The Vanishing

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘Take a look at this,’ Phoenix said to Jazz. ‘The pale hair you found is on the right. Anika’s is on the left. Tell me what you see.’

  Jazz moved into position behind the eyepieces of the microscope and peered down. It took her a moment to adjust to what she was seeing: two samples, on separate slides, in one field of vision, as if they were lying side by side. She cleared her throat. ‘I see two strands of hair, I think. Except one looks fairly smooth while the other one—the shorter one on the right—looks almost spiky, like there are lots of bits of hair stacked on one another.’

  She straightened up and looked at Phoenix. ‘I didn’t realise hairs could look so different from each other.’

  ‘One of them isn’t a hair. At least, it’s not a human hair.’

  For one crazy moment, Jazz got the image of some huge monster snatching up her friend in the middle of the night. She shook her head to get rid of the imagined horror. ‘So if it’s not a human hair, what is it?’

  ‘Could be from an animal. Does Anika have any pets?’

  ‘Definitely not. She’s been hassling her parents for a cat for ages, but—’

  ‘Spare me the life story,’ said Phoenix. ‘Come over here. We’ll do the fingerprints.’

  Phoenix plugged a cable from his phone into a computer flanked by two huge high-resolution monitors. He flicked through the photo album until he came to the fingerprints series, then selected all the shots and uploaded them. Once the analysis started, the program sorted through the dozens of thumbnail images, each one briefly displayed on the right-hand monitor in astonishing detail.

  ‘It’s finding matches,’ Phoenix explained. ‘The majority of prints we took were Anika’s, and this can work out which prints are repeated over and over, then highlight any that are less frequent.’

  Jazz watched, fascinated and awed by the machine’s processing power. Her reverie was shattered by a loud beep. The program had paused on a particular print, the words ‘Error. Not recognised.’ flashing across the screen.

  ‘What the?’ said Phoenix, sitting up.

  ‘No match?’ suggested Jazz.

  ‘It’s no match for Anika’s prints, or for any in the database,’ said Phoenix. ‘Check it out.’

  Jazz and Phoenix stared at the highly magnified image on the screen. The print had strange symmetrical crosshatching marks where whorls and ridges should have been.

  Jazz broke the stunned silence: ‘What on earth made that print?’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this again,’ said Phoenix, ‘but it’s not a human fingerprint.’

  A sound nearby made them both jump back from the screen; someone was calling his name.

  ‘Phoenix? Where are you?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Phoenix swore. ‘Mum’s looking for me.’

  ‘Great, maybe she can help work out where this fingerprint is from. Hey!’ said Jazz, as Phoenix suddenly switched off the monitor and unplugged the data cable.

  ‘Quick! Grab all this stuff! We’ve got to hide!’

  Jazz watched, bemused, as Phoenix fumbled all the carefully sealed tubes into the sports bag along with his laptop, which he grabbed off the bench. ‘Over here!’ he hissed, indicating the two closed doors of a cabinet on which the fume cupboard stood. He flung the bag into the cabinet and crawled in.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Jazz. ‘I’m not getting in there with you!’

  Dr Lyons was already at the clean-room door, punching in the key code.

  ‘Maybe she’s just coming in to pick something up quickly. Come on!’ said Phoenix. Jazz saw his granite eyes pleading with her. She squeezed in beside him, squashed and bent like a rag doll. Phoenix pulled the doors closed but they didn’t quite meet. He too was crushed into an uncomfortable ball.

  They could just see a section of Dr Lyons’ white-coated figure through the tiny crack. She’d paused near the microscope. Jazz and Phoenix hoped his mother would stop looking and walk away. They breathed a silent sigh of relief as his mother moved away from the area in front of the microscope, but it was short-lived as she sat down at her desk.

  ‘Now what?’ Phoenix whispered.

  All his mum would need to do to spot them was turn around. They were trapped. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he hissed to Jazz. ‘Somehow.’

  Phoenix took a deep breath, and with great stealth, gently pressed one of the cabinet’s doors open. Moving in slow motion, he put one leg out onto the floor followed by one hand and slowly, slowly, he slithered out, all the time staring at his mother, willing her to stay seated at her desk, with her back to them.

