by Clara Lewis
Cassius looked up, and before he could reply, a voice interrupted them.
“Is there a problem here?”
At the sight of Murphy and Carl standing by the entrance of the station, Ava glared at Carl.
“Had to call Murphy, I was getting worried,” Carl explained.
“I said I could handle it,” she grumbled.
She waved Murphy away and turned to Cassius or, at least, where Cassius was. He sobered up quickly with how fast he tried to get away. She turned to follow him but decided against it. There was no way he was going to talk now. Ava slapped her leg, frustrated at the turn of events.
“I will talk to this man, believe me,” she promised.
However, she wasn’t happy with Carl interrupting her little moment with Cassius. He quietly sat down across from her as she made notes and emphasized on how irritated she was, with each stab her fingers made on the keyboard.
Suddenly Ava slammed her hands on the table, startling Carl who seemed to be on his fourth cup of coffee. He waited patiently for her to speak.
“I have an idea.”
Carl nodded for her to continue.
“Let’s get the evidence ourselves.”
Carl sat still and remained quiet. When it became clear that Ava wasn’t going to add anything after her statement, his expression became confused.
“We’ll do that, how?”
“I go undercover. I just need Cassius to tell me where he saw this girl get abducted.”
“I can list all the reasons why that’s a bad idea, and I’d run out of fingers to count them on,” Carl said, deadpan.
Ava wasn’t listening. She had already gotten up and was on her way to Chief’s office. Before she could march in and present her idea, Carl grabbed her arm.
“Do you have any better ideas, Carl? These girls are on borrowed time.”
Carl’s disapproving glance softened a little and his hold on her arm loosened. Eventually, Ava pulled her arm away from him and knocked on the door. She noticed that Carl lingered by the door. It wasn’t that he doubted her, it was more like he struggled with the idea of sending Ava into a dangerous situation willingly. If Ava were to tell him that the decision to go ahead with the plan was hers to make, it wasn’t guaranteed that he would agree with her. Ava walked into the office, alone.
Chief looked up with surprise and checked his watch.
“That was quick,” he said.
Ava shrugged.
“You know me,” she said, an arrogant smile ghosting on her lips.
The truth was that she was terrified. Every other case she had ever worked on had always been a team operation. In this instance, she would have to do the majority of the work alone.
The moment the idea had crossed her mind, she knew. Ava realized she had to act on it before she could dismiss it as an idea that was too risky and too stupid to try. She saw no other way to get information.
Chief wanted results. Anyone who had been in his office were presented with an array of medals and certificates dedicated to the station. Chief wanted to keep his police station at the top, and as a result, he pushed his detectives to be faster and to work harder.
However, he was a man who took good care of his officers. The moment he heard Ava’s idea, he dismissed it.
“No.”
That was all he said.
As stubborn as he was, Ava was going to show him that she was just as obstinate.
“Sir, I am a trained officer. If anything, I already have an advantage over the girls who were taken.”
“How do you know that this fun idea of yours won’t end up with us fishing you out of a ditch?”
Ouch.
“These girls don’t have much time. Now, I like to keep positive and think that they’re still alive, but we are going to need a little more proof, aren’t we?”
Ava left the question hanging in the air.
Chief crossed his arms and stared at the wall behind her. Carl shifted uncomfortably in his seat. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but the silence had become unbearable.
“Chief?”
He held a finger up to keep her quiet. Ava nodded meekly and sat back down.
As she looked out of the office windows, she saw a few officers pass by. Many of them made eye contact with her, took in the tense state of everybody in the office, and offered her an empathetic smile.
“No.” Chief finally said.
Ava shook her head in disbelief.
“But Chief—”she implored.
Chief stared her down.
“Look, I know what you’re capable of. You’re one of the best—that’s a given—but that’s just one of the reasons why I refuse to let you go through with this plan.”
“Mind telling me the other reasons?” Ava gritted through her teeth.
“It’s not up to you to decide whether they’re worthy reasons or not,” Chief replied coldly, frowning at Ava’s show of disrespect.
The phone on Chief’s desk suddenly began to ring. It happened to ease the tension in the room, and while Chief answered it with a stern greeting, Ava couldn’t leave until she had been dismissed. She waited in her seat, with her arms crossed and the gears in her mind turning. She has to convince Chief of her plan.
The conversation seemed to go on forever. At one point Chief let out a sigh that sounded almost relieved. He met her eyes and pointed at the door, a clear sign that he was done with their conversation. With a pinched expression, Ava shoved her chair back and made her way to the door.
Before she could turn the doorknob to leave the office, Chief called her back.
“Yes Chief?” Ava replied, her tone hopeful.
“You’re off the case.”
Ava stood by the door, dumbfounded. Without so much as a look toward her, Chief ended the call and scribbled something on a piece of paper.
“You can leave now,” he said, dismissing Ava.
Chapter 3
Ava blinked.
Being kicked off the case was not where she thought this conversation would go. Was it her attitude? No, of course not. Chief had grown accustomed to her determination. Sure, there were times she went overboard, but it was never really a problem before.
