Derek
"So where do we go from here?" Amelia asked.
"That should be enough to get a warrant," Greene said, standing up. He pressed some buttons on his phone, and left the room with it pressed to his ear.
"Don't lose hope now, Derek, we're so close. We'll find, and she'll be fine, I can feel it," Humphrey said, offering me a kind smile.
Greene burst into the room a frantic look on his face. This was the first time I had seen him lose his composure, and I knew it wasn't good. "Bri—Timothy whatever the fuck his name is isn't at his house. I had officers stay in his area from when this first started, and I asked them to go check his place and he's gone."
"He must not be holding her at his house then," Amelia said, turning over to Humphrey, "Do they have any other properties to their name? Anywhere else that they could be?"
Humphrey sat down at his laptop, typing furiously as we all waited in a tense silence. "There's nothing here. Other then his main address, there isn't anything else in any of his family's name."
"Goddamnit," I yelled throwing one of the chairs against the wall. It made a satisfying sound as it cluttered to the floor. "I fucking told you Greene that he was the one and you didn't believe me! What the fuck are we supposed to do now! How are we going to find her!"
Everyone looked at me in silence, surprised by my outburst. I was usually the calm one and therefore they had never seen me act like this before, but I was pissed. Our one hope in find Layna before this bastard hurt her, and we had blown it because Greene was an idiot.
Before anyone could reply, an officer burst into the room.
"Sorry to interrupt, Detective Greene, but there is something that you need to hear."
"What's up, Officer McCormick?" Allan asked.
"It has to do with that Laura girl who's kidnapped."
I ground my teeth together. "Layna," I spat, "Her names Layna."
The officer didn't even spare me a glance. "We just got a call from her, and I think you're going to want to hear this."
***
We all rushed over to a meeting room where they had set it up so we could listen to the recording.
Sitting in the room was a young lady there that I didn't recognize. She must have been in her late twenties, with light blonde hair pulled into a professional looking bun, and an earpiece set slung around her neck. She was small in stature, and was very pretty, in a sort of delicate way. Her blue eyes were rimmed in red, like she had been crying.
"Cathy?" Greene asked, striding over to her and pulling her into his arms., and that's when I noticed that she was sporting quite a large belly; she was pregnant, and heavily at that. He seemed to forget about everyone else in the room as she started to cry again, instead focusing on comforting her.
"It's his fiancée," McCormick whispered from beside me, and I nodded stiffly. "She answers 9-1-1 calls."
"What happened, Cathy?" Greene asked softly, leading her over to a chair so that she could sit.
"I'm pregnant and I have too many hormones that's what! I don't even know why I'm crying." She wiped her face and sat up straight, pulling herself together before she spoke again.
"I got a call from Layna Keston, the missing girl that you told me about. I don't know how she did it but she managed to get a phone to call in, and there might be the possibility to get her location from it. But we have to work quickly because, I uh, I heard something at the end and it wasn't good." Cathy's voice broke over the last sentence, and Greene softly rubbed her back.
"Okay well, we will listen to it again, and then we can go from there, alright?" Greene said, looking towards Cathy. "Will you be okay to listen to it again?"
She nodded her head, and then looked towards me. "You're Derek right? Derek Jackson?"
I nodded my head; I assumed that Greene had spoken to his fiancée about me.
"I don't think you should listen to it
"I need to hear it," I said my voice hard.
He looked over at me and nodded, before turning to a laptop that was sitting on the table in front of Cathy. He pressed play, and the recording started.
***
"There's a guy—Derek Jackson. He's in Florida right now, but my parents know how to get a hold of him," Layna soft voice filled the room, as the recording continued playing. "I want him to know that I love him. And tell him that I for—"
I flinched as a bang sounded through the recording, and I heard Brian's voice screaming. Rustling could be heard, and the phone muffled out most of what was being said, yet I could hear two voices talking to each other.
Brian's loud voice echoed through the small meeting room: "You bitch! You called the police?"
More rustling, then: "You're going to pay for that."
I heard Layna scream, a horrible, agonizing, bloodcurdling scream, and then the line went dead.
I stared at the wooden table, hear Layna's scream echoing in my head, I was going to wring that bastard's neck with my bare hands for touching Layna.
"Find that guy she was talking about, Michael. If he called in, I want to know where he called from," Greene said, and then turned to me, "I'm going to get Cathy calmed down, and I'll be back. If I hear anything I'll come and find you right away."
