The Scent of Betrayal

Chapter 5

Drip.... Drip ..... Drip

The next day Jason woke up in a cold sweat, something isn't right about this case. There is something that people are not telling him and it is his job to find out what it was, the hands on the clock of the office he had recently earned ticked past, through the glass in his office he had the perfect view of his evidence board. He had about four hours until other people started to drip in. The only lights on were the laptop and the light shining on the board.

0430 his laptop read when he opened his laptop at his desk, he often came in early to get work done without any interruptions. He had started by looking up the Smiths in the system. Nothing. He then moved to Google Keith Smith as he typed things appeared in the suggested searches "Keith Smith mistress" his mouse found its self hoovering over the suggestion. Click. A woman's face appeared onto Jasons screen.

Make up smeared down the side of her eyes, her black hair thrown up into some sort of messy bun, the slender woman dressed in comfortable cloths, joggers and a vest top. It's clearly a picture taken when she was walking down the street, looks as if she had just been crying. The headline read; "Keith Smiths mistress photographs for the first time since public announcement." Maybe this family isnt perfect after all Jason thought. He clicked on the article and read on. Hannah Blair had come into the public eye and announced that she was in fact pregnant with Keith Smiths baby and that no matter how much money he offered her, she was keeping the baby. This article was from 2021 this was quite a while ago he thought briefly if she had kept the baby.

As he kept reading he wondered to himself why was he not informed about this woman when they had originally found the body, he thought maybe Bryce had kept it a secret from him. Had anyone questioned this woman about her whereabouts the night of the murder ? He powers up his work computer to look up this Hannah Blair on the system. The first result that flashes on his monitor "Missing." Hannah Blair had been reported missing by her parents in may of 2021, no one had seen or heard from her since about a month after the article was published. Jason couldn't believe his eyes, why was this not brought to his attention as soon as this case was opened? A missing woman who has connections with this case in a massive way. Something was off and it was becoming more and more obvious to him.

Drip.... Drip.... Drip

05:30 it was time for coffee he got up and walked into the precinct kitchen. He enjoyed being the only person in the office but this morning he didn't like it. Jason was pissed off that no one had told him about Hannah. There was no one to berate or shout at because of the mistake. His coffee was cold, how was his coffee cold he had just made it. This is just a brilliant morning he thought to himself. By the time he had got back to his desk he had calmed down enough to actually get something done. He googled Hannah Blair to find a decent picture of her.

The woman from the first picture could have been this woman's mother, the woman who now sat on his screen had beautiful lushious black hair that fell around her shoulder in a way that reminded him of Aimee. Her eyes were brown but her could see the lines next to her eyes had been creased from many years of laughing and smiling. She was tanned in a natural way her skin was golden. Not a blemish that could be seen on her, too perfect he thought. She dressed in casual smart cloths, all the pictures were of her in dresses, smiling. He found her social medias, they werent private. He scrolled through the pictures and saw this woman grow younger every photo he went through, her smile still as bright. Poor woman, she was ruined by a man 30 years her senior and you could see it when you compared the two photos side by side, the one he had first seen of a haggered woman at the end of her tether broken and scared, alone and looking for a way out of the mess that had been created around her, this woman looked as if she had ages 20 years in just a few months and the one he had on his screen right now. What had Smith done to this woman?  He printed a picture of her, when he noticed the time on the bottom of the sheet.