KILLER
ON THE LOOSE
Chapter
8 – Emily Stone
Emily and Rick secured
the two men inside the storage building. Their wrists and ankles were fastened
with zip ties and then affixed through metal rings on the wall. The men weren’t
going anywhere before cops arrived. They remained quiet and rarely looked at
the couple.
Emily thought it
was strange that they complied so easily and did not protest.
“You good?”
Emily asked Rick. She was anxious to leave the property.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to
search the house for anything about the girls,” she checked her ammunition out
of habit rather than necessity. “Give me a few minutes before contacting the
cops and FBI.”
She hurried toward
the door.
“Okay,” Rick slowly
replied, still staring at the two men. “Em?” he said and shrugged.
Emily stopped
and turned.
“Be careful,” he
warned.
She thought it
was out of character for Rick to express that sentiment in the middle of their investigation.
Emily forced a
smile and then jogged to the main house.
It was actually
a manufactured home, which had been set up on property in several pieces. It
was more of a rectangle box that had uneven connections at the outer corners. It
appeared to have been assembled recently. There were stickers still attached to
the trim areas and windows.
Emily slowed her
pace on approach.
She stood for a
moment and surveyed the house.
Nothing unusual.
Taking a moment
to jog around the structure, Emily made sure that there weren’t any type of
cameras, booby traps, or security devices.
It seemed staged.
Automatically she
retrieved her Glock and took the safety off.
Emily stood at
the front door, grasped the doorknob with her left hand, and turned it. Pushing
the door slowly open, the interior was dim and stuffy. None of the windows were
open and no air conditioning flowed.
A light
flickered in the corner from a muted television.
Emily cautiously
entered the house and quickly cleared the living room, kitchen, and the two
bedrooms. There was no sign of the missing girls, or any incriminating evidence
that they were ever at the location.
How could their information have been so wrong?
Dishes in the
sink, cigarettes in an ashtray, sparse thrift store furniture, and empty liquor
bottles were the only remnants of anyone living in the house. Closets and
cupboards were empty. The beds did not look slept in recently.
Who did these guys work for?
These thoughts
plagued Emily as she moved closer to the TV. The regular program was
interrupted by a news report.
It read across
the bottom of the screen in bold letters: Breaking
News from Washington DC as FBI Bomb Squad searches a local city bus.
The story
unfolding caught Emily’s immediate attention. She watched as video clips showed
different angles of the bus, bomb squad techs, bystanders, a young anxious
teenager, and an agitated FBI Agent talking with another agent.
Emily holstered
her weapon. She saw the TV remote on the coffee table, snatched it up, and quickly
activated the sound.
A field reporter
interrupted the chaos and narrated with a cheerful voice, “As you can see
behind me that the DC Bomb Squad has been called in to investigate an allegedly
suspicious briefcase that had been left on the city bus, but we have been
informed that there was no bomb and no indication of a terrorist threat.”
The young
dark-haired reporter pressed her earpiece firmly with her fingers and listened
for a moment, her eyes wide. She continued, “Our news station has just received
an update from an anonymous source that the briefcase has possibly a connection
to two teenage girls that went missing from San Jose, California three days
ago. We do not have the girl’s names at this time, nor do we know if they are
connected in any way to the briefcase on the bus. We will keep you informed as
new information becomes available.”
Emily’s heart
pounded as she listened to the reporter.
It had to be a mistake or a joke.
She and Rick had
been covertly searching for Maya Reynolds, 15, and Sydney Atherton, 14, who
disappeared from a mall in San Jose, California three days ago. Their
investigation and solid leads brought them to this property in Iowa where there
was no sign of the girls.
Emily felt
anxiety rise from her core and it made it difficult to breathe—the restriction
made her slightly dizzy.
She tossed the
remote and retreated from the house to meet Rick. They had to leave the
property as soon as possible.
It wasn’t just a
dead end in the investigation—it was a possible trap and they walked right into
the middle of it.
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