Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music! (Part 13)

It rained the next day, and all day the next day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that too. The only time the rain let up was never. It rained nonstop. Lily was gone. She hadn’t been at school since she fled HQ that day. I tried calling her; her phone went straight to voicemail. I tried messaging her; the texts failed to send.

Lily had disappeared.

No, it was like she had never even existed to begin with.

Well, who needed her then? I’d do this by myself. I felt bad about how hurt she looked when she ran off, but once the shock of the moment wore off, I could see everything for what it really was again. She’d been a thorn in my side for too long. Good riddance.

My investigation continued, but I wished it didn’t, because then I could have savored the sweet satisfaction of surrender. I was sick of looking for the violins. I had been doing so all week, scouring every nook and cranny and secret hiding spot I could think of, but no dice. I was starting to doubt my hunch — and all the circumstantial evidence — that Vance had secreted them away somewhere was off the mark. But even though the case had gone cold, it wasn’t over, and I couldn’t just pretend it was.

I tried to enlist Greg and Evan’s help again, but they weren’t up for it anymore. Plus they were busy, Greg with work and Evan with his game. When you play at his level, games are kind of like work. They hadn’t set foot in HQ for days. So I was all alone. Well, who needed them either? If they didn’t want to help, they could take a hike and never come back. I’d do this by myself. And I wouldn’t confront Vance again until I had the violins in my possession. That would show him.

What made my failure to find the violins even more pathetic though was that unless they’d been moved in the past couple days, I knew they had to be somewhere at school. The only problem was finding them. I searched high and high, low and low, left and right, left and right, B, A, Select, Start. Still, nothing. I almost wished I could just start over. Continue from a previous save. If I had known that Vance was probably hauling the violins across the school grounds while me and Lily were wasting time getting sneezed on by Mr. Treble, none of this would have ever happened. But you know what they say about hindsight: it’s a bitch. There was no going back. There are no cheat codes programmed into real life, and there sure aren’t any do-overs.

And so I kept looking, searching to no avail. I was wasting my time. I should have known. Striking Eyes was right. I was no real detective. Everything I had done up until now had been nothing more than fancy guesswork, plus a heaping helping of relying on Lily. Showed how much I was worth, I guessed, if Lily really was the pest I had grilled her for being. What did that make me then, having to 👉depend👈 on her all the time? If you narrowed it all down to what I had achieved myself, you wouldn’t have much left. There had always been someone by my side to save me when I was in a bind, or to encourage me when I needed it. The truth of the matter was that I was leaning on people like a crutch. I didn’t have anything of my own. Now, practically powerless, I was being forced to accept that.

For days, I flipflopped between perseverance and despair, unsure whether I should give it all up or keep the case alive against all hope. Finally it was Friday, the final shart to a crappy week. I had had just about enough of the screwy weather and was itching to get out of it, so I headed to HQ even though, in my mind, I was just about ready to quit the case.

The door creaked on its sorry hinge as I slumped inside. Peeling off my rain coat and letting it drop to a puddly heap on the floor, I flopped face first onto the couch. I let my face sink into the fluffy pillow, a pure downy ocean of plush that almost took my mind off of anything else. Almost.

Until suddenly, it completely took my mind off of everything else.

Couch? Since when had we had a couch in here?!

I shot up like a jolt, filling in for Black Lightning, who also hadn’t been at HQ in days, and hopped to my feet. It was a big couch, clean and white. I tried running my hand over its gentle surface, and it caught on something, something flat and just as white, laying on top of one of the cushions. It was a piece of paper. Curious, I examined it.

Please use.
-L

Wait, wasn’t he killed by Kira? Stupid thoughts aside, the note was obviously from Lily, penned as it was in her tiny, jagged hand. But what I wanted to know was why. She’d brought a couch to HQ, or at least that’s what this situation would seem to suggest. But she still wasn’t showing up, still wasn’t answering her phone, still seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth entirely.

Agonizing over it wouldn’t change anything, but I couldn’t help it. At least I knew that she was ok though. That she hadn’t fried her circuits out in the rain or run off and gotten lost. Though I didn’t think I really had to worry about the latter. I’d have bet she had a better sense of direction than me. And built-in GPS for that matter.

Not that I cared or anything. I was better off without her around after all.

My mind slowed to a crawl. Thoughts I wanted to push down resurfaced. Thoughts of Lily, thoughts of what would happen to us from here on out, and thoughts of the case and thoughts of puns… Violins… violence… no, “vying,” maybe? What was it that was behind all of this? If only I could think straight.

Somewhere deep inside I still believed that if I could solve the pun behind the matter, I could find those violins. Despite my wishy-washy attitude, somehow or another, I was still trying.

All of a sudden I was tired. Fatigued. My brain felt like scrambled eggs. All I could do was sink further and further into the soft white cushions of the couch, falling drop by drop into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music (Part 13)!
To be continued in Part 14!