I nodded my head at him, and watched him lead her out. Humphrey and Justin both looked at me, and then Amelia, before also making their way out of the meeting room.
"Derek?" Amelia called me, walking over to kneel beside me. "Are you okay?"
"No, I'm really not."
"You can talk to me, Der, you know that right?" I nodded my head in response. "She wasn't just 'someone you knew' was she? She was something more."
"Yeah, she was."
"You loved her," she stated.
"Love," I corrected. "I don't think it ever went away."
Amelia was silent for a moment. "Okay. Then we have to make sure we get her back in tip-top shape."
Layna
I couldn't help it; I screamed as Brian pulled the knife out of my stomach. The pain was excruciating, and I didn't know how I was still conscious.
"Oh no!" Brian cried, dropping the knife to the floor. "Daddy what did you do?"
I looked down towards my stomach, and felt dizzy. The blood was seeping out of the hole he had made at an alarming pace, and dripping to the floor. I rested my head back down as the edges of my vision began to blacken.
"Daddy? Daddy where are you? You have to help me!"
Suddenly, I felt pressure on my stomach, and saw Brian staunching the bleeding with his shirt. "I'll fix it," he whispered, "I promise."
I closed my eyes, feeling the pressure lighten for a minute as he walked away. When I opened my eyes, he was walking back towards me, a needle and thread in his hand.
"No!" I cried as he came closer to me. I tried to move but I was still shackled in place.
"Its okay, my Layna. I 'm going to fix this. I'll make you all better."
"Brian stop it! You can't I need a doctor!"
He ignored me, cleaning away the blood on my stomach, before holding the skin together. I felt the needle pierce through my skin, and I screamed at the pain as Brian started to sew the hole closed in my stomach.
"Please," I whimpered the pain unbearable.
Once again, he ignored me, continuing the sewing. I couldn't take it anymore; I passed out.
***
When I woke up, I was no longer downstairs in the basement. He had moved me to the bedroom, and had put me down on the bed. I couldn't move; the pain in my stomach was too much.
But as I glanced down, I could see that Brian had put gauze over the wound, covering his harsh stitches.
I moaned in pain as my stomach throbbed, but could do nothing to ease the pain.
"Here," Brian said, and I flinched. He was sitting down in a chair in the corner of the room. I shivered as I imagined him watching me as I was unconscious.
He slowly stood up, coming closer to me, a needle in his hand. Brian held my arm down, and plunged the liquid into my arm. Slowly, the pain started to fade, until I could barely feel it anymore.
I sighed in relief, my body relaxing. Finally, I thought to myself.
"I'm sorry, Layna," Brian whispered, kneeling down beside me. "Daddy made me do it; I didn't want to. I didn't!"
"It's alright. I believe you," I whispered, and I did. Obviously Brian was not alright mentally, and in his head, I knew that he actually believed that his father was here, and forcing him to do things against his will.
"I don't like hurting you, but daddy makes me," he said softly, taking my limp hand. "He said I had to or he would hurt me. He always hurt me."
"Your daddy doesn't seem very nice."
"He was nice to Brian, Brian never got hurt. He loved Brian. I just wanted him to love me too."
I was too hazy from the medication to understand what was going on, so I just nodded my head agreeing with him.
"He made me take all those other girls; he said that they would pass all the tests if they loved me and then we could be together. But they all died.
"And then I saw you, and you wanted to talk to me and you loved me even without the tests and I was so happy but daddy said you were a liar. He said I had to take you to prove that you loved me."
"I passed the tests, didn't I Brian, I passed all of them?" I asked him, squeezing his hand with as much strength as I could muster.
"You did," he whispered, a smile lighting up his face.
"That's good, isn't it Brian?"
"Yeah, its really good. But I'm sorry I hurt you, my Layna."
"It's okay Brian, I forgive you."
"Can I tell you a secret?" he asked me, and I just made a noise of agreement. "My name isn't Brian. Brian's dead; I had to kill him. My name is Timothy. Just don't tell daddy my secret okay?"
"Your secret is safe with me, Timothy, don't worry," I said, on the verge of unconsciousness.
"Do you still love me?" he whispered, his voice childlike, and filled with hope.
"I do."
"That's good. You should go to sleep now and rest. We have to leave in the morning."
I didn't reply as my eyes slipped closed, and I drifted off.