kid gives Louis a particularly disturbing wink before he walked past him to join Chris Chambers in climbing up the stairs that led to the main island. As they did this, Marisa and Alice walked up, each carrying their bags. Then, unceremoniously, Alice dropped her bag right in front of Steve's feet.
"I trust you've got this from here." Alice said. As she said it, Marisa smiled at Steve before she, too, dropped her bag in front of him. Steve looked down at the bags for an uncomfortable minute, an expression that clearly screamed "you've got to be kidding me" written all over his face.
"I'm not your bellboy!" Steve complained.
Alice grumbled as she stepped past Louis Chambers, her only possession in her hands being her camera, "Oh, quit your whining, Steve. Just enjoy yourself."
Steve had a hard time "enjoying himself" when he was the one carrying the bags. He sighed and stooped over to pick up Alice's bag... and was surprised at how heavy it was. He picked it up over his shoulder and shouted at Alice, "Jesus, Alice! What's IN this thing!?"
"None of your business." was Alice's response before she walked up the stairs. Marisa giggled to herself before she joined Alice in heading up the stairs.
Steve sighed, though Louis picked up Marisa's bag for him, "You travel with some interesting people, Mr. Knox."
"You have *no* idea." was Steve Knox's exasperated response as they climbed the steps.
* . *
When Steve and his "posse" reached the mansion, there was an older man standing at the door to greet them.
This man was older than Louis Chambers, in his late 40s. He was tall, but a bit thin and wiry in build. Although his hair was black, it was likely dyed this way because he happened to have gray sideburns. He also had a thin mustache across his lips. He wore a gray business suit, but didn't wear a tie.
By his side and just behind him were two other people, a butler wearing a typical uniform of a butler, and a maid wearing a typical uniform of a maid. The butler was younger, and he probably just turned 30. He had long hair that he tied into a simple ponytail, and he had his hands behind his back. The maid was in her mid-20s, and had shoulder-length brown hair. She was sort of pretty, but didn't really carry herself like she was absolutely gorgeous, either. The most striking feature she had was the ruby red lipstick she wore.
"These are our guests?" the man asked. The almost accusing tone in his question definitely ensured, in the mind of Steve Knox, that this man had no knowledge of the sorts of guests Louis Chambers had invited to the island.
"Uh, yeah, dad." was the sheepish response of Louis Chambers.
"Hmph," the man said, almost sticking his nose up in the air, "Enjoy your stay. Don't break anything."
And with that unceremonious greeting, the man simply turned around. His butler opened the door and let him in, before shutting the door and turning his attention to his guests.
"I must apologize for the master's uncouth manner." the butler said. He had a British accent, which might have increased his "refinement" levels in the perception of Alice Wright. Steve Knox swore he saw sparkles in her eyes.
"It's no problem. Who was he?" Steve Knox asked.
"He is the owner of this island, Mr. John Chambers. I am James, his butler." the butler explained, before he gestured at the maid, who just sort of looked away, shyly, "The quiet young lady here is Shirley, the maid."
"Hello." Shirley said with a voice so soft that barely anyone actually heard her.
Steve Knox introduced his gang to them, culminating in the introduction of Chris Chambers.
"Ah," James said, "So, you must be the master's nephew. You have a... unique atmosphere around yourself."
"I'm the big bomb diggity daddy, straight up G-style from the mad streetz of Chi-Town, yo."
This comment from Chris Chambers simply flopped in the air like a dead fish, intoxicating the air with its rank stench. Even James had a hard time figuring out exactly what the hell Chris Chambers just said, and eventually, Steve Knox had to loudly clear his throat to break the awkward silence, "Chris, you can cool it with the gimmick here. The only camera here is Alice's."
Chris paused to consider it, and then removed his bandana to reveal his lilac-colored hair, before he looked as seriously as he could look at the butler considering that he was a lilac-haired white man wearing hip hop paraphernalia, "Yeah, that's me."
As Chris got in touch with his serious side, Alice Wright brushed him aside as thoughtlessly as she might brush aside a stray tree branch on her way through a forest. She spoke to James with two parts awe and one part curiosity, as if her voice had developed some alchemic formulae for her emotions, "Wow, what part of Britian are you from?"
"Manchester, my dear," James said, before he held his hand out, "I'll take the bags from here."
Steve dropped Alice's bag almost completely without ceremony, then gesturing wildly at Alice, "Oh, thank God. This woman packed a friggin' tank."
Alice's response was to simply walk over and slap Steve right in the back of his head.
After giving him a "hmph!", Alice walked towards the front doors of the mansion and let herself in. Marisa smiled pleasantly at James, before she followed Alice inside. Shirley opened the door for Marisa before entering the mansion herself. James picked up the bag with a bit of a grunt, realizing that the bag was quite heavy. He turned to look at Steve Knox with a bit of a surprised look on his face, "What *is* in this bag?"
The Cosmo Kid walked up, and looked straight at James, "A tripod for her camera, four or five handmade costumes and shoes to go with them, a swimsuit, two sets of 'regular' clothes, an Xbox 360, two wireless controllers, toiletry items, and six Xbox 360 games."
James looked confused, primarilly at the fact that the man who just spoke to him wore a weird mask, had a voice like Barry White despite being clearly white, and just rattled off a bunch of nonsense, "Huh?"
"The contents of Alice's bag." Cosmo said. Steve, Louis, and Chris all stared at Cosmo Kid, which was something that wasn't lost on Cosmo, as he spoke again, "He asked what was in it."
Without uttering another word, Cosmo went into the mansion. The remaining four people just gave each other funny looks for a bit before deciding to not question the Cosmo Kid on why he would know what Alice brought with her on the trip.
The day had just started, after all. No need to get into the bizarre.
* . *
In the opinion of Marisa Silvernail... if there was ever a time that Steve Knox, professional wrestler, was glad that he was blessed by a body seemingly forged by the Gods, it was now. He stood on the beach, wearing red swim trunks and red flip flops, with his hands on his hips and a smile etched across his face.
Steve was happy mostly because, of the men in his company, both of them were effectively skinny white boys. He'd stand out and "be more awesome", at least in his mind. Of course, there were so very few women on this beach, primarilly because Steve and the gang *were* on an island, isolated far from the North Carolina shore.
Chris Chambers wore green swim trunks, but he was also still wearing his white bandana over his head. The Cosmo Kid, meanwhile, still wore his mask and he also had on a black speedo, an image that no doubt would be burned into Steve Knox's retinas for the rest of his natural life and maybe some of his afterlife. Alice Wright, who wore a bold two-piece tiger print swimsuit, had taken to going into the water. However, Marisa could hear her complaints about the water's temperature from her vantage point, far from the shore.
Marisa Silvernail, who stuck to hiding from the sun underneath an umbrella and blanket, and reading a book. She wore the same white sundress she did previously, because she hated going into the water. Marisa looked up for a moment when Steve Knox called for her, and she eventually stood up and walked towards her former high school sweetheart.
"Yes, Steve?" she asked, adjusting her glasses a bit as she approached him.
"I hate to be a bother to you, since you seemed so at peace a bit ago, but we left the suntan lotion in our bags back at the mansion. Could you run back and get it?" Steve asked of the girl that acted as his bodyguard. He was tempting fate, of course, since asking such a menial request from a woman that could break every bone in his body with little effort wasn't the smartest of moves.
Fortunately for the health of "Captain Awesome", Marisa was nothing if not a sweetheart, "Sure."
The trail between the beach and the mansion really wasn't a long hike, though when she got to the front door, she happened to glance to her left. There, in the garden near the mansion's side, she saw Louis Chambers and his father, John, bickering and yelling at one another. From the distance Marisa was at, she couldn't make out any of the words they were saying, but she could tell from the volume and the animation of the two men that it wasn't a pleasant argument.
Paying it no mind, Marisa entered the mansion.
Meanwhile, Alice Wright looked out at the western horizon, where she saw something that displeased her. She looked over at Chris Chambers, and pointed at what she was seeing, "Hey, Chris... are those storm clouds?"
Chris Chambers followed Alice's finger, and saw the thing that brought Alice's concern. He frowned, and nodded his head, "Yeah. They look pretty ugly, too."
Alice sighed, "Just what we needed."
* . *
Outside of the comforts of John Chambers' mansion, a severe storm lashed at the poor island without anything resembling mercy. A torrential downpour of rain was coupled with a whipping westernly wind ensured that most of the fun of this trip would occur inside the mansion. To further the disappointment that Steve Knox was feeling, there wasn't really a whole lot to do in John Chambers' mansion.
Steve Knox found himself sitting around a table. Louis Chambers, still wearing his clothes from before, was to his left. Alice Wright, wearing a white tube top and jean shorts, was to his right. Sitting across from his were the steely purple eyes of the Cosmo Kid. His eyes were purple because, Steve assumed, he wore colored contacts. Although, given what little he knew about Cosmo, they could be his natural colors and he's not telling him. They had been sitting there, playing card games for the past three hours, which wasn't exactly what they had in mind when they jumped at the chance of an island getaway.
