I hear footsteps coming from the stairs and Lemon’s expression stutters.“So now you know, I’ve got nothing to do with this case. If I give my name to the police, there is a possibility that my family would find me, and I don’t want that to happen. I left New York because a friend told me that someone had the bright idea of putting my picture on social media with the name of the bar I worked at. I had no plan at all coming here,” he says quickly, “but you guys took me in, and became my friends. That’s…that’s amazing. I never had anyone trust me so much before, especially when they had all the reasons to distrust someone, they barely knew suddenly barging into their lives with no warning whatsoever! And rest assured I’m not going to break that trust. I’m going to do whatever I can to help you find Coraline, and if that means jeopardizing my location, then so be it.”He turns on his heel and leaves the room as the Grangers return to it, dressed to travel to the police station in demure
“Yeah, this is not junk mail,” Detective Hank Reverend mutters, opening the email. There’s no subject in it, but there’s a blue-colored link in the description section. Just that, without any sort of explanation whatsoever.“It looks like the sort of thing someone would do to give you a virus,” says Lemon, looking over the detective’s shoulder. The officers look at him, and he elaborates, “You know, whenever warning posts go all over social media telling us not to click any links we get in emails or messages under no names or numbers we don’t recognize?”One officer, Dale I believe, glances at the detective and asks, “Should we send this to the cyber unit?”“Not yet. I think we should click it first,” the detective decides, “but I’m going to screen record, and someone needs to record this.”“You mean screen record and manual record both?” I question, knowing fully that I’m going to lose that phone after this definitely.“Yeah.” I scramble behind him, taking the phone that Gerald hands
As soon as the razor blade comes down on her cheek, I drop the phone in my hand and run out of the house.I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where Coraline is being kept, but something within me just snaps, and all I can see is the glint of metal under that light in that dark room, and rage rises like an inferno within me. I throw the door open and dash out, taking a sharp left turn toward the direction of the city. There is nothing running in my mind but Coraline’s name chanting over and over again, with the imagery of the razor and the man running simultaneously, and I can’t even hear the pounding of my feet on the platform through the blood rush in my ears, and the wind rushes in my face as I make my legs move faster and faster, and I need to get to Coraline right now before he harms her even more because god only knew what he was going to her already and oh fuck he cut her, that goddamn bastard cut her I’m going take that fucking razor off his hand and slash it across his
After everything is done at the police stations, an entry was filed, statements taken, and my phone confiscated in order for the cyber department to trace the email just in case, although the email had already been automatically deleted, I pull Detective Reverend to the side.“The video,’ I begin, “was not a live stream, was it? It was recorded.”“It’s most likely a recording. Livestreaming it would be far riskier because we would’ve been able to trace it to him. But a recording, well, that’s hard.” He looks around the station, and signals me to come closer, “I’m not supposed to be telling any of this to you because it pertains to an ongoing investigation, but the whole thing was heavily encrypted. You saw the redirects yourself. Whoever got Coraline Granger is not an amateur, he’s a pro at this whole computer thing. Do you have any idea who in your life would have that much talent?”“I don’t know,” I reply miserably because I want to give him an answer so badly. But who in my life wo
After I tell the detective Aaron’s name, he flies into action to dig up any record they might have of him from the criminal and non-criminal databases the police have. The other members of our party are eventually released from questioning and look alert as they make their way toward one of the waiting rooms.“Jace what did you tell the detective?” asks my father as soon as I enter the room, looking bewildered. “He came in said something, and then everyone started to run around like someone set their heads on fire.”“I just told him about one suspicion I have,” I reveal to the gatherers.“Who?” Mrs. Granger demands before I can even finish with the sentence, “Who is it do you think took my baby?”“What? No, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” I quickly amend, “The detective asked me if I know anyone who might have any negative attitudes towards Coraline, you know, someone who talked all possessive about her, and only one name came into my mind.”Both Mr. and Mrs. Granger understand what
“So, I don’t know if this is to be classified as good news, or bad news,” Detective Reverend says after half an hour since I gave him the name of Aiden Collins as a likely suspect in the kidnapping case. “But it’s news, alright. Aiden Collins is most likely dead according to the authorities of the country he had gone missing in. They’re still searching for him because of his father’s influence, which means Aaron Collins must be funding the operation now. Whether that’s legal or illegal, I got no idea, but for clarity’s sake let’s all pretend it’s legal even if it’s not. But the gist of the story is, Aiden had taken a less-than-stellar hiking trail and disappeared into some god-awful rainforest. Local authorities suspect either the predator in the area or the terrain got him.”“Wow,” I comment unthinkingly, letting that sink in, “I kinda feel sorry for the bastard.”The detective raises a brow, “so, no love lost, then?”“I wish I could say he was a decent man before all this, detective
Waiting for something to happen is agonizing, and there is no way I could do that by sitting at home by myself. I want to search the city, I want to go through the subway every which way to see if I could get one single clue of where Coraline had been taken to, and I’m so tired of looking at a map of the city wondering where the hell she was being held, all while trying to decipher the identity of the person who had taken her from us, from me.I try to piece together the mystery within the confines of my home, and that proves a difficult task. I know that it only took exactly six hours and twenty-five minutes for us to get any kind of clue about Coraline’s kidnapping. Six hours and twenty-five minutes had gone from the time Lemon got her last text. And in order to send us such an encrypted video, the kidnapper must’ve needed a good amount of time. Maybe two hours, or something similar, if the guy was as much of a pro as I thought. So that meant rationally, contrary to the detectives’
“How am I not supposed to interfere?” I question Lemon, pacing around the length of the drawing room I’d found myself in after entering my father’s residence. There is nothing different about this house than any other night. The ambient lighting is soothing and bright at the same time, the electric fireplaces start as soon as anyone enters a room with one thanks to fancy schmancy newfangled sensor technology because my father has to be extra that way, and the security team is milling around the estate. The housekeepers had come and left, judging by how squeaky clean everything is. Those people are really stealthy, and I’d only met them once or twice. They come in daily and make sure the house is at its best and then leave without a sound.Nothing is different. It feels as large and impersonal as it was the day before yesterday and the day before. Although it felt more like home since I came to live here, it was still sterile. But I’d grown familiar with it, and for a while, I’d been t