Short Stories

From Ava to Eva 3 (𝕞𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕪)

It was night again.

Throughout the day I had accomplished nothing but worrying and stressing. Emma was still missing and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it.

The police said they were still looking for clues, but I had a feeling they'd given up. It was up to me to find her. Max had already left and gone to bed, encouraging me to do the same.

But I couldn't sleep. Not when we were this close to finding another clue about who had kidnapped Emma and why.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up the story I'd already read dozens of times. This time, I focused on my name. Well, Eva's name.

Could there be a clue in there?

Emma had switched the first letters of my first and last name. Was there something more? I studied the other names: Xander Mason, Martha Menoy and Case McKenzey.

Martha obviously represented Emma, but what about the others?

Zack was probably Case, the boyfriend and Max was Xander, the assistant. But how could I be sure? How could Emma have been sure Max would help me or Zack- call the police?

I examined the character's last names more closely.

That's it!

I quickly grabbed a plain sheet of paper and wrote down:

Martha Menoy

Case McKenzey

Xander Mason

Eva Athan

I started to unscramble the names and sure enough, I got:

Emma Rathony

Zack Ceynese

Max Darenson

Ava Ethan

Emma was such a genius. She probably couldn't use everyone's real names because she was being watched or her captor didn't want her sending us such an obvious warning. So she'd used anagrams, using my obvious one as a hint that the others were as well.

But did that mean that each character was based off of the person their name was an anagram of?

I had thought that it was Xander that kidnapped Martha, possibly because he was jealous of Case, but Max wouldn't do that, would he?

My heart dropped.

It was Max. All this time I've been suspicious of Zack when the answer was right under my nose.

Max was there when Emma came the morning of her disappearance, though there was no logical reason for him to be there. The nervous glances. He probably had connections at the zoo and payed a guard to turn off the cameras. Emma being jumpy when he was around. The fear in his eyes when he realized how close we were to finding him out.

Max was in love with Emma.

Eva will be betrayed by a friend.
Love makes people do crazy things.

It was all starting to make sense.

How could I have thought it was Zack? He was just trying to protect his girlfriend and I completely misjudged him.

But now what was I supposed to do? Follow Max and try to find out where he was keeping Emma?

That was a crazy idea. It would never work.

I called Zack and he picked up on the first ring.

"I need your help. I know who has Emma. And we need to follow him to see where he's keeping her."