Jerome was watching the auction with great care, and there had been quite a few bids over the first twenty hours after posting Jessica's necklace for sale. He was watching and observing when people bid for the item and for how much at any given time. He was looking for that one person to keep coming back for more and never stop bidding no matter how high the price got. He took another sip of his coffee and kept watching but there were no new bids in the last while so he went back to his Hollywood stock exchange account and updated his portfolio to kill some time. He switched back to the auction when he realized that Jessica was walking into the living room. She looked just as beautiful in the morning, even with a mean case of bed head Jerome thought to himself as he watched her walk in.
"Morning." He said trying to be friendly, but not in a creepy kind of way, "You're up early."
"Did you sleep at all?" she asked, knowing she had been occupying the only couch since the night of the fire.
"I think there was a moment earlier when I closed my eyes." Jerome said as he took another sip of brew, "I think I may have dozed off for a few hours. It's probably all the rest I'm going to rest when Edgar got back, but I could do that now if you don't mind watching the auction for me."
"Sure, I can do that." Jessica replied, "It's not like I have anything else to do. If those people are really after me, I can't go to work or back home right now. Get some rest."
She walked over to the monitors that were watching the auction and other various websites. She looked at the pictures of her mom's necklace, and while the number was pretty high she had no idea of any of the bidders was her mother.
"How many bids do we have so far?" she asked eager to see if there was any interest.
"We've got well over a dozen bids so far. It's been crazy since the item has been posted, but we've got two or three people who are going insane over the item. This is going to be intense. The item has already passed a thousand dollars and everyone still has many hours left to bid. I'm stroked about this because these two have been going to war over this necklace. I think one of them might be the one we're looking for."
"How do you intend to look into them all if only one person can win?" Jessica asked someone confused.
"That's the beauty of this site," Jerome started to explain, "Let's say that I'm bidding on a comic book, something I really want to get. I try to place a bid for ten dollars but forget to put in the decimal point, which means I bid a thousand instead of ten dollars. The site allows the buyer to retract the bid as long as it's done before the auction ends, thus giving everyone else a chance to keep bidding. The site even allows someone to retract a bid after the auction but only with permission from the seller first. So what I intend to do is email everyone who aggressively bids on this item, and let them know that the winner retracted their bid and they all won by default. That way we'll be able to look into them all and deliver the box to them personally."
"I don't mean to poop your plan because it sounds really cool, but how do you intend to deliver the same necklace to more than one person?" she asked rather curious to how he was going to get around that.
"We're working on it." Moth said from the other side of the room. Since the fire she hadn't applied any makeup and actually looked half human for a change, "Devon knows people who are capable of making a few fakes and they'll pass the test and give use a few cracks to find your mom."
"This way not only can we serve this item to more than one person at a time, if none of them can be identified as who we're looking for, we can always put up another auction and try again." Jerome smiled to the two women, very proud of himself and his plan.
"Well don't be too proud of yourself, the time for celebrating will be when we find the person we're looking for." Moth said with a sneer on her face. Even without her makeup, she still had more than enough attitude to spare. She turned away from Jerome and went back to her own work. She was searching the accounts of the people who had been bidding on the auction Jerome was watching. She was hoping by looking at their purchase histories, they might be able to find something that will jump out at them.
Jessica walked over to her station, and started to read some of the stuff with her. They were looking at one account with a weird name that seemed to have made quite a few purchases in the last while. She read the list of items and something jumped out at her, "There." Jessica blurted out as she pointed to an item purchased four weeks ago, "That's my mother's favorite country singer, and the fact that she bought the album on LP is another indication it could be her. She hates cassettes and compact discs with a passion."
"She's not the only one." Jerome said with a smile as he never peeled his eyes from his own screen. There had been a few more bids in the last few minute. People badly wanted this necklace.
Jessica kept reading the items that had been purchased, and she spotted another, "That book is one of her favorites!" she said as she pointed to another auction on the screen. There was no doubt about it because she kept find other items that reminded her of her childhood and stuff that her mom liked to collect. From a specific kind of dinner china to her favorite author, she knew the person who owned this account was probably her mother. The idea of it made her tear up just a little bit.
Edgar came into the room just in time to notice this and turned to Jerome who did not peel away from his screen and smiling, "What the hell is going on?" he asked, eager to find out what had happened.
"Based on the spending habits of one of the bidders, I think we got a possible match for the person we're looking for. We're just a few hours away from being able to send out our first email to her." Jerome said as he turned back to the computer, "It looks like we hit the bull's eye with our first shot."
"Excellent!" Edgar said, as he seemed excited to hear this, padding his little buddy on the shoulder, "I've got to run out and talk to a few people. I want you to text me the minute we get a response to your email. Understood?"
Jerome nodded to acknowledge that he got his orders and intended to follow them to a tee. Edgar grabbed his coat from one of the chairs in the room and quickly left. He had to get some information from the police and let them know what he knew in order to help their investigation. The last thing he wanted was them to suspect him for not being co-operative. He bolted out of the place and hopped into his car. It took him about twenty minutes to make his way to the station and he parked in what used to be his usual spot, as his car still had the sticker for police parking. Even though it was expired, fellow officers never ticketed him because they knew he used to be one of them. As he strolled into the main lobby, the welcome he got was the last he expected to see. Two out of plain clothed detectives bolted down a flight of stairs to meet Edgar halfway across the lobby. They both flashed badges and stopped Edgar in his tracks.
"Mr. Willis," One of them said, "We need to ask you a few questions."
Before Edgar could answer, two uniformed officers came up and grabbed him from behind. One of them conducted a quick frisk and removed his piece from the holster. Edgar gave the two detectives an annoyed look.
"If you wanted that, all you had to do was ask." Edgar informed them, "I'm actually here to make a statement and assist you with your investigation. I was hoping you'd be able to answer a few questions for me as well."
"I don't think so, Mr. Willis." the other cop said with a tone that gave Edgar a bad feeling about what was going on, "We'll be the ones asking you the questions and you had better co-operate with us or your stay here will be a lot longer, possibly indefinite."
"Are you arresting me?" Edgar asked, somewhat amused by all this.
"Not yet." One of the detectives answered. He then turned to one of the uniformed officers, "Take him to interrogation four. We'll be there in a few minutes. No one talks to him until we get there."
The cops nodded and then dragged Edgar off to the interrogation room. He knew the cops were going to want to ask a few questions, but he didn't think for a moment that they would be so formal with it. You'd think those to detectives would show a little respect for a former employee. Instead they were a bit rough with him as they tossed him into the room and into a chair in the empty interrogation room and left him in there alone to think about what questions he might be asked while waiting for someone to join him.
Being the professional he was, Edgar felt no need to panic at that particular moment. The manager of the Thai restaurant will vouch for him because he did actually eat something with Devon before going up to the apartment to meet up with Jerome and Moth. He didn't feel the need to tell them anything at that particular moment as he was going to use the detective's questions to determine where they're going with their investigation. He pulled out a nail clipper out of his pocket and started to clip his nails while waiting. He wasn't in a hurry and didn't have to worry since Jerome did say he had a few hours until the auction was over. He was going to use this to fish for information. How many bites he got would depend on how well he cast his line. But for now he would have to wait for the fish to come to him.