Emma's P.O.V
I looked around the conference room to see that everyone has arrived. After last night's hassle, I was pressured by the management board to inform them on the case's improvement. I agreed to only have a private meeting with the top four, also known as the head table committee.
I glanced at my watch to see that it was already 8 in the morning.
I sighed.
Time to begin the meeting I guess.
"A very good morning ladies and gentlemen", I told them with a nod as I looked around at everyone.
"Well, let me come to the point straight away. I had to call the forensic team and a hacking expert at 9 last night because I found a lead. Ella Owen is one of the girls who was sexually abused. I arrived at her house following one of my hunches to see if I could catch the culprit. Mrs. Owen was very helpful in confirming my doubts. I searched Ella's room to find any clue. I searched everywhere including her social media profile, and that is when I found her bed unmade. According to Mrs. Owen, Ella hasn't come home that night, but she does has the habit of making her bed every morning. I saw a contradiction here and asked Mrs. Owen a few questions. And here it is", I told them as I turned around to show my presentation projected on the wall.
A video of Mrs. Owen answering my questions played.
"As you can see, according to Mrs. Owen she thought that her daughter didn't come home that night because she found no text from Ella the next morning and because she later found her daughter's dead body in the same work clothes as of that day. She also confesses that she woke late the next day which is very unusual for her. The postmortem report says that her daughter was subjected to Methyl propyl ether or sleeping gas, a couple of hours before she was attacked. I connected the dots and made a theory of my own. I wanted to confirm my theory and that is why I had to summon the forensic team and an expert hacker", I told them in a monotonous voice.
"The forensic team discovered many things supporting my theory. They found a strangely scented sheet on Ella's bed. A mix of something flowery and earthy. They also discovered a slight scrape on the window pane and her room window being jammed open. The reports say that the sheets were disheveled to such an extent to believe that it was a result of natural rolling. Here's the report", I told as I handed the report over to them.
"When connecting the dots, my instincts tell that Ella has indeed returned home that night and that the criminal was waiting for her at the house. He has entered the house through her window and since he didn't want to attract Mrs. Owen's attention, he had sprayed sleeping gas in to the lady's room. The reason Ella couldn't text her mother was because she had fallen on her bed feeling drowsy, with her work clothes on. Before she slipped completely into unconsciousness, I assume that the criminal had appeared on top of her. She has struggled to pry him off but she was too weak to do so since the unmade sheets show signs of great struggling rather than natural rolling. Then, I believe that the criminal has carried her out of the house through the front door itself", I finished off explaining as they nodded their heads in understanding.
"Miss.Parker, you said that it was your hunch that made you arrive at Ella's house. Mind if I ask you how that instinct came up suddenly", Martin the chief asked with his eyebrows raised in wonder.
"Well, you should see this before I explain Chief", I told him with a small smile.
The next presentation slide showed them a photo of the list of names of the victims under organ trafficking and rape which I jotted down on the whiteboard back at home.
"When you compare the two lists, the odd man out here is Ella Owen. Her name is found among the sexually abused victims where as the others were used for organ trafficking as well. She was raped only by one person while the rest were assaulted by a group. This triggered two possibilities in my mind. ONE- This case isn't related to the others. Or TWO- It was done by the same group. If it was possibility TWO, why would they make her an exception? Maybe someone who loved her belonged to the same group and had stopped her fate from being similar to those of the other victims. I went through the postmortem reports of each of these victims over and over again and I arrived at the same conclusion. The conclusion that it was far too impossible for it to be co-incidental to use the same way of assault by two different men or groups. The reports show that a rod of similar type was used at each instance. and there are other similarities as well. Please go through this Death Analysis Report", I told them as I passed the document over to them.
"That is why I considered the possibility two. I went to Ella's house to gather information on any of Ella's boyfriends. And thankfully she and her mum were close enough for her mum to know about her boyfriends. Her mum says that Ella had an affair with Tony Jason for two months and that they broke up because he was caught cheating on her. The other relationship she had was with Matthew Rider which lasted till the day her soul left this world. I wanted to know whether she had received any threatening messages by anyone and that is why I searched her room and laptop when I tumbled upon her bed", I told them with a shrug.
"Now the question is who is this secret admirer? I asked Diana, our expert hacker to hack the CCTV camera of Ella's street and that is when we came across this footage", I finished explaining and turned towards the presentation.
A footage showing vehicles passing by Ella's house was played in the presentation. The place was lit with neon yellow colored street lamps since it was around 11 in the evening. After sometime a man in his mid twenties came into the camera's view. He was wearing a black hoodie. Therefore, it was hard to distinguish the person's features. The guy was walking and just when we thought that he would walk past Ella's house, he swiftly turned and hid behind a bush. He was so fast that his actions would have easily gone unnoticed by an unobservant eye. And thereafter there was no sign of him which I assume he went towards the backside of the house to climb through Ella's bedroom window. At around 11:30, Ella stumbled in front of her house searching for the keys in her bag. She enters the house and 15 minutes later a white van with no number plate stops in front of her house. Around 2 minutes later the man who disappeared into a bush stepped out of the front door carrying an unconscious Ella on his shoulders. But, this time the hood wasn't pulled down his face good enough to hide his features. I paused and zoomed the footage to identify him. Fortunately, the street light helped illuminating his features further. The white van drives off, but unfortunately it was too dark to see the driver.
