Birdy Anders
Birdy stared at the board in frustration, her feet pacing her throughout the room. Neither Julian nor Badger were there to help her at that point, and she hated to think that she was somewhat glad for that fact. She was so frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t figure out anything.
She knew some baseline information for the case that she had been able to scrounge up from some old police reports, but even those were sometimes a bit vague and lacking in critical detail. She had practically nothing to go off to even begin trying to figure out Tempest’s identity or anything else about him, let alone where he was in the world.
Every single police report and anything else that she could find to be used as some type of evidence usually had to do with her brother. His supposed death, his kidnapping, and tons of other stuff. Although she was grateful that there had been care put into the little crevices of the idea of finding her brother years ago, that stuff didn’t help her right then.
What she needed right then was to find some actual evidence on the man that she was looking for, and unfortunately for her, that didn’t seem to be in high stock. The closest thing they had found so far were some old security tapes from around town that somewhat matched the description of what Badger said he had looked like. But even those weren’t concrete because of the horrible camera quality on every single one of them.
Even if they had been able to use that as some type of conclusive piece of evidence, they couldn’t because it didn’t lead anywhere. It was just random places around, nowhere in particular. It didn’t even show him getting into a car or going to an airport or something. The tapes had been an exciting discovery at first, but was ultimately just another disappointing dud that led absolutely nowhere. Birdy wanted to just rip her hair out.
Nothing was leading anywhere, and although it had only been about a week since even starting this investigation, she already felt like giving up and calling it all quits. She knew there would be tough spots, but she guessed that she had been holding out hope that something big would come quickly that would show her that this was the right thing to be doing.
She wanted to cry because everything felt hopeless, and she didn’t even know why she had bothered in the first place. Every time that she thought something like that, she would try to remind herself what she was doing this for, what she was really doing this for.
This was all for her brother, and truly her entire family as a whole in the big picture would benefit from this, from him being caught and brought to justice. Then, they would all be able to actually heal from everything that they had all gone through. Or, at the very least, Birdy herself would be able to heal from all that she had gone through in those times.
Birdy tried for the millionth times in the past couple of hours to just go over everything one last time before going to bed. Besides, it was a weekend, so it wasn’t even like she had to wake up early for school the next morning. She thought to herself that it would be selfish for her to have the luxury of sleep when she could be working on this all night. She might’ve also thought it was selfish for her to get sleep when her brother still sometimes couldn’t.
She thought that there had to be something there. There had to be something that she was missing. Maybe there was some tiny detail that had somehow slipped her eyes because of her hazy and sleepless mind. She knew logically that she probably wouldn’t catch anything that her brain couldn’t catch without sleep if she didn’t give it sleep. But she was too far gone into this to care about the logic of what her body may or may not need.
Birdy pushed her mind into another working cycle of sifting through every single thing she had found, both on the computer and in real life, so far. Her fingers brushed over the documents and the keys on her board as she scrolled endlessly to see what could’ve possibly been updated on a years old case where the victim had already been found.
Nothing! Because who would think to try to delve into a case like this. Sure, maybe when they thought that Cyrus was dead, the police and investigators had been understanding of her father’s constant push for the investigation to be continued and furthered, but that was no longer. Everyone assumed that just because her brother was back, it meant that everything was fine and dandy. Like nothing had ever even happened at all.
But it wasn’t! It never ever was, and she didn’t think it truly ever would be in her mind. But catching this guy and seeing him given the proper punishment for hurting her brother and absolutely tearing her family apart, that might help just a little tiny bit in her mind.
She knew that revenge and all that wasn’t good and all, but she couldn’t help herself from thinking those thoughts. They seemed so appealing whenever she had been crying, and now it sometimes seemed like it was the only possible way that she could fix things.
Birdy sighed and shook her head. It was time to read, not to have a pity party in her head.
