Nicki&thePips

Chapter 46

It was three a.m and Nicki was sitting in bed, her eyes glued to a laptop screen, bloodshot. She'd called the crazy woman from whom she'd adopted the kids and asked her where she got Perrie from. After minutes of mumbling incoherent rubbish the woman finally let slip that she took Perrie from a police chief she'd been f****** back in England before something happened and they had to flee.

The woman had gone on about some case where parents were arrested and a kid was shot. Nicki could hardly understand what she was saying. It was clear that she was drunk or something and happy to spill her guts –both literally and figuratively –over the phone.

Nicki had started searching the internet looking for the Police Chief in question and caught a report about him being fired due to kidnapping young children, none of whom could be found or accounted for. It was almost like they didn't exist. There was no evidence but the bad publicity lead to his termination.

When she'd read that article she'd thought that it was a dead end, that there was no other way to find out what he had to do with Perrie, until something in the article caught her eye. It was a link to the chief's greatest cases and bizarre arrests. Nicki followed the link to a page with a list of stories. The first one caught her eye. It said something about an arrest of a man and a woman who he found out to be computer hackers who stole money from numerous bank accounts in the UK and Ireland. Apparantly the man was insane and the woman was some sort of genius who just happened to mess up, probably by becoming too cocky with her skill. The part that caught Nicki's eye was the part that said that they left behind two children one very young girl and a son who'd just turned twenty. There was also a photo taken from a distance that showed the people being taken away. The woman was blonde and Nicki got a shiver down her spine.

Her name was Debby Tomlinson and the man's name was Robert Edwards. Nicki gasped; Edwards was Perrie's surname. It was true that lots of people had blond hair and the surname thing could be a coincidence but Nicki had a strong feeling she was going in the right direction. If she was going to figure Perrie out she needed to get in touch with these people. The problem was how.

Nicki opened up a new google tab and looked up Robert Edwards. A bunch of different people came up and she had to scroll through until she found something that could relate to who she was looking for. It was a short report saying that the man was moved from prison to a mental institution when his lover, Deby Tomlinson was set free due to false evidence proposed in the court case by the same chief of police Nicki had researched before.

The man was clearly of no use to her. She needed to find a way to get in contact with Deby Tomlinson. The only information regarding her whereabouts was that she was living in South Shields, New Castle in England and that she currently worked for a Detective firm, using her brains for good. Nicki looked up the name of the firm that was listed and found a number for it. She looked at the digital clock on her bedside table. It was four a.m. If Nicki's math was right it was around noon in London. She wasn't sure if South Shields would have the same time as London.

Nicki dialed the number and asked the operator to be put through to the South Sheilds branch. She was doing her famous British accent just for fun. Maybe she should have tried to mimick the weird accent Jade and Perrie had. She shook her head dismissing the idea as she'd never tried it before.

When she finally got through a man on the phone asked if she had a case that required detective work or simple sleuthing around. Nicki bit her tongue unsure of what to say.

"Um actually . . . I'm trying to locate one of your workers. Is there anyway I can speak to a Deby Tomlinson?" Nicki's faux British accent held firm and she sounded confident thanks to acting school.