Abduction[L.H]

Chapter 16

(Alex)

The fans and press were starting to add more and more pressure to our search.

When I logged onto Facebook in the car on the way to the house the 'selected team' was going to look through for signs of Luke and Sam's presence. '#FindLuke' was trending, and while it was great they were on board-it really didn't help our case if the kidnapper's didn't know who he was. Like we suspect.

We pulled up at the house, and were led in by officer Martìnez and two other officers that had followed us there in a police car behind our van.

Martìnez signaled the other officers over to converse. The rest of us moved out of the van and stood around, eyeing the run-down house and police officer's conversation.

Officer Martìnez patted one of the officers on the back and started walking towards us. Once he reached our destination he gave the team a smile.

I wasn't buying it. 'He's trying to console us, there's nothing we could possibly be even slightly happy about in this situation.'

"This way." He guided us to the unlocked door, the other officers were already inside. The group merged into the small doorway, following the officer into the strange 'Photo-shoot' room we saw in the raid.

I watched everyone's reaction, to the odd room. Mr. and Mrs. Hemmings looked around, whispering to each other while doing so; Mikey had a hard-set grimace on his face, it was impossible to tell his thoughts but I knew-like min, they weren't good.

Ash and Cal looked around-like the parents, particularly staring at the spot a man was killed in the maraud. But said nothing, just looked in silence. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson just stared at Officer Martìnez, waiting for his instruction.

He turned to us and began to speak, "I'll let you all have a look around. Don't go into a room without me or Officer Lee, and Officer Roscoe." He said gesturing to the uniformed me standing behind him.

Mikey was the first to move, I began to follow him and Officer Martìnez into the mirrored-hallway. Leaving the rest to their own devices.

We walked into the room at the end, there were strange hooks in the wall on either end of the double sink. Mikey stayed back by the door, talking quietly to the Officer. I heard snippets of their conversation, things like. "Hooks?" and "The chair's..." This place is making my stomach churn.

I continued gathering my own mind about the place, moving over to the tall cupboard to the right. I open the door to find boxes of hairdressing products, weird.

"You might want to take a look at this?" I called over to the others, making them look up and wonder over. Mikey's eyes widened and his eyebrows knitted themselves together.

"I didn't want to say anything, but this is looking more and more like someone was trying to change how they look, so they wouldn't be identified." I let my thoughts out into the stale air of the bathroom.

"No. Luke wouldn't purposely run. Did you see those restraining chairs out there? They have definitely been kept against their will." Mikey quickly said. I nodded, I had seen the chair's, it made sense with the hooks in the bathroom.

"I've heard about these places." Officer Martìnez said. "I'm sorry to say but this is beginning to look like a human-trafficking export operation, it fits with our case motive." Martìnez sucked his gums while Mikey and I pondered this. If he was right Luke was in more shit, then we previously thought.

'Fuck.' I thought. 'If they get him overseas, we'll never be able to track them down.' I knew how deep these things went, it wasn't looking good.

Mikey shook the thought out of his head. "Let's continue to look."

We passed Luke's parents in the lounge, they were walking from the room across the entry hall with Officer Lee. "We're going to head to the basement, it looks like that's where they kept Luke and Sam." Luke's father told us we nodded and began to follow them. Keeping our revelation to ourselves, we needed more information before we told everyone out-right. Especially their parents.

There were lights on in the basement, when we walked down the weathered, concrete steps. The sound of our treading feet echoed in the eerie space.

We reached the bottom, and saw the open metal door from the video. A bright, clinical, while light coming from the room. We were deterred, just anxious about what was to come. What we would find.

We stepped into the room, and once my eyes adjusted to the light-I saw blood on the floor. Near the door, it was smeared. There wasn't much, but enough to know someone could do with a couple of stitches.

"Have forensics check the blood against our victims." Martìnez said quietly to officer Lee so we wouldn't hear. There was no point lowering his voice, we heard him anyway.

Luke's parents moved around the room, while Samantha's stayed in the doorway. I stood next to the blood along the door's wall. Mikey, Cal and Ash, did the same on the other side of the doorway, across from a small toilet.

'This was planned.' I thought. There is no other reason for there to be a toilet and lock-able room in someone's basement.

We watched the parent's move in their son's-probable-holding cell. Besides from the blood there was nothing, that I could see, on the floor so there was no-way to tell.

Liz and Andrew scrutinized the room, for any trace of Luke. Moving from corner to corner, looking for a sign that he was alive because the blood makes you possibly deny it.

I saw Liz bend down in the corner directly opposite to where I was standing. She squinted at the object in her hand, that she retrieved.

"They were here." She says holding it up and turning to us.

"This is Luke's ring."