OCEAN VILLAGE

14. idfc✨

—Kairi—
-cus i have hella feelings for you, i act like i don't fucking care, like they ain't even there-
-blackbear-

We sat in Mrs. Browns cafe, going over our next case. We kind of just come here now instead of to my apartment.

Athena worked, serving everyone while Mrs. Brown helped in the kitchen. She got a job here, more of a volunteering service, she won't let Mrs. Brown pay her.

"There's been three sisters missing." Malik puts pictures of the girls on the table, "Amara, Nassim and Aaliyah." He points, "Seventeen, Fifteen and eleven."

"Could be a hate crime, their fathers an Afghan soldier, immigrated in the nineties." Khalil flicks through the file, "Their father was a victim of an acid attack three years ago, could it be linked?"

"11.1% of victims are under the age of eighteen, when it comes to hate crime." Ace lifts up the pictures, "They've all gone missing?"

"Yeah, they were last seen at a play park." Azriel puts down a picture of the familiar play park i've been to a stupid amount of times.

Ace looks over at Athena then back to his work, "What's their parents professions?"

Every night i find myself walking through the park just to make sure she isn't there, thankfully she hasn't been, but during the day i know she goes into the hut, whether it's to cry or just escape from reality.

Ace is worried about her too, he hates the fact the crime rate in this area is so high and yet she's always alone. She's pretty, above average, perpetrators are looking for her style.

"Moms a pharmacist, dads retired and home bound, even though he was a victim of the acid attack, he's on probation, the offender was never caught." Khalil wipes his eyes, "So they could be linked."

"They could be but with the rising spike in girls going missing at the moment it's hard to tell." I pick the pictures up, "But all three of them going missing is uncanny."

"It is strange, how long have they been missing for?" Ace frowns.

"A whole day. They didn't show up to school, parents thought they were skipping it, Aaliyah didn't show up for her piano lessons, Nassim her dance lessons and Amara wasn't at her job. They usually walk to school together, and then all their hobbies and jobs are the same street so go to them together too but nothing." Ezekiel types on his laptop, "There's no security footage of them either."

"They could have been abducted together. Think about it, Amara's seventeen and 5"3, they're all small, all easy targets." Ace brings up a good point, "And they all fit the description of the trafficking."

"Checked social media?" Malik asks.

Ezekiel looks at him, "That's always the first thing i do."

"Back to this, do we have any other information about the fathers acid attack? If it was the same perpetrator then evidence would link the two somehow."

"In the police report," Ace clears his throat, "He said he remembered the guy as being an old family friend, we interviewed his wife and she said it may have been her ex, she had a child in Afghanistan before meeting her husband, the dad got custody." He says from the top of his head.

"What would the ex want with the children?" Azriel raises an eyebrow.

"Revenge." Khalil rubs his lips together, "Afghanistan is a strict place to live, she left after having a baby, even if the dad got custody, it's strict, they would have expected her to stay and be the bearer of more children for him. That's how it is there, instead she left, gave children to another man, he's trying to get back at them for moving on."