"I'll use this," Olivia said as she pulled out her wallet. She opened it to reveal a license with her picture on it and the words 'Private Investigator' on the top.
Kara grabbed it out of Olivia's hands for a closer inspection. "This is so cool, when did you get this?"
"I've had it for a long time. It's an official licence too. It makes my job easier when I can tell people that I'm investigating something. It gives you a lot of access to places that are closed to the public."
Kara handed the license back with a beaming smile of pride aimed at her friend. "I guess you have your shit together."
Olivia laughed. "I like to think so."
Kara and Olivia hailed a cab and went to the address in the file. It was a high-rise luxury apartment. They tried to enter the apartment but the doorman stopped them.
"Excuse me, ladies. Are you here to see someone in the building?"
"Hello, I'm Olivia Lucerno, private investigator," she said, reaching out and shaking the doorman's hand before showing her license. "We're here to see Stephanie Barker-Wilson about her mother's disappearance."
The doorman leaned in closer to inspect the license, and then nodded. "Such a shame, what happened. Miss Barker-Wilson has been distraught ever since, and can you believe the police think it's a hoax?" He shook his head. "The nerve," he said, folding his arms. "Is she expecting you?"
"No, the research firm Anne works for hired us. We haven't been able to reach Stephanie, but we need her help to begin the investigation."
The doorman nodded. "I'll call ahead then and let her know you're coming."
"Thank you," Olivia replied.
The doorman went up to a terminal beside the door and punched in a few numbers. After a moment, a woman's voice came from the speaker. They talked with each other for a moment.
"That was easy," Kara commented.
"That's usually the easy part. Actually finding who we're looking for can be difficult. With you here, though, we might get a lucky break."
Kara smiled. "The only jobs you've brought me on were boring ones where a psychic owed some money. This one seems pretty exciting."
"Let's hope so," Olivia replied with a stoic expression.
The doorman returned to Olivia and Kara. "Alright ladies, you're welcome to enter. Miss Barker-Wilson will see you."
Olivia nodded. "Apartment three-fourteen, correct?"
"That's correct, miss," he answered as he opened the door for them.
The two of them thanked him and entered the building. The outside spoke to its opulent nature, but the inside was something else. The decorations were lavish and plentiful, with two fireplaces on either side, a dozen expensive recliners and couches, and a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A few of the residents were lounging in the chairs, reading.
They headed to the elevator and went to the third floor, then went to room three-fourteen at the end of the hall. Olivia took the lead and knocked on the door.
A timid voice came from behind the door. "Who is it?"
"Olivia Lucerno, I'm the private detective the doorman mentioned to you. Could we come in and speak with you, miss?"
The door opened, and in front of them stood a young woman in her late teens by the look of her. Her eyes were red and baggy, and she held a crumpled tissue in her hand. It was evident she was distraught over her mother's disappearance.
"Could I see some identification, please?" she asked.
"Certainly," Olivia said, retrieving her license again.
After a quick inspection, Stephanie moved away from the door to let Kara and Olivia inside. They entered the apartment and removed their shoes.
"Thank you for having us, Miss Barker-Wilson," Olivia said.
Stephanie closed the door behind them and walked towards the living room. "It's just Barker, but call me Stephanie," the girl said with a hint of annoyance. "Follow me."
Olivia and Kara went into the living room and Kara was awestruck. The room was bigger than the apartment she was living in with old Mr. Montgomery. In the centre, there was a sectional sofa facing a picture window affording a beautiful view of the city. In front of the sofa there was a massive square coffee table, and other decorative pieces of furniture were strewn about the living room. Topping it off, there was a fireplace on one side of the living room with a huge television mounted on the wall above it.
"Your mother must be well off," Kara blurted out.
Olivia glanced from Kara to Stephanie. "What my colleague means to say is that your mother must be a respected researcher. What was she studying?" Olivia stared daggers at Kara. She shrugged with an apologetic look.
