face on the milk

part 1: The case

Monday morning. 5:30 am. Her alarm rang. Just like it had done every day for the past year and a half. Yet today was different, she could feel it. The sun was shining, she could hear the birds and she could already smell the coffee and freshly baked bread from the little bakery across the street. She turned her alarm off and saw a text from her boss, '' Detective Thompson, would you mind coming in earlier? We have found some more evidence in the case and need you to look into it''. She sighed, maybe this day wouldn't be so different from the others, but she got up quickly, got dressed, ran to the bakery for a croissant and a coffee, and took her car to work. When she got to her desk she saw it. The same pile of files that has been staring her in the face for the past year and a half. It is getting messier, not smaller. They are all about the same case. A missing kid. One that has been missing for 24 years. She would turn 27 this year, just like her. Which is why she took the case, it almost felt personal, like she knew the kid. ''The kid''. Maxime Taylor. That's her name, but somehow people still refer to her as ''the kid'' or ''that kid''. Something that annoyed Thompson, because it distanced them from the case, and that only makes it harder to solve. Thompson was basically the only one who worked the case. It had been 24 years. They called it a cold case a month after she picked it up a year and a half ago. She kept going because it felt like she knew Maxime. Her captain said she was crazy, maybe a little stupid, but as long as she was helping with other cases he was allowed to work on the Taylor case. So that's what she did. For the past year and a half, she hadn't taken a single day off, apart from the day she got hit by the delivery guy from the bakery across the street. She is supposed to be off on the weekends, however, she decided to work on those days too because she would be able to spend two full days a week on the Taylor case. Back to the case files on the desk. Her captain came over with yet another case file, and some news. He hired an intern, someone to help her with the Taylor case. She would be dismissed from all other cases to work on this. Turns out they had found some new evidence and decided to open up the case again, officially this time. Thompson was shocked, she never thought they would reopen the case, it seemed like a dead-end, but maybe her feeling was right. The captain told her the intern was waiting in the meeting room.