After the fifth round of Texas Hold'em, a game Steve Knox neither liked nor knew the rules to, he decided that perhaps it was time to go to bed.
As he exited the recreation room, Steve Knox looked around for a bit until he realized that he truly had no idea where anything was in this "stupid" mansion (in his words). He turned a corner in one hallway, and happened upon two women talking. One of them was Shirley, the quiet maid. The other was unknown to Steve, but she was a strong-looking woman with short, raven black hair. She seemed to be a businesswoman of some sort, wearing a black pantsuit. She made the meek Shirley look practically insignificant in comparison. It didn't help that this other woman was being loud and unpleasant.
"I can't believe he would do this!" she yelled, throwing her hands up in the air, "Louis is the older child, isn't he!? Why would John write him out of the will? It doesn't make sense!"
"I...I'm sure he had his reasons..." Shirley managed to choke out, but the other woman would have none of it.
"Reasons? Reasons!?" she spat, nearly putting saliva right in poor Shirley's face, "What reason could he POSSIBLY have for choosing that ***** over my Louis?! Answer me that!"
Steve Knox's curiosity got the better of him.
"Is there something the matter?" Steve asked. The look on the other woman's face, a mixture of annoyance and disgust, would prove to Steve Knox that he should stay the hell out of any conversation that ever went on in the mansion.
"Something the matter? Of course there is! That bastard left my husband out of his will!" the woman complained.
"Miss Margaret..." Shirley interjected, softly, "Please don't yell at our guests."
Margaret Chambers was the wife of Louis Chambers, a woman of twenty-six years of age who came from a prominent family of stockbrokers. With the country in the midst of a recession, Margaret found herself unemployed from her previous company. She had few job prospects, as well, thanks to the lack of the need for people in her particular profession. So, her family elected to have her marry into the Chambers family in a desperate attempt to sustain their standard of living. There was no love in their relationship from Margaret's side, only the promise of money.
And now, to Margaret, it seemed that the promise was being broken.
"I can yell at whoever I damn well please!" snapped Margaret. An unpleasant aroma finally hit Steve's nostrils, the distinct odor of liquor. Steve felt revulsion, though he tried his best not to show that on his face. Truth be told, he hated alcohol, and he primarilly hated it because it was what his mother turned to after his father's passing. Its presence didn't help him like this snobby woman any better than her words, her harsh glare, or her rudeness towards other people.
After an awkward silence, Margaret simply turned away from Steve Knox in a huff and stomped off with footfalls so loud that Steve was somewhat concerned that she was leaving tiny holes in the floor from where her high heels struck. After she had left, Steve turned his head towards Shirley with an eyebrow raised, as if asking what the hell that was all about.
Shirley knew to answer, "Um... Miss Margaret was upset."
"You don't say." was Steve's sarcastic response.
Steve Knox couldn't have gotten to bed any faster after that encounter even if he were strapped to rockets while being carried by the Flash.
* . *
The storm only progressed worse as time went on, yet Steve Knox managed to somehow doze off.
He was awoken by a sound, not unlike lightning, but far louder than it. At first, he wasn't completely sure if it was part of the storm or something else. However, a second, starkly similar sound soon followed. Steve had heard the sound before in his youth, and he now had a somewhat sick feeling in his gut. Those were not lightning strikes.
Those were gunshots.
Steve Knox knew the sound all too well. His dad owned a large collection of guns, some of which from even back in the Civil War era, and he even showed Steve how to fire one or two. He remembered the sound because after firing a couple of practice rounds, Steve's ears rang like bells for a solid week. He never wanted to hear that sound again, and he stopped watching a lot of television shows because of it.
Needless to say, Steve Knox didn't feel great when he heard the noise, and his mind started to race almost as fast as his feet were. He hit the door before his hands could twist the knob, slightly splintering it shortly before he fumbled with the doorknob long enough to get it open. He poked his head out of the door frame in a panic, the sounds had definitely come from inside the mansion and he didn't want to get himself shot. That wouldn't be awesome.
Almost as soon as his door flew open did the door to the adjacent room held by Marisa Silvernail and Alice Wright come flying open as well. Marisa and Alice had both been awake and in the middle of some weird project of Alice's. Alice was in her pajamas, but Marisa was wearing a Japanese school girl uniform with a yellow scarf tie, an olive green skirt, and long black stockings that reached her mid-thighs. In actuality, Alice wanted to give Marisa a katana, too, but travelling around God's half acre with a katana would probably get dicey when dealing with customs.
"What's going on?" Alice asked, a slight hint of her own panic in her voice. Alice looked at Steve as if he had all of the answers, ever. As tough a front as Alice put on for other people, she can actually be a scared little girl underneath it all. Steve had known her long enough to understand this, though, and he looked around for any signs of life other than himself and the girls. Finally, he spoke.
"Did... did you guys hear that?" Steve asked. As if on cue, a crash of thunder was heard just over the mansion's roof. The lights flickered for a moment, but managed to stay on. Marisa and Alice looked at each other for a second, and then they both turned back to Steve and quietly nodded. They had heard the shots as well. Steve pondered this turn of events for a second, before he sprung into action.
He stepped out from his room and looked at the girls, "Alice, go wake up Cosmo and Chris. Marisa, you're with me if you don't mind people seeing you in that getup."
"I don't." Marisa said. Her own voice wavered much like Alice's did, a fact that Steve noticed only because he hadn't known Marisa to lose her composure. Even the strongest person he knew had as bad a feeling as he did.
Alice nodded at her own instructions, not sure what else she could do, but knowing she'd solve nothing if she argued with Steve over taking Marisa and not her. She quickly went to the adjacent door and quickly opened it, already shouting in a blind panic at the unfortunate occupants of the room. Steve and Marisa exchanged a glance and quickly walked in the direction they both thought the shots came from. Neither spoke a word to each other, perhaps afraid that their voices would draw the attention of future bullets. They stopped suddenly when they heard another sound, followed up by a series of similar sounds.
The sound of someone banging on a door.
Steve and Marisa hastened their pace while trying to step lightly so as not to alert anyone. When they reached the nearby junction, they found the source of the noise. It was the maid, Shirley, as she was pounding on the door with her hands. She seemed severely distraught.
"Master Chambers! Please! Open the door!" she shouted.
"What's wrong?" Marisa asked Shirley, as she and Steve approached the distraught maid.
"We heard something like a gunshot." Steve chimed in, quite a bit concerned.
"It... it came from in there." Shirley said, gesturing at the door with a shaky finger.
Steve and Marisa looked at the door. It looked like it could be broken down with just a bit of force. Just in case, Steve tried the knob himself and found that it was indeed locked from the inside. He sighed, and motioned for Marisa and Shirley to stand back. After they stepped back, he took a step back of his own, and lowered his shoulder before ramming himself full force into the door. The door buckled from the force of a large, muscular man like Steve hitting it. This allowed Steve to further kick the door open.
Not a single one of them expected the scene in front of them.
"Oh my God." were the only words that escaped the lips of Steve Knox's mouth.
The twin smells of gunpowder and death filled the air. John Chambers sat in a chair, behind a desk. His eyes saw nothing, his lungs drew no breath... he had been shot. He was hit twice, the first shot hit him in far upper torso, very close to the throat. This shot alone would've been fatal. However, the second shot seemed to be a merciful blow, a single shot right in the forehead. His head was tilted backwards in his chair, and blood flowed from the wound on his forehead and down the top of his skull.
The sight made Steve's knees shaky, though he managed to stay on his feet only through bracing a hand against the nearby wall. Marisa held back her own revulsion, covering her mouth and trying very hard not to throw up.
The maid, Shirley, on the other hand, chose the most logical route of simply fainting at the sight.
Steve took a moment to examine the surroundings. The room was John Chambers' personal study, located in the center of the mansion. There were no windows, nor was there a closet or any discernable hiding spot in the room. Steve sighed, and approached the body of Mr. Chambers. He stopped short of getting terribly close to him, and examined the surroundings. There were signs of a struggle, many papers and documents had been scattered around and knocked over. Blood was everywhere, not just coming from JOhn's wounds, but some of it was on his cheeks and his mouth as well. The first bullet's position and the timing between shots meant that he was still alive for a few agonizing seconds, and he must have choked up plenty of blood as he fought to stay alive.
Finally, Steve turned back to his mortified bodyguard.
"Marisa, get the posse together. Have them meet me in the rec room." Steve said, solemnly.
"Huh?" Marisa asked, still suffering from the shock.
Steve turned around, perhaps a bit too dramatically as a result of the actor's blood he inherited from his father, "We've got a killer on the loose."
