Page 74 of Slaughtered Firefly
“Officially, Mia Williams was kidnapped from the hospital about a week ago by her lawyer, neither of them have been heard from since. We never had this conversation. I am just following up on an unrelated stabbing.”
“So you’ll just take your information and leave?”
“Yeah, officially you fell and the knife fragment that was recovered won’t hold up to anything in court without the other part, so it’s a cold case that will sit on the shelf until you decide to pursue it.” He stood, setting the chair back against the wall.
“Just like that?” It was hard to believe he would move on from this when it was clear he had every intention of finding the truth.
“Yeah. I hope I don’t have to see you again so soon.” He walked out of the room, leaving me staring at the closed door, recounting the conversation.
45
WHY HERE?
Present day
“Jones, have you been able to locate the lawyer?”
“No, it’s like he disappeared from the face of the Earth. His car is impounded and there is no trace of his phone.”
“Keep looking.” Cap turned towards Simmons next. “What do we know about the uncle? You and Jones visited? What’s his connection?”
“He became Addams’ guardian when his mother was hospitalized with stage three breast cancer. He was attending a private school and doing fairly well. A B&E gone wrong had the uncle paralyzed from the waist down. All other victims died, Addams claimed he was just headed home to pick up a few things for his date when he found his uncle unconscious with a fractured spine.” She read from the notepad in front of her.
“Interesting, anything else to add?”
“No, he’s kept a clean record as far as we are able to tell,” Simmons finished.
“Keep digging, there’s got to be something we are missing,” Cap ordered before turning towards the other teams and asking for updates.
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Hey Simmons,what did you do with theLakemancrime scene photos?”
“Here, what are you looking for anyways?” She passed me the file, grabbing the discarded bag of chips on my desk.
“Anything, and everything, it just seems off. How many other times have we been in the area in the past couple of months?” I was looking for reasons why this place. The other houses were middle-income family homes, places that were as normal and basic as could be. Houses are so poorly made that if somethinghappened to them, it would make the owners better off with the insurance money. Why was this one so fancy? What is the point of dragging four lowlifes to such a nice place and killing them? I couldn’t understand the logic behind it, nor could I understand why we caught Summer at that place. Something was not adding up. I was flipping through the file and noticed the lack of witnesses or interviews of the neighbors.
“Uhh a neighborhood like that? I think once or twice in the past year, mostly divorcees got too drunk and thought it best to hit up their ex asking for money or something. Why are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure but I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I grabbed my badge and gun and left.
A heavy sighleft my lips as I knocked on the door again. There was no answer again. Of course, this lady was the last one in the neighborhood and the only one that would have been close enough to the house to see anything.
I turned away, ready to give up and head back to the station, when a blonde woman had opened the door. Her face was full of lip fillers, and her makeup was well worn; she looked like a train wreck in heels. Her dress, if you could call that flimsy fabric a dress, was hiked so high her lips were almost flapping in the wind.
“Can I help you?” Her voice scratched like a chain smoker in desperate need of water, and her breath reeked of stale beer.
“Yes, are you? Isabella Campbell?” The crumpled yellow sticky burned in my hand. It still didn’t make any sense. What does this woman have to do with anything?
“Who’s askin?”
I pulled out my department badge, flashing it at her. “let’s just say an interested party.”
She tried to shut the door, but I held it ajar with my foot. “Ugh, fine.Come in and don’t touch anything.”
I followed behind her, stepping over mounds of discarded plastic soda bottles, beer cans and cigarette boxes. The whole floor was littered with various pieces of trash. I grimaced as my shoe slipped in something yellow. “Don’t mind the mess, that maid hasn’t been over in a few days, think it’s time I fired her.” She hollered from a distance ahead.
“Uh huh, “ I wasn’t really sure it was a few days worth but if someone had spent a month piling up as much garbage as possible, “and your maid comes daily?” I inquired when I finally made it back to the den area, which was somewhat cleaner than the rest of the halls. Isabella sat on a brownish-maroon leather chair. It was a struggle to see which would squeak first, the chair or her fake triple Ds as she tried to adjust the amount of spillage that was falling out of the fabric.