  Jazz gently pushed the other door open and, staring fixedly at the back of Dr Lyons’ head, she too unfolded her cramped limbs and silently spilled onto the floor. Dr Lyons moved in her chair and the two of them froze—then moved again as they saw she was simply reaching for a reference book on the shelf above her desk. They continued their stealthy slide across the floor, Phoenix taking agonising care to make sure nothing clinked in the sports bag. Hearts pounding, they made it to the entrance to the clean room and Phoenix reached for the doorhandle.

  Behind them, Dr Lyons’ chair scraped on the floor. Don’t get up now! Phoenix begged. He slowly turned the handle then quietly pulled the door open, but there was a rushing sound of air as he did so. He grabbed Jazz and yanked her through the doorway, closing it behind him, wincing at the click it made. His mother must surely have heard that!

  Phoenix didn’t have to tell Jazz to hurry up. She was already pelting through the house, following him as they ran to the double doors and out into the back garden.

  Once safely out of sight of the house, Jazz pulled off her hair cap and gloves and threw them at Phoenix. ‘What was all that about?’ she yelled.

  Phoenix bent to pick up the discarded items and balled them together with his own.

  ‘You told me your mum didn’t mind you using the lab!’ Jazz ranted.

  ‘I knew her top-secret code, didn’t I?’ Phoenix pouted.

  ‘Pah!’ said Jazz. ‘I watched you key it in—six digits? It was your birthdate. Hardly top secret!’

  ‘So? I still got us access to all the equipment!’

  ‘Oh yeah, and just how does the DNA sequencer work? You don’t know, do you?!’

  ‘Do you?’ Phoenix shot back. ‘What do you know about all of this? You’ve never even collected samples before. You need an app to tell you what to do!’

  ‘I know that what you’ve done could put the whole case in jeopardy!’

  ‘Oh, is it “the case” now, big detective? I mean, really. What’s your problem?’ Phoenix asked.

  ‘My problem? You lied to me! You pretended you could do something that you couldn’t. We wasted time and time is everything right now. We’ve used up two hours of the first 48HOURS getting those samples and now we can’t even do anything with them.’

  ‘Do it yourself, then. I’ve got better things to do than hang around here and be yelled at by you!’

  Jazz wanted to storm off and forget she’d ever considered working with Phoenix. But then she thought of Anika—who needed her. And the evidence they still had to go through, and all that equipment in Dr Lyons’ lab. She had to work with him—for Anika’s sake. She took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her ears.

  ‘Phoenix, I probably can’t do this without you as my partner, but I’ve got to be able to trust you. It’s not going to work otherwise. This isn’t some hacking job where you need to big up your skills for your mates.’

  He stood there uncomfortably, head down until finally he spoke.

  ‘I’ve heard Mum talking about running the DNA program lots of times. I really thought I could just copy what she did. But there’s quite a bit of interpretation required in order to separate background DNA from the DNA that you’re after and I forgot about that. And then I kind of got carried away. I wanted to do it properly, which we did; we did a good job at the crime scene . . .’ He paused before adding, ‘I was keen to get back
into the lab. I am allowed in there, honestly, but not since . . .’

  ‘Since?’ prompted Jazz.

  ‘Since I got suspended. It’s part of my punishment. No lab access until I write this stupid letter of apology to the principal.’

  ‘You think apologising to the school for bringing down their entire network is stupid? Just write the letter already!’ Jazz said, exasperated.

  ‘I will, I will, OK?’ said Phoenix. ‘But first of all, don’t we have some investigating to do . . . partner?’ He reached out a hand.

  Jazz frowned. Perhaps Phoenix was being honest, but he was still a complete idiot at times. She couldn’t deny it, though: she needed him. She just wished his ego didn’t have to be part of the investigation as well.

  Jazz took his hand and shook it. ‘We need somewhere to work,’ she said. ‘My brother’s home and he’ll be way too keen for a distraction from study to leave us alone.’

  ‘That’s OK. I think I know the perfect place.’

  <34:45>

  Jazz heard the patter of leather on leather as Phoenix led her through a doorway marked SCHMICK N FIT.