"Since there are many small avenues and lanes joining this street we couldn't track the van since there aren't any cameras monitoring those lanes. But we do have a match for the features that we zoomed in", I told them excitedly.
I changed the slide and the face of a 26 years old man came into view on one side while the zoomed in features popped into the other. The man had brown hair and hazel eyes. His face was filled with freckles.
"This is Tyler Elijah-", I said and then paused to give them the effect as I peered into their confused faces.
"-who is Ella's step brother. I did some digging to find out that Tyler's father had passed away when he was six. His mother got re-married to Mr. Owen during the next few months and had Ella. Tyler since then has been distant from his family and had got addicted to drugs. Gradually, a hate relationship was created between him and his family. Since then he would do anything to afflict pain on his family. So it's either Tyler who committed the crime himself or he sold his sister off to someone. Either way if we find Tyler we find the group responsible for all these deaths", I then continued and heaved a huge sigh of relief as I felt a huge burden lift off my shoulders.
I looked around at everyone to see them beaming at me with pride. Especially Martin and Mr. Williams. They all looked impressed.
"Good job Miss. Parker! I'm impressed! Keep up the work! I'll give orders to bring Tyler under custody", the Director said as he patted my back.
Hearing his decision, I quickly shook my head in negative.
"No, don't arrest him. He might not talk because some loved one of his is under the group's custody. We need to shadow his every move from now on", I told him confidently.
"Ah true", he said with a nod and smiled at me.
"Director, I also need you to give orders to shadow Tony Jason and Matthew Rider from now on too", I told cautiously as I waited for his reaction.
To my relief, the Director nodded his head in understanding.
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"I'm proud of you Emma!", Martin said as he ruffled my hair jokingly.
I huffed and glared at him playfully, earning a chuckle from him.
I met Martin the day I decided to assist the IAE and made up with him. The type of father-daughter bond we had during those days has somewhat re-emerged again.
"I missed you!", he said with a sigh.
"Awww me too!", I cooed as I pinched his pale wrinkled cheeks.
He punched me on the arm jokingly and suddenly his smile dropped into a frown.
"Hey what's wrong?", I asked, my insides bubbling with concern.
"It kills me to know that there are traitors in this department. Sometimes I feel like someone else would have done it because I don't want to accept the truth", he told me referring to the prison breakout last night.
We found out that the two special guards who had the key to the cell were the traitors. They were no where to be found. And the officers who were found unconscious say that they were given drugged coffee by them.
"Nah, it's all obvious. The cameras reveal nothing. They have all been switched off for a short period of time. The guards watching the footage screens have been lured into unconsciousness by spraying sleeping gas. The guards patrolling the corridors which the captives used as an escape route were all unconscious due to a drug mixed in their coffee. The guards wouldn't have accepted coffee mugs from a stranger. And the cell is of advance technology for an intruder to play hide and seek that easily", I gritted out in anger.
Martin remained silent.
"And the traitors are going to pay when I find them"
I then told him over my shoulder with my fists clenched into a tight ball as I turned around to leave.
_________________________________________________________________________
Hey guys,
I'm super excited today!
You know why??
Because almost half of the book is done. (Keyword- almost)
What? That is something 😂😂😂 (Raises my hand in surrender)
Anyways, here are the questions-
1) Did any of you expect this kind of story line behind Ella's abduction? 😱
2) What about the guards? Did you guys expect them to be the real traitors? 😱
3) Do you really think Tyler sold Ella off to someone from the gang? Or is Tyler himself a member of the gang?
4) Was Ella's abduction related to Tyler's revenge or is there something more to this whole story??
5) Do you think shadowing Tyler would give Emma the Mafia's where abouts?
Too many questions I guess. 😂😂😂
Try telling me your ideas for atleast some of them. I will be looking forward to know your point of view 😊
And oh!! Before I end, there's something else I've got to mention too.
One of my fantastic readers messaged me personally and asked whether the prisoner Jason and Tony Jason were the same people or whether I ran out of names. 😂😂😂
And to be honest, I never even realized till she mentioned. So thank you for that girl 😘😘😘
And for any of you having the same doubts the answer is a no.
They are two different people.
Prisoner's name is Jason while Ella's ex-bf's name is Tony. (Jason is his last name)
If you think that the names are better to be changed, please let me know in your comments 😊
Next,
As you all know this is another special chapter of the book. So here comes the dedication part!!
I dedicate this book to-
(Drum beats please!)
She has been an awesome friend and an awesome reader who has been supporting me from the beginning. So thank you girl!! Your support means alot to me! Love you sooo much! 😘😘😘
And oh! Like I said before, there are many more people I want to dedicate my special chapters for. I'm waiting for the right moment 😉
And here's a BIG THANK YOU for all of you who had been supporting me from the beginning and for those who joined me recently in this journey, yet have not failed to support me in every way.
Your support gives me the motivation to keep writing.
SO THANK YOU!!! 😘😘😘😘
Till next time,
Love,
Ranna