Juneau, Alaska…Police Department Report
9/23/19
- Anders Case (Cyrus Latido de Corazon)
Detective On Case (Writing Report) - Dorinna Singh
The Anders Case is not the most peculiar thing that I’ve ever worked on, I must admit to that. I have been given a million files in the past that looked practically identical to this, and I must say I find it sad. Cyrus Latido de Corazon Anders was brutally murdered just two weeks before the date that I am writing this. His body was entirely mutilated. The current consensus is that it was most likely done with some sort of large knife. The body was solely able to be identified by taking some of the blood from it and testing it for DNA, which came back as a match for Cyrus. We are currently still investigating, though there is something of peculiarity that was brought up. His little sister, Birdy Chica Anders, said that he told her that he felt as though he was being watched in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, but that he brushed it off. It is doubtful that it was anyone from his school, though. He was not popular by any means but seemed to be in good grace with the majority of people in his environment. There were previous cases of bullying, but those were all…
Birdy remembered reading that one a million times, hoping to find something, anything, that could help her. Dorinna Singh had written many reports on her brother’s case, and that one just so happened to mention her in it, which only freaked her out a little bit.
Birdy continued to scan the reports that Ms. Singh, along with plenty of other detectives, had made. None of them seemed to be helping her at all, but she considered it a win as long as she was occupied and working. She really did not want to be left alone with her own thoughts for too long. Especially not then after looking at all this stuff about murder.
Birdy was about to give up when she noticed something that she hadn’t had before. She had looked at the document on her computer briefly before but hadn’t given it much thought because it didn’t seem to be significant to the case. But as she was just simply going through everything over and over again. She realized as the sun came out over the horizon, that there was something she had missed! She read the singular sentence over and over again.
…the disappearance of Cyrus Latido de Corazon Anders seems to be somehow connected to the disappearance of Jacob Richard Hensen…
Birdy had no idea what that name meant, but she knew that it meant something big.
✵✵✵
Birdy ran through the halls without singular care to the numerous teachers who were screaming at her to slow down so that she didn’t injure anyone with her reckless actions. She really did not care at that point because she was just so absolutely elated right then.
For the first time in…she didn’t even know how long, she was smiling. Like, genuinely truly smiling for a good reason that was actually personal to her. She had thought that the possibility of that ever happening again was impossible for a little while there, but she guessed that the phrase ‘never say never’ might hold more weight then she had given it credit for when she was just a little kid. But that wasn’t important. What was important was the reason that she was ever so happy that morning. It was because of the night before.
She remembered the exact feeling of just pure and utter relief when she saw a name that she didn’t recognize at all on those papers. Over her time doing research for Cyrus and Tempest’s case, she had gotten accustomed to plenty of names. Dorinna Singh, just to name one. She had begun to identify their writing styles, how they identified themselves, and how they had contributed to the original Anders Case. She knew a lot about them.
However, Jacob Richard Hensen had never been a name that she had seen before, and he might somehow be connected to Tempest and Cyrus! Even if this just led to a complete dead end, she would still be grateful for it because at least it had boosted her morale.
Really, she had just been about to give up on the possibility of finding Tempest as a whole then this one name, this one random guy, shows up on the papers exactly when and where she needed it to keep her going. She considered it too lucky to be a coincidence for a moment there, but then she just accepted some good luck for once in her loving life on planet Earth.
Birdy breathed out a happy sigh of relief when she saw that Badger and Julian were just up ahead in the hallway. She never thought that she would ever in her entire life be joyous to see those two in her close proximity. But as of right then, they were business partners and nothing else. So, of course, she was happy to share good news with her business partners.
She couldn’t wait to tell them all about what she had found, even if it seemed like a tiny detail. Well, Julian and Badger had known at least some of the people around the place that Cyrus got kidnapped, so maybe it wasn’t such a tiny detail. Maybe they had known this Jacob guy!
She saw them turn the corner, but when she went around the same one, they were nowhere to be found. She deflated for a second but tried to remind herself that she could just tell them about it later when she went over to Badger’s house or when they came over to hers.
(Cryus's middle name (Latido de Corazon) is Spanish for heartbeat.
Hope you enjoyed it! Bye!)