“I’m off the case?” she repeated, not sure if she heard correctly.
“Consider yourself lucky. Turns out one of the girls kidnapped is the daughter of some big-shot judge. He called in a favor and now the FBI are involved. Besides, I heard you took Murphy’s case? Why not focus on that instead?”
Well, that was awfully convenient.
“When are they getting here?” Ava asked.
Chief looked at the piece of paper on his desk.
“They’re on their way now. I reckon they’ll get here in two days. Also, Ava, I need you to compile those files you’ve got and have them on my desk, ready for the agents.”
Ava bit her lip, confused mostly at herself. She should be happy. She finally had the time to focus on the case she had intended working on first. However, who knows what could happen to those girls in a few days time?
She walked out of the office, closing the door behind her softly. Ava made her way to her desk and sat down dejectedly.
“Waiting a day or two is too long,” she mumbled to herself.
There was no way she would leave those girls alone like that. What if the kidnapper decided to take more? What then?
That wouldn’t do. This case was time sensitive. Ava knew was she had to do. She had to go ahead with her plan.
The next morning, Ava stood outside in the chilly air and hoped that, maybe, Cassius would walk by. She waited for at least an hour before rubbing her arms and stepping inside the station.
Sighing deeply, she walked over to her desk. She got to work immediately drafting the plan that would incarcerate the person responsible for kidnapping the girls.
That was the one thing that didn’t quite compute in Ava’s mind. The case had only become an issue when the runaway daughter of a judge turned up m
issing. The disappearance of Kate Murray made the news the next day.
Dave Murray was an important man. Of course, he had the means to involve the FBI.
Detectives were immediately assigned to the case and eventually they uncovered the name of another girl, Lena Delgado. A simple missing-persons case had turned into something much more sinister.
Two may not seem like much, but to Ava, that was two girls unaccounted for. The possibility of the man kidnapping more always hung in the air. No one else wanted to mention it, but it was a constant thought in the back of everyone’s minds.
Ava pulled up the files of the victims. At first glance, they looked like girls who had nowhere else to go. However, upon closer inspection, Ava began to recognize some of their names. Just to make sure, she searched their names and found them tied to successful businessmen.
This was how he managed to stay under the radar. Lena’s father was comfortably rich, but he wasn’t wealthy enough to make it into the papers or on the news. The kidnapper did his homework. Valenworth had its fair share of success stories and there were plenty of businesses around the city that did well.
However, the kidnapper targeted one that had a daughter who was considered “problematic.” It wasn’t new for her to run away and then come back a few days later. Ava looked into her file and found out that she was a frequent visitor to the station for various small crimes. Her father had eventually refused to bail her out, and that led to her boyfriends doing it for her.
That was that. Lena didn’t have anyone else to be concerned for her. The report only reached the police because she didn’t show up to her part-time job. Her disappearance was simply chalked up to her running out of town.
“But how did he know which families to target?” Ava wondered out loud. Family business wasn’t usually aired out in public.
The sound of someone’s heavy footsteps broke her concentration. Ava pushed her cup of coffee away from her, just in case. She didn’t want to get startled and waste another good pair of pants.
As Murphy rounded the corner, he froze, his eyes raking over the mountain of work Ava had put herself under.
“They’re not paying you enough for this, Locke,” he complained.
Ava waved him away as if he were an annoying mosquito.
“You’re disrupting me. Technically, it’s not even my case anymore,” she said bitterly.
He didn’t move away. Instead, he walked behind her and leaned over her shoulder. He poked the screen that Ava had glared at for a few hours. She pushed his hand away.
“This the urgent matter from this morning?”
Ava nodded. He flipped through the file.
“We all thought that you got in trouble with Chief again,” said Murphy.
“It was half that,” Ava replied with a chuckle, “then he gave us a case with no evidence to it, just a claim.”
Murphy stood up straight and clicked his tongue.
“What—what do they have?”
Ava shrugged but said nothing else. After a few seconds, she sighed and then laughed at the absurdity of it all.
“The claim of a drunk man who couldn’t even walk straight. Now leave me alone; I can’t think if you keep asking questions.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Murphy replied as he saluted and walked off.
Ava’s eyes followed him back to his desk where he promptly sat down, folded his arms on the table and laid his head on them. Within seconds, he was asleep, soft snores echoing in the otherwise empty office.
“Don’t you have a bed at home?” Ava asked incredulously.
Murphy didn’t respond. It wasn’t like him to be so early and this was the second day she encountered him at the office at this time. Ava observed him and noted his rumpled clothes, presumably the same as the ones he wore yesterday. He looked worn-out with his week-old scruff and the dark circles under his eyes.
“Hey, you okay man?” Ava asked, concerned.
Murphy opened one eye and shooed her away.
“I’m trying to sleep, woman. Don’t bother me.”