* . *
The mood in the rec room was far more solemn than it was, earlier. Marisa Silvernail looked like she had seen a ghost and hadn't even the mindset to change out of the school girl uniform that Alice made her wear. Alice Wright looked like she had heard about the ghost. Chris Chambers had naturally passed out from the shock of learning of his uncle's sudden death. Even the Cosmo Kid looked a bit down. Alice was clinging to Marisa's arm, not used to dealing with this kind of situation. Marisa hadn't the heart to let Alice know that she was cutting off the circulation in her arm.
Steve Knox paced in front of the four of them, his hands behind his back. He was lost in thought, pondering the events that led them to right now.
"Whoever did this is still on the island." Steve observed.
"H-how do you figure?" Alice nervously asked. The prospect of a murderer being anywhere near her just made her even more edgy. Steve nodded, acknowledging Alice's nervousness, as he was just as nervous.
"We're in the middle of a storm, and the waters are too rough to leave." Cosmo Kid observed. For a guy who wore a mask all day, he did make some astute observations at times.
Steve nodded at Cosmo's point, regardless, "Yeah. And as far as we know, that leaves us, Louis, Louis's wife, the butler, and the maid."
"Louis has a wife?" Alice asked. She was stunned because she was so used to Chris Chambers being such a loser in life that she downright expected his entire family to be losers. Alice looked at Chris Chambers for a moment, who was still passed out, as if to prove this perception in her mind again.
"Yeah. And she really, really wasn't happy with Mr. Chambers." Steve said, with a sigh, "She's kind of a *****."
"Well, maybe she did it." Marisa offered, before she had this moment of clarity in her mind, "Or maybe Mr. Louis. I saw him arguing with his dad when I went to get the suntan lotion."
"What? No way. That'd totally ruin my big 'the butler did it' theory that I had turning in my head." Steve Knox said, not a single hint of irony in his voice. Alice and Marisa simply glared at Steve Knox for a moment, realizing with a collective groan that he was dead serious.
Finally, the Cosmo Kid spoke up, "That butler didn't do it."
"How come you know so much? Didn't Alice drag you and Chris out of your rooms?" Steve asked of his masked compatriot.
"No, I just think it's stupid to assume the butler did it simply because he's the butler." Cosmo said. Subtlety was not the way of the Cosmo Kid, he'd usually say what everyone else was thinking. He continued, "Besides, he was in bed like we were. Alice and I went to wake him after she woke me. He's coming down with a cold because he was trying to protect his garden from the storm and got pelted by the rain."
"Well," Steve said, "The door was locked and nobody was in the room with the dude. We didn't find the murder weapon, either. So, the first steps of our mystery is to eliminate the suspects and then we can figure out how they might have done it."
Alice glared at Steve Knox, realizing what he was doing, "Don't make this a detective game, Steve. This is serious. Somebody killed Mr. Chambers."
"Yes, I know!" Steve snapped back, which surprised Alice. He was normally a calm and laidback kind of guy, but perhaps the stress of the situation was getting the better of him. Steve took a moment to take a deep breath and calm himself, before he continued, "Look, if we don't figure this out, we might have more victims on our hands. And I dunno about you, but I don't think I can sleep tonight knowing that somebody here is a killer."
There was silence in the room.
Finally, it was broken by Chris Chambers, who had woken up in the middle of the conversation and looked, for once, very serious, "What do you want us to do, Steve?"
Steve almost did a double-take at Chris's few moments of clarity, but he nodded in understanding, "Alright. Chris, you and Alice go find and question Louis Chambers. Figure out where he's been and what he's been up to. Marisa, you're with me. We're gonna talk to Mrs. Sunshine Chambers."
Cosmo looked to his left, and then looked to his right, "What do you want me to do, then?"
"Well, frankly, Cosmo, you're probably creepy enough to take a look at the crime scene." Steve said, gesturing in the direction that the room where the body was, "See if you can spot something we might have missed."
"On it." Cosmo said, almost instantly. The quick response and the sudden glee in his voice both conspired to make Cosmo Kid sound creepy enough that nobody wanted to say anything else to the guy. He left the room first. After a pause, Chris Chambers and Alice Wright shuffled out of the room to go find and talk to Louis Chambers. This left the former high school sweethearts together.
"You, ahh... seem strangely different." Marisa said to Steve.
Steve exhaled greatly, as if letting out all of the air he had puffed himself up with to make him seem bigger and more important than he really was, "I'm worried as hell, to tell you the truth. So's everyone else. So if I don't instill confidence in everyone, Mari, who will?"
Marisa could only nod in agreement as the two left the room.
* . *
Marisa and Steve both found Margaret Chambers with the greatest of ease, because she was yelling at her cell phone.
More specifically, she was yelling at her cell phone because it wasn't working. The severity of the storm and the positioning of the island made the reception very difficult, if not impossible. She was in her room, a pricey and well-decorated room with a good view of the ocean from the cliffside. The curtains alone were more expensive than some cars, much less the rest of the room's features. Margaret had changed to her nightgown and had her black hair in curlers.
Margaret was interrupted in the middle of her yelling session by the knock on her door from Steve and his bodyguard. She marched over to the door and nearly pulled the doorknob out of its socket in jerking it open. She didn't especially great the two of them with rays of sunshine and candy, either.
"What do you want?"
"We, uh..." Steve stammered, not sure how to approach this conversation off the bat. Fortunately, he did bring Marisa along, who was far less awkward around people than Steve was.
"Did you hear about what happened?" Marisa asked.
"Oh, you mean that idiot getting shot? Hmph. How simply dreadful." Margaret said with as much sympathy and sincerity as a block of wood, or perhaps Brandon Youngblood. She placed her free hand on her hips, while glaring at the two of them, "What? I'm glad he's dead. I hope he burns in hell."
"You weren't the one who shot him?" Steve asked, rather incredulously, "You sound like you had enough antipathy for him, anyway."
Margaret Chambers glared upwards at the tall, muscular man. Already, Steve Knox could tell that he wasn't about to like the words that were going to come out of this woman's mouth. She would not disappoint him, "Are your brains made of muscles, too, you ape? I didn't shoot him. I wouldn't have bothered. You know who I'd shoot? His damn tree-hugging hippie of a daughter that's gonna get all of his money. What the hell is she going to do with fifty-eight million dollars other than donating it to ****ing charity?! It's disgusting! It's insulting! He might as well give his money to a god damn chipmunk, it'd know what the hell they're doing better than she ever would!"
By the time Margaret was done with her diatrabe, she was out of breath and had Steve Knox wondering if she was, in fact, the very avatar of greed born into the shell of a woman. Even Marisa was taken aback by her, so Steve had to field the next portion of the conversation, "Do you think you could tell us if you know anything?"
Margaret seemingly calmed down a bit, "Hmph. I heard two gunshots. The second one was probably a good thirty seconds after the first one."
"Thirty seconds..." Steve muttered to himself, "Why that long?"
"How should I know?" Margaret snapped back, "I wasn't the one who shot him."
Steve nodded in that "I know, you just said that" sort of way. For some reason, part of him wondered if she had really done it. He felt that there was something important that he was missing. It was around this time that the Cosmo Kid came bursting into the room.
"Hey. I got something." the Kid said. Unfortunately, he was barely heard over the horrified shrieks of Margaret Chambers.
"What the **** is THAT!?" she exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the man who wore the pink and white star-print luchador mask and the black business suit. The Cosmo Kid simply looked at Margaret and proceeded to completely ignore her.
Cosmo looked at Steve and Marisa, instead, "I think that whoever killed him was definitely a woman."
Steve and Marisa took a glance back at Margaret, who crossed her arms and attempted to fire death beams out of her eyes. It didn't work, although she wasn't disappointed since she wasn't consciously trying to fire death beams in the first place. The Cosmo Kid, meanwhile, blissfully ignored Margaret and proceeded to continue, "I saw some lipstick on his neck. I almost missed it, though, because of all the blood and my desire to preserve the crime scene. It must have been a crime of passion."
It was at this moment that something clicked in Steve Knox's head. He put an arm over Cosmo's shoulders and pulled his head close for a whisper.
"Cosmo... Gsther everyone to the lobby. I think I know who did it." Steve said.
* . *
The lobby of the mansion was filled with a cast that looked like it was straight out of Survivor. Louis Chambers looked haggard, beset with the knowledge that his father had been murdered. Margaret Chambers seemed to be more content with filing this night under "the second-worst night of her life". Shirley had finally woken up. James, the butler, was not present. He was sick in bed, and Steve had ruled him out as a suspect.
Steve Knox and his "posse" were positioned in a sort of a loose half circle. Steve was in the center, to his left were Cosmo Kid and then Marisa Silvernail, and to his right were Chris Chambers and Alice Wright. Steve Knox cleared his throat, "I know who killed John Chambers."
Louis didn't say anything, though he looked up at Steve with a weary-eyed look. Margaret and Shirley both looked up, equally as wordless, but showing a little more life than Louis was.