"Neuroscience," the girl stated simply. "Please, sit." She waved her hand towards the couch. Kara and Olivia took a seat, and Stephanie sat on the other side of the couch near them. "She was researching whether external stimuli can manipulate certain sections of the brain."
Kara and Olivia shared knowing glances. Given their knowledge of Vasha, they could guess the reason she wanted Anne saved.
"I guess the first thing we should ask is if your mother had any rivals or enemies. Anyone at work that she was having issues with or anyone in the industry working on the same research?"
Stephanie looked away in thought. "I work with her most days as an internship for my thesis."
"Your thesis?!" Kara shouted. "How old are you?"
"Nineteen," Stephanie replied. "I graduated high school early and am in my senior year of university."
Kara whistled. "That's impressive. You must be a genius."
Stephanie chuckled softly. "That's what everyone tells me, but I just had a good teacher who pushed me to work hard."
Olivia smiled. "You were saying?"
"Right. I work with my mother, and there aren't many others in our team. Everyone who is loves my mother and looks up to her, as far as I know. When it comes to rivals, there are other people doing similar research with brainwaves, but not the same application as her. Also, her work is independently contracted, so I don't know who would stand to benefit if she was gone."
"Where you here when the kidnapping happened?"
"Yes," she replied. "I was in my room, working on my thesis. I was listening to music when I heard a loud crash like glass breaking. I came out here to see the picture window broken, and when I called for my mother she didn't answer. I went to the window and I could see her being shoved into a van on the other side of the street. I ran outside as fast as I could while I called the police, but the van was gone by the time I got there. I asked people nearby if they saw anything, but it was late at night and there wasn't much traffic at that hour. The doorman is inside at night, so he didn't see anything, and the cameras couldn't see the van."
Olivia peered at the window with a pensive look on her face, and then walked over to it. "Could you point out to me where the van was exactly?"
Stephanie and Kara joined Olivia at the window, and Stephanie pointed a ways down the street. "It was around there."
Olivia looked at the wood floor of the apartment, then over at where the van would have been. She stroked the glass of the picture window, deep in thought.
"I had the window replaced this morning," Stephanie commented.
"How did they manage to get her from this floor to the van?" Olivia muttered.
Stephanie's face contorted, like she was in pain. "You don't believe me either, do you?" she whimpered. "Even the police don't believe me. They won't say my mother is missing until more time passes. My mother wouldn't abandon me, not after…" Stephanie pursed her lips. "She wouldn't do that to me," she said, another hint of anger in her voice.
Olivia reached out and touched Stephanie's arm. "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I believe that your mother was kidnapped. I'm just trying to figure out how they took her from a third-storey window. Rappelling down from the roof seems like too much work given the height of the building, and taking her from the ground could have injured her."
Stephanie still seemed hesitant about something.
"Please tell us anything you know, Stephanie," Kara encouraged. "It will help us. You can trust us."
Stephanie glanced at the two of them. "Well… we have cameras hidden throughout the house, and several of them showed what happened, but you won't believe it when I show it to you. It’s why the police aren't helping me."
"You don't have to worry about that," Kara reassured her. "We've seen our fair share of odd occurrences." Kara glanced at Olivia with a smirk. Olivia chuckled and nodded at Stephanie to affirm their commitment.
Stephanie nodded back, and then walked away. Olivia and Kara followed her into another room which had a computer and other electronics. She went on the computer and opened a folder which had several video files in it. She played one of the videos, and it showed the living room they were just in.
They could see Anne, still wearing her lab coat, talking on a phone in one hand and holding a glass of wine in the other. She was walking around the living room, conversing with a smile on her face. Then she approached the window, and after a minute the window busted open by an invisible force. That same force seemed to pull Anne through the opening. The video was high quality, and they could see out the window the whole time. There were no people rappelling down, nothing which grabbed Anne like rope or anything of the sort, it just looked like she was pulled out as if by the hand of God.
