"Why is it there ?" Jennifer asks in confused, looking at a safety deposit box attached to the back of the cupboard. A custom one I believe. The width is fit perfectly with the drawer. i bet the depth is also exactly ten inches.
Jennifer pulls the door open, of course with no result. It has passworded key. I don't need to ask Jennifer whether she knows the password or not.
I stand up, about to search for a clue, to notice a painting hangs exactly on the wall across where I stand. It is a mountain right above a sea. The mountain's shadow is reflected on the surface of the sea. But the reflection is shaped by some words forming a weird sentence.
"The Key to All is The Life of My Love Is"
It's not a motivational quote nor a romance quote. It's not even a quote...
"Try your mother's birthday," I tell her.
"Okay," she obeys even in confused. Sound of six digits being pushed and a wrong beep are heard. "Not working," she reports.
"Try with 4 digits year."
"Nope"
"Month and date only"
"Wrong"
"Year only"
"Still not working."
"Yours ?"
"Nadaa.."
"His ?"
"Nope.. nope.."
"Their wedding date ?" My final attempt.
"Nothing."
Shit! I curse my self. The painting must be a clue. It is too weird not to be a clue. The live of his love.. should be a date of birth of someone he loved. Was he having an affair ? Though I doubt it, but ..
My thought is disrupted when I hear Jennifer is running out of the room. "Jen!" I quickly follow her to the bathroom. There I witness her throwing up on the sink.
"Are you okay ?" I ask in concern. This is her second times today. She nods a couple of times.
"The coffee still hits me," she says with a pale face.
"You better rest," I suggest her.
"No. I want to help you...,"
"By resting," I cut her. "You won't be much of a help when you are still sick," I persuade her. She doesn't argue me. I then embrace her to walk her to her room upstair.
"Thank you," she utters after I make sure she is laying comfortably on her old bed.
"Do you need anything ?" I ask. She shakes her head. "I will leave the office's door and this door open. Don't go down on your self..."
"Hey.."
"Just shout if you need anything," I ignore her protest.
"Alright.. alright.." she agrees.
I go back to the office with a mug of coffee on my hand. I stand in front of the painting, sipping my coffee, I try to collect what I was thinking before Jen throwed up.
Mr. McCourtney definitely had secrets. but I don't think having mistress was one of them. Only boring men commit affairs. This man had hidden safety box with difficult password.. his life couldn't be boring.
With heavy exhale, I decide to move my attention to the work desk. There is a laptop on it. I turn the laptop. As expected, it needs password for me to log in.
The Key to All. It must be the same password. Mr. McCourtney had brain cancer. The disease was very likely disturbed his memory. That was why he put that painting, to make him remembered the password.
The Live of My Love. What kind of clue is that ? The common phrase should be The Love of My Live, right ? That is easy. It's Sophia. his wife. I write down her name on a paper. Something acrosses my mind.
S is five, O is zero. Phi is 3.14. A is four. 503144! I quickly type the numbers on the keyboard and hit the enter button.
Wrong Password.
5034. Wrong.
50ph14.
50PH14
sophia
Sophia
SOPHIA
All are wrong. I expected it, but still needed to make sure. The safety box key only accepts numbers. So, the laptop's password should also be numbers.
Another idea hits my brain. S is the 19th letter. O is 15th... 191516891. I sigh when it is still wrong.
Maybe it's the old phone keypad. S is 7, O is 6, P is 7, H is 4. so is I. and A is 2. 767442. The laptop refuses it.
Arrgh!! I groan in frustrated. I finally grabs my phone. Thief surely can hack this password.
"Hi, Thief.."
"I still don't have a name of the mastermind, okay" she immediately reports.
"What ?!"
"I'm trying, you know! Do you know there was about 30 flights on the area at that time that I managed to capture from your 6 minutes call! From that 30 flights, 18 were private flights, the planes were either chartered or personally owned. And do you have any idea how hard it is to identify which plane belongs to which company ?! And this is not even a job! Not that I ask for a fee but you gain nothing from this heroic act of yours!!"
"Hey.. hey.. calm down, Girl.. calm down.." Thief snorts. I feel guilty, "I'm sorry, okay. I know I ask too much of your help. Forgive me.."
"It's not that I mind.. It's just .."
"You dislike me helping her. I know.."
"No.. It's just frustrated me to not able having the answer as fast as you want.."
"Take your time, Girl. I won't push you.."
"You won't ? Then why are you calling me ?"
"I.." I hesitate to utter my intent. I've burdened Thief enough. "Nothing. I just want to ask you about your exhibition. It's tommorow, right ?"
She laughs then chocked. "Yes. Don't worry. All is well prepared," she says.
"I can't wait to have your paintings hang on my wall," I tell her. She laughs.
"You wouldn't do it.."
"I might.." she laughs again.
"Thief.."
"Yes..?"
"Thank you. For all your helps. I can't thank you enough," I tell her wholeheartedly.
"Always happy to help you, Score."
I end my call, then put my head on the desk. I stare blankly to the surface of the desk. The desk is from mahogany and the surface is covered with filmed glass. It reflects all things on top of it. A half circle that printed on my mug now turns into full circle because of the reflection.
My eyes move to the paper near my head where I wrote SOPHIA on it. I playfully imagine the word stands on the mirror and reflected by it. Wait...
I pull my head off the table. That's it, isn't it! SOPHIA's reflection can be write as numbers. S is 2, o is 0, p is 6, h is 4, i is 1, and a is 9. 206419.
I'm about to type it when another idea crosses my mind. It makes me ignore the fact that the number is wrong.
The Live of My Love. The Love of My Live. Love and Live switch places. So 206419 should be 241069. or 204619, or 214609.
I try those three combination, still wrong. I sigh. I sip my coffee, halt to gulp it when another idea crosses my mind.
The 'the', 'of', 'my', and 'is' stay. Can it be ... 216409 ?
I almost can't hold my scream when the last combination works. The laptop immediately shows me its desktop. Of course it is as neat.as his office room.
I patiently explore his laptop. If it took me the whole weekend to search what's.in it one by one I would do it. There is no way he didn't hide anything in his laptop if the password was that hard.
I finally gets something after searching the hidden files. Two files of photgraph. An old photograph of a baby. A tiny little baby that seemed.. dead. I decide to click the other file. It's Jennifer when she was a teenager. Why he hid her photograph ?
I turn my hot spot then open his email. Only one email in the inbox and it is unopened. The date is a day after he murdered himself. That's probably why it is left unopened. i click it.
"Who are you ?!
What have you done with my daughter ?!!
Is she okay ?!! I will kill you if anything bad happened to her !!"
@@@@@AUTHOR's NOTE@@@@@
Who can solve the code faster than Scott ?? Please leave your names in a comment below !! *applause*