To Die or Not to Die

On Friday the Thirteenth of February, Marcus Crane, faked his death leaving two mourning siblings being investigated by the FBI. His siblings, one Oliver Crane and a Samantha Crane, were unaware of his shady dealings and horrified at the thought that he could have been doing anything illegal. Soon’ll they’ll be informed of his untimely passing and then they'll mourn for losing their eldest brother to an unfortunate accident.

Saturday Fourteenth. 6 AM

Samantha Crane likes to start her mornings by slipping on a nice warm fluffy bathrobe and heading upstairs to where the kitchen is located. As she passes by she presses the button to turn on the kettle and heads to the bathroom to use said bathroom. After combing her hair, showering, combing her again, and spending a moment to put in contacts. On this particular morning, Samantha had chosen to do brilliant blue contacts today rather than her normal brown the night before while setting up her outfit.

Fully dressed and ready for the day she heads back to the kitchen and gets a teacup with roses on it, a gift from her late mother, out. She dumps a peach herbal tea bag into it and pours the water. Then she leaves it to seep while heading to the fridge. She quickly pours a bowl of peas and sticks them in the microwave.

With a yawn Samantha moves over to the counter, picks up her tea, and walks over to her computer in the dining room. A quick press in the button and Samantha logs in before placing down the tea cup and hurrying to the microwave.

With a grin, Samantha quickly presses the button just as the microwave hits 0:01. Then she settles down to work and eat.

Saturday Fourteenth. 7:45 AM

Meanwhile Oliver Crane wakes up to the sound of his alarm and stumbles into the bathroom. After a nice warm shower he blearily heads to the kitchen and pours himself a bowl of cereal. “Hey, sis. Thanks for letting me stay.”

Samantha absent mindedly nods. “Keep paying your rent when you can. Marcus is getting off of his work trip tomorrow.”

Oliver nods and heads back to get dressed for his virtual job interview. Coronavirus had hit him hard. He’d been living with Samantha and Marcus for the past four months. Marcus and Samantha lived together because they’d always had similar dream houses that were expensive. Eventually, two to five years down the road, they’d buy another one and live separately but as of right now they didn’t.

He settled down across from her at the dining room table and struggled with his tie. “Hey, Samantha. Will you come help me?”

Samantha looks up. “Did you try youtubing it?”

Oliver nodded. “Yeah, I wish Dad had taught me.”

Samantha shrugged as she walked over. “You were like five. I wish Marcus would teach you.”

Samantha took the tie and started tying it. Oliver snorted. “Marcus only wears clip ons. If there were clip on pants he would wear them.”

Samantha smiled and shook her head a little. “Don’t bring it up. There are.”

Oliver, who had been babied and kept away from the internet until he was old enough to not be stupid, blinked. “What?”

Samantha walked back to her computer. Oliver’s meeting started and he hurried to sit down.

Saturday Fourteenth. 12:48 PM

Samantha stretched popping out her back as she looked at her completed work for the day. Telecommuting was amazing especially when one could type fast. Now, what should she do today? She had her smart watch on so if there was any other work then she’d be notified. She didn’t really want to exercise again. She’d done four hours yesterday on the treadmill but well. She’d done four hours yesterday.

Oliver slammed open his bedroom door. “Samantha!”

Samantha blinked as Oliver came sliding into the dining room on the wooden floor via the power of socks. He grabbed the table to stop himself and beamed. “Samantha. I got the job.”

Samantha blinked before standing up. “Congratulations. Now we definitely need to celebrate.”

Oliver whooped before he started doing the victory dance. Samantha smiled.

Saturday Fourteenth. 5:43 PM

Oliver heard the door knock from where he was watching the latest Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie. “Samantha. The sushi’s here.”

Samantha kicked his leg from where she was sitting on the couch unlike Oliver who was sitting on the floor. “Go get it.”

Oliver groaned and flopped down so he was laying on the floor. Samantha snorted. “My wallets in my purse.”

Oliver sighed. He got up and yelled, “Coming.”

Then he headed to the kitchen where the purse was and pulled out the wallet before walking over. He slid open the door to reveal two men in suits. One of them flipped open a badge. “FBI. May we please come in?”

There was a moment of silence. The delivery driver, Jacob, walked down the hallway. “Hey, Oliver…”

The two men looked at Jacob, who froze. Oliver blinked. “Uh, yeah. Let me just deal with Jacob and I’ll be right in.”

Oliver walked past them and paid for the sushi before following them in with bags in hand. The agents were standing in the doorway. One of them was looking at this year’s family picture while the other one glanced at Oliver before nudging their partner. “Where’s a place we can sit and talk?”

Oliver blinked. “I’ll, uh, show you. Um, you can leave your shoes there. Or not. Um.”

Oliver walked into the living room before putting the sushi down. Samantha frowned before looking up in alarm when the agents followed him. He started folding the blanket and put it on the back of the couch. Samantha glanced at Oliver, who shrugged, before turning back to the agents. “Take a seat anywhere. What do you need?”

One of them settled down. The other one started looking at various knick knacks. “Agent Davis. I’m here to tell you that you’re brother, Marcus, unfortunately went missing last night and is presumed dead.”

There was a moment of silence before Samantha shot up with a strangled cry and Oliver just stared. “What? No. That-that’s not possible. He’s supposed to be here soon. That-that’s-”

Agent Davis hesitated before pressing forward. “I’m sorry for your loss. Do you happen to know what he was doing last night?”

