WARNING: Potentially triggering material. Reader discretion advised.
I drove the car into a dark alleyway until the man was cornered. He stared at the brick wall as he then attempted to climb it and jump over it, but to no avail. He fell to the ground, groaning as I watched him from my car.
"What an idiot," I groaned, before quickly getting out of my car and holding my gun up in front of me.
Through the running, his bathrobe and baseball hat fell off. My bright headlights revealed his thick head of dark gray hair. He matched Steven's description from behind.
"Put your hands up," I yelled out to him, my breath showing in the frigid air as the man refused to listen to me.
He stayed still, his hands in his pockets and his head down as he faced away from me.
"Put your hands up!" I yelled again, and I shot at a garbage can beside him. I knew I wasn't supposed to, but I had to get this sick man to look at me.
The sound of the gun was loud and sliced through the air. The sound of the bullet hitting the metal of the garbage gave a deafening, rattling sound which made the man jump the second the shot rang out.
He immediately turned to face me, his face bright red. I stared at him closely as he squinted against the bright lights shining directly on him. His light coloured eyes opened to look at me, as his hands were held in the air and trembling.
I walked up to him, twisted his arms behind his back and slammed him against the car.
"Where is he?" I asked, my teeth clenched as I fumbled with the handcuffs.
"W-who?" he asked, his face pressed up against the car. "What?"
"Steven, where is he?" I asked again, my face close to his. When he didn't answer, I lifted him up and slammed him back against the car, to where he groaned and shook his head.
"I am Steven," the man said, his voice shaking rapidly. "I'm... I'm Steven."
I laughed under my breath. "No you're not. Tell me where he is."
I flipped the man over to face me, and sweat was beading down his face despite the cold air that blew around us. He wouldn't make eye contact with me.
"I am Steven, I don't know what else you want me to-" he tried to say again, but the sounds of more sirens played in the distance. The other officers were on their way, so I had to get the truth out of him fast.
"You are not Steven," I told him. My fingers reached towards my gun again, and the man's eyes followed my movement, before he gasped.
"Okay! Okay," he cried out, shaking his head. "I'm not - I'm, my name is Chris, I- I'm homeless and some guy promised me and my family money to pretend I'm him," he said, his words fast and melting into one breath. "Please don't hurt me. Don't shoot, please," he begged.
"Where's your wallet?" I asked him, and the man swallowed hard.
"My right pocket," he said, and I reached into the pajama pants he was wearing to find his wallet. It had a few dollar bills in it, and of course the idiot left his real I.D. in it, to prove to me that he really was just a man named Christopher Broden.
"Tell me where he is," I said, my teeth gritted together as I tossed his wallet back into his pocket and moved my face closer to his. "I know that you know."
The guy whimpered under his breath, "I- I don't kn-now, I was blindfolded the whole t-time," the guy said shakily. "I really don't want to go to jail. I-I have kids. I have kids, please. I don't want to go to jail. I've done nothing, I promise you!"
"Cooperate with me and you won't," I assured him.
"Okay," the man breathed, "well, when I asked him where I was, he said we were in the woods. He told me no- no one was around so if I screamed, no one would hear m-me." His words were still very rocky, I had trouble understanding him through his nerves.
"Woods around here?" I asked, and he nodded quickly.
"I think so. The drive was only a few minutes to drop me off near that girl's house," Chris told me, his chest heaving.
"What did he tell you when he dropped you off?" I questioned, and Chris squeezed his eyes shut while moving his handcuffed wrists.
"He told me to talk to you and act suspicious. He told me to say my name was Steven," Chris said, and I nodded. "He- he told me he would give me money... and, and a little girl if I wanted. I don't know what... what that could possibly mean-"
I knew exactly what it meant. I closed my eyes and groaned as I grabbed Chris' restricted arm roughly.
"All right, you're coming with me," I said while shoving him in the backseat.
The other officers pulled up, and one of the guys, Jordan, rolled his window down.
"What's happening, James?" Jordan asked from his car.
"Just follow me," I told him, getting into my car and pulling out of the dark alley.
I drove the car towards Bella's house, passing the officer guarding her house. Then I stopped in front of her neighbour's house and turned to face Chris, who was sitting timidly in the backseat.