  ‘Are we here to work out?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘Nah, we’ve already gone a few rounds,’ Phoenix said with a chuckle. He waved at a stocky bloke pummelling a speedball, whose sunburnt face split into a grin under his ginger hair.

  ‘The Phoenix rises again!’ he quipped, coming over and grabbing Phoenix in a man hug.

  ‘Simon, this is Jazz,’ said Phoenix.

  ‘Jazz, hi,’ said Simon, eyes twinkling as he shook her hand. ‘Are you here for boxing lessons too? You’ll need to work hard to keep up with this guy—he can’t stay away from the place!’

  ‘Um, hi . . .’ Jazz said, looking at Phoenix, surprised.

  ‘We just need somewhere to work on an investi—’ Phoenix felt a nudge from Jazz, ‘—on our homework.’

  ‘Homework, sure,’ said Simon, glancing from one to the other. ‘Partners in crime, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ mumbled Phoenix. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Course not! You can use the office. Dunno how much I can help, but if you need me, sing out.’

  Phoenix led the way to the back of the gym and into Simon’s office. It was a neat room with a chair on each side of the desk. Training programs and diagrams of boxing moves were hung on the wall, along with a print of Muhammad Ali and his famous ‘butterfly’ quote.

  ‘Simon seems nice,’ said Jazz, as Phoenix grabbed them both a glass of water and settled himself at the table. Getting no response, she added, ‘I didn’t know you boxed.’

  ‘Most people don’t,’ retorted Phoenix. ‘Guess I’m not one to talk myself up.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Jazz, not wanting to restart their argument. She sat down across from Phoenix. ‘Let’s go over what we know. Can you shoot through the best images you’ve got?’

  Jazz opened up CrimeSeen while Phoenix sent her the various photos he’d taken that morning along with the screen shots from the lab. Jazz started uploading the files as they came through and adding them to the app’s evidence folder, drumming her fingers against the table as she waited.

  ‘OK,’ said Jazz. ‘Let’s start with that alien fingerprint.’

  Phoenix brought up the image on his phone, side by side with one of Anika’s prints. ‘It’s all wrong,’ he mused. ‘The lines of the ridges are crosshatched, not looped in a whorl like normal fingerprints. It’s almost geometric. And it seems much bigger than a normal thumbprint.’

  ‘Remember that weird leg we saw on the CCTV footage?’ offered Jazz. ‘It seemed enlarged too.’ Again she asked herself if some giant creature could be responsible for the kidnapping. Jazz recalled the cramped space of the laundry chute. It can’t have been too huge, she thought.

  Phoenix flicked through a few more shots. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. He turned the phone around. ‘Jazz, check out how puffy you look in this one.’

  She glanced up and saw Phoenix holding out the photo of her from the laundry. ‘Seriously? You’re choosing now to pick on how I look? Real helpful, thanks, Phoenix.’ She shook her head. Was he ever going to take this investigation seriously? She checked the clock. 1:30 pm. They needed to gather all the evidence they could and already more than a quarter of the first 48HOURS had ticked away.

  ‘No, I mean because of what you’re wearing—the personal protective equipment,’ said Phoenix. ‘What if the kidnapper was wearing some kind of forensic suit and thick gloves? That would explain the fingerprint and the bloated leg.’

  Jazz’s look of anger changed to joy. ‘Phoenix, that’s brilliant!’ She turned back to her app and added to the notes against the fingerprint shot:

  Jazz felt an edgy anxiety running through her veins, ramped up by her excitement at working out this clue. ‘Let’s not waste any more time,’ she said. ‘Phoenix, you get the tyre print into the Treadmate app and start searching for a match on the boot print. I’m going to a look at a major piece of evidence we haven’t even started with yet.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked. He seemed grumpy that Jazz was telling him what to do.

  ‘Anika’s blog. It could hold the key to this whole investigation!’

  <34:25>

  Jazz clicked on the link from one of Anika’s Facebook posts. Finally, here it was—Anika’s blog. She had called it: ‘The Secret Diary: Days of Fear’.