They watched it from a few different angles, but there was nothing new to gain. To Kara and Olivia there was no doubt about what happened: A psychic used telekinesis to pull Anne out of the window.
Kara and Olivia looked at each other with furrowed brows. Now we know why we're helping a human, Kara thought.
Stephanie had tears in her eyes. "I wish I had another explanation for what happened, but I don't. Please tell me you're still going to look for her?"
"Of course we are. This just got a whole lot more interesting," Olivia said with an excited smile on her face. "We're going to find your mother and bring her back," she declared.
3. Undead Detectives
"Thank you so much," Stephanie cried.
Kara hugged Stephanie tight. "No tears now, be strong."
Stephanie nodded and wiped her eyes. She pulled away from Kara after another moment and wiped her eyes again. "What will you do now? How will you find my mother?"
"I think the first thing we should do is inspect the location where the van was. There could be a clue left behind," Olivia suggested.
"I checked and didn't see anything, but another pair of eyes can't hurt," Stephanie said with a smile finally on her face.
The three of them exited the apartment and after a few words with the doorman, Stephanie showed Kara and Olivia where she believed the van had been parked. There were a few other vehicles parked in its place now.
"It was somewhere around here. When I checked the other day I couldn't see anything, and before the police saw the video they checked and weren't able to find anything."
Olivia and Kara scoured the area as best as they could between the cars and the pedestrians giving them dirty looks. On the street and the sidewalk there was nothing that they could see which looked out of the ordinary.
Olivia had her brows furrowed and she was glancing around.
"What are you thinking, Olivia?" Kara asked.
"Well, I'm thinking about Anne's phone. From the video we saw, Anne was on a conversation with someone. Did that person contact you, Stephanie?"
"Yes, actually, sorry I didn't think of it before. They said they heard the crash of the window breaking and then my mother screamed. After that she heard some voices telling her to move, and the call cut out soon after that."
"So, she might still have her phone on her. Remember how you found James Moore a few days ago, Kara?"
Kara laughed. "Yeah, but he was taking pictures with GPS on. I doubt Anne's kidnappers would let her take pictures."
"Not likely, but if the GPS is on, and she has service, we might be able to use a find-a-phone feature to track it."
Kara smiled at Stephanie, and she smiled back.
Olivia pulled out her phone and went to a common Find Your Phone page on the internet. "Could you enter your mom's phone number and password?"
"Yeah, luckily she's told me her password in case of emergencies like this. I wish I had thought of this a long time ago."
"It's understandable, you were under a lot of stress," Kara comforted.
Stephanie pulled out her own phone to get her mother's number and punched it into the website, then entered the password. After a moment the next page loaded and she was able to see a general location of where her mother's phone was.
"That's strange," she muttered. "It's showing it right around here."
Kara and Olivia both raised their brows at the same time. "Where could it be?" Kara asked aloud.
Stephanie pulled out her phone and called her mother's. They soon heard a faint ringing noise around them. They starting looking around in tandem, searching for a spot that the phone might have been that they hadn't looked at yet. Almost in unison they looked to the right of the sidewalk, away from the road, and shouted, "The park!"
They all ran inside the park and searched for the noise of the phone. There were a lot of bushes, but the three of them searched through them until they found the phone.
"Got it!" Kara yelled after finding it in the branches of a bush. She pulled herself out of the bush with the hand holding the phone raised triumphantly in the air.
Olivia and Stephanie rushed over to help, and once Kara was upright and cleaned off, they all had smiles on their faces. Kara's smile faded once something dawned on her.
"Wait, how does this help us? Without the GPS pointing us to where they took Dr. Barker-Wilson we won't know where they went."
"Well, I'm banking on the thought that she might have been able to take a picture or video of her kidnapping. She's smart, and the phone call seemed to cut off before she was shoved into the van, so it stands to reason that she had enough time to start a recording."