Steve continued, "Let me go over the facts as we know them so far. Mr. Chambers was shot twice, once in the throat and once in the head. The shots occured a significant amount of time between one another. We found the body after I rammed the door in. After a bit of questioning, Cosmo over here found something out. Lipstick on the neck. Cosmo, what color was that lipstick, again?"
"Ruby red."
"Right." Steve said, "I couldn't help but notice, Miss Shirley, that you're wearing similar lipstick."
"Um... just a coincidence, I suppose." she said, softly.
"I also couldn't help but notice that you were the first one on the scene, before Marisa and I got there. How'd you get there so quickly?" Steve asked.
"I, I was in the hallway, dusting." Shirley stammered. She didn't seem to be particularly comfortable with this line of questioning.
The storm got worse outside.
"Do you want to know what I think? I think that our killer shot him, but didn't kill him. And after realizing that he would take a long time to die, they shot him again. A mercy killing. That doesn't sound like the actions of a cold-hearted person to me, but someone who might not have meant to kill their victim right away. A lover, perhaps." Steve said. He continued with his point, "So, after shooting Mr. Chambers, this person would lock the door behind them... and then start trying to break back in."
"What?" Shirley asked, incredulous, "W-what are you saying!?"
Much as he'd loathe to admit it, Steve Knox had definitely inherited the acting flair of his father, the wrestling-actor Earl Knox. He always considered himself a professional wrestler long before he would ever be an actor. However, on this night, in making his proclaimation, he let himself do a dramatic pause. The clash of thunder almost drove him to point his finger at the woman.
"It was you."
"W-what?!" Shirley responded, taking almost an unconscious step back. She was surprised, the tone of her voice trying to remain calm while hiding a large enough nugget of worry that even Steve could notice it, "What are you talking about!?"
"You're the one who shot Mr. Chambers." Steve said, continuing to point an accusing finger at her. The tone in his voice was at its most serious. All of the facts that they had gathered so far had pointed at this woman.
"Pre-preposterous!" Shirley shouted. Yet, she shivered, and seemed to hug herself for warmth. His words were akin to having lots of needles made out ice stuck in her body.
"You were his lover, and you had the opportunity." Steve continued.
"L-Ludicrous..."
"It was definitely you. Just give up, we'll call the authorities when the storm passes, and it'll all be over." Steve said, calmly. He knew that the situation was precarious. Everyone was tired, and he didn't want things to degenerate to chaos.
Shirley's reaction was all too the predictable, yet all too surprising... for a cornered and frightened young woman.
Steve saw the Walther PPK in her hand as it pointed in his direction. He saw the faint streaming of tears down Shirley's face, a defeated expression on her face. This would not end well, and he knew it.
"It's... already over..."
The gun trembled in her grip as it wavered in its aim at Steve's chest.
Steve knew that he was no longer the one in control.
Bang.
Alice could be heard screaming. Most everyone else were cringing.
Steve cringed upon hearing the sound, but after a second, he realized that he hadn't been shot. He looked up and realized why, Marisa Silvernail had stepped in and managed to knock the gun's barrel up as it was being discharged, causing the bullet to pass by his head instead. Before Shirley could even recover from being put off balance, Marisa's quick fist connected square in the side of her face. Shirley was unconscious before she even hit the floor.
As Marisa shook the feeling back in her hand while looking down at Shirley's unconscious form, Steve Knox simply looked behind him at the hole that had been made in the wall from the gun.
"I should be dead..." he muttered to himself.
Meanwhile, Margaret Chambers sighed, not even caring any more now that the real culprit had been revealed, "Can I go back to my room, now?"
* . *
October 5th, 2009
The maid, Shirley Everett, was arrested the following morning after a 911 call was successfully made to the shore. She had to deliver her confession in a written format because Marisa's solitary punch had broken her jaw. As it turned out, she had been John Chambers' lover for at least a year, but he had told Shirley that night that he was planning to renew his vows with his ex-wife, and that he could no longer have her around. She couldn't take the sudden abandonment, so she shot him.
Steve Knox sat on the top of the cliff, looking down on the ocean. Somehow, his vacation turned out to be a sleepless night.
Approaching him from behind was Chris Chambers, who sat down beside Steve. For a minute, no words were exchanged between the two men. One of them had been nearly shot, and the other one had lost a family member. Finally, it was Chambers who spoke up first, "Y'know, I never really knew Uncle John, and the times I've talked to him, he always seemed so disappointed with me. Like I could've done something better with my life."
Steve looked towards Chambers, and took note of his appearance. He wasn't wearing his bandana. His normally lilac-colored hair hadn't been colored in the last couple of days and his natural blonde hair was already coming back. He looked disshelved, and much like Steve, he didn't sleep that night.
Chris continued, "I always wanted to succeed at this wrestling thing to show him that I can do well, too. I wanted to show him. And now, I never will."
Steve listened to Chris's words intently. When Steve found Chris Chambers, he had fallen on hard times and couldn't even find work. It took Steve's pity and Chris's desire to seriously learn how to wrestle to bring him to the level he was at, today. Even Jeff Garvin would be surprised to see how much his former "student" had progressed under the watchful eye of someone who cared about his progress.
"I know the feeling," Steve said, somberly, "I can't prove to dad that I've made it, either."
The wind blew calmly, a far cry from what it was doing just hours ago.
There was silence between the two men at first.
"If Marisa hadn't stepped in when she did, I think I'd have been telling dad about my success in heaven." Steve finally said, breaking the silence.
"Give her a pay raise when we get back," Chambers said, as he started to stand up again, "Oh, and me, too."
"Your uncle had fifty-eight million dollars, you sure you won't see any of it?" Steve asked, as he got up, himself.
"Not a chance," Chambers said, as he started to tie his bandana back onto his head again, "He only ever loved his daughter, he ain't gonna give any to a guy like me."
Steve Knox chuckled for the first time in many hours, "Probably."
As the two of them walked away, Steve proposed a new plan, "Oh, and Chris, I'm gonna need a vacation just to recover from this one you set us up on."
Chris Chambers looked at Steve Knox with a wry smile, as he slowly drifted back into his usual character.
"Roger that, G."
* . *
The clash of thunder almost drove him to point his finger at the woman.
"It was you."
"W-what?!" the accused responded, taking almost an unconscious step back. She was surprised, the tone of her voice trying to remain calm while hiding a large enough nugget of worry that even he could notice it, "What are you talking about!?"
"You're the one who shot Mr. Chambers." he said, continuing to point an accusing finger at her. The tone in his voice was at its most serious. All of the facts pointed at this woman.
"Pre-preposterous!" the woman shouted. Yet, she shivered, and seemed to hug herself for warmth. His words were akin to having lots of needles made out ice stuck in her body.
"You were his lover, and you had the opportunity." the man continued.
"L-Ludicrous..."
"It was definitely you. Just give up, we'll call the authorities when the storm passes, and it'll all be over." the man said, calmly. He knew that the situation was precarious, and he didn't want things to degenerate to chaos.
The woman's reaction was all too the predictable, yet all too surprising.
He saw the glint of metal in her hand as it pointed in his direction. He saw the faint streaming of tears down the woman's face, a defeated expression on her face. He knew that this would end too ugly, too fast.
"It's... already over..."
Bang.
* . *
October 4th, 2008; Off the coast of North Carolina
Steve Knox often wondered how his life measured up to the lives of others. Sure, he was a professional wrestler, and at this moment in time, he was sitting pretty on two hard-won championship belts. However, the events in his life were considered, by Steve, to be so extraordinary that if he were to ever write his memoirs, it'd be moved into the fiction section of the library.
Today, he found himself on a high speed ferry (or as Tyler Rayne might say... "he's on a boat, mother****er"), which sped along the waters off the coast of North Carolina.
The destination was a privately owned island, owned by an wealthy uncle of Chris Chambers'. Steve and his gang had been granted an invite to vacation there for two days by Chris's cousin. When Steve first heard Chris talk about his uncle and his cousin, he swore up and down that Chris was making it all up just to impress him.
He hated to eat his own words, and hated moreso that Chris elected to invite the rest of Steve's "gang" to experience the vacation.
So, not only was Steve Knox travelling with his lilac-haired, self-proclaimed "gangster" of a disciple, but he was also travelling with the other three people that usually hung around him in the first place. They included the Cosmo Kid, a certifiable weirdo who always wore a purple mask with a white star print and alien antennae on the top and a black business suit with a red tie; Marisa Silvernail, Steve Knox's red-headed high school girlfriend who worked as his legitimately dangerous bodyguard; and Alice Wright, Steve Knox's perfectionist documentarian, closet Japanophile, and childhood friend.
"You know," Alice said to Steve, who was more busy trying to figure out how Chris Chambers happened to be related to a guy rich enough to own a mansion built on a privately own island, "This situation seems awfully familiar to me."
"It's just your imagination." Steve said, shrugging off his childhood friend.