Saturday Fourteenth. 6 AM

Davis Fishback woke up to the sound of his alarm. He stumbled out of the kitchen to where his wife was making breakfast for him. “Morning, hun.”

The most beautiful woman to ever exist in his life smiled at him. “Good morning dear. You’re coffee’s in the pot.”

Meanwhile, Marcus Crane woke up in his apartment the way he always had. To the sound of cursing and yowling cats at roughly 6 AM from his downstairs neighbor getting home from his night shift. Marcus sighed before rolling over and clicking cancel on his alarm before it could ring. Then after a moment of laying there got up and set to making himself breakfast.

One bowl of cereal later Marcus was in the car on the way to work.

Davis left ten minutes after him because he’d spent the time to change his one year son’s diaper before heading off.

Saturday Fourteenth. 6 AM.

Davis for the last four months had been tracking down a hacker, who made a living by selling information. The hacker had slipped up and Davis had pounced on a seemingly faked identity. Marcus, him, Erick, and Jake had been laying in wait when the car had gone over the bridge without their interference.

Davis stared. Marcus stared. Erick rubbed at his eyes. Jake, who had been watching the other side, turned around. “What’d I miss?”

Saturday Fourteenth. 12:48 PM.

After having concluded that there was in fact there was nobody in said vehicle and handing it off to some other people, the team of four had all settled down into a small cafe to discuss. Erick had his head on the table. “We’re doomed.”

Jake patted him on the back. “There there. We’ll figure something out.”

Marcus lifted his spoon. “I have a plan.”

Erick raised his head. “No.”

Marcus smirked. “Well, you’re not the boss of me. Davis. Are you ready?”

Davis took another bite of ice cream. “Hit me. My day can’t get any worse.”

“So, that fake family. With the people hired to be actors or whatever. You know how we didn’t want to investigate them because that’d’ve let him in on it. Well, he already knows, so…”

Davis nods. “Look for leftover clues. Right. Erick you’re in charge of communications. Jake you’re going to be scoping. Marcus, you paranoid man, do you have kevlar at your house? Who am I kidding? We’ll make a pit stop there.”

Saturday Fourteenth. 5:34 PM.

“Hey, Davis? Over.”

Davis does not slam his head against something. He. is. a. profesional. He does sigh before answering. “Yes, Marcus. Over.”

“So, like. Are we going to head in yet? So far there’s been no movement and one call for sushi. The lights are on though and we’ve seen two people walk past the windows. Do we need anything else?”

Davis waits twelve seconds before sighing. “Yes, Marcus. Over.”

Saturday Fourteenth. 5:43 PM.

Davis knocked on the door and there was a responding yell, “Coming.”

So far so good. He stepped away from the viewing hole and glanced around for any cameras once more. Marcus cackled in delight. “I can’t believe this worked.”

Davis sends him a glance and Marcus puts on his serious face. The door opens.

While Davis talks and is boring Marcus looks at the pictures put up. They looked like really well done fakes. There were even ones where the man had a bad haircut. Lot’s of family bonding including fishing.

The house certainly felt well designed and lived in. There were smudges on the floor that had been covered up and paintings on the wall that looked hand made. They might be able to get some DNA samples if they were. Or at least track the man’s movements. Now the food delivery was a surprise as was their seemingly real shock.

The paused movie was realistic and the sister running off was even more so. Marcus left Davis talking while he headed behind the brother’s back and started knocking on the walls. Nothing obvious so far.

A quick glance at Davis talking and the distraught ‘brother’ let him get fingerprints off the mantle and the like. There were textbooks here and a quick opening of a few led him to see three different sets of handwriting at least.

He headed to the bathroom and took pictures of the place. It was well stocked and full of little ticks and quirks. The psych’s would probably tell him he took to many but well. Now he knew that someone really liked the smell of strawberries and oranges together and had a fondness for bath bombs. Considering they were labeled ‘Marcus’s do not touch.’ it was probably semi important. After all, it was only paranoid if it didn’t work.

The linen closet revealed sheets of either white, dark blue, or grey on three different shelves along with different styles of blankets. He took a picture.

Sunday Fifteenth. 12:35 PM.

The fbi agents had come to the funeral. In the background their grandfather and his newest nurse had come as well. Oliver took the paper slid to him quietly and opened it under the table. It was in that stupid code that Samantha, Oliver, and Marcus all used because it was shorter. He’d only learned a year ago that it was technically a shorthand.

The first thing he noticed was the letter S with and apostrophe and an exclamation mark. Their version of Shh! if used alone and secret if not. The second thing was that it was in Marcus’s handwriting.

Oliver blinked once and then did what years of acting had helped him perfect. He rubbed his eyes and put on his sun glasses and looked around the room. Their grandfather’s nurse winked at them from where their brown roots were growing out of a blond head of hair. Bright blue eyes so different then Marcus’s brown one’s winked and Marcus tapped a finger to his lips twice with his usual smug grin before seeming to shrink as he went back to being deferential and fawning over grandfather.

Oliver glanced at the fbi agent who had interrogated him in his own home after telling him his brother was dead. Samantha glanced at him before shrugging a little and standing up and leaving. Oliver remained until the funeral was over.