Kara handed the phone to Stephanie, as it was locked. "And if you're wrong?" she asked.
"Well, it's back to square one, then," Olivia replied. "Vasha might be able to pull traffic cam footage though, so we're not totally lost."
"There's a video!" Stephanie exclaimed.
Kara and Olivia leaned in close to watch the video as Stephanie pressed play. They were able to see Anne's bare feet walking along the pavement of the sidewalk. Two sets of voices were giving her orders to keep walking, and after a few seconds the camera turned to show the van in front of her. It was clear from the footage that Anne was trying her best to keep the camera steady. She was able to capture the license plate, but it was partially obscured by one of the kidnappers’ legs. After another few seconds, before the back doors of the van were opened, the angle changed and blurred as it was presumably tossed through the air. It landed in the bush they were standing beside, and that was it.
Olivia pulled the video back to where the van's license plate was the most visible, with only two characters missing. "This is great, Stephanie. Your mother is an amazing woman to be able to remain so calm in that kind of a situation. With this, we have a real chance of being able to find her."
Stephanie smiled, tears forming in her eyes again. "I'm so glad."
"I'm going to call Vasha and have her run the plate. She should be able to tell us who it belongs to," Olivia said, pulling out her phone. After a few rings, someone answered. "Hi, this is Olivia, can you send me over to Vasha, please? Thank you." Another few rings and Vasha answered. "Hey Vasha, we have a lead, but we need a partial run through the system. Yeah, it's C, H, T, four, nine, and that's all we have for the plate. White van, two-seater, average size, we weren't able to see any defining features." Kara and Stephanie watched with anticipation as Olivia glanced at them and then off at nothing. After a few moments, and a few vague confirmations from Olivia, she said, "Got it. Thanks, Vasha. We'll handle the rest." Olivia hung up the phone.
"So?" Kara and Stephanie asked in tandem.
"So, the van belongs to a rental dealership. I have the address. We'll have to go there and see if we can get more information on who rented the vehicle."
"Alright, let's go," Stephanie declared.
Olivia and Kara exchanged glances. "I'm sorry, but it's better if you stay here and wait, Stephanie."
Stephanie raised her brow, and then clenched her teeth. "I can't just wait around while my mother is in danger like this. It's going to kill me not knowing if she's safe."
"Chances are it's going to be dangerous. We'll be able to handle it, but you won't."
"You two aren't much older than me," Stephanie said, which produced a laugh from both of them. "And, I've been taking mixed martial arts for years. I can handle myself," she said with confidence.
Kara looked at Olivia and motioned towards Stephanie. Olivia nodded, and then moved like lightning at Stephanie. She used her superior reflexes and strength to flip Stephanie on her back, but made sure to let her down gently. Then Olivia mock punched Stephanie, leaving her fist inches from Stephanie's face.
"No matter how long you've trained for, we've been training longer, and we have the experience to back it up. We can handle this, and we'll bring your mother back to you safe and sound. Trust us," Olivia said.
Stephanie, suspended a foot above the ground by Olivia, nodded. "Alright, I know when I'm beat." Olivia pulled Stephanie back to her feet. "Bring her back, please."
"We will," Kara reassured her.
The three of them went back to the street, and Stephanie stayed to see them off, but before either of them could hail a cab, Stephanie stopped them.
"Don't you have a car?"
"No, neither of us can afford one," Kara replied.
"I wish, it would make things a lot easier," Olivia added.
Stephanie took out her keys and pulled a key off the ring. "Here, take my mother's. I'm only supposed to use it for emergencies, and I think this qualifies."
"Really? That would help us out a lot."
"I'll help in any way I can to bring her back," Stephanie replied.
"What about insurance? I don't know how that works. Is it going to be a problem if we borrow the car?"
Psychics Vs. Vampires Episodes 1-4 (Psychics Vs. Vampires Collection) Page 8