Alice was not an unattractive girl, especially not when she wore denim shorts and a short yellow tanktop that exposed her belly button like she did on this day. However, she had a manner and an attitude that made her rather offputting to other men, which was probably why Steve had never dated her, even though they'd been friends since they were toddlers.
Alice had brought her camera for the trip, though it was less so for the purposes of the Steve Knox documentry and moreso just to chronicle what should be an amusing time.
She focused her camera's attention to Marisa, whose white sundress flapped in the speeding ocean wind as she stood and watched the waves. If there was any one person she liked to film, it was Marisa, because she happened to be quite photogenic. Unfortunately, an entirely unphotogenic Cosmo Kid suddenly stepped in front of the shot.
"Hey," Cosmo said, pointing off to a place that was out of camera's vision, "There's the island."
Alice's camera turned to see an island that wasn't too far from the boat. It wasn't a very big island, but it was just large enough to comprise an estate for a large brick mansion, very elaborate in design, yet built to withstand strong hurricanes. The island was actually fairly elevated from the sea, at least tall enough to keep high storm surge waves from flooding the mansion. The mansion itself overlooked a beach, and had a scenic view from its position at the top of the mountain.
Steve Knox whistled when he saw it, "Hey, Chris?"
Chris Chambers laid fairly lackadastically on a seat in the ferry, mostly just relaxing. He wore a "throwback" Chicago Bulls jersey, a pair of jean shorts, and a white bandana that covered his lilac-colored hair. He idly turned his head towards Steve Knox, "Yeah?"
"I'm gonna take back some of the things I said about you." Steve said with a chuckle.
* . *
As the ferry pulled into the small pier, they were greeted by a single man. He was a white man with short brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a white collared shirt with a red tie, and black pants with black loafers. He looked to be in his late 20s, and looked a bit tired. Yet, he smiled upon seeing Steve and his gang, particularly when he saw Chambers.
Chris approached this man, and gave him a high five, "Louis, my main G, what's up, yo?"
"Just killing time, these days." Louis told Chris.
Steve Knox walked over to Chris and whispered to him, "Dude, you're in front of family, you can chill with the gimmick." Then he looked at Louis, "Hey. I'm Steve Knox. Thanks for letting us tag along."
Louis shook Steve's hand, "Name's Louis Chambers. I'm Chris's cousin. It's a pleasure to meet you, I've been watching the TV to catch Chris after he told me he was back on television again, so all I know all about you."
Knox nodded, and as he did so, the Cosmo Kid walked up, carrying a satchel over his shoulder, "Nice place. Did the architect die while building it?"
Louis looked at Cosmo Kid for a second before turning back to Steve Knox, but then he thought about Cosmo's bizarre inquiry, did a double take back to Cosmo, realized that he wears a damn luchador mask even when vacationing, and found his mouth literally quivering in confusion while he tried in vain to come up with a response. Instantly, Steve knew what the problem was and rested a hand on Louis's shoulder, "Don't worry about Cosmo. He does things that make us go 'what the hell?' all the damn time."
Almost to emphasize the point, the Cosmo Kid gives Louis a particularly disturbing wink before he walked past him to join Chris Chambers in climbing up the stairs that led to the main island. As they did this, Marisa and Alice walked up, each carrying their bags. Then, unceremoniously, Alice dropped her bag right in front of Steve's feet.
"I trust you've got this from here." Alice said. As she said it, Marisa smiled at Steve before she, too, dropped her bag in front of him. Steve looked down at the bags for an uncomfortable minute, an expression that clearly screamed "you've got to be kidding me" written all over his face.
"I'm not your bellboy!" Steve complained.
Alice grumbled as she stepped past Louis Chambers, her only possession in her hands being her camera, "Oh, quit your whining, Steve. Just enjoy yourself."
Steve had a hard time "enjoying himself" when he was the one carrying the bags. He sighed and stooped over to pick up Alice's bag... and was surprised at how heavy it was. He picked it up over his shoulder and shouted at Alice, "Jesus, Alice! What's IN this thing!?"
"None of your business." was Alice's response before she walked up the stairs. Marisa giggled to herself before she joined Alice in heading up the stairs.
Steve sighed, though Louis picked up Marisa's bag for him, "You travel with some interesting people, Mr. Knox."
"You have *no* idea." was Steve Knox's exasperated response as they climbed the steps.
* . *
When Steve and his "posse" reached the mansion, there was an older man standing at the door to greet them.
This man was older than Louis Chambers, in his late 40s. He was tall, but a bit thin and wiry in build. Although his hair was black, it was likely dyed this way because he happened to have gray sideburns. He also had a thin mustache across his lips. He wore a gray business suit, but didn't wear a tie.
By his side and just behind him were two other people, a butler wearing a typical uniform of a butler, and a maid wearing a typical uniform of a maid. The butler was younger, and he probably just turned 30. He had long hair that he tied into a simple ponytail, and he had his hands behind his back. The maid was in her mid-20s, and had shoulder-length brown hair. She was sort of pretty, but didn't really carry herself like she was absolutely gorgeous, either. The most striking feature she had was the ruby red lipstick she wore.
"These are our guests?" the man asked. The almost accusing tone in his question definitely ensured, in the mind of Steve Knox, that this man had no knowledge of the sorts of guests Louis Chambers had invited to the island.
"Uh, yeah, dad." was the sheepish response of Louis Chambers.
"Hmph," the man said, almost sticking his nose up in the air, "Enjoy your stay. Don't break anything."
And with that unceremonious greeting, the man simply turned around. His butler opened the door and let him in, before shutting the door and turning his attention to his guests.
"I must apologize for the master's uncouth manner." the butler said. He had a British accent, which might have increased his "refinement" levels in the perception of Alice Wright. Steve Knox swore he saw sparkles in her eyes.
"It's no problem. Who was he?" Steve Knox asked.
"He is the owner of this island, Mr. John Chambers. I am James, his butler." the butler explained, before he gestured at the maid, who just sort of looked away, shyly, "The quiet young lady here is Shirley, the maid."
"Hello." Shirley said with a voice so soft that barely anyone actually heard her.
Steve Knox introduced his gang to them, culminating in the introduction of Chris Chambers.
"Ah," James said, "So, you must be the master's nephew. You have a... unique atmosphere around yourself."
"I'm the big bomb diggity daddy, straight up G-style from the mad streetz of Chi-Town, yo."
This comment from Chris Chambers simply flopped in the air like a dead fish, intoxicating the air with its rank stench. Even James had a hard time figuring out exactly what the hell Chris Chambers just said, and eventually, Steve Knox had to loudly clear his throat to break the awkward silence, "Chris, you can cool it with the gimmick here. The only camera here is Alice's."
Chris paused to consider it, and then removed his bandana to reveal his lilac-colored hair, before he looked as seriously as he could look at the butler considering that he was a lilac-haired white man wearing hip hop paraphernalia, "Yeah, that's me."
As Chris got in touch with his serious side, Alice Wright brushed him aside as thoughtlessly as she might brush aside a stray tree branch on her way through a forest. She spoke to James with two parts awe and one part curiosity, as if her voice had developed some alchemic formulae for her emotions, "Wow, what part of Britian are you from?"
"Manchester, my dear," James said, before he held his hand out, "I'll take the bags from here."
Steve dropped Alice's bag almost completely without ceremony, then gesturing wildly at Alice, "Oh, thank God. This woman packed a friggin' tank."
Alice's response was to simply walk over and slap Steve right in the back of his head.
After giving him a "hmph!", Alice walked towards the front doors of the mansion and let herself in. Marisa smiled pleasantly at James, before she followed Alice inside. Shirley opened the door for Marisa before entering the mansion herself. James picked up the bag with a bit of a grunt, realizing that the bag was quite heavy. He turned to look at Steve Knox with a bit of a surprised look on his face, "What *is* in this bag?"
The Cosmo Kid walked up, and looked straight at James, "A tripod for her camera, four or five handmade costumes and shoes to go with them, a swimsuit, two sets of 'regular' clothes, an Xbox 360, two wireless controllers, toiletry items, and six Xbox 360 games."
James looked confused, primarilly at the fact that the man who just spoke to him wore a weird mask, had a voice like Barry White despite being clearly white, and just rattled off a bunch of nonsense, "Huh?"
"The contents of Alice's bag." Cosmo said. Steve, Louis, and Chris all stared at Cosmo Kid, which was something that wasn't lost on Cosmo, as he spoke again, "He asked what was in it."
Without uttering another word, Cosmo went into the mansion. The remaining four people just gave each other funny looks for a bit before deciding to not question the Cosmo Kid on why he would know what Alice brought with her on the trip.
The day had just started, after all. No need to get into the bizarre.
* . *
In the opinion of Marisa Silvernail... if there was ever a time that Steve Knox, professional wrestler, was glad that he was blessed by a body seemingly forged by the Gods, it was now. He stood on the beach, wearing red swim trunks and red flip flops, with his hands on his hips and a smile etched across his face.
