The Broken Bottle

Chapter 3

Begin The Search

Cerah stared up at the ceiling fan as it whirled around, chopping at the air carelessly. She had been tossing and turning in bed all night and now that the sun was beginning to rise, she knew that there was no hope in even a couple mere minutes of rest. The cause for her discomfort? An old letter she found inside a broken bottle. Now, it wasn't the letter itself that bothered her, well, maybe it played a role but that's not the point. What annoyed Cerah the most was that she couldn't place who wrote the letter or where it was written. It bothered her so much that she literally lost sleep because of it.

With a sigh, she tossed the duvet off of her legs and padded towards the kitchen. As the smell of peppermint tea filled the air, Cerah settled back into a plush, purple-velvet-covered rocking chair. What was she supposed to do about that cursed letter? She obviously couldn't just forget about it. And she didn't even know where to start looking. For awhile, Cerah debated wither or not to burn it and just pretend she had never found it, but of course she scraped that idea because she knew it would eat her alive if she burned it. Grudgingly, she settled on simply leaving it for a few hours and hopefully she'd have come up with a place to start.  

• • •

Four hours, 39 minutes, two pots of tea, and seventeen bathroom trips later, Cerah had come to a conclusion. She was going to bring the letter to the police. No, she wasn't going to 'turn it in' like you would with potential evidence, she was going to have a friend-yes, a friend- run a few tests on it to see if there was any possible way to find the author by way of fingerprints. Not that she assumed the author was a convict hiding from the law or anything, she just thought that she'd be able to use fingerprints because the person possible had a passport or something.

Stuffing her feet into a pair of TOMs, Cerah hopped into the driver's seat of her Smartcar. The seat was warmed from the autumn sun. She turned the key in the ignition and began the three-mile drive to the local police station.

"Hey, Karrin." Cerah smiled as the bell to the London PD front door jingled as it slammed shut. "Hey, Darlin', whatcha doing here?" replied the red-head, pushing her large glasses up the bridge of her nose,"What, I can't just visit a friend?" replied the teen, a look of mock-hurt on her face. The older woman raise an eyebrow in accusation, Cerah sighed in defeat, "Okay, so I've got more then one reason for the visit." Fishing the letter out of her pocket, Cerah gently unfolded and smoothed down the edges of it, and handed the piece of paper over to Karrin.

"What's this?" Asked Karrin as her eyes darted across the rain-splotched page, "It's a letter." Cerah stated, mentally reprimanding herself for saying such an obvious answer, "See, the last name and return address is smudged," "What so you want me to do about it?" Karrin replied, "well," Cerah drew the word out in a shrill kid-ish way "I was sort of wondering if you could see if there were any useable finger prints on it. 'Cause, well, I was sort of wondering if you'd be able to trace who the author of it is." "Cerah," Karrin said in her best parent voice-Karrin, although she was married and at the prosperous age of 25, had no kids yet. She did want some though, that's why Karrin loved taking care of Cerah as much as possible.- "You know that's against the rules." But Cerah refused to give up. She gave Karrin the best puppy-dog look she could muster until she finally gave in. "Fine," Karrin sighed "I'll run a few tests. But don't be too disappointed if nothing comes from any of them." In a mutter she added "I cannot believe I still fall for that puppy-dog act."

Half-an-hour later, Karrin handed Cerah back the letter, another piece of paper was placed on top of it. "What's this?" Cerah asked, taking the papers from Karrin "Well, I ran some tests on the letter, just like you asked, and it turns out there was some useful information on it." Karrin answered "The letter's writer goes by the name Daniel McDonahue. He's from North America-The United States to be exact. And he's currently living in Manchester, England." Cerah's face positively lit up when she found out that he was there in England. "That's great! Now I ca-" "Hold on there, Hot Shot, you didn't let me finish." Karrin cut her off "He lives in Manchester, but not of his own free will. See, he's address is 1540 Crafer's Way. Do you know what building is located there?" Cerah shook her head, No, Cerah thought, but what's it matter? "1540 Crafer's Way is home to the Brakenstein Home for the Mentally Deranged. Do you know what that means?" From Cerah's blank expression, Karrin assumed she didn't. "Cerah, he's living at an Insane Asylum."