Something About Alice Murphy: BOOK 1

P A R T - T H R E E

Chapter three; Intimidated.
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December 11th  

Alice stepped out of the shower into a room clouded with steam. It was two thirty in the morning on a Saturday, and Alice couldn't sleep anymore. She'd managed to close her eyes for a couple of hours but when she'd woken up she couldn't help but think about what she had discovered repeatedly in her head.

Magnus, a killer? Surely it must have been a prank. Some kind of disturbing inside joke between them all. Each name on that list had been a missing person, a public missing person... if either Magnus or Veronica knew anything, why didn't they tell anybody?

Alice sighed heavily as she wiped the condensation from the mirror... why didn't she tell anyone about Veronica's body either? She rubbed her lips together as she stared into her own eyes... the innocent blue gazing back at her as if she didn't know enough about her own mind to give herself an answer.

Minutes ticked past as she stared, her mind drifting back to the phone with the names, dates and locations of all these missing people. Her instinct whispered the truth to her, and deep down she knew everything was just how it looked. But she wanted to know more, she wanted to be certain. A thought crossed her mind that she could possibly go searching for these people in these locations, but the Park was huge and the rail way stretched for miles... they could be anywhere.

She wrapped the towel around her body and walked back into her room, careful to leave the main light off so that no one would have a suspicion she was awake. Even though she knew her parents and her younger sister were asleep, there was something about keeping the lights off that comforted her when she knew she was doing something she didn't want to get caught for.

Alice sat down at her desk and opened up her laptop, the screen sprung to life quickly and illuminated her face with a blue glow as she opened the internet and logged onto Facebook. She typed in Magnus's name, chewing her lip nervously as she noticed that they weren't friends. He looked so normal... at least he used to. Ice hockey photos, smiling pictures with friends, some photos of himself that others had taken of him...

She flicked through the photos she had access to and could almost see them changing before her. His eyes never seemed to mirror the emotion he was portraying on his face. It sent a chill down her spine and immediately she clicked off his profile and closed the lid of her laptop. Suddenly... an idea struck her.

Alice didn't have the resources or the time to check the locations Veronica left on her phone, but the police did... she snatched open the draw to her left and pulled out Veronica's sparkly iPhone and turned it on. She began to write down the list on a pink sticky note, making sure the writing was only written in a way she could read...

... at the same time a laptop chimed, catching the attention of Noah Wilson, who quickly spun around in his black swivel chair and pushed up his thick rimmed black glasses. "Ah," he hummed in a surprised awe, seeing his map software pinging the location of Veronica Greens iPhone. Quietly played electronic music flowed from the computers speakers as he leant closer to the screen, "There you are," he murmured to himself, sat in the dark attic room of his parents house, the room slightly smokey from the rolled up questionable cigarette he had dropped into an ash tray to his left.

His eyebrows furrowed close together as he stared at the location on the map, not sure of where exactly it was whilst he picked up his phone and opened his messages.