Chapter 3

The next morning, the girls woke up and went to visit the old lady from yesterday.

“Do you really think she’ll remember anything else?” Samantha asked.

Aisha shrugged her delicate shoulders. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Better to make sure than not at all.” Evangeline said.

Scarlett and Aisha lead the way to the old woman’s run down apartment. As they turned the corner, the girls saw caution signs around the crumbling building. All the girls ran up through the gossiping and gawking Italians and tourists.

"Excuse me...." Aisha said in her Italian. "What happened here?"

A policeman gave her an ugly look. "There's nothing to see here." He said curtly. The police continued to push people back and away from the crime scene. Aisha's curiousity just couldn't be satisfied and eventually found a clever way to slip through the barricade that was forming. The other girls waited for her to return.

Aisha gasped at what she saw. There was the sweet old woman, clearly shot to death. Blood was on the stairs which she had sat at just yesterday and blood was thick on her head and chest. She felt her stomach churn and tears prick at her eyes before she slipped her way back to her girls. The look on her face must've kept them from discussion at the moment. Pushing back through the crowd, the girls left to discuss what Aisha had found out in a not so crowded area.

“She was murdered.” Aisha said dully. "Shot at."

Sage glanced back at the police before speaking. “The popo didn’t seem very surprised about the fact that someone has been murdered.”

“Them copper’s are hiding something...I feel in my bones.” Scarlett said, staring at the policemen.

“I know...something doesn’t feel right.” Evangeline responded. “Let’s go back to the hotel to see if we can find any new info.”

About an hour and a half after the girls got back from seeing the old woman that helped them coldly murdered, they finally found something.

"Oh my gosh....Guys! I think I've got a lead!" Aisha’s sing-songy voice rang out. She had stopped her what seemed like ages typing fingers.

"You think so, or know so?" Scarlett asked.

"I know so." She said firmly.

"Wait...what?" Samantha asked jumping out of her seat.

"Lemme see!" Sage said, moving her head to where she could see the computer.

"I hacked into their mainframe." Aisha explained.

"The mainframe...as in...the police station's mainframe?" Evangeline asked. Aisha nodded.

The girls gathered around their little hacker's screen.

"It looks like those stupid boys really are up to no good." Scarlett fumed, meaning the men that took their friend and the uncooperative police.

"I told you so." Aisha said smugly.

"Well then, if this is true...." Sage left the sentence hanging.

"Girls, pack your stuff; we're going to China!" Evangeline had already left to her room to gather her things when her strong russian accent rang out. The information that Aisha had found were about six Korean men doing a sort of 'job' in which their next stop would be to Beijing, China.

“Wait!” Samantha shouted. “We have no money to go to China. How are we supposed to get there? Even if we combined our money it wouldn’t be enough.”

Aisha, with a cocky grin on her face, walked up and patted the slightly taller woman on the head. “I've got you covered. You can thank me later. ”

“What do you mean?” Samantha asked, confused.

Aisha turned to give her the ‘are you serious’ look. “Must you doubt my skills? While I was going through the security cameras that the police had control of, I saw a man at an ATM. We now have Mr. Ricardo’s pin password to get into his bank. I looked into his other accounts and that man is extremely wealthy. He's not going to miss a couple thousand dollars.”

“I like the way you think, Aish.” Samantha said, giving her a high five.

Background Music

The girls arrived nine in a half hours later from their direct flight from Venice, Italy to Beijing, China. As impossible as the situation seemed, they all stilled managed to get some sleep, as long as they kept the coffee away from Evangeline. They all agreed that since they slept on the flight to get down to business and ask anyone if they had seen Victoria.

Staying in twos had been their plan until they remembered that Victoria wasn’t with them. Samantha stayed with Scarlett while Aisha, Sage and Evangeline stayed together. Each group took to one side of the street, holding up the photo of Victoria, asking if they had seen her. Most shook their heads or didn’t an