With a roll of her eyes, Ava shook her head and focused on the victims' files, over and over again, eager to find a detail she may have missed when she skimmed through them the first time. Despite how painstakingly slow she read the information for what seemed to be the seventh time, she still found nothing. There was no connection between these girls other than the fact they were runaways.
They didn’t live in the same area, and they never went to the same schools. Ava even went so far as to dig into the backgrounds of each girl. Nothing. There was no way their friends or families, if they had any, were connected to each other.
Frustrated, Ava huffed angrily at her desk. She was getting nowhere.
“I need a break,” she whispered to herself.
Maybe she could talk to Cassius again.
Ava pushed back abruptly, causing the chair to scrape across the floor with a loud screech. Murphy looked up from his arms, annoyed. Ava raised her hands up in apology as she grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair.
“Where are you going?” Murphy asked, drowsy.
“Somewhere. I’m bored,” Ava replied.
It didn’t take long to find Cassius. Ava wrapped her jacket around her tighter as she walked through the park, stopping people, and asking them if they had seen Cassius. She didn’t even have to describe him much. Many in the park already knew the guy, and soon enough, Ava was standing at the foot of the bench where he lay, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“Sorry, old man,” she whispered as she lifted her boot and gently pushed Cassius’s leg.
Cassius snored loudly and turned over. Ava would have found the situation a little funny if it weren’t for the pained sound that accompanied his movements. It was concerning.
Ava dropped to her knees and observed Cassius closely. She brought her head closer to his chest. He was still asleep, but this time she heard how labored his breaths were. Ava placed a palm on his shoulder and shook him gently. He turned and opened his eyes wearily, and Ava scowled when she saw the bruise around his left eye.
“Hey, Cassius, wake up. Please,” she pleaded.
When she took her hand away from his shoulder, she noticed that it had stained red. Ava sucked in a breath and took her phone out cursing when the blood, slippery, impeded her calling emergency services. When she had finally succeeded, she threw her phone aside and got back to Cassius’s side. He was fully awake now, and at the sight of Ava, he whimpered and tried to get away.
“No, no, please. Please, I just want to help.”
Ava raised her hands, proof that she intended no harm. Cassius looked around him as if expecting someone to jump out of the bushes and finish him off.
“Look at me. I can help.”
Cassius was still suspicious, but he allowed Ava to remove the blanket covering his body. Ava brought a hand to cover her mouth when she saw the array of bruises that were spread across Cassius’s torso. On his shoulder was a deep cut.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered.
“I can’t tell you,” Cassius mumbled.
Ava understood. While she would have been perfectly fine with just getting a detective to find the person responsible for beating up an old man in a park, something about the way Cassius reacted made her connect his case with that of the missing girls.
His actions resembled that of the day when he came to the station to tell her something. Sure, it may have been a coincidence, but someone was intent on keeping this man quiet.
Ava settled to just sitting next to Cassius in silence. When she heard the ambulance sirens, she was relieved. Cassius put a hand on her forearm.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Ava placed her hand on top of his. Paramedics surrounded them and began treating his immediate wound. She took that opportunity to lean into Cassius’s ear.
“We’ll keep you safe,” she whispered.
Ava didn’t miss the light of hope flicker in the old man
’s eyes. She patted his hand one more time and moved to get up.
Cassius pulled on her forearm and she sat back down.
“Gas station. Just outside town. That’s where I saw her.”
Ava smiled at him. She held his hand for a few moments, expressing her gratitude before she hurried back to the station, or more specifically, Chief’s office.
Ava had the sense to look guilty when she realized she had intruded on an important call. Chief had been reassuring the FBI agents that they would have the files they needed for the case when they arrived.
Chief looked up sharply when he heard Ava barge in, his eyebrow raising when he saw the blood all over her clothes. He replied to the person on the other end of the line as he lifted his hand and gestured to Ava as if to say, “Do you have any idea what you look like right now?”
Ava looked away shyly but made no move to leave. She stood, rooted in her spot, determined to talk to Chief. When he ended his call, he eyed her bloody clothes, his hand gesturing to her as if to say, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“The blood’s not mine, but first I’ll need you to assign someone to guard Cassius’s hospital room. Someone tried to kill him.”
Chief looked puzzled.
“Who’s Cassius?”
“My main witness,” Ava replied, giving no further explanation.
“I also have the location of where the last girl was abducted. I just need a few changes of clothes and wait there. It might be his spot.”
Chief held his hand up, causing Ava to stop talking.
“I thought I told you the case isn’t yours anymore,” Chief said.
Ava shrugged.
“It’s not like the kidnapper will dutifully wait for us to catch up. Look, Chief, we have no information on this guy. Our best bet is to gather the evidence ourselves.”
“It’s still dangerous,” Carl piped up.
Ava turned around in surprise to find Carl standing by the door holding forms. He looked at Ava, disapproval etched all over his face, mirroring that of Chief’s. Ava shot him a look that told him to shut up. She wanted her plan to work.
“Need I remind you that you have other cases to work on?” Chief said, his voice getting louder.
Ava spared a look at her desk and the files piled on top of it.