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Malibu, California 8th July 2006
They had called the police and averted the media in the following hour. Usually it would've taken the police more than that to put up a missing person report all over the media but the billionaire managed to use his power -and money- to make it happen faster. Pepper was calling every of Julianne's friends' parents, asking for them to tell her if they saw her.
A police officer walked over to Tony who was in the girl's room, staring at her Nintendo laying on the table. She would've been playing at this hour.
"Mr. Stark, we got the footage of the security cameras of the place she was last seen." He turned the tablet around for him to be able to see better.
He could see Julianne getting out of Happy's car, saying goodbye then watching the car leave. The last kid had entered the school. And not even a few seconds later, a car pulled up in front of her, and a man on the sidewalk put a cloth on her mouth, pushing her into the car.
Tony sighed and put a hand over his lips while staring at the footage. Those guys weren't new at this, the crime was too perfect, everything happened so fast that nobody had the time to even notice.
Then it clicked. "Pause. Go back two seconds." He ordered, the officer doing as told. The billionaire got his phone out and took a picture of the back of the car. It wasn't a perfect crime. The car plate could be seen for a slight second.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. can you find the owner of the car with that plate?" He sent the picture into the A.I's backup file.
"Of course sir." And it started searching.
"Um.. I don't think you can do that." The police officer said.
"Too late, just did."
"The informations of the owner were sent on your phone, sir." The voice informed and Stark ran down the stairs, with the police officer behind him trying to stop him.
James Rhodes had been informed of the situation and rushed to the house within a few minutes. He also had a great relationship with the girl. It wasn't too hard, she was lovely.
The colonel was now talking with an officer, Happy was on the couch blaming himself and Pepper was pacing around.
"I found the car!" Tony announced. His two best friends and the mother gathered around him as he told them the address.
"Let's go, what are we waiting for?" Pepper said, already walking to the door.
"Miss Potts, wait." James stopped her. "If they demand a ransom we will need someone to stay here."
"He's right, Pepper, stay here, if they demand the money, just transfer it to them, Rhodey and I will go there."
Pepper sighed, and ended up agreeing after a few more arguments and the two friends plus a few officers drove to the location.
When they arrived, the place seemed like a normal house. "That's the car." An officer pointed at the parked vehicle.
They checked if anyone was inside it before they moved to the house. They knocked and once they received no answers, they kicked the door open and entered. James and Tony got in after a few officers.
It seemed like the two floors were however clear so as some of the officers went to interrogate the neighbors, the rest suddenly noticed a door to what looked like a basement.
Down there were three men, smoking and drinking. After they've all been handcuffed, Rhodey started interrogating them as Tony looked around the room.
The three criminals were denying everything, saying it must've been another car, that obviously there's no car here. But Tony's eyes fell on something.
"Rhodes." He called.
"They won't admit." He sighed as he got closer to the genius.
"Look." He pointed at something on the floor. It was Julianne's bracelet. A two-layered silver bracelet, the first layer had a silver bar with her initials on it and the second had a small butterfly pendant.
Rhodey smirked. "That kid's smart. Maybe even smarter than you." And Tony smiled in acknowledgment as he picked up the bracelet.
"You're saying she wasn't here. It's funny 'cause her bracelet is."
The three men fell silent until one of them started laughing out loud. "You'll never find her."
They never did.
•
I gotta think a bit about how my story is gonna go from here, plusI'll be very busy for two weeks from tomorrow, but I'll do my best to update wheneverI can <3
And yeah I know it's a bit boring for the moment but I swear it'll get more interesting. And more traumatic too but eh