Steve was happy mostly because, of the men in his company, both of them were effectively skinny white boys. He'd stand out and "be more awesome", at least in his mind. Of course, there were so very few women on this beach, primarilly because Steve and the gang *were* on an island, isolated far from the North Carolina shore.
Chris Chambers wore green swim trunks, but he was also still wearing his white bandana over his head. The Cosmo Kid, meanwhile, still wore his mask and he also had on a black speedo, an image that no doubt would be burned into Steve Knox's retinas for the rest of his natural life and maybe some of his afterlife. Alice Wright, who wore a bold two-piece tiger print swimsuit, had taken to going into the water. However, Marisa could hear her complaints about the water's temperature from her vantage point, far from the shore.
Marisa Silvernail, who stuck to hiding from the sun underneath an umbrella and blanket, and reading a book. She wore the same white sundress she did previously, because she hated going into the water. Marisa looked up for a moment when Steve Knox called for her, and she eventually stood up and walked towards her former high school sweetheart.
"Yes, Steve?" she asked, adjusting her glasses a bit as she approached him.
"I hate to be a bother to you, since you seemed so at peace a bit ago, but we left the suntan lotion in our bags back at the mansion. Could you run back and get it?" Steve asked of the girl that acted as his bodyguard. He was tempting fate, of course, since asking such a menial request from a woman that could break every bone in his body with little effort wasn't the smartest of moves.
Fortunately for the health of "Captain Awesome", Marisa was nothing if not a sweetheart, "Sure."
The trail between the beach and the mansion really wasn't a long hike, though when she got to the front door, she happened to glance to her left. There, in the garden near the mansion's side, she saw Louis Chambers and his father, John, bickering and yelling at one another. From the distance Marisa was at, she couldn't make out any of the words they were saying, but she could tell from the volume and the animation of the two men that it wasn't a pleasant argument.
Paying it no mind, Marisa entered the mansion.
Meanwhile, Alice Wright looked out at the western horizon, where she saw something that displeased her. She looked over at Chris Chambers, and pointed at what she was seeing, "Hey, Chris... are those storm clouds?"
Chris Chambers followed Alice's finger, and saw the thing that brought Alice's concern. He frowned, and nodded his head, "Yeah. They look pretty ugly, too."
Alice sighed, "Just what we needed."
* . *
Outside of the comforts of John Chambers' mansion, a severe storm lashed at the poor island without anything resembling mercy. A torrential downpour of rain was coupled with a whipping westernly wind ensured that most of the fun of this trip would occur inside the mansion. To further the disappointment that Steve Knox was feeling, there wasn't really a whole lot to do in John Chambers' mansion.
Steve Knox found himself sitting around a table. Louis Chambers, still wearing his clothes from before, was to his left. Alice Wright, wearing a white tube top and jean shorts, was to his right. Sitting across from his were the steely purple eyes of the Cosmo Kid. His eyes were purple because, Steve assumed, he wore colored contacts. Although, given what little he knew about Cosmo, they could be his natural colors and he's not telling him. They had been sitting there, playing card games for the past three hours, which wasn't exactly what they had in mind when they jumped at the chance of an island getaway.
After the fifth round of Texas Hold'em, a game Steve Knox neither liked nor knew the rules to, he decided that perhaps it was time to go to bed.
As he exited the recreation room, Steve Knox looked around for a bit until he realized that he truly had no idea where anything was in this "stupid" mansion (in his words). He turned a corner in one hallway, and happened upon two women talking. One of them was Shirley, the quiet maid. The other was unknown to Steve, but she was a strong-looking woman with short, raven black hair. She seemed to be a businesswoman of some sort, wearing a black pantsuit. She made the meek Shirley look practically insignificant in comparison. It didn't help that this other woman was being loud and unpleasant.
"I can't believe he would do this!" she yelled, throwing her hands up in the air, "Louis is the older child, isn't he!? Why would John write him out of the will? It doesn't make sense!"
"I...I'm sure he had his reasons..." Shirley managed to choke out, but the other woman would have none of it.
"Reasons? Reasons!?" she spat, nearly putting saliva right in poor Shirley's face, "What reason could he POSSIBLY have for choosing that ***** over my Louis?! Answer me that!"
Steve Knox's curiosity got the better of him.
"Is there something the matter?" Steve asked. The look on the other woman's face, a mixture of annoyance and disgust, would prove to Steve Knox that he should stay the hell out of any conversation that ever went on in the mansion.
"Something the matter? Of course there is! That bastard left my husband out of his will!" the woman complained.
"Miss Margaret..." Shirley interjected, softly, "Please don't yell at our guests."
Margaret Chambers was the wife of Louis Chambers, a woman of twenty-six years of age who came from a prominent family of stockbrokers. With the country in the midst of a recession, Margaret found herself unemployed from her previous company. She had few job prospects, as well, thanks to the lack of the need for people in her particular profession. So, her family elected to have her marry into the Chambers family in a desperate attempt to sustain their standard of living. There was no love in their relationship from Margaret's side, only the promise of money.
And now, to Margaret, it seemed that the promise was being broken.
"I can yell at whoever I damn well please!" snapped Margaret. An unpleasant aroma finally hit Steve's nostrils, the distinct odor of liquor. Steve felt revulsion, though he tried his best not to show that on his face. Truth be told, he hated alcohol, and he primarilly hated it because it was what his mother turned to after his father's passing. Its presence didn't help him like this snobby woman any better than her words, her harsh glare, or her rudeness towards other people.
After an awkward silence, Margaret simply turned away from Steve Knox in a huff and stomped off with footfalls so loud that Steve was somewhat concerned that she was leaving tiny holes in the floor from where her high heels struck. After she had left, Steve turned his head towards Shirley with an eyebrow raised, as if asking what the hell that was all about.
Shirley knew to answer, "Um... Miss Margaret was upset."
"You don't say." was Steve's sarcastic response.
Steve Knox couldn't have gotten to bed any faster after that encounter even if he were strapped to rockets while being carried by the Flash.
* . *
The storm only progressed worse as time went on, yet Steve Knox managed to somehow doze off.
He was awoken by a sound, not unlike lightning, but far louder than it. At first, he wasn't completely sure if it was part of the storm or something else. However, a second, starkly similar sound soon followed. Steve had heard the sound before in his youth, and he now had a somewhat sick feeling in his gut. Those were not lightning strikes.
Those were gunshots.
Steve Knox knew the sound all too well. His dad owned a large collection of guns, some of which from even back in the Civil War era, and he even showed Steve how to fire one or two. He remembered the sound because after firing a couple of practice rounds, Steve's ears rang like bells for a solid week. He never wanted to hear that sound again, and he stopped watching a lot of television shows because of it.
Needless to say, Steve Knox didn't feel great when he heard the noise, and his mind started to race almost as fast as his feet were. He hit the door before his hands could twist the knob, slightly splintering it shortly before he fumbled with the doorknob long enough to get it open. He poked his head out of the door frame in a panic, the sounds had definitely come from inside the mansion and he didn't want to get himself shot. That wouldn't be awesome.
Almost as soon as his door flew open did the door to the adjacent room held by Marisa Silvernail and Alice Wright come flying open as well. Marisa and Alice had both been awake and in the middle of some weird project of Alice's. Alice was in her pajamas, but Marisa was wearing a Japanese school girl uniform with a yellow scarf tie, an olive green skirt, and long black stockings that reached her mid-thighs. In actuality, Alice wanted to give Marisa a katana, too, but travelling around God's half acre with a katana would probably get dicey when dealing with customs.
"What's going on?" Alice asked, a slight hint of her own panic in her voice. Alice looked at Steve as if he had all of the answers, ever. As tough a front as Alice put on for other people, she can actually be a scared little girl underneath it all. Steve had known her long enough to understand this, though, and he looked around for any signs of life other than himself and the girls. Finally, he spoke.
"Did... did you guys hear that?" Steve asked. As if on cue, a crash of thunder was heard just over the mansion's roof. The lights flickered for a moment, but managed to stay on. Marisa and Alice looked at each other for a second, and then they both turned back to Steve and quietly nodded. They had heard the shots as well. Steve pondered this turn of events for a second, before he sprung into action.
He stepped out from his room and looked at the girls, "Alice, go wake up Cosmo and Chris. Marisa, you're with me if you don't mind people seeing you in that getup."
"I don't." Marisa said. Her own voice wavered much like Alice's did, a fact that Steve noticed only because he hadn't known Marisa to lose her composure. Even the strongest person he knew had as bad a feeling as he did.
Alice nodded at her own instructions, not sure what else she could do, but knowing she'd solve nothing if she argued with Steve over taking Marisa and not her. She quickly went to the adjacent door and quickly opened it, already shouting in a blind panic at the unfortunate occupants of the room. Steve and Marisa exchanged a glance and quickly walked in the direction they both thought the shots came from. Neither spoke a word to each other, perhaps afraid that their voices would draw the attention of future bullets. They stopped suddenly when they heard another sound, followed up by a series of similar sounds.
