Last Message

The rain hadn’t stopped since the funeral. Alexa Rivera sat by the cosy window of her cramped apartment, the city lights bleeding through the glass of the window like smudged tears. The empty coffee mug right next to her laptop had gone cold hours ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to move and reheat it. Leona Harmon was gone, her best friend, her partner in crime, and yet Leona’s name stayed unchanging in her messages, her inbox, frozen everywhere. 

When her phone buzzed, Alexa barely noticed, lost in thoughts. Another condolence text, probably, but then, she saw the sender. 

Loni, Leona Harmon, her best friend. 

For a second, her breathing had stopped. It had to be a mistake, some delayed message from before the accident. But when she opened it, the timestamp was today. One week after Leona’s death. Maybe someone already took her number? 

The message was a string of numbers and letters, completely random at first glance – but Alexa knew better. Jamie had used the same kind of encryption when they were working on their last investigation, the one she never finished. 

Alexa stared at the screen as rain hammered harder against the glass of the apartment window. The words blurred, not from the storm outside, but from the weight suddenly pressing on her chest.

Whatever Leona had been trying to say hadn’t died with her.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard; for a moment, Alexa hesitated – part of her afraid of what she might find, another part terrified she wouldn’t find anything at all. The code looked familiar, a pattern of Leona’s favorite code: a mix of numbers, punctuation, and capital letters that only the two of them would recognize. 

She opened the old decryption program they’d built together back when long nights and cold coffee were their favorite times of the day. The program flickered to life, and as Alexa fed the text into it, her heart pounded. Slowly, the jumbled letters unraveled into a single, chilling sentence. 

“If you’re reading this, it means they got me.”

Alexa froze. She couldn’t breathe, The words glared back at her from the screen, sharp and final; they got me. A lump formed in her throat, and the room seemed to shrink around her. She’d spent a week trying to accept her best friend’s death, replaying every conversation, every unanswered call. Now, it all felt different, not an accident, not random. Someone had wanted Leona silenced. 

Her brief burned into focus. Wiping her eyes, Alexa read the message, her journalist instincts kicking in. “They”,  Leona hadn’t said who. But whoever “they” were, Leona had expected Alexa to find this. Maybe even left a trail. Alexa scrolled through the encrypted text again, noticing a faint series of symbols at the bottom, three dots, a slash, and two numbers. A code within the code. 

She leaned closer, whispering to the empty room, “What were you trying to tell me Leona?”.

Then she opened a fresh file on her laptop and began to trace the pattern. The pattern wasn’t random. As Alexa broke down the sequence, the slashes and numbers arranged into coordinates, latitude and longitude. Her pulse quickened. She copied them into a map search half expecting nothing to appear. When the screen zoomed in, a small red pin blinked on the edge of the city, a storage facility near the docks.

Of course, Leona rented a unit there last month while working on her final story. Alexa remembered teasing her about being paranoid. Now, the paranoia looked a lot like tonight. 

The rain outside had slowed to a drizzle, but the thunder still grumbled in the distance, Alexa grabbed her coat and slipped her phone into her pocket. Every rational part of her mind said to call someone, the police, her editor, anyone. But this was Leona’s message, and it was meant for her alone. 

As she stepped out into the wet night, the city felt different. Every shadow looked like it was watching her. Somewhere deep down, Alexa knew this was only the first step in uncovering what really happened to Leona Harmon. 

The storage facility was nearly empty when Alexa arrived. Rows of metal doors stretched into the darkness, the hum of the half working yellow lights echoing above her. Unit 52, Leona’s. The padlock was still there, but the key was taped to the back of the door, just where Leona would’ve hidden it. 

Inside, the air smelled of old dust and rust. A single box sat in the center, marked only with Alexs’s initials. Her hands shook as she lifted the lid. Inside was a flash drive, and a note written in Leona’s slightly messy handwriting. 

“If you’re reading this, I didn’t make it, Don’t trust anyone from the paper.”

Alexa plugged the drive into her laptop. A video file appeared, it was Leona’s face, tired but determined. 

“They found out about the story,” she said. “If I disappear, finish it. Expose them.”

The screen was completely black. Alex sat there, frozen for a moment, tears mixing with the rain dripping from her hair. Then she closed her laptop, took a deep breath, and walked back into the night. 

By the morning, the story was everywhere, Leona’s final investigation, published under both of their names.

And just before Alexa’s phone died, one last message appeared. 

Loni: “Thank you.”