  As the website loaded up, Jazz felt annoyed with herself again for being so stubborn over the blog. The journal was missing and so was her best friend. Tears blurred her sight. Reading the blog was more important now than Anika could ever have imagined. It was possible that it held clues which could lead them to find her kidnapper.

  Jazz knew Mack had definitely read most of the blog, and could give her a basic idea of what was in it. But the journal Anika had been blogging was important to the kidnapper for some reason, so Jazz wanted to take a thorough look at what it said, herself.

  While Phoenix searched doggedly through images of boot prints, Jazz took a deep breath and focused as she started reading the first post.

  13 October 1994

  Today is the day I realised my husband is trying to kill me. I just stopped writing and looked at that sentence. Seeing the words on the page is almost more shocking to me than the realisation itself. I’ve been suspicious for a while. Been feeling out of sorts. At first I thought it was homesickness after we moved interstate. I missed our previous home and haven’t made a lot of friends here. My sister did what she could, sending care packages with some of my favourite foods. I wouldn’t have made it through those first few months without those chocolates that Karen sent. But the homesickness didn’t get better. It got worse. And now it’s become a real sickness, something that keeps me stuck in bed, too weak even to walk. I have no evidence of what my husband is doing, no proof. In fact, anyone who saw him fussing around me—checking to see if I’ve taken my medication, asking if I want any more of the chicken soup that he makes for me—would think how lucky I am to have such a kind and loving husband. And sometimes I think I am very lucky. And I wonder if these thoughts about him trying to kill me are part of my illness. Am I going crazy? Perhaps the illness is in my brain and I’m fearful and paranoid . . . Lately though, I think I do sense a coldness in him. There’s something I can’t put my finger on, something not right, something that wasn’t there before. I overheard him on the phone to Karen and he sounded so exasperated. They’re both pathologists so normally their conversations revolve around boring work stuff. But he sounded really worked up. What else could that have been about other than me, my sickness? I suppose anyone would get tired of having a sick partner after a while. We used to do so many things together—hiking, travelling, theatre. Seeing films. But not anymore. People talk about a ‘broken heart’ but I feel as if my heart has been stomped on—crushed. I wish Karen was here. I need to tell someone! And I need someone to tell me I’m just being silly and of course everything’s OK. That Neil’s not a murderer! Th
at he does still love me . . . that he could never . . . My thoughts and feelings are so confused sometimes. I’ve decided to keep this journal so that I have something to work on, keep me occupied, express these secret, terrible thoughts. And hopefully it will just be some strange tale to look back on if I ever get out of this mess . . .

  No wonder Anika was so obsessed with the journal! Jazz thought, looking up from the screen. She was completely grabbed by the story. She glanced at the comments on this first post, recognising the handles of lots of friends from school. The comments showed they were just as compelled by the story, but she only skimmed them, eager to head straight to the next post.

  15 October

  I’m ashamed now of what I wrote a couple of days ago. Neil is truly the kindest, most wonderful man, and I don’t know how I could have thought that he might be trying to kill me. He must NEVER KNOW that I suspected him. Luckily, I found a really good hiding place for this journal. Karen is coming to visit and I’m sure once she arrives I’ll feel a lot better. She and Neil can talk science. It’s funny to remember now that I only met Neil because of Karen. They worked together in a lab. I used to pick her up and would often chat to Neil while I waited for her. That memory is so strange to me, both for how easy it used to be for me to get around, and the closeness Karen and I once shared. After Neil and I married she and I seemed to see less of each other. Our interests changed. We used to go out and do fun things together, but I started doing more and more of that with Neil and she retreated into her favourite hobby of tinkering around with computers. Although she lives so far away, this illness of mine seems to have brought my sister closer to me. I’ll admit it’s not only her companionship that I’m looking forward to. Maybe Karen will have some ideas about what it is that’s afflicting me. Neil keeps pestering me to have more tests, but nothing is showing up on any of them to explain why I’m so weak and confused. I worry that Dr Craven thinks that the illness is all in my mind. If I told him of my earlier (embarrassing) fears about Neil, he’d believe I was truly crazy—especially if the next day I told him that everything was all right and that I was mistaken. He insists that my blood tests are all normal. There’s no sign of anything amiss. And yet, day by day, I just know I’m getting worse.