The sound of someone banging on a door.
Steve and Marisa hastened their pace while trying to step lightly so as not to alert anyone. When they reached the nearby junction, they found the source of the noise. It was the maid, Shirley, as she was pounding on the door with her hands. She seemed severely distraught.
"Master Chambers! Please! Open the door!" she shouted.
"What's wrong?" Marisa asked Shirley, as she and Steve approached the distraught maid.
"We heard something like a gunshot." Steve chimed in, quite a bit concerned.
"It... it came from in there." Shirley said, gesturing at the door with a shaky finger.
Steve and Marisa looked at the door. It looked like it could be broken down with just a bit of force. Just in case, Steve tried the knob himself and found that it was indeed locked from the inside. He sighed, and motioned for Marisa and Shirley to stand back. After they stepped back, he took a step back of his own, and lowered his shoulder before ramming himself full force into the door. The door buckled from the force of a large, muscular man like Steve hitting it. This allowed Steve to further kick the door open.
Not a single one of them expected the scene in front of them.
"Oh my God." were the only words that escaped the lips of Steve Knox's mouth.
The twin smells of gunpowder and death filled the air. John Chambers sat in a chair, behind a desk. His eyes saw nothing, his lungs drew no breath... he had been shot. He was hit twice, the first shot hit him in far upper torso, very close to the throat. This shot alone would've been fatal. However, the second shot seemed to be a merciful blow, a single shot right in the forehead. His head was tilted backwards in his chair, and blood flowed from the wound on his forehead and down the top of his skull.
The sight made Steve's knees shaky, though he managed to stay on his feet only through bracing a hand against the nearby wall. Marisa held back her own revulsion, covering her mouth and trying very hard not to throw up.
The maid, Shirley, on the other hand, chose the most logical route of simply fainting at the sight.
Steve took a moment to examine the surroundings. The room was John Chambers' personal study, located in the center of the mansion. There were no windows, nor was there a closet or any discernable hiding spot in the room. Steve sighed, and approached the body of Mr. Chambers. He stopped short of getting terribly close to him, and examined the surroundings. There were signs of a struggle, many papers and documents had been scattered around and knocked over. Blood was everywhere, not just coming from JOhn's wounds, but some of it was on his cheeks and his mouth as well. The first bullet's position and the timing between shots meant that he was still alive for a few agonizing seconds, and he must have choked up plenty of blood as he fought to stay alive.
Finally, Steve turned back to his mortified bodyguard.
"Marisa, get the posse together. Have them meet me in the rec room." Steve said, solemnly.
"Huh?" Marisa asked, still suffering from the shock.
Steve turned around, perhaps a bit too dramatically as a result of the actor's blood he inherited from his father, "We've got a killer on the loose."
* . *
The mood in the rec room was far more solemn than it was, earlier. Marisa Silvernail looked like she had seen a ghost and hadn't even the mindset to change out of the school girl uniform that Alice made her wear. Alice Wright looked like she had heard about the ghost. Chris Chambers had naturally passed out from the shock of learning of his uncle's sudden death. Even the Cosmo Kid looked a bit down. Alice was clinging to Marisa's arm, not used to dealing with this kind of situation. Marisa hadn't the heart to let Alice know that she was cutting off the circulation in her arm.
Steve Knox paced in front of the four of them, his hands behind his back. He was lost in thought, pondering the events that led them to right now.
"Whoever did this is still on the island." Steve observed.
"H-how do you figure?" Alice nervously asked. The prospect of a murderer being anywhere near her just made her even more edgy. Steve nodded, acknowledging Alice's nervousness, as he was just as nervous.
"We're in the middle of a storm, and the waters are too rough to leave." Cosmo Kid observed. For a guy who wore a mask all day, he did make some astute observations at times.
Steve nodded at Cosmo's point, regardless, "Yeah. And as far as we know, that leaves us, Louis, Louis's wife, the butler, and the maid."
"Louis has a wife?" Alice asked. She was stunned because she was so used to Chris Chambers being such a loser in life that she downright expected his entire family to be losers. Alice looked at Chris Chambers for a moment, who was still passed out, as if to prove this perception in her mind again.
"Yeah. And she really, really wasn't happy with Mr. Chambers." Steve said, with a sigh, "She's kind of a *****."
"Well, maybe she did it." Marisa offered, before she had this moment of clarity in her mind, "Or maybe Mr. Louis. I saw him arguing with his dad when I went to get the suntan lotion."
"What? No way. That'd totally ruin my big 'the butler did it' theory that I had turning in my head." Steve Knox said, not a single hint of irony in his voice. Alice and Marisa simply glared at Steve Knox for a moment, realizing with a collective groan that he was dead serious.
Finally, the Cosmo Kid spoke up, "That butler didn't do it."
"How come you know so much? Didn't Alice drag you and Chris out of your rooms?" Steve asked of his masked compatriot.
"No, I just think it's stupid to assume the butler did it simply because he's the butler." Cosmo said. Subtlety was not the way of the Cosmo Kid, he'd usually say what everyone else was thinking. He continued, "Besides, he was in bed like we were. Alice and I went to wake him after she woke me. He's coming down with a cold because he was trying to protect his garden from the storm and got pelted by the rain."
"Well," Steve said, "The door was locked and nobody was in the room with the dude. We didn't find the murder weapon, either. So, the first steps of our mystery is to eliminate the suspects and then we can figure out how they might have done it."
Alice glared at Steve Knox, realizing what he was doing, "Don't make this a detective game, Steve. This is serious. Somebody killed Mr. Chambers."
"Yes, I know!" Steve snapped back, which surprised Alice. He was normally a calm and laidback kind of guy, but perhaps the stress of the situation was getting the better of him. Steve took a moment to take a deep breath and calm himself, before he continued, "Look, if we don't figure this out, we might have more victims on our hands. And I dunno about you, but I don't think I can sleep tonight knowing that somebody here is a killer."
There was silence in the room.
Finally, it was broken by Chris Chambers, who had woken up in the middle of the conversation and looked, for once, very serious, "What do you want us to do, Steve?"
Steve almost did a double-take at Chris's few moments of clarity, but he nodded in understanding, "Alright. Chris, you and Alice go find and question Louis Chambers. Figure out where he's been and what he's been up to. Marisa, you're with me. We're gonna talk to Mrs. Sunshine Chambers."
Cosmo looked to his left, and then looked to his right, "What do you want me to do, then?"
"Well, frankly, Cosmo, you're probably creepy enough to take a look at the crime scene." Steve said, gesturing in the direction that the room where the body was, "See if you can spot something we might have missed."
"On it." Cosmo said, almost instantly. The quick response and the sudden glee in his voice both conspired to make Cosmo Kid sound creepy enough that nobody wanted to say anything else to the guy. He left the room first. After a pause, Chris Chambers and Alice Wright shuffled out of the room to go find and talk to Louis Chambers. This left the former high school sweethearts together.
"You, ahh... seem strangely different." Marisa said to Steve.
Steve exhaled greatly, as if letting out all of the air he had puffed himself up with to make him seem bigger and more important than he really was, "I'm worried as hell, to tell you the truth. So's everyone else. So if I don't instill confidence in everyone, Mari, who will?"
Marisa could only nod in agreement as the two left the room.
* . *
Marisa and Steve both found Margaret Chambers with the greatest of ease, because she was yelling at her cell phone.
More specifically, she was yelling at her cell phone because it wasn't working. The severity of the storm and the positioning of the island made the reception very difficult, if not impossible. She was in her room, a pricey and well-decorated room with a good view of the ocean from the cliffside. The curtains alone were more expensive than some cars, much less the rest of the room's features. Margaret had changed to her nightgown and had her black hair in curlers.
Margaret was interrupted in the middle of her yelling session by the knock on her door from Steve and his bodyguard. She marched over to the door and nearly pulled the doorknob out of its socket in jerking it open. She didn't especially great the two of them with rays of sunshine and candy, either.
"What do you want?"
"We, uh..." Steve stammered, not sure how to approach this conversation off the bat. Fortunately, he did bring Marisa along, who was far less awkward around people than Steve was.
"Did you hear about what happened?" Marisa asked.
"Oh, you mean that idiot getting shot? Hmph. How simply dreadful." Margaret said with as much sympathy and sincerity as a block of wood, or perhaps Brandon Youngblood. She placed her free hand on her hips, while glaring at the two of them, "What? I'm glad he's dead. I hope he burns in hell."
"You weren't the one who shot him?" Steve asked, rather incredulously, "You sound like you had enough antipathy for him, anyway."
Margaret Chambers glared upwards at the tall, muscular man. Already, Steve Knox could tell that he wasn't about to like the words that were going to come out of this woman's mouth. She would not disappoint him, "Are your brains made of muscles, too, you ape? I didn't shoot him. I wouldn't have bothered. You know who I'd shoot? His damn tree-hugging hippie of a daughter that's gonna get all of his money. What the hell is she going to do with fifty-eight million dollars other than donating it to ****ing charity?! It's disgusting! It's insulting! He might as well give his money to a god damn chipmunk, it'd know what the hell they're doing better than she ever would!"
