Page 7 of Then She Vanished

Gina couldn’t tell if the photo was old or new. There was nothing showing that could help her date it. The girl was looking down, her brown, straggly hair almost covering her whole face and the crack on her lip looked raw. There was some brown pigmentation on her left porcelain-white cheek that looked like a birthmark. Her thumbnail balanced gently between her two front teeth, behind a smile that looked forced. On the magnolia back wall, Gina could see a shadow that didn’t belong to the girl.

It was broad and imposing. Was it the man in the car? Who was she to him, and was she the one who needed saving?

There was a sketch pad on the mattress and a nearly finished drawing. The lines were perfectly formed. It was of a girl clutching a red scarf. Squinting, Gina spotted an actual red scarf with a cupcake design poking out underneath the girl’s bottom.

Gina turned over the photo and written in the bottom right-hand corner, in scrawled capital letters, was one word:SORRY.

She passed it to Jacob. ‘Can you take a photo and message it back to the incident room straight away?’

He took it from her. ‘It’s a shame we can’t properly see her face, guv.’

A part of her knew that the man in the car had left them no real clues. ‘In his note he claims to be sorry. He even wrote it on the back of the photo. He also tells us to save her, but the note is scrawled which doesn’t give us a lot to go with. Why? Whoever she is, she’s out there somewhere, and look at her…’ Gina swallowed.

She knew what someone in captivity looked like and that girl in the photo screamed captive.

‘He has left her somewhere.’ Gina’s heart began to pound. ‘And if we don’t find her, she will die.’

FOUR

After following Jacob in her car to the library, Gina pulled up behind him. Her phone beeped. It was a message from another weird account, and there was an image attached. Her fingers began to tremble as she read the message.

To: GinaH

From: The punisher

Subject: Sexy MOFO needs choking.

She wants to pay for hurting our brother. His brother is our brother. Hurt a brother, you hurt us all.

I’ll choke you. Horny bitch! Address???? You know you want me to.

She clicked on the attached photo. She didn’t want to look but she couldn’t ignore it. Her eyes had been superimposed onto a younger-looking face, and the body trussed up in black leather with breasts that were definitely not hers. She stared into the eyes again. The dark shading underneath along with the slight creasing that was more prominent on her left eye was a match.The black-walled bedroom and the shiny red silk sheets weren’t hers either, neither were the chains holding the woman captive.

She closed the message. She hoped the body was AI generated and not a real woman. It had to be. It looked too fake.

Bile began to rise in her throat as she thought about the freaks who were targeting her.

It was all starting up again.

Right now, she hated Stephen more than anyone in the world, and finding him would be near impossible.

As Jacob tapped on her car window, she cried out. With a banging heart, she opened the car door and forced a smile.

‘Have you just had some bad news? You looked a bit jumpy just then.’ He raised his brows.

‘Er, no. Just tired. Library’s opening.’ She inhaled and exhaled slowly a couple of times as she got out of the car and followed him towards the library.

A woman in a mini dress and huge round glasses began unlocking the glass doors. They automatically slid open and she smiled.

‘I love to see eager readers,’ she said, as she turned her back to them and retreated into the huge room filled with desks, computers and racks upon racks of books. She took her position behind the main desk and began typing.

Gina stood at the counter and held her identification up. ‘I’m DI Harte and this is DS Driscoll. We need to speak about one of your users.’ She scrolled through the photos on her work phone and opened the photo of the library card.

‘I don’t know how much I can say because of data protection,’ the woman replied with a smile.

‘A man was found dead this morning and this card and books from this library were found in his vehicle. Someone took three books out on Saturday using this card. We’re trying to identify him and you are our only hope. As you can see, the details onthis card are smudged, but there is a reference number on it.’ Gina held her phone in front of the woman’s face to show her the photo of the card. ‘You will be helping us to identify him.’

She swallowed and sighed. ‘Oh no, that’s horrible news. I guess I can take a look, then. I hope it isn’t one of our regulars.’ Gina really hoped it was though.

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