The Test

Chapter Thirteen

Derek

"So where do we go from here?" Amelia asked.

"That should be enough to get a warrant," Greene said, standing up. He pressed some buttons on his phone, and left the room with it pressed to his ear.

"Don't lose hope now, Derek, we're so close. We'll find, and she'll be fine, I can feel it," Humphrey said, offering me a kind smile.

Greene burst into the room a frantic look on his face. This was the first time I had seen him lose his composure, and I knew it wasn't good. "Bri—Timothy whatever the fuck his name is isn't at his house. I had officers stay in his area from when this first started, and I asked them to go check his place and he's gone."

"He must not be holding her at his house then," Amelia said, turning over to Humphrey, "Do they have any other properties to their name? Anywhere else that they could be?"

Humphrey sat down at his laptop, typing furiously as we all waited in a tense silence. "There's nothing here. Other then his main address, there isn't anything else in any of his family's name."

"Goddamnit," I yelled throwing one of the chairs against the wall. It made a satisfying sound as it cluttered to the floor. "I fucking told you Greene that he was the one and you didn't believe me! What the fuck are we supposed to do now! How are we going to find her!"

Everyone looked at me in silence, surprised by my outburst. I was usually the calm one and therefore they had never seen me act like this before, but I was pissed. Our one hope in find Layna before this bastard hurt her, and we had blown it because Greene was an idiot.

Before anyone could reply, an officer burst into the room.

"Sorry to interrupt, Detective Greene, but there is something that you need to hear."

"What's up, Officer McCormick?" Allan asked.

"It has to do with that Laura girl who's kidnapped."

I ground my teeth together. "Layna," I spat, "Her names Layna."

The officer didn't even spare me a glance. "We just got a call from her, and I think you're going to want to hear this."

***

We all rushed over to a meeting room where they had set it up so we could listen to the recording.

Sitting in the room was a young lady there that I didn't recognize. She must have been in her late twenties, with light blonde hair pulled into a professional looking bun, and an earpiece set slung around her neck. She was small in stature, and was very pretty, in a sort of delicate way. Her blue eyes were rimmed in red, like she had been crying.

"Cathy?" Greene asked, striding over to her and pulling her into his arms., and that's when I noticed that she was sporting quite a large belly; she was pregnant, and heavily at that. He seemed to forget about everyone else in the room as she started to cry again, instead focusing on comforting her.

"It's his fiancée," McCormick whispered from beside me, and I nodded stiffly. "She answers 9-1-1 calls."

"What happened, Cathy?" Greene asked softly, leading her over to a chair so that she could sit.

"I'm pregnant and I have too many hormones that's what! I don't even know why I'm crying." She wiped her face and sat up straight, pulling herself together before she spoke again.

"I got a call from Layna Keston, the missing girl that you told me about. I don't know how she did it but she managed to get a phone to call in, and there might be the possibility to get her location from it. But we have to work quickly because, I uh, I heard something at the end and it wasn't good." Cathy's voice broke over the last sentence, and Greene softly rubbed her back.