Page 50 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

He rubbed his sleepy eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But I think something might have happened to her. She was here just a little while ago.” I hadn’t gone directly back to the house after leaving earlier, opting instead to go for a walk. Still, it hadn’t been that long since I’d last seen her. A few hours, maybe.

“You said the door was just open?” He looked over my shoulder and up the stairs. “And no one was inside?”

“Yeah. And her phone, wallet, and keys are all sitting on the bedside table. She wouldn’t leave those behind if she was going somewhere of her own accord.”

“If she went walking on the beach, maybe,” Al suggested. “And since it was so late, middle of the night, she forgot to close the door behind her?”

“I highly doubt it.” Without worrying what Al might make of my behavior, I sniffed the air, trying to catch a hint of Daphne’s smell. Her scent was there all right, but it was faint. If she’d gone walking along the beach, she would have had to make it pretty far for me not to be able to smell her anymore. “Unless she was sleepwalking or something, I really don’t see why she wouldn’t at least take her phone with her. It is the middle of the night, after all.”

He folded his arms. “What’s your theory then?”

“I don’t have one. I just got here a few minutes ago. I’m trying to piece everything together. You don’t have security cameras, do you?”

Al’s face lit up. “Oh, duh! I actually do have cameras!”

He hurried back towards his house, and I was hot on his heels.

“A few months ago, my new patio furniture got stolen in the middle of the night, so I put up a camera. I’m not sure if we will be able to see much since it’s aimed mostly at my back porch, but it’s worth looking for sure.” He stopped at the sliding back door and gave me an odd look.

“What?” I asked.

“I just want to let you know that if there’s nothing on the tape, I’m calling the police, and I’ll expect you to stick around and answer any questions they might have, do you understand?”

It was obvious he was still very suspicious of me, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that we found Daphne, and the fact that he seemed to have the same goal in mind made me feel the slightest bit better.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Whatever it takes to find her.”

“Alright then.” He opened the door, and we went inside. I’d never been in Al’s house, but it was about what I would’ve expected. Small, modest, but well-kept and clean. He went into the kitchen and opened the laptop charging on the counter. He typed a few keys, then scrolled some and waved me over. “Here’s the footage from tonight.”

Al was right about there being a chance we wouldn’t see much. Not only was the picture grainy, but the way it was angled only showed the bottom of the staircase leading to the apartment door. Still, it was better than nothing. There was a light at the bottom of the back staircase that had been left on all night, thank God. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to see anything from that part of the view. He dragged the video back to the beginning of the night, revealing me walking up the steps and then coming back down a little while later.

“So this is when you left,” he muttered. He started going through the footage ten seconds at a time, skipping ahead for a while. There was no commotion, no movement save a little animal that scurried across the back porch sometime around midnight. Just as I was starting to lose all hope in this footage, a figure appeared.

“There! Pause it!”

Someone, although it was impossible to make out who was standing at the bottom of the staircase leading to the apartment.

“Okay, play it again but at half speed.”

Al did as I asked, and we both leaned in to get a better look.

The figure walked up the stairs at about twenty minutes after twelve. They were off-screen for about ten minutes, then returned. There was no sound, so we couldn’t say for certain whether or not the person had entered the apartment. But why would they just stand at the top of the stairs doing nothing for all this time?

All was still for another minute, and then two figures appeared—the same one from before, plus a taller one. They went back up the stairs and were gone for a short while. Then, they emerged, carrying something between them.

A body.

“That’s Katrina,” Al whispered.

“I know.”

“What—what the fuck did they do to her? Is she?—”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think she’s dead.” If there had been any blood in her apartment, I would’ve smelled it right away. That didn’t rule out all forms of murder, but I also hadn’t seen any signs of a struggle, so all in all, I was fairly certain they hadn’t hurt her. “She just looks like she’s passed out.”

“But who are they? What do they want with her?”

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