It’s already night and Cameron is back home. Via is sleeping in her room and we are in the secret room.
“Where’s Sylvester?”
“He’s not picking up his phone.”
“He’s probably partying again.”
I just sighed as I take a sit beside Cameron.
“Stefano, do you have any update about doctor Mavis?” I asked.
“None, his assistant is not doubtful about her death.”
“Could he be the killer?”
“Who?”
“The assistant.”
“No, I highly doubt.”
Oh gosh, a lot of things is happing all at once. I can’t even have enough time to process things properly. As soon as one problem is done, another one comes.
“Shouldn’t we go to America—”
“No!” I firmly said to Stefano. “Don’t forget what happened to Cameron. He almost died! You will not go there, not until we find whoever this person is.”
“Sis,” I turned to Skyler. “You mentioned an email earlier. What is it?”
“Oh!” I brought out my phone and showed them the email. “Did she just randomly press these letters?”
“If she was killed, then maybe she accidentally sent this while she was being killed? Maybe she wanted to type something but then got attacked?” Skyler said.
“Or maybe it’s a dying message,” Cameron said. Suddenly, the door opened and Vester came in.
“Sorry I’m late! What did I miss?” Stefano handed him my phone. “What’s this?”
“A phone?” Stefano sarcastically said which resulted for Vester to glare at him. “Anyway, doctor Mavis is dead.”
“WHAT?!”
“She was found dead at her apartment in the morning. She was hanging which made the police conclude that it was suicide.”
“But what we think is that she was killed and was framed as suicide,” I said to complete the explanation.
“Don’t you think that the police concluded the investigation too fast? I mean, they could have done something more,” Skyler said.
“Unless, someone ordered them to do it,” Cameron said.
“Wait a minute! When did we become detectives? I mean, we are now solving a murder case? The last time I checked we’re billionaires.”
“The last time I checked, Sylvester, is that you’re jobless. Since you are jobless, might as well do this with us? Why are you whining? You’re not doing anything other than partying.”
“Excuse me? Are you—”
“Stefano and Vester! Both of you shut up before I kick your asses!” I turned to Vester and grabbed my phone from him. “If you have no idea on what’s with the email—”
“I actually have. You probably assumed it’s just random letters but it’s actually not.” He took my phone and went to the white board. He started writing all the alphabets. “This is a code, Caesar Cipher to be exact.”
“C-Caesar what? The salad?”
“Caesar as in Julius Caesar?”
“Caesar as in Julius Caesar and not the salad, Skyler,” he said when he turned around. “This is the most basic cipher. I can’t believe the genius didn’t know this. Yes, I’m talking about you Stefano.”
“Stop dissing me and just explain whatever that is.”
“Okay, so just like I said it’s a cipher. Codes or ciphers are used by coders or some mysterious ass shit who is secretly conveying message to another person. Caesar cipher is, obviously, a cipher. To use it, you just have to move the alphabets in three. Push them back in three places, so here are the alphabets as you can see,” he said as he points the white board. “Push them back three places, and D becomes A, E becomes B, F becomes C and so on. While, A becomes X, B becomes Y and C becomes Z. Get it?”
“How did you learn this?”
“Well, I went through a phase where I was really invested with mystery, crimes and thriller. I even bought and read Sherlock Holmes books and even watched the movies. I was so invested that I studied some of the ciphers and codes.”
“Wow, I never thought you’ll be useful someday.” Stefano said as he smirks.
“You really keep underestimating me! You really think you’re the only one who’s smart?! I am too!”
“I never said you weren’t smart.”
“I am good at things when I’m invested—wait.” We all stopped when Vester suddenly stopped talking. Did he start to remember something useful? “Should I become a detective—”
“SYLVESTER!” Ugh! What did I expect? I exhaled before talking. “Let’s talk about your future career next time, can we? You should decode whatever the email is.”
“Why should I decode?! I already told you how to use it!”
“Since you’re there, why can’t you just do it?”
“Wait, how do we know if it’s the right method? I mean, it could be another—”
“Caesar Cipher is the most basic. If doctor Mavis really intended to send us this message than she would use the most basic one since you are all beginners; not me since I know a bit already.”
“Sylvester is right. She won’t send something that it will be hard to decode,” Cameron said.
Vester started decoding the email while we just sit back and discuss doctor Mavis’s death.
“But why does she have to make a code? I mean, she’s complicated,” I said.
“Maybe it’s random presses?” Skyler asked.
“No, if it’s random then there should be repeated letters next to each other, but as you can see it’s almost like a pattern.”
“She knew that someone will kill her. She coded the message in case it gets seen or tracked. Wait, when did you receive the email?” Stefano asked me.
“When you came in, I just saw it and it said twenty-two minutes ago.”
“Huh? When I came in, she was dead already for about three hours. How—”
“It could be a scheduled email,” Cameron said. “She had time to prepare it, so she was really been chased by someone.”
“It could be the same person who kidnapped me in Las Vegas.”
“U-Uhm, guys. I’m done and...” We all turned around and saw the decoded message.
THE SECRET OF YOUR FATHER IS CHILD
“What does it mean?” I confusingly asked.
“One of us has dad’s secret?” Skyler asked.
“No, dad has a secret child.” We all turned to Stefano. “Wait! I didn’t say he has, it’s base on what I understood at the message! I mean, it literally says, the secret of your father is child, what else could it mean?”
“Well, I won’t be surprised if it’s true. I mean, dad cheated on mom multiple times in his lifetime,” I said. Suddenly, we heard loud noises from outside the room.
“AVIANA!” I shouted after remembering that my daughter is upstairs. We all hurried and went to the second floor.