By the time Margaret was done with her diatrabe, she was out of breath and had Steve Knox wondering if she was, in fact, the very avatar of greed born into the shell of a woman. Even Marisa was taken aback by her, so Steve had to field the next portion of the conversation, "Do you think you could tell us if you know anything?"
Margaret seemingly calmed down a bit, "Hmph. I heard two gunshots. The second one was probably a good thirty seconds after the first one."
"Thirty seconds..." Steve muttered to himself, "Why that long?"
"How should I know?" Margaret snapped back, "I wasn't the one who shot him."
Steve nodded in that "I know, you just said that" sort of way. For some reason, part of him wondered if she had really done it. He felt that there was something important that he was missing. It was around this time that the Cosmo Kid came bursting into the room.
"Hey. I got something." the Kid said. Unfortunately, he was barely heard over the horrified shrieks of Margaret Chambers.
"What the **** is THAT!?" she exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the man who wore the pink and white star-print luchador mask and the black business suit. The Cosmo Kid simply looked at Margaret and proceeded to completely ignore her.
Cosmo looked at Steve and Marisa, instead, "I think that whoever killed him was definitely a woman."
Steve and Marisa took a glance back at Margaret, who crossed her arms and attempted to fire death beams out of her eyes. It didn't work, although she wasn't disappointed since she wasn't consciously trying to fire death beams in the first place. The Cosmo Kid, meanwhile, blissfully ignored Margaret and proceeded to continue, "I saw some lipstick on his neck. I almost missed it, though, because of all the blood and my desire to preserve the crime scene. It must have been a crime of passion."
It was at this moment that something clicked in Steve Knox's head. He put an arm over Cosmo's shoulders and pulled his head close for a whisper.
"Cosmo... Gsther everyone to the lobby. I think I know who did it." Steve said.
* . *
The lobby of the mansion was filled with a cast that looked like it was straight out of Survivor. Louis Chambers looked haggard, beset with the knowledge that his father had been murdered. Margaret Chambers seemed to be more content with filing this night under "the second-worst night of her life". Shirley had finally woken up. James, the butler, was not present. He was sick in bed, and Steve had ruled him out as a suspect.
Steve Knox and his "posse" were positioned in a sort of a loose half circle. Steve was in the center, to his left were Cosmo Kid and then Marisa Silvernail, and to his right were Chris Chambers and Alice Wright. Steve Knox cleared his throat, "I know who killed John Chambers."
Louis didn't say anything, though he looked up at Steve with a weary-eyed look. Margaret and Shirley both looked up, equally as wordless, but showing a little more life than Louis was.
Steve continued, "Let me go over the facts as we know them so far. Mr. Chambers was shot twice, once in the throat and once in the head. The shots occured a significant amount of time between one another. We found the body after I rammed the door in. After a bit of questioning, Cosmo over here found something out. Lipstick on the neck. Cosmo, what color was that lipstick, again?"
"Ruby red."
"Right." Steve said, "I couldn't help but notice, Miss Shirley, that you're wearing similar lipstick."
"Um... just a coincidence, I suppose." she said, softly.
"I also couldn't help but notice that you were the first one on the scene, before Marisa and I got there. How'd you get there so quickly?" Steve asked.
"I, I was in the hallway, dusting." Shirley stammered. She didn't seem to be particularly comfortable with this line of questioning.
The storm got worse outside.
"Do you want to know what I think? I think that our killer shot him, but didn't kill him. And after realizing that he would take a long time to die, they shot him again. A mercy killing. That doesn't sound like the actions of a cold-hearted person to me, but someone who might not have meant to kill their victim right away. A lover, perhaps." Steve said. He continued with his point, "So, after shooting Mr. Chambers, this person would lock the door behind them... and then start trying to break back in."
"What?" Shirley asked, incredulous, "W-what are you saying!?"
Much as he'd loathe to admit it, Steve Knox had definitely inherited the acting flair of his father, the wrestling-actor Earl Knox. He always considered himself a professional wrestler long before he would ever be an actor. However, on this night, in making his proclaimation, he let himself do a dramatic pause. The clash of thunder almost drove him to point his finger at the woman.
"It was you."
"W-what?!" Shirley responded, taking almost an unconscious step back. She was surprised, the tone of her voice trying to remain calm while hiding a large enough nugget of worry that even Steve could notice it, "What are you talking about!?"
"You're the one who shot Mr. Chambers." Steve said, continuing to point an accusing finger at her. The tone in his voice was at its most serious. All of the facts that they had gathered so far had pointed at this woman.
"Pre-preposterous!" Shirley shouted. Yet, she shivered, and seemed to hug herself for warmth. His words were akin to having lots of needles made out ice stuck in her body.
"You were his lover, and you had the opportunity." Steve continued.
"L-Ludicrous..."
"It was definitely you. Just give up, we'll call the authorities when the storm passes, and it'll all be over." Steve said, calmly. He knew that the situation was precarious. Everyone was tired, and he didn't want things to degenerate to chaos.
Shirley's reaction was all too the predictable, yet all too surprising... for a cornered and frightened young woman.
Steve saw the Walther PPK in her hand as it pointed in his direction. He saw the faint streaming of tears down Shirley's face, a defeated expression on her face. This would not end well, and he knew it.
"It's... already over..."
The gun trembled in her grip as it wavered in its aim at Steve's chest.
Steve knew that he was no longer the one in control.
Bang.
Alice could be heard screaming. Most everyone else were cringing.
Steve cringed upon hearing the sound, but after a second, he realized that he hadn't been shot. He looked up and realized why, Marisa Silvernail had stepped in and managed to knock the gun's barrel up as it was being discharged, causing the bullet to pass by his head instead. Before Shirley could even recover from being put off balance, Marisa's quick fist connected square in the side of her face. Shirley was unconscious before she even hit the floor.
As Marisa shook the feeling back in her hand while looking down at Shirley's unconscious form, Steve Knox simply looked behind him at the hole that had been made in the wall from the gun.
"I should be dead..." he muttered to himself.
Meanwhile, Margaret Chambers sighed, not even caring any more now that the real culprit had been revealed, "Can I go back to my room, now?"
* . *
October 5th, 2009
The maid, Shirley Everett, was arrested the following morning after a 911 call was successfully made to the shore. She had to deliver her confession in a written format because Marisa's solitary punch had broken her jaw. As it turned out, she had been John Chambers' lover for at least a year, but he had told Shirley that night that he was planning to renew his vows with his ex-wife, and that he could no longer have her around. She couldn't take the sudden abandonment, so she shot him.
Steve Knox sat on the top of the cliff, looking down on the ocean. Somehow, his vacation turned out to be a sleepless night.
Approaching him from behind was Chris Chambers, who sat down beside Steve. For a minute, no words were exchanged between the two men. One of them had been nearly shot, and the other one had lost a family member. Finally, it was Chambers who spoke up first, "Y'know, I never really knew Uncle John, and the times I've talked to him, he always seemed so disappointed with me. Like I could've done something better with my life."
Steve looked towards Chambers, and took note of his appearance. He wasn't wearing his bandana. His normally lilac-colored hair hadn't been colored in the last couple of days and his natural blonde hair was already coming back. He looked disshelved, and much like Steve, he didn't sleep that night.
Chris continued, "I always wanted to succeed at this wrestling thing to show him that I can do well, too. I wanted to show him. And now, I never will."
Steve listened to Chris's words intently. When Steve found Chris Chambers, he had fallen on hard times and couldn't even find work. It took Steve's pity and Chris's desire to seriously learn how to wrestle to bring him to the level he was at, today. Even Jeff Garvin would be surprised to see how much his former "student" had progressed under the watchful eye of someone who cared about his progress.
"I know the feeling," Steve said, somberly, "I can't prove to dad that I've made it, either."
The wind blew calmly, a far cry from what it was doing just hours ago.
There was silence between the two men at first.
"If Marisa hadn't stepped in when she did, I think I'd have been telling dad about my success in heaven." Steve finally said, breaking the silence.
"Give her a pay raise when we get back," Chambers said, as he started to stand up again, "Oh, and me, too."
"Your uncle had fifty-eight million dollars, you sure you won't see any of it?" Steve asked, as he got up, himself.
"Not a chance," Chambers said, as he started to tie his bandana back onto his head again, "He only ever loved his daughter, he ain't gonna give any to a guy like me."
Steve Knox chuckled for the first time in many hours, "Probably."
As the two of them walked away, Steve proposed a new plan, "Oh, and Chris, I'm gonna need a vacation just to recover from this one you set us up on."
Chris Chambers looked at Steve Knox with a wry smile, as he slowly drifted back into his usual character.
"Roger that, G."
