Do Not Disturb || ONC2023

CHAPTER 4

"Yeah, you weren't lying after all," she chuckles lightly. "We did meet last night at the bar."

My fingers still, then a second later, move away from my holster. Okay, good. This is good.

"Oh. Of course. Can't believe you doubted me."

~~~
7

:58 PM

Between entrées and desserts, Roxanne and I discuss how we are going to navigate the predicament we have decomposing upstairs.

I even took a quick bathroom break and a secret detour to the kitchen where I slipped a young waiter a few bills in exchange for a whispered request. It's nothing, just a harmless plan b in case I need it.

The dinner goes on smoothly from then on, and now, after the dusk has settled down into the early evening and the rush hour has passed, soft chatter from neighboring tables drown out our criminal brainstorming. To everyone else, we look no more than two people catching up over plates of pasta and a shared slice of chocolate cake.

In actuality, I was just explaining in detail how we were going to fit Margot Griffin's body into her own suitcase and stroll her out of the hotel room unnoticed.

Roxanne's eyes are perpetually stuck twice its size since I started mentioning that breaking a few bones postmortem was the easier part.

"It's not like she would feel it, now would she? Besides, we don't have a choice. That's the best option we have right now." I hitch an eyebrow and look at her grim face expectantly. "Unless you have a better idea?"

She grumbles out a no and violently stabs a piece of cake with her fork.

I can't help the smirk that crawls up my lips. "Didn't think so…"

We continue back and forth, her asking a million follow-up questions and me answering them in the most bluntly gruesome ways just to watch her choke up. Really, it's a hilarious sight. I catalog each cringe and gasp in a brand new folder in my brain labeled 'Roxanne Being Unintentionally Adorable'.

Wait, what? Wrong folder. Matter of fact, that folder doesn't exist. I rename it 'Roxanne Being Stupidly Clueless'. Sliding it in between the folders named  'Roxanne Being Annoying As Fuck' and 'Roxanne's Hottest Fits'— that's only because I secretly what to ask her where she shops, duh— I close the whole fucking cabinet in my mind.

There, better.

"You're going to have to steal a housekeeper's uniform, then sneak the body out of the room." I make eye contact with a server from behind Roxanne and subtly shake my head no. "I'll be outside waiting for you."

"Why do I have to sneak the body out?" she pouts. "Ugh."

She's such a whiny brat.

"Because it's the plan," I say plainly. She just grumbles in return. We both know I am her only choice, so we go about this my way or no way at all.

~~~
8

:15 PM

"She's a serial cheater. And while cheating isn't normally an offense that warrants a death sentence, Margot doesn't live in the normal world." I say the last two words with finger quotes accompanying them. "Well, not since she married into the Griffin Syndicate anyway."

"Syndicate?"

After pushing me to tell her about the dead woman for the hundredth time tonight, I finally cracked and gave her the rundown on Margot Griffin, our Mystery Milf, as Roxanne so eloquently put it.