"Can you remember what direction he came from?" I asked.
"I think... I think that it was the woods behind the store off Wilson road. It was a little... trailer, or something, in the woods. I looked from the bottom of my blindfold," he told me, and I immediately drove towards the store.
I knew exactly what he was talking about - there was a small body of woods behind the store but not many people would find the trailer suspicious if they figured it was abandoned.
When I pulled up to the dark parking lot of the closed store, I got out of the car and pulled Chris out of the car. I walked him over to Jordan's car, and opened the door to shove Chris in there.
"Take him to the station," I told Jordan, before the two other officers who followed behind me got out of their cars and walked towards me. "We're going to search the woods."
Jordan nodded and I grabbed my flashlight, starting towards the woods behind the small clothing store.
The leaves creaked beneath our boots as we gently trudged through the treeless path, the flashlight dimly illuminating the way. The wind was rapid and shaking the treetops, making it difficult to hear anything but the sound of leaves rustling and the breeze singing.
"I found the trailer, sir," one of the younger officers said.
I turned to flash my light on the trailer that sat idly, vines growing around it, littered with graffiti with the lights off. It didn't look like anybody occupied that space. I grew angry at the thought of that guy lying to me, but he really seemed terrified into telling the truth, so I felt a desire to check out the trailer.
I walked up to the door of the trailer, tugging on the locked doorknob. I continued trying to break the door down, until we heard a loud rustling beside us. I turned the flashlight to the source of the noise, seeing a figure standing behind a twig-filled bush.
The figure's bright eyes blinked, before it scurried off at the sound of one of the officers beginning to walk towards it.
"Here, I got it," one officer said with what seemed like a crowbar in his grip. He stepped in front of me and pounded the metal object into the door continuously before it finally broke through the door.
The stench from the inside was sickening. It smelled of vomit, immediately attacking our senses as I groaned and shoved the collar of my jacket over my nose.
I shined a flashlight around the living room of the trailer, around the ripped-up couch. I noticed several splotches of blood on the couch, before I brought the flashlight up towards the striped wall behind the couch which had more splatters of dark liquid on it. I swallowed hard and continued to shine the light on pills that were littered across the couch cushion, as well as a syringe.
"Hello?" I called out. "Police."
The flashlight shined on a bunch of papers sitting on the table beside the couch. They all were news articles about Rose and the three, kidnapped children. Every single piece of paper was taken out of a newspaper. I knew we were in the right place.
I moved the flashlight towards the kitchen area that was right beside the small living room area, and I saw a rotting and moldy loaf of bread sat on the countertop. I opened up the fridge to find more rotting food sitting in it, producing one of the most wretched scents I had ever experienced.
When I opened the freezer, I almost fell to the ground. There was a bag of human remains sitting in it, making me immediately slam the freezer door shut. I gagged, biting down on my lip as I tried to keep my stomach calm.
"We need more officers dispatched," I told one of them, and they immediately spoke into their walkie.
"Hello?" I called out loudly again, walking up to the bathroom of the trailer which was closed.
My fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and I shook it slightly to find it was locked. I exhaled heavily and grabbed the crowbar again from the other officer. I slammed the metal easily into the wooden door, breaking the door apart almost instantly. I reached into the hole and unlocked the door from the other side, before I opened the bathroom door.
My heart stopped instantly.
There was Steven, in the bathtub, with a gaping gunshot wound on his head and blood splattered along the wall beside him. His eyes were open and unmoving, and his head was resting on the rim of the bathtub. A gun was on the floor, right below his hand which was hanging over the side of it.
I couldn't see if it was him for sure, as the blood coating his face made it difficult to tell.
One of the officers behind me checked his heartbeat, and his pulse, before turning to me.
"He's dead, but the death is recent. Judging by his state, it's probably been only an hour or two," the officer told me.
I nodded. "He knew we were coming."
I looked in the bathroom sink to find several pieces of paper sitting in it. I lifted the paper up to find a photo of Rose sitting on the floor and smiling at the camera. Then, another photo was a picture of Bella's school photo. My breath caught in my throat.
The third piece of paper was a note. The handwriting was difficult to read, but I stared closely at each word. I was finally able to make it out:
This doesn't end with me. -Steven