'Unfortunately Travis did not survive, he was shot trying to get away.'

'Oh my!' she gasped.

I paused for a second.

'We had a small stroke of luck though,' I continued, 'we found the cupcake in the fridge in his apartment.'

'No?'

'I'm serious. When we found it, we pulled it apart and guess what was hidden inside...'

'What?' she asked, her voice brimming with eagerness.

'An unkeyed Ability.'

'A what?'

'An unkeyed Ability. An Ability gem which is not keyed to a specific spirit. It could be used by anyone with an implant. They are not even supposed to exist... It must have been extremely expensive, and... of course... extremely illegal.'

'Of course.' She bit her lower lip, 'Imagine me eating that, I could have choked on it!'

'Yes,' I hesitated, 'maybe you should feel lucky that a thief ran off with it.'

She appeared to consider this, 'So... which Ability was it?'

I shrugged, 'We don't know yet, we've sent it to the CAAC to find out. We suspect Travis had been smuggling all kinds of things through his special cupcakes for months. Unfortunately the search of his apartment didn't yield much more, but we'll be questioning him thoroughly.'

'You should, it sounds like he was a real criminal.'

'Yes, I think he was, and I'm glad we caught him.'

I got up from the chair, preparing to leave.

'Anyway,' I said, 'let me not take up anymore of your time, I just came by to inform you we found the thief's murderer.'

'Thank you very much detective, I'm glad to hear the city is a bit safer again.'

I smiled at her and headed for the door, where I stopped.

'There's just one thing I can't get my head around...' I said.

'Oh, what is that, detective?'

'You see... those cupcakes were only made-to-order... are you really sure you did not know what they were?'

Lady Valeria Panache gave me her most innocent look as she leaned forward on her expensive mahogany desk.

'I had absolutely no idea, detective,' she replied. 'I just... really liked the cupcakes.'

I'm sure you did lady, I'm sure you did.

I bobbed my head and left her office.