Chapter 9: Clues

JADE:

I looked back at the bold building sign and at the blood-smeared card I found this morning back and forth once again:

CHS – College of Health and Sciences.

Despite the cold, sweat flowed generously through my back. I got really, really scared.

Is this really just a coincidence? Why am I seeing signs like this?

An idea dawned to me. Rather than being a coincidence, what if this card was deliberately given to me?

Questions swirled inside of my head. Who would feed me information in such an unconventional manner? It actually felt more plausible to believe that Marian’s ghost was the one who was trying to feed me information that can help her out…

I was still stuck with this idea when I entered the library. I wanted to distract myself, but I cannot pretend to unsee what I have already seen.

I wondered, what was Marian Rabiola’s course?

I hastily opened her social media account in my phone once again, looking for some clues.

I went though her three pictures once more, but it was hard for me to find anything. She didn’t mention anything about her college course, not even about the university she was attending.

I proceeded to check on the comments on the pictures. Bingo! Most of those who commented were from the same college – the College of Health Sciences…CHS.

‘So the CHS written in this card must really stand for the College of Health Sciences,’ I thought. How about the letters M and R followed by #22? Do they mean something too?

By this time, I had already surrendered to the notion that the card I found stuck in my shoes earlier was a cryptic message from the late Marian Rabiola, and I decided to follow this mystery to the end.

I decided to leave the library and instead, I headed inside the CHS building right across from it.

As always, the college was buzzing with people. Before, my own college, the College of Nursing was a part of this college, but because of the growing popularity of my course, the College of Nursing has been made into a separate college a few years back.

In my college, students were loaned a locker. The tuition fee covers the use of it per semester. I don’t know about the system used by the College of Health Sciences, but in my college, the locker rooms can be identified by the acronym of the student’s name. For example, my locker code is JS, which stands for my first and last name, Jade Sy. It is followed by two numbers that corresponds to the last two digits of my student number. In my case, they are 87, so my locker code is JS 87.

If my hunch was right and the College of Health Sciences uses the same kind of code, I will soon find the locker of the late Marian Rabiola in here if I looked for a locker bearing the initials MR and the number 22.

And so I began my search. I went around the building looking for a locker number with the code ‘MR 22,’ hoping that the police hadn’t beaten me against it.

Twilight was already settling in, and although there were still people who frequented the building, they were becoming even sparser.

I went through the lockers in the first and second floors, but none of them had the code MR 22.

Finally, I went into the third floor. There were even fewer people in this floor.

Night time has come now. Is following my hunch like this the right thing?.. I was getting scared…

‘Idiot,’ I reproached myself internally, ‘This is what others call as digging your own grave. Why did you have to be a sleuth in times like this?’

I was almost at the final rows of locker. So far, I haven’t found the locker bearing the exact same initials and numbers.

Should I just give up at this point? Maybe I was just letting my imagination run wild, and there’s really nothing here to find…

I was about to call it quits when I saw it - locker MR with the number 22, the figures written in green paint. It was at my eye level at the farthest batch of lockers in the building’s east wing.

Making sure that no one’s around, I fumbled at the lock. Thank goodness, it was a number lock key, as I have expected.

Now, the only thing I need to do is to enter the digits. If the digits fit, then I that would serve as my cue…

I reached for the white card I picked up earlier that day and stared at the numbers bellow MR-#22 . It was 413…

I stared back at the metallic lock. There were three wheels on this number lock. I nervously rotated the number wheels, turning them to the digits written on that blood-smeared card. Once I was finished, I clicked the button on the lower side of the lock.

I can’t believe it! It worked!

So, does this mean that the calling card stuck on my shoe today was really a clue on Marian’s case?...

It was already night fall. The hallway on this side of the building was poorly lit. I tried to hurry as much as I can, so I can get the hell out of that building.

I yanked Marian’s locker door open. An assortment of stuff came into my view.

Mostly, they were books and papers. I worked my way inside the locker as quickly as I could.

I fumbled through the books, hoping to get a clue on what Marian was into before she died. They were all a bunch of academic books on psychology and autosuggestion, whatever that is...

Was she doing a thesis on this topic? There was a plastic envelope full of papers about it. I won’t have time to figure them out, so I unloaded them from the locker. I have decided to bring them home.

As I rummaged through the contents of that locker further, I found a USB stick and a phone that wouldn’t open. I decided to take them home with me too.

As if I wasn’t feeling scared enough, one of the light bulbs near me suddenly began to flicker, and the surrounding area got cold enough to make my breath mist when I exhaled.